Chapter 2- LIVING WITH A BEAUTIFUL MONSTER

"Cameron Peyton, you're a disgrace to manhood, to fatherhood and to humanity!" the voice was trembling yet it was firm. It was my mother Ruby's voice and this was not the first time she'd say those exact words.

"Why don't you come out here and say it to my face, and see what I'm made of!" That was her husband talking back-Cameron, my biological father but whom I'll never refer to as 'father' or 'daddy'.

I blocked my ears immediately I heard him respond to my mom's utterances because I knew what'd come next--Mom would stubbornly come out towards him, like he wanted and she'd say those words, again even when she knew the consequences of her action--Cameron would hit her hard on the face and yank her towards their matrimonial room, lock the door firmly(I always heard the sound of the lock and it made my heart cold) and then he'd beat her ruthlessly. And that is exactly what he did to her. The most upsetting thing about this was that this actually happened in one of the fictional storybooks I read. The man and his wife fought everyday and he hit her while she just cried helplessly, and it was really weird because the man's name was also Cameron.

Cameron beat my mom with anything he could lay his hands on, my mom's plastic treasure chest, their lion stool- the one she sat on to reach the switch on the wall because it was so high, Cameron's silver belt(the one I feared so much even though I've never been hit by it but because it had sharp tiny edges), the sole of his old shoes, or his hard palms. But he never beat her with his gold stool.

And he'd keep hitting her ignoring her cries for mercy, and I'd hold my head in my room and block my ears but I could still hear the tussle in my head and I would bury my head in my sheets to block the sound and wait till her wails died down.

Then my imagination would do the rest-- I'd see the crumpled, ruffled image of my mom under his grasp, with her hair and dress ripped apart and her eyes full of pain. It always followed that routine, almost every day. Cameron did not only hurt mom, he hurt me too by making her go through emotional and physical pain all the time. Sometimes I look at the wall of my room to distract my mind from everything. The walls of my room bore several wallpapers of pet animals of different colours. Pets and Wild animals. Mom put them there. For my therapy. My best wallpaper is the werewolf's. It is a picture of a huge wolf staring at the beautiful full moon. It is large and blue and very soothing. I never told Mom that I loved animals of the cat and dog family. She sure knew naturally what was appealing to me.

Mom and I have always been close and I love her so much but sometimes I get so mad at her for being a dummy. Yes, sometimes I see her as one despite that she did many good things for me but everytime her husband hit her, she'd still go back and sleep in his room at nighttime. She'd do his laundry like a maid, and kiss him every morning. She'd cook his meals and serve him, kneeling before his gold stool, that was where he always ate; he didn't eat with Mom and I at the dining table.

I never bothered to ask mom why, but I once overheard mom talk about it. She said it was the only thing he got as an inheritance from his late parents. The stool had a remarkable height and had a lever that could be pulled down to make it low, or higher. It was completely gold and had beautiful white patterns on it, and it had a wide enough round top. Mom said according to her speculations, it was worth millions of dollars. I always wondered how he got the stool though, and never sold it, since I'm sure he got it for the money.

Maybe he was waiting to be broke before selling it because Cameron was rich. Not in every sense though. Not wisdom-wise because he squandered money on unimportant things like alcohol, parties and other women. Cameron had a unquenchable thirst for money. I knew it even though I was very young. He was always talking about money, or women, and if he wasn't, then he would be beating mom.

He always said bad things about women. He called them "sex machines" and said they were goddesses sent to tempt men and rob them of their money. I didn't like hearing that. I knew my mom wasn't a seductress or a gold-digger; she was very diligent in the business she controlled. Yes, mom had her own job. She was a seamstress in a fashion designer store near our estate. But Cameron always complained about her job, said she was only wasting time working since the money wasn't needed. But mom knew him too well. She was saving for the future which she hoped would not have Cameron in it.

Cameron had a private firm where he sold goods, and he owned the estate in which we lived in. Kangaroo Estate, that was what he named it. I don't know why he named it 'Kangaroo' and even when Mom explained that he was madly in love with kangaroo babies and animals of this family, I still found it strange. He even designed our front door with the shape of a pregnant kangaroo. It was sick. I thought it'd be better if it were a large cat or leopard or wolf. I didn't like kangaroos. People said it was cute, but I found it weird. I thought it'd have been better if the estate wasn't named at all.

I was only seven at the time but I knew a lot of things that I did not understand. Like why my eyes could not produce tears. Was I strange? I didn't know but no matter how much I wanted to cry, my eyes would remain as dry as the leaves on the fig tree in hot season. Innocently, I've asked Mom a number of times and I realized she had noticed before I did.

She said when I was born, I didn't make a sound, and the doctors and others thought I was dead. She said I had my eyes closed for few hours and it was only when I was being washed I opened them. My mom slapped my buttocks but I still didn't cry. I merely smiled. She said I have(because I still do) the smile of a contented princess. So I don't know if I should rejoice at the compliment and accept my fate or be scared for myself because the doctors said I didn't have tears in my eyes, or was that my mom's words?

Another thing I do not understand is why Cameron beat mom. I rarely call him so I don't have to bother about calling him 'dad' or 'Cameron'. They always argued and you never know what it is they are arguing about. Might be his promiscuity because Mom would be a fool not to know that he goes out with other women, or perhaps just the fact that mom is a woman, and he doesn't like women except for one thing-sex.

Why mom married him is one thing I do not understand too. Was she too much in love with him in their courting years only to know that he was abusive and didn't believe in love after marriage? Or did he force her into dating him? Or impregnated her against her consent so that he could have her forever with him? Yes I know that is called rape, but I do not want to call it that, because I do not want to believe I'm a product of a premarital affair between two people who did not even love each other. I hated myself already, I didn't want this to compound it.

There was another reason I thought about in my head, but I didn't want to believe that either. Did Mom go after him because he had money, and made him marry her so she could share his money? It was both believable and unbelievable. Believable because according to Cameron's taste and style of life, humanly speaking, he'd never have gone for mom. Not that she was not beautiful, in fact she was very beautiful, and it was the only one good thing he told her every time, but mom was gentle-spirited, decent, homely, and very warm-heated, not social and very simple. She didn't wear makeup, she didn't have any friends except Risa, a tall blonde that visited on some weekends when Cameron wasn't home. Mom also didn't like a flamboyant lifestyle; she dressed very simply and did her things quietly. She was not compatible with her over-ambitious, lousy and flamboyant and abusive husband Cameron.

Mom loved nature. In fact she had lived her whole life in the country side. Her parents were lovers of nature too, so they had many trees, orchards and pets in their family house. They were good painters too. Mom painted beautifully well too but I never saw her put out her paintings for sale. Perhaps she thought it was better displayed than sold. Or maybe she didn't need to. She had enough of everything, except love.

Cameron liked extravagance but maybe he didn't like it on women, I'll never know.

Thinking my mom married him for his money was unbelievable because she didn't look like the type to do it, and her parents weren't poor. They weren't as rich as Cameron's late parents but they weren't poor either. So I don't have an answer to how they got to be husband and wife.

Maybe in the future when everything gets better, I'll ask mom.