Worth the fight

I thought it was gross.  But I’d give anything to go back to those days now.  We were happy.  And he wasn’t drunk and angry all the time.
    But then things changed.  He lost his business and we had to move.  Move out of our big house with the pretty green lawn and into a small apartment with a concrete patch for a yard.  My father hated to move, it made him really angry.  At first he would just yell a lot.  And drink.  He started to drink a lot.  Sometimes I would get up for school and he’d have liquor in his coffee mug instead of coffee.
    Then one night mom burned dinner while she was trying to give me a bath at the same time.  And when Dad saw the mess, he smacked her across the face. Hard. I remember him telling her she was wasting his money.  She cried and apologized.  The next morning he was still passed out.  Mom told me Dad was under a lot of stress and he didn’t mean to hurt her.  It was just an accident. 
    But then it happened again.  And again.  And again.  And the hitting got worse.  The smacks turned into punches and punches turned into kicks.  Until it got to the point where he was beating her almost every day.  She almost always has bruises and she didn’t go out much anymore.  We tried to leave a few times.  But he always found us and brought us back.  He would apologize and say it would never happen again.  Then when we went home, it usually got worse.  Like this time.
    Mom’s feet are dangling and her face is turning bright red.  I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do.   He really may kill her this time.  “Stop!  Stop!  You’re going to kill her.”  Desperately, I beg my father.  Tears are streaming down my face as I grab his arm, frantic to get my mother air.  He swats me away and I go flying through the air, but at least I’ve managed to make him release his death grip on her throat. 
    My mom falls to the floor, her hands holding her neck as she gasps for air.  She’s making a loud wheezing noise with each breath as she tries frantically to bring air into her lungs.   My father turns and looks at me, sitting where I’ve landed after his push.    His eyes are dark and crazy and I begin to tremble.  I’ve never been so scared.  He’s going to kill us.  Both of us.  I can see it in his eyes.  Whatever semblance of a man that remained from what used to be my father is gone.  A monster has replaced him.
    I think he’s going to come after me, but then he turns.  His focus back to my mother, still gasping for air desperately on the floor.  With one arm he grabs her hair in his fist and hoists her back up, slamming her into the refrigerator.  Everything resting on the top falls, some of it landing on my mother.  But it doesn’t distract him.  Holding her head steady with a fistful of hair against the refrigerator he leans his head into my mother’s, his once handsome face contorting to the point that he no longer even resembles himself.  “What did I tell you I would do if you tried to leave again, you stupid little cunt?  This is all your fault.  You bring it all on yourself, you worthless whore.   You’re garbage.”
    Then he pulls his face back and winds up before slamming his fist square into her cheek.  I hear a loud crack and I’m not sure if it’s my mother’s face or my father’s hand , but the sound makes me sick.  Physically.  I vomit all over myself.
    My father punches her again and this time there’s no crack.  All I hear is a noise that sounds like a seal barking.  It’s my mother, she’s crying out in pain, but he r voice is still gone from when he choked her.  It’s a horrible sound.  A horrible, horrible sickening sound. She can’t breathe and the sound is getting more desperate, but lower at the same time.  Like she’s running out of time.  She gasps again and I hear that sound again.  It’s the most horrible noise I’ve ever heard in my life.  It’s also the last thing I remember until the gun blast jolts me.
    I tried for months to remember what happened.  I remember the sound, my mother trying to breathe.  Then I remember the gunshot.  It was so loud it hurt my ears. The ringing won’t stop.  I remember watching my father fall and seeing blood start to pour out of his head.  There was a lot of blood.  More than I’ve watched my mother clean up of her own blood after the beatings.  It pools into a circle that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  Then the pool reaches