Leah does not know what to think about all of this. She saw wounds all over his chest and back. She could see journals on the floor. She picked one up and understood why he had said ‘five, six.’
The journal she picked up was of 2000. They were both five years old by them.
<Father has come home drunk again. He tried to find me and Jimmy, but mother told us to hide. I do not understand why he feels the need to punish us.>
She went to another journal.
<The doctor came to check on me and said the bruises would heal in time. Father may again be able to beat me. I can go to school in two weeks.>
<I want to get out of this house more than anything in this world. It has been a while since Father struck me, maybe it’s the fear that I would fight back. I know he resents me but I have come to get used to it.>
Entry after entry showed the pain he felt.
Leah could not believe what she was reading. She knew the Johnson’s her entire life. Adam was one of her greatest friends and she did not know what was happening to him. She felt embarrassed and ashamed. She had felt sorry for his family earlier. She couldn’t believe she slapped him or that she called him cruel.
She read many entries of his journal. She read one after another. She read the cruel doings directed towards a child. She read the fear of a child. She saw the stories he had told her. She read about the nights he had spent hiding from his father.
She read about the nights he would spend in the servant quarter hiding out of fear. Page after page, there was nothing of a happy childhood within it. His journals were filled with details of his life.
She went crazy out of her mind with reading them.
Before she realized it she was reading the journals fully. She finished one journal after the other hoping to see a dimmer of happiness.
She read journal from journal seeing the life he lived. She understood what he had done. She read all of his words.
She got through his journals until the year he had disappeared.
One entry she read was written in so much anger and she was part of that story.
<I am covered in blood half is mine the other my father’s. I wished to kill him. I fought my father in front of my mother and brother. I beat my father so hard; His blood is all over the yard as was mine. It started as it had many times before it; father insulted me and struck me because I wore a ring. I wouldn’t take it off. He said ‘No son of mine is going to disobey me.’ I never believed he had seen me as a son. He struck me again and again, no one seemed to try and stop him. I could not control myself. I hit him and it was the greatest feeling I have ever felt. I felt strong. I do not know what will happen after this.>
She had given Adam a ring at about that time. She can’t help but wonder if that is the ring that caused their fight.
There were no entries after that. There were no other journals after that too. She read this entry over and over again.
She could not believe how a man can be as two-faced as Jimmy Johnson. She admired that man. She also had felt sorry that he hasn’t shown his face to anyone after he had lost his son. He had his name plastered on charities and fund raisers. She also couldn’t believe the intensity of the pain Adam had suffered at the hands of his father. The only love he had gotten was from his mother and older brother.
YOU ARE READING
Family
RomanceFamily has power over us like none other. The story of a man who had let go of his family and past. Sooner or later he knew his past will come to face his future. After all his efforts, his past catches up to him and he will soon have to face his fa...
