Saved By the billionaire

Wrong life

Julianna heard him before she saw him. He was bellowing a tune at the top of his voice. Usually, her father came home as late into the night as possible. Sometimes when she glanced at the clock hung over a baby picture of hers in her tiny room, the time was mostly past twelve or one a.m. when he got back.

There was always first a crash like her father could not make out the small furniture they have had in their small sitting room for the past ten years. He always managed to crash into something, followed by a loud curse and then a rain of abusive words from the random man he had met at the gas station, to the local cops who have given up arresting him for being a drunk nuisance. Rojo without fail cursed them all. It even got worse if he ran into any of his family members who happened to be up at that hour, Julianna’s father would finish off the person with his unending vocabulary of curse words.

On some of those nights, Julianna kept her fingers crossed that her father wouldn't push down her door too in anger. She usually waited with bated breath until he entered the room he shared with his mother and banged the door so hard that the rest of the door rattled. If her mother was still awake for whatever reason, then the second phase of the shouting match would begin but now with two voices, one drunk male voice and one shrill female voice. They probably disturbed the peace of the entire neighborhood because Julianna herself ended up not getting any sleep and looking disgruntled and miserable the next day at school. So every night when she heard her father crashing in, she always prayed that her mother was already asleep or filled with her thoughts that she ignored her father, Rojo.

Her mother had washed the smelly fish with lots of vinegar and lime in an attempt to make it taste better. But a bad fish was a bad fish and should be thrown away. This was the second time today that Juliana was eating what belonged to the dustbin. Even the bread that was supposedly olive bread was stale. Julianna could bet the two dollars and four cents hidden in one of her old shoes upstairs that her mother must have peeled off the mold growing on the bread earlier so she could convince Julianna to eat it.

But moldy bread was moldy bread too and should be thrown away for goodness sake.

She had been pushing bits of the fish around on her plate, unable to bring herself to put them in her mouth until her mother’s eyes had found hers and remained on her face, actually on her mouth. Her mother did not look away until Julianna put a piece in her mouth and grimaced.

Sophia just harumphed and went back to eating her meal. They both ate their dinner in silence until they heard Rojo’s voice. It was quite odd because it was barely eight pm and he was back already. Even as they shared a look of concern between themselves, it was clear that the daughter and mother shared the same thought.

“Hold on, soldiers. March, march, march. Marrrrccchhhh. Onward to victory”, sang Rojo in an incredibly loud and drunk voice.

There was a bit of a crash out front that ended with a thudding sound and an abrupt cutoff of the singing; Rojo had fallen. He did not even wait to get in this time before he crashed into something. He must be roaring drunk tonight, thought Julianna.

“Oh hell”, muttered Sophia as she pushed back one of the cheap camping chairs they arranged around a termite-infested table that badly needed to be thrown out. But that would leave them without a table to eat their dinners on.

She walked to the door and threw it open. The light from the lone bulb in the kitchen shone through to show a heavily built man with a bushy black beard and hair. He wore muddy boots and a brown suede jacket with a torn front pocket. It looked like the pocket had gotten hooked on something and Rojo had torn it off in annoyance, ripping one side of the pocket away from the jacket’s breast area. The stench of alcohol emanating from him was overpowering.

Sophia turned to Julianna, “Quick go to your room.”

But Rojo had heard and in a surprising burst of agility, he got up in a flash and lunged for Julianna’s mum who had been distracted for a minute. The two of them landed in a heap just inside the room.

“So the ugly child can't even greet her father. See how she’s ready to run”, slurred Rojo as he tried to pin Sophia down.

Sophia struggled against him with one hand, while shielding her face from the bad stench of beer and alcohol emanating from his breath.

“Not when her father is a drunkard. And could you for god sake not call her ugly?”, panted Sophia as she tried her best to push him off her.

Julianna had gotten up from her chair, too bewildered to move or speak. What was happening exactly?

Her mother finally managed to disengage herself from her father but so did her father and moving too fast for a drunk man, Rojo raised his left hand as high as he could and hit it across her face. Sophia who was much smaller than Rojo flew backward further into the room and landed with a sickening sound.

Julianna ran to her father screaming and attempting to kick him with her hands and legs but her father pushed her with another swipe of his powerful left hand so that she fell and landed in a heap just beside the termite-infested table.

Right there on the floor, her eyes on her hurt mother, tears brimming in her eyes, and feeling a sharp pain in her right leg as she tried to turn her body, Julianna wondered where exactly it was she had gone wrong in life.