Page 21 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

“Where is all your food?” He growled from behind me. I startled and damn near jumped out of my skin, slamming the fridge door shut in the process. That was when my father moved me out of the way, searched the empty fridge and freezer and then started flinging cabinets open. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it was clear he wasn’t finding it as the red hue of his skin grew darker and darker with each cabinet he searched.

“W-what?” I stammered, but he cut me off by grabbing hold of my arm and directing me toward the front door.

“Get shoes on and come with me.” It was an order that I wasn’t about to go against because I hadn’t seen my father look that angry since he found out my mom had been having an affair with his ex-club brother.

We ended up at the grocery store where he took a shopping cart for himself and then handed me a second one. I figured we were shopping together, and I was going to have to dip into my savings money once again. I didn’t want to, because I wasn’t getting as many offers to write reports for money anymore since college kids must have spent too much money over the holidays.

Then there was the problem with my other job. My employer at the pizza place wasn’t scheduling me as much since I burned my stomach on a hot pan one night. I couldn’t help that my belly seemed to pop out of nowhere and I wasn’t really used to it. I’d been super frugal with money ever since. Who wouldn’t be? The number one thing on my mind all the time was if I would starve? Would my baby? So many fears and not enough options available to make a difference.

Once in a great while, Merc ate at home, but it was usually something he brought with him, and then he would change clothes and be gone again. I don’t think he ever knew I was there when he came in to get clothes. I usually hid out in my loft until he was gone.

He never left money for me, brought groceries into the house, or anything else. I was beginning to wonder how this was going to work if I wasn’t able to get a real job sometimes soon. After asking my father for help getting a car, only to have him tell me that was my husband’s job, made me leery of asking him for help.

My father spent the next forty-five minutes filling his shopping cart while I was picky about what I put in my own. When his was over-burdened, mine only had a handful of items in it. I glanced inside my wallet at the sixty-five dollars I had on me while mentally trying to calculate how much everything in my cart would cost. I would be so embarrassed if I didn’t have enough money on me and my father was there to witness it.

“Is that all you’re getting?” Dad finally asked me, his voice sounding like twice-hardened steel.

“Um?” It was both question and answer, but when Dad glared at me, I tacked on, “I think so.”

And that’s when my father lost his shit, right in the middle of the Food Lion. “You do realize you’re pregnant, right?” I didn’t bother to answer beyond nodding my head. “Your cabinets are empty. Your fridge is just as bad, and you have like five things in your buggy!”

I had a few more things than that, but I wasn’t about to argue with my father when he was in angry bear mode.

“Why aren’t you getting healthy food?” He yelled at me as my face grew hotter with embarrassment and tears started to swell and burn my eyes.

“It’s expensive,” I cried. “I only have sixty-five dollars with me.”

“Where did you get that money?” He asked, attempting to calm his voice. He finally realized people were staring at us and moved so that I was blocked by his big, broad body while he hovered around me in the corner of the baked goods aisle.

“I had it,” was the only answer I could come up with.

“Money you had before you moved out of my house?” His question made me wince, but it was mostly true so I nodded my head and then ducked as my father let out such a furious bellow that I thought he could do damage to the people around us just with his voice alone. Then, he pulled the mobile phone from his pocket, flipped up the antenna and dialed a number just as a security guard cautiously stepped closer to us.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

“Fine,” I tried to get out. “Got some bad news,” the lie dripped from my lips as they poked out into a pout, making it look like I was saddened by whatever it was.

“You’re sure?” He asked again before my father spun and speared him with a glare that could melt glaciers.

“Leave my daughter alone. We’re dealing with something right now. Ain’t no one hurting her, least of all me. Now, get gone and mind your own fucking business!”

My father heard something on the other end of his call finally and he turned his focus back to that. “About time. You hunt down that piece of shit asshole you call a son, and you have him standing by when I get to the clubhouse. Be there in about an hour.” There was a moment where my father didn’t speak after giving that order. “I’ll fucking fill you in when I get there! Just do what I said.”

My father hung up, pushed the antenna back down on the phone, clipped it back to his belt and started adding even more stuff to my shopping cart. The whole time he mumbled about “killing a mother fucker” and “squashing that idiot’s balls”. I had a pretty good idea of which idiot he was talking about, but I didn’t understand why.

“Where was your car?” Dad asked me as he paid the checkout girl once all the groceries from both of our carts had been rung up.

“What car?” I asked him, eyes still bugging out of my head over the nearly $500 grocery total.

“What do you mean, ‘what car’?”

“What do you mean by ‘where’s my car’?” I countered. “I’ve never had a car.”

If it were possible for a human being’s veins to actually explode, I think that might have happened to my father right there in the Food Lion check out. “Push your buggy, let’s go baby girl, I got places to be and people to kill.”

I followed behind my angry father until we got to his truck and deposited all the bags in the back. Then he helped me hop in, because now that my belly had popped, it was becoming a little more difficult to maneuver into some spaces. Dad quietly seethed the whole way to my house. Then he made me sit my ass down on the kitchen chair while he brought in every single bag of groceries.

“I thought half of that was yours.”

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