Lioness

by Jolene Dawe

It's a long while before I realize she's standing over me the way that she is. My vision is blurred, and my head is swimming, and for a time even after I open my eyes to see her, rage incarnate in a tiny body, what I'm seeing doesn't register. It comes slowly, her body held so rigidly, her arms trembling as they are held over her head, the full-size cast iron skillet ready to swing down. I find it somewhat fitting that that skillet, which was my own mother's before it was my wife's, should take my life from me. I close my eyes and wait for the killing blow. There is pride in me, and through the fog of alcohol I can feel it, that this daughter of mine has such strength in her. There is shame, as well, for this young warrior is only ten years old. Such rage is nothing one so young should feel.

It was never my intention to be this sort of a father to my children. For a brief period they saw the sort of father, the sort of man, I'm capable of being. I worked hard, long hours. I provided for my family. I gave them everything they deserved to have. I loved them the way they ought to be loved. Years from now I pray that they can call those times to mind when they think of me, and forgive me my weakness. The youngest one won't remember, but the others might.

I think of the youngest, and I want to plead for my life. I can't open my mouth, I can't form the words. I am hours past coherency, and she is years past listening. The youngest is the foremost reason she's driven to such measures. Mother hen, I taunt her within my more coherent moments, and it's one of the nicer insults I throw at her. She really is a lioness with him, a mother bear, a ferocious and vicious protector. Even at ten, she knows this and she takes her role very seriously. Her love for him drives her hatred for me, and under that is desperation for an end. I'm not surprised this daughter of mine chooses my end over her own--she is a fighter, and her life is as worth fighting for as her sanity is.

How to tell her that, before death drops on me? How to form the words so that she'll know my love, my understanding, my sorrow? The only words my tongue knows how to shape these days are words of hatred, words that cut and draw blood. I've seen her use this, too, and I'm ashamed of the things I've taught her.

What would I say? How do I explain the desire for escape from my memories? From the other lives I've touched and hurt, from the war, from the other children I was supposed to cherish and instead abandoned? How would she understand? For all the wisdom in her grey-blue eyes, she's still just a child.

Except she's lived most of her life on the front line, while I served only a handful of years there.

I try to open my mouth to speak, but all that comes out is unintelligible sounds. There will be a day, I want to tell her, when you will look back on this day and feel shame. Do not. There will be a time when you will have a father who loves you as I should have loved you, who will provide for you as I should have provided for you. Allow him to. Be proud of the strength you have within you, my warrior, my valkyrie, my lioness. Can I make her understand with my eyes before the skillet falls?

Her lip trembles, and I know a second before she does that my death will not be at her hands this night. She lowers the skillet as if it were the heaviest thing in the world and stares down at me. Tears glisten in her eyes before they're suppressed. I'm tempted to sigh a breath--of relief? of disappointment?--but as I watch her eyes grow hard. My death may not be coming tonight, but it could still come at her hands. She's been pushed to the edge, and the smallest shove may send her over.

Will she ever understand how proud of her that makes me?