food for thought

            A new one every night, sometimes, if I was lucky, they would come back for repeat visits.  I looked forward to bedtime every night, because of the new cuento that my father, the most amazing man in my life was going to dedicated to me.  Sometimes it involved an inquisitive girl, sometimes and mischievous boy, sometimes the protagonists was my own angel protecting and watching over me.  There was no telling what the next story was going to be about. 

            Some nights my father wasn’t there to tell me his cuentos; on those nights I had to cry myself to sleep.  Crying came natural to me.  I was not crying because of the absent cuento; but rather because I was afraid of what would happen when he finally made it home.  The argument that would ensue when my mother locked my drunk father out of the house, the yelling and screaming that would persist as I muffled my cries under a cold blanket.

            As I got older the cuentos became fewer and fewer.  I had to grow up and daddy needed to share his cuentos with my younger sisters. They looked forward to the cuentos just as much as I did, when I was a little girl.  Sadly, sometimes daddy wasn’t there to tell them the cuentos.  The circumstances were the same; daddy was out having his drinks while his little girls waited for his cuentos, but little did he know that I knew them and I could tell the cuentos myself.

            Daddy’s cuentos made me realize two very important emotions: pain and fear.  On his absent nights it pained me to not know where he was, and then to see him sick from having too much alcohol.  My fragile little heart was afraid to lose the only man in the world that mattered to me.  I was afraid to lose him entirely and in return I was willing to keep him and only him, in exchange for his cuentos.