My father’s voice was soft when he spoke again. “Come on, baby, I need to be inside you. It’s been weeks. You know how crazy I get when I can’t have you.”

I was confused by the silence, but then a few minutes later, I heard the mattress shift.

I was six and in my bed, clutching my teddy bear. The walls were so thin. When the creaking started, my big sister crawled in beside me and hugged me. “Don’t listen, Gabby. Don’t listen,” she whispered. She always blocked out the noises at night. I never could. I didn’t like to hear my daddy angry and my mommy upset.

There was a thumping against the wall and my mother started to cry. I couldn’t help but listen. I wanted to help her.

“What’s he doing to her, Lizzy? Why is she crying?” I whispered.

“Shhh . . . close your eyes. Think happy thoughts. Don’t listen.”

I tried, but nothing could block out my father’s words. “I provide for you. Why can’t you just take care of my needs without all this horseshit all the time?”

“I try, Henry, I do. I can’t help how I feel, though,” she whimpered.

Skin slapped against skin. “You like it this way. Tell me you do.”

“Henry, please,” my mother cried.

Sweat covered my body. I wanted to climb through the walls and tell him to leave her alone. “We should go help her,” I told my sister.

“No, never do that,” my sister warned. “Do you hear me?”

I nodded.

I heard my father laugh. “That’s it, beg for it.”

I wondered if everything was okay now, but then I heard the thumping against the wall, and it was getting louder and coming quicker.

“Please stop,” my mother cried.

He let out a huge sigh. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Could you please just stop complaining? Every time, Susan. Every time it’s something.”

“It hurts.”

“You know, Susan, if you can’t give me what I want, then you can damn well spread your legs when I tell you to or take it this way.”

“Henry, please. It’s not like that.”

“Fuck, can’t you give me anything I ask for?”

Her sobs grew. “Please don’t blame me for losing the baby.”

The thumping stopped.

“Who else should I blame? You lost my son. And now that it’s time to try for another, you’re not ready. How will the Sterling name carry on? This is on you, Susan.”

“The doctor said we should consult with her before we decide on another pregnancy. She says my diabetes is continuing to weaken my kidney function and the miscarriages are a result of that.”

“Fuck that. You’re a strong woman. She’s just being overcautious. They’re all like that.”

The thumping started up again and this time my mother was crying even louder. I could tell she was in pain.

“What’s he doing to her?” I asked Lizzy again.

She was still squeezing her eyes shut. “Just something a husband and wife do together when they love each other.”

“But it doesn’t sound like Mommy likes it.”

“Sometimes you do what you have to for love, Gabby. You’ll see.”

The pounding ceased. “Stop your fucking crying. Just turn around and put me in your mouth,” he barked.

The mattress shifted again. Then my father started moaning. “That’s it. That’s it baby. See, you do know how to make me happy.”

My father, the well-respected General. He demanded of his family what he expected from his men—order, discipline, and obedience.

He was vile.

Evil.

Sick.

A sex addict and a control freak.

And my mother was no match for him.

Sweat covered me as I fought to block the memories, but they wouldn’t stop assaulting me.

Lizzy and I were asleep in our room.

We were in England and I was almost eight.

That day we’d run through the meadow near our house and picked hundreds of dandelions. My mother wasn’t feeling well and we’d brought them to her. We’d also put some in vases in our room and in the kitchen, too.

My mother had a small baby bump; she always seemed to have one, but it never got much bigger than it was at that time. Her diabetes seemed to hinder each pregnancy that came after my birth.

I heard the front door open and the sound of my father’s boots. “Susan!” he bellowed. He was used to my mother waiting up for him. She never went to bed without him.

My mother called to him. “I’m in our bedroom, Henry.”

His footfalls echoed down the hall. “You went to bed?” he sneered.

The bed squeaked. My mother sitting up, I assumed. “I’m sorry. I was really tired. I left your dinner on the stove.”

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

Everything was quiet for a bit and then I heard our door lock. I knew what that meant and anger welled deep within me. I ran to it and turned the knob. “Daddy?” I called.

A minute later I heard my father. “You went to bed without me,” he said again, but this time it wasn’t a question.

My mother answered, “Henry, I’m sorry.”

My father was eerily silent.

“Daddy?” I called again.

Lizzy grabbed me and covered my mouth. “Gabby, you have to be quiet or he’ll use the belt again. You know the rules. Go to bed and don’t bother him and Mommy.”

I glared at her, but her eyes were squeezed shut. She was doing what she always did—blocking it out. I didn’t care how many times he told me I was misbehaving for screaming out in the middle of the night or for pounding on the door, feigning I had to use the bathroom. There were times I just couldn’t take it.

“Henry, please, not tonight,” my mother begged.

It sounded so familiar.

My father said nothing, but soon we heard the familiar thump. It seemed to go on for hours that night. I couldn’t stop crying. I cried a tear for every one that my mother shed.

I hated him.

After a long while, Lizzy opened her eyes. She grabbed one of the vases and opened a window. “Come on, Gabby. Make a wish.”

I walked over to her. “We have to help Mommy.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it will make things worse. All we can do is wish we could.” She handed me the vase she had in her hand. “Here, take one.”

I plucked one of the dandelions from the water.

“Blow. Just blow. It will make everything better,” she whispered.

I knew it wouldn’t.

And it never did make anything better but after that night, every time we were locked in our room, Lizzy would open the window and pretend she was blowing on a dandelion. She was able to escape into another world that way.

I never could.

One after the other, the nightmares of my childhood kept coming. I couldn’t block them out. He was a monster who demanded more of my mother than she could give. I might have been the one who killed her, but he drained the life right out of her.

Finally, I sat up in my bed and turned the light on. My body was covered in a cold sweat and I stripped my damp clothes off.

I hated that feeling of helplessness. How I’d wanted so badly for my mother to stop crying. For my father to stop what he was doing to her. So many nights. So many times my father had locked my sister and me in our room and taken my mother in ways that let him have full control. His driving need sickened me.

Sometimes he was loud, sometimes not. My mother would beg him to be quiet, but it was his house and he’d do as he pleased. And that’s just what he always did. Sometimes it was fast; sometimes it went on for hours. It was always worse after a miscarriage. To this day, I still have no idea how many miscarriages my mother had.