Dad wakes me up in the middle of the night and slurring his words asks if I am hungry. I am not, but I nod nonetheless, glad that he wants to spend time with me. I’m so happy that I don’t complain about the sweet and sour smell of alcohol coming out of his body, travelling through my nose and burning my throat.
On tiptoes, I follow him to the kitchen, my legs feeling the cold of the night under my outgrown gown. Dad winks at me and covers his mouth with a shaky finger while he pulls from the fridge the marinated chicken for tomorrow’s dinner, turns on the stove and drops it in the pan, adding too much oil. I wonder if I should warn him, but then he plays a country song on his phone, and starts dancing like a clumsy cowboy, making me giggle.
He tickles me, twirls me around and then he lifts me on the kitchen counter and starts singing loudly in his broken English. I shush him, hoping that he won’t wake up Mom or the baby. But he doesn’t stop. Instead, he dances in circles while the pan catches on fire and the smoke of burnt chicken fills up my nostrils.
Before I can do anything, Mom runs into the kitchen. Her eyes travel from the flames to me and her hand finds a place on top of her heart. She curses in Spanish, and I gasp, because Mom never swears.
She turns off the stove and, grabbing the lid, covers the pan with it. Then, she throws the pan in the sink and faces Dad with fire in her eyes. “Do you want to burn this house? Do you want to kill us all?” she hisses. Dad dances toward her, trying to grab her, but she pushes him away and takes a step back, yelling, “Isn’t it enough that you’re killing yourself?”
Dad dances away from her, his glassy eyes cast down, and when he turns around, he catches me wide-eyed. He smiles a twisted smile, and his index finger goes up and down in circles around his temple, mocking Mom, who’s muffling her cries while the smoke alarm goes off, the loud beeps drowned by the sound of the screaming baby.
I close my eyes and cover my ears, wishing myself asleep, hoping that when I open them again, it would all have been a nightmare.
