1 Alexia Mravinec – Daddy’s Girl

Alexia Mravinec (She/Her) is a Senior from Bloomington, IN who is majoring in English. After graduating, Alexia want to be an editor. This work was prepared for Tanya Perkins’s ENG W206 Intro to Creative Writing, Spring 2024, who states, “I want to celebrate Alexia’s courage and honesty in this beautifully written essay about her dysfunctional father. Creative nonfiction can sometimes demand heightened bravery to truly convey a difficult experience and that is what Alexia delivered –and not just honesty, but really poignant, well-crafted scenes that never dip into sentimentality.”

Daddy’s Girl

I had noticed the odd smell wafting from my father’s room moments before he opened the door and wandered out. Luckily, the summer heat – and lack of air conditioning – had forced me to prop open the windows earlier in the day, so I didn’t have to worry about the smell reaching the younger ones. I had quickly sat Jessica and Nolan on the couch and asked what they wanted to watch.

Jessica, being only six and obsessed with anything I liked, blurted out “Blue Bloods!”  It was the only half-way decent show I could find on Ion Television.

Nolan, the even younger five-year-old, shook his head. Before they could start bickering, I decided on the animated alien show I had seen them watching the night before, hoping it would contain their attention.

I had made sure they were settled in and occupied before attending to my very drunk, very talkative father once again.

The smell of whiskey drifted towards my face as my father leaned in closer. “You had a sister.” This, of course, I already knew. I had just gotten her settled in the other room with my brother, The Zula Patrol blaring from the old box television set.

“I need to shower.”

“Okay,” I say, looking around. His room, the only one on the main level of the slightly run-down older house he rented, smelled of cigarette smoke. His dirty clothes were hazardously slung across the floor. The box spring and mattress lay in the corner, under the window, the only thing on it a dingy blanket only-God-knows how old, and his makeshift bedside table held an overflowing ash tray. I look through the pile in the closet, finding a pair of clean-looking underwear and one of the few clean t-shirts hanging in the closet. Placing them on the bathroom counter that always looked dirty no matter how many times I tried cleaning it, I returned to the bedroom and heaved my father off the bare, stained mattress.

“Shower,” he said again.

“We’re going,” I said, breathless from the few steps we had taken towards the door, the 180 pounds of nearly unconscious man and mountains of dirty clothes making the 10 feet to the bathroom feel like a wildly dangerous trek through the Andes. By the time we made it to the bathtub, he was halfway to the ground, and seeing we were at our destination, he slid away from me and slumped the rest of the way. He reached over the tub to turn the water on.

“Nooo, nothe siiister. O-Olderr thaan youu.” His words slurred together, barely recognizable. My brows scrunched together. The sound of my sister and brother’s laughter floated to our place in the bathroom until the water sputtered on and drowned them out.

“What are you talking about?”

He took a deep breath. “Before I met your mom. The girl – the woman,” he corrected and raised his head, “that I was seeing got pregnant.” As I waited for him to continue, I put the toilet seat lid down and helped him get seated. He swayed in his seat, and I continued to stare at him. Waiting. Waiting.

“What happened?” I got tired of waiting. I thought to myself Do I have another sister? An older sister? I didn’t particularly like being the oldest sibling. Does Mom know? Why have I never met her?

He looked up at me and I studied his face. The dark stubble around his mouth and lining his jaw. His dark brown hair – the same as mine – sprinkled with the grey hairs of age. The apple seed sized indented scar of years old acne. The brown glazed-over eyes, the same shade as mine. When I was younger and someone said that I looked just like him, I would puff up my chest, smile really big and say, “Thank you!” Now, I wish I looked the opposite and hoped his looks were the only thing he passed onto me.

“Well, this woman I was seeing wasn’t in the” – hiccup – “best of” – hiccup – “health.” He paused, trying to yank his shirt off. I stood there, waiting, once again. With the tanned skin of his beer gut exposed, I stared at him, letting my contempt and hatred show. I dropped my mask, for just a second, until the shirt went over his head and dropped to the floor. Then, I returned to being the caring and loving daddy’s girl that I pretended to be, that I once was – before I opened my eyes to who he really was. Until his drugs and alcohol-induced behaviors finally let me see what I tried so hard to hide from everyone else.

I learned at a young age how to behave, how not to anger my short-tempered father. I also learned the leash on his temper was even shorter when he was like this. He had yet to raise a hand to me, but I remember hearing my mother’s cries while I lay in bed just down the hall. That same night, I vowed I would never let him lay a hand on Jessica or Nolan. I would put myself between them, shielding them from the father that doesn’t deserve them. I could keep him satisfied and content, and, if need be, I could handle the abuse. My siblings were too small, too young, too weak. My mother tried to hide it for years, but after their divorce, his attentions focused on me, and I did everything I could to keep him away from my sister and brother, even if it meant putting up with him when he’s like this.

That’s the thing about an abusive, addict parent. When things are good, it’s good. There’s food in the fridge and a clean home and quality time to spend with them. But, when things are bad, it’s really bad. And, most of the time, things are bad.

My father hiccupped again and continued talking, “She was doing a lot of drugs at that time” – as if you weren’t – “and the baby died.” He stood up and began undoing his belt buckle, ripping it from the belt loops of his pants as he swayed and struggled to stay on his feet. “Don’t tell anybody.”

As he began undoing his pants, I turned and walked out of the bathroom, slamming the door to get it shut, and leaving him to his shower. My mind numb, I walked into the bedroom and absently started cleaning, shoving the clothes on the floor into a singular pile along the wall. I emptied the ashtray into the trash and collected the empty cups along the windowsill. By the time my father walked out of the bedroom, adorned in his new, clean clothes, I had finished cleaning his room, carried my siblings upstairs to the only other bed in the house, which was conveniently the farthest place from his room possible, and started on to the kitchen.

I heard him stumble his way into the kitchen, coming from behind me. I quickly moved, grabbing him a cup of water, and pulling a chair out so he could sit down.

“Are you headed to bed?” I asked gently. This conversation would go one of two ways, and I prayed, with everything in me, that it would go well.

“Yeah.”

I nodded my head and helped him to the now clean room. As his head hit the mattress and he readjusted, he groggily thanked me for cleaning. I grabbed the blanket and covered him up.

I walked out of the room and gently closed the crooked door and let out a deep sigh. My shoulders slumped and my posture relaxed. “One more day,” I said to myself. Tomorrow, Mom would pick us up and I would be able to sleep peacefully again. After shutting off the lights, I made my way to the small couch my siblings had occupied less than an hour ago and dropped onto the thin, bumpy cushions. Grabbing the remote, I thought about what I had learned tonight. I felt different. Nothing changed, and yet everything had changed.

I laid down, my head pressed against one armrest, my feet dangling over the other, and began crying to myself. I cried for that dead baby and the addict mother. I cried for my father, who had given up on everything. And I cried for myself. For the person I could have been. Had that baby lived, I wouldn’t be the oldest sibling. I wouldn’t have been burdened with the task of raising my younger siblings in the absence of our parents. Perhaps I could have enjoyed my childhood, rather than being forced to grow up too quickly.

I awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon and my kid brother’s laughter. Later, when my mother and her boyfriend picked us up, and they asked how the weekend went, I just answered, “It was fine.” And just like that, the mask went up, the façade continued, and another day went on.