“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” DAD DEMANDED, JERKING UP OFF THE CHAIR when I climbed onto his lap. “You can’t climb onto my lap without any clothes on.” He looked furious when he wrapped my towel around my shoulders and covered me up. “Get back upstairs and put your clothes on, and don’t ever come downstairs without your clothes on again, or I’ll redden your ass for you.”
“Calm down,” Mam instructed when I bolted past her. “She’s just after getting out of the bath.”
“She’s five years old, Catherine, not a baby,” Dad replied. “She’s too old to be running around naked and she should know that.”
“Michael, she was only trying to give her father a hug.”
“Caoimhe never carried on like that.”
“Don’t compare them. The girls are like night and day.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.”
“Michael!”
“Talk to her, Catherine. Explain to the girl that she can’t be doing these things. For Christ’s sake, what if Caoimhe had Mark over?”
“Maybe if you worried a little less about Caoimhe and a little more about Elizabeth, then she wouldn’t be crying out for your attention.”
“And maybe if you didn’t pander to her every need, she would open her mouth and speak for herself.”
“How dare you!”
“I’m just saying, if you backed off and let her be more independent, she might act like it.”
“Don’t you dare try to push this all on my shoulders. There is a reason our daughter has issues, and that reason lies on your doorstep, not mine!”
“So now you’re blaming me for something I have no control over?”
“Kind of like how you’re blaming me for not being able to fix her?”
“This was a mistake.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m going for a pint.”
“No, don’t walk away. We have to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It is what it is, and we are where we are. End of story.”
“Michael, please!”
The front door slammed shut.
“That’s it. Don’t cry. Shh, shh…”
“That’s because you’re a bad girl. God is punishing you…”
“He sent me to make you clean…”
“Tell me you want it…”
Panicking, I bolted up the staircase, not stopping until I was under the covers in my bed.
Bad girl.
Bad girl.
Bad girl.
Clenching my eyes shut, I tried to push the voices out of my head, but they wouldn’t go.
