Descriptive Essay: Infidelity
I have no choice but to flashback to that night every time I hear that song. It was about 1 in the morning. I was in a deep slumber on my twin bed, head in the direction of the door instead of my window when I awake to that dreaded bright yellow hallway light and every curse word ever created. It was my mother’s voice. “What is happening?”, I whisper. No church-going woman would curse like that. My eyes throbbed, light seeping in from the cracks of my bedroom door and ears ached from the extreme decibels suddenly replacing the usual silence. Still, I heard the quiet whisper of water running from the bathroom. It soon disappeared. A door slowly opens. I begin to hear my mother screaming at my father. “Is this real?”, I begin to question if I am still dreaming but I quickly accept that this is all too real. I’ve never heard them have an argument like that before, but of course it was always plausible. I was too afraid and confused to open my bedroom’s door. So my mom slammed it open for me. “Get dressed, we’re leaving!” I did as I was told. My limp arms picked up a pair of jeans and slipped them on. I pulled a hoodie over my pajama tee. I dragged my feet across the hallway, my little eight year old body stumbled down the stairs, then out the front door. It was a cold October night. I felt spotlightted by the streetlights as I walked across the street to the little purple Subaru. My brothers accompanied me in the car. The look on my brother Jared’s face was irritated and confused, just like mine. When I looked at my oldest brother, Christian’s face, he looked very calm, sleepy, but calm. Like he knew something we didn’t know. And here is when the song comes in.
“Ordinary People” by John Legend plays when my mother turns on the radio. That sound blasted all the way to my grandmom’s house. My mom was driving so fast that the wind beat against my face making my already slender eyes close completely and my ears stuffed with the night’s air, but I could still hear every lyric and melody of the song. It was the only song that played in the car that night, the only one that had time to play. I didn’t know at the time that song would resonate and connect to that specific experience. Whenever I hear that song I go back to that night. It was the night that my blindness was snatched away from me as quick as a dark room turns bright with the flip of a switch. This was the first night I began to find out the truth about my parent’s unhealthy relationship.
4 years later and things were only going to get worse. On a night in December of 2009, my dad told my brothers and me to get ready because he was going to pick us up to spend some time with us. This seemed slightly odd because my dad very rarely took us out anywhere. But he didn’t live with us at the time so I understood. We walked to the black Lexus across the street and got in. There was a woman in the passenger’s seat. “This is my friend Terri.”, my dad says to the three of us and like the programmed-polite kids we were, we responded with a “Hello” and the car took off. I listened to the two adults make small talk and my mind wandered to be more consumed by where we were going than contemplating who this lady was. My father had hundreds of friends so I literally had no suspicion. We stopped at Little Caesar's pizza restaurant and got our dinner. Then we rode to my Aunt’s house who was a friend of Terri and we ate pizza, watched some terrible TV, overall it was boring and I just wanted to go home.
When we arrived at our house my mom asked about how our night went. My brothers and I told her that we just went over our Aunt Kesha’s house and had pizza. Then the most important detail was revealed. I don’t remember which one of us told her but I know they said “Dad’s friend Terri was with us.” In that moment, as I looked at the expression on my mother’s face, filled shock and disbelief, I knew that I underestimated my father’s “friend”. “You were with who?” my mother said as her eyes were wide open, anxiously waiting for an answer. “Dad had his friend Terri with him.” My mom preceded to go ballistic, taking all my father’s clothes and placing them on our porch. He was forced to come to pick them up to avoid his clothes being stolen by the members of the shady neighborhood. The removal of his physical items symbolized his emotional separation from his loving family, who had always been there for him.
I later found out that my father disrespected my mother’s wishes to keep his affair a secret from his children until my mother was ready to tell us. I know that is the gist of the argument. I was still in the house in a daze when all this happened. All I knew is that this was the second time my father made my mother angry because of infidelity.
My father once again was only concerned with himself in this situation. All my mother asked of him was to give her the chance to tell us what was going on when she felt the time was right. But my father’s selfish mind allowed him to do what he wanted, when he wanted. I believe he didn’t care if it would upset my mother because he wanted to have his fun, like he had been doing through all of his adulthood, and not caring who he had to disappoint to do so.
People either use their tortured past to better themselves, or they stay bitter and let everyone that comes in their path feel that hurt they feel. You have to learn who you are dealing with. If it is the ladder, you must completely separate yourself from them until they learn to be constructive, not destructive. My dad was “neglected” as a child and as an adult he chose to lavish himself with whatever his heart desired, but didn’t account for how it might affect everyone else affected by his actions. Sometimes with material luxuries, but it was always more hurtful when he emotionally lavished himself only to leave my mother out in the cold. That hurt she felt, I felt because my mother’s happiness has always been a priority in my life. I learned to lose dependence on my father for anything because he just didn’t know how to be selfless.
Comments
No comments have been posted yet.
Log in to post a comment.