On Friday morning I woke up from a dream, which led my mind back to a time when I was 10 years old and my father had taken his girlfriend, my brother and me on a trip to Maine. We were all staying in a nice little cottage there by the sea. The cottage had just two bedrooms and a bed in the pull-out couch in the living room area. The first night, I had chosen one of the bedrooms to sleep in. My brother slept in the other bedroom, while my dad and his girlfriend slept in the bed in the living room. I remember I felt scared being alone in the bedroom, so the next day I asked my dad if I could sleep out in the living room. I felt scared and alone and that is the only reason I asked to change rooms. So, the next night my dad let me sleep in the living room; he and his girlfriend slept in the bedroom. I hadn’t understood they would leave the living room. That night, as I lay in the bed in the living room, I cried; I cried like a small child standing alone in a crowd after losing its parents. I wanted to go back into the bedroom again and my dad got angry at me. I didn’t want to be alone. All I knew was that I was scared and left on my own…and that is why I was crying – I didn’t have the solution.

After I had been crying for some time, my brother spoke from his bedroom to my dad “Dad, Lucia’s crying…” and I heard my father shout angrily in response “I really don’t give a shit!!” and I cried even more.

As I lay in bed recalling this moment on Friday, I felt that too-familiar scared loneliness again and I began crying – a 10-year old girl all my life, to this moment, and all the world, my father.

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