“Broken Reflection”

I loved them. I loved them both equally. It happened so fast that I don’t even remember what
had happened. Mother is gentle and my father is a good man. Or so it seemed. College is
exhausting but only one more year ‘til I graduate. I did a good job at school. It’s been months
since I last came home from college. Months felt like forever. My mom is calling me nonstop
to check if I’m already on my way. It’s been a few hours of travel, but it was all worth it. I miss
Mom’s signature dish and Father’s funny stories, my room, and everything I left before
college. I told lots of my experiences last semester, and we exchanged lots of stories over
dinner. After our luscious meal, I went outside the house to get some air. My mother wouldn’t
let me help with the dishes because she believed I needed to rest. I sat on the wooden chair
right on our porch. My father came after a few minutes and sat beside me staring at the air. I
felt a bit odd about it because he’s usually loud and funny. He let out a deep sigh and said
something that shocked my system. “Maria, I think your mother is having an affair”, he sighed.
It caught me off guard. I could not believe what I just heard. Mom’s a teacher, she’s always
busy. Does she have time for that? She can’t do that to father, can she? He told me he saw a
man enter our house and visit mom often when he was not around. "I saw her with another
man in the house. He jumped out of the window; I couldn't recognize his face. I asked your
mother, but she dismisses as soon as she can." he said. “It’s been years since I have seen her
get her monthly salary. Last month, I checked her phone and saw their messages. I think
they're planning to build a house. It's just a matter of time until she leaves us for that bastard."
he added, gritting his teeth. I cannot believe what he just said. Can a mother do such a thing?
But her hands are full of work, in the house and school. Does she have time for that? She can
barely take care of herself. She can't possibly do that. But if it's true, I can never look at her
the same.

It's already midnight and I couldn't get it off my head. I could not even look at my mother
earlier after my father's confession. In the morning, father was up early to feed his fighting
cocks and mother is preparing breakfast. I was on my way to the fridge to get some water
when Mother broke off the silence. She confessed something, that she was not doing anything
sneaky behind father's back. She's worried and hurt because he's back again and it's getting
worse every day. He even went to the school where she teaches to confront her co-teacher
about their illicit affair. Concealed beneath his shirt, a gun tucked in beneath the waistband
of his pants. He would enter mother's classroom and talk to her. Louden his voice so her
students could him. She would talk about how father threatened to kill her. He would choke
her and hit her with anything he had in his hand. I couldn't bear to see Mother hurt. She put
Mother in unfathomable shame and pain. She already told my aunts what's happening, and
they say they're willing to help. To get him professional help. I've always known my father to
be violent. When I was a kid, I can still remember how rough his hands were whenever I acted
my age. I wasn't born yesterday not to know he's a manipulative narcissist, too. He used to
beat Mother up and I had to see it. I couldn’t do anything to save her. She had no choice but
to go to work with puffed eyes and bruises anywhere on her body. I hated him, but he was
my father.

Father's mood swings are getting worse, too. My aunt convinced him to go to the city to get
him checked up, and they would help us with the medical bills. Turns out he has a lot of health
problems. I don't know how they managed to get him to a psychiatrist, but they did. They
only told him they would take him to an expert. It makes me feel bad about it that Father
could get easily fooled at some point, but this is for his own good, so I don't have a choice but
to go with it. He had many medications to take, including his anti-depressants. He was
clinically diagnosed with depression which may also be possible with a serious mental
illness, Schizophrenia. That explains what he's been seeing even when it's not there. A week
had passed, and he arrived home from the city. He greeted us with a smile on his face. For a
few days, I can see it's getting better, and he no longer looks like he's worked up about
something. That's a good sign.

Until one night, they had a terrible fight. It was raining hard, thunders rumbling, and flashes
of lightning illuminated the room more. Father was hysterical about how Mother was
planning to leave him with her co-teacher. I couldn't do anything but try to pull father away
from her. He was infuriating and he did not look the same. His eyes were red and gritting his
teeth. He slapped her and Mother fell to her knees. Mother shouted at him, but I couldn't
make out the words. He was furious and stormed off to their bedroom. The next thing I knew,
he was pointing a gun at my mother. Mother froze in shock until we heard a knock at the front
door. A tall man in a black coat revealed himself. I’m not sure. I can’t see his face. He was
dripping wet, holding a long meat hook in his hand. Nobody seemed to notice him. Then I
heard a loud gunshot. I turned to my mother, and she was lying on the floor, eyes wide open,
and blood running everywhere. I crawled toward her, but she was already cold with blood
running out her mouth. A single tear left her eyes. I lost connection to reality. I lost it. I wanted
to shout. Father, holding the gun, looked at me in shock. And for a second, I didn’t recognize
my father. Then the mysterious man went closer to Father, raising his arm with the meat hook
in it to hit him. And I heard another gunshot. Father was lying on the floor and the man ran
outside the house. I took all the courage I had to run after him but as I was about outside our
door, I felt weak. I could feel my knees numbing and trembling. My body fell on the floor, I
wanted to open my eyes, but I felt tired. All I could remember was the ambulance sirens
wailing outside our house before I lost consciousness.

Months had passed, and I’d been living with my aunts and cousin in the city. They say they
couldn’t just leave me alone at our house in the province after what happened. They’re
worried seeing me staring into the air and feel disassociated from reality. They said I’ve
experienced great trauma, seeing it all. I’ve made my statement to the police about the
mysterious man who came when the incident happened. It was a long process, but they ended
up closing the case. They said my father shot my mother and based on their investigation and
my statements; my father committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest three times.
But I don’t believe it, my father wouldn’t do such a thing. The man who murdered my father
is still out there, but they would not believe me. Every time I think about it, it always feels like
it all happened just yesterday.

I am timid, I don’t watch horror movies for a reason. Strange dreams haunt me, every night
in my sleep but my eyes are wide awake. These dreams felt like they came to reach the depths
of my consciousness and become my reality. A lanky man would slither into my window. Its
gaze fixed on me with an intensity that freezes my whole system. I dare not try to meet its
eyes, but I find myself unable to resist its pull. I try to stop myself but with every fleeting
glance, it draws closer but abruptly vanishes into the abyss of night. They say what I see are
the projections of the trauma I had, but I beg to differ. When the clock strikes midnight, I can
hear whispers slithering through my ear. I feel it coming from under my bed, but I try to
ignore the urge to look. Its eerie murmur whispers to the core of my being. I cannot run away
from it, there is no escape. Sometimes, I smell the stench of a rotting carcass inside my room
but when I ask my aunts, they say nothing smells unusual let alone the smell of a rotting dead
body of an animal. I feel trapped by the horrors I’ve come to experience in that house.

Some nights, a young woman would visit me in my room. She looks undead with her muddy
white dress and face like it's rotten and decayed. She would stand in the corner with her long
hair that hung like a curtain, and eyes staring right into my soul, bulging out of her sockets.
Her lips parted into a slow-appearing sinister smile as she tilted her head. Her sharp teeth
appeared, and her eyes widened more like a predator spotted its prey.

She would slowly bend to a grotesque hunch, her fist on the floor, and would slowly crawl
toward the side of my bed. The horrors grew that I could not move a muscle. She appears at
my bedside, showing her grinning smile. I closed my eyes in prayer she disappeared when I
opened them. But I was wrong. Her face came close to mine, a few inches away, with her eyes
staring right into the depths of my sanity. I cried hysterically that night.

We used to be happy. I loved my mother with all my heart, beyond measure. With my father’s
unbearable actions, I did not love him any less. He was suffocating. He was too much, too
much, that I could not even tolerate. But that night, I was desperate to protect my father from
that cryptic man. My aim was fixed on him. It all happened in just the blink of an eye. It was
an accident. A man was trying to hurt him. The realization drowned me in guilt and remorse.
It was too late to realize that the man was only a manifestation of my father’s legacy. I
inherited his traits, his demons.

What has become of me? A reflection of my father's legacy, a prisoner of my own bloodline.