The Night I Lost My Father

I never imagined I’d become the little red riding hood

Photo by Vin Jack on Unsplash

Content warning: Domestic Violence

I am scared. Clutching tightly to my mom. We make ourselves as small as possible in the laundry room that doubles as a pantry. My mom’s arms are wrapped around my red, zip-up hoodie, a Christmas gift from an aunt. It’s one of my favorite sweaters as it was Ralph Lauren, a bougie white brand that any of my high school classmates would’ve wanted back then. Truly a shame that I was wearing that hoodie that night.

My mom and I are trembling in fear.

There is a bulk-size bottle of olive oil from Costco that sits outside the storage closet door. The door doesn’t fully shut; the closet is stuffed to the brim with groceries and household supplies. My immigrant parents bulk buy from a warehouse as if an apocalypse is looming at any second. The contents of the cabinet could feed a hungry family for months.

My dad’s face is full of rage. There is spittle flying everywhere from his screams. He is angry and wants us to know it.

A few moments before, I was running frantically around the first floor of our house. Slipping and sliding on the hardwood because I was wearing socks to warm my cold feet. Also, because terror compromised my coordination, and I wasn’t the same girl who used to do gymnastics, swim laps, or play tennis. I was a wounded animal being hunted. I may not have had physical injuries, but my body was broken, nonetheless. Behind me, I saw my dad stalking after me, all in slow motion. He was my own personal Freddy Krueger. His eyes bulged out from their sockets, and there was a part of me pretending that this was just a nightmare. I would wake up eventually. Drenched in sweat, tears tickling my itchy neck, but alive.

But this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a night terror. I wasn’t hallucinating. It was my reality, and I was running for my life. I was running away from my own father who was chasing after me while gripping a kitchen knife in his right hand. It was a big knife. The knife my mom used to cut hard food like watermelon or unyielding kabocha squash. My dad didn’t need to tell me that he was about to slice me open. I knew what his intentions were because I could feel his wrath in the air, and that knowledge permeated me to the bone.

As a desperate attempt to save myself, I tried to quickly open up the windows on the first floor. I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t sprint up the stairs and get myself trapped on the second floor. I’d seen enough horror movies. Instead, I ran around in circles, as I tried to pry open the windows with my shaky hands. The windows that lead to the backyard, the windows of our family room, the windows next to the front door that were supposed to welcome in friendly neighbors, not imprison me inside the home. I screamed, “Help! Help!” as I ran. There was a part of me that felt this was performative. I was play-acting. I wasn’t actually in danger. This was just my life, and I should have gotten used to it. Come on girl, this is your reality. Has been for years now. Accept it, accept it because nothing will change. It’ll make things easier for you. But I continued to scream for help as I clumsily tore open as many of the windows as possible.

My mom ran after me, both to protect me from my dad, but also to close any windows I had managed to slide open. Choose a side, mom. You can’t be both protector of your hunted daughter and enabler of said hunter.

Maybe she begged and pleaded with my father to stop. Did she grab the knife from him? Or did my dad’s last remaining ounce of sanity lead him to throw away the weapon as a show of mercy? Either way, he was no longer holding the knife, but his face was still contorted like the devil’s. Despite my cries for help, there were no neighbors nor cops banging at our front door. But I was temporarily safe as my dad’s hand was no longer accessorized by the knife. I breathed a sigh of pathetic relief knowing that I wouldn’t be chopped to pieces that night.

But the relief was short-lived as he made use of his empty hands. He was yelling unintelligible threats as he lunged at me and gathered his clawed hands around my neck, making wringing motions while his nostrils flared up in hatred. I couldn’t tell if he was actually choking me or pretending to. He was play-acting, too. He was frustrated, but I didn’t know why. Maybe he was frustrated at his animalistic anger. Maybe he was frustrated because he couldn’t get himself to kill me. Maybe he was frustrated because I’d been painting him to be some kind of monster. I didn’t know. I still don’t know now. I just know he was frustrated. His frustration, seeping through his tightly clenched jaw. So much tension in his mouth that it was curious how he hadn’t managed to crack open any of his teeth.

His arms dropped, and my neck was released free. I guess he hadn’t choked me after all because my neck wasn’t sore, and I could still swallow my saliva down without feeling any pain. I had survived again. Tonight, I will not die of suffocation. Whew.

This is my chance to run away. I open the door to the laundry room. All I have to do is get past the washing machine, open the door to the garage, click open the garage door and run. But I don’t. Or I can’t. Instead, I’m scared. Clutching tightly to my mom as she follows me inside, and we make ourselves as small as possible in the laundry room that doubles as a pantry. My mom’s arms are wrapped around my red, zip-up hoodie. My mom and I are trembling in fear.

My dad continues to shout, and his screams are rapid, tumbling out from his larynx into my ears. He’s moving wildly, with accelerating speed, while I’m stuck and my legs are frozen. My mom’s gripping my arms with whatever strength she has left, but I don’t feel consoled. I feel trapped. I need to run. I need to get out of this house so I can survive another night.

“I’m gonna kill you!” he screams. “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna burn you alive, you bitches!” His red, bloodshot eyes foreshadowing the fire he’s about to start.

He twitches as he scans the room. He looks so deranged that if I wasn’t scared for my life, I’d call 911 to get him help. He needs help. We need help. But instead of getting help, he sees the bottle of olive oil and snatches it off the floor. The lid of the bottle flies off, and my dad starts maniacally spilling oil around me and my mom. I’m shivering. I might be wailing. I think I’m crying. My mom is screaming. He then shakes the bottle toward me and my mom, and our bodies are marinated with cooking oil. My dad is hungry, and my red hoodie is drenched in grease. No one told me I’d be served for dinner tonight. I didn’t expect to die like this: cooked alive.

“You bitches are gonna die!”

I’m little red riding hood, and my dad is the Big Bad Wolf. My mom the useless character who urged her daughter to go deep into the woods to feed the wolf, gifting him with a generous basket of goodies. I’m about to be swallowed whole.

Thank god he didn’t have matches on him.

I didn’t die that night. Obviously.

But my dad did. I lost my father that night.

Funny thing, estrangement. We assume estrangement means that someone, one day, decides to never talk to someone else again. We assume that it was a singular, firm decision made, and that’s that. That once someone decides to be estranged, the other person has absolutely no power over them, and the separation is complete. But that’s not true. Estrangement is a process. Estrangement isn’t linear. Estrangement can take time. There are different kinds of estrangement: physical, emotional, spiritual…etc. Sometimes estrangement isn’t even an active, conscious choice.

I lost my dad multiple times in my life. I lost him when he told me I should become a prostitute because I was too stupid. I lost him when I saw him flip over the dining table because he hated my mom’s choice of banchan one evening. I lost him when I saw my mom crying at the top of the basement stairs, begging my dad to tell her who this mysterious number belonged to—Was he cheating on her? Why did this number keep popping up on our family plan’s Verizon bill? Did he think she wouldn’t find out? She’s the one who pays the bills!

Each time I lost him, my estrangement with him progressed. But this night, when he threatened my and my mother’s life, when he waved a knife at me, when he mimicked strangling me, when he threatened to burn me and my mother alive, my emotional estrangement from him was sealed. The nail on the father-daughter coffin? Sealed. Any emotional tie I had to him was flash fried in olive oil, and I lost my will to attempt to have a relationship with this monster.

I’d have to still live in the house with him because I was a minor, and I had no means to provide for myself. I’d have to “play nice” and act as if everything was okay, as if he were still my dad. I’d have to pass by him in the same living room where he wielded a knife in front of my face. I’d have to help my mom serve him his dinner while he relaxed in his basement. I’d have to celebrate my parents’ marriage anniversaries, buying them flowers, cards, chocolates. But I’d be play-acting, because I was estranged from this man, having watched him die right in front of my eyes.

Even though estrangement was the right thing for me, it continues to haunt me every day. Because every day, I have a funeral for this man. And mourning, grieving on a daily basis is agonizing work. It’s unbearable. No one is grieving with me because they don’t understand why I chose estrangement. They don’t understand why I consider him to be a dead man. I should just be the “better person,” be a “good” daughter, understand that it’s a part of his han—that he himself is a traumatized being and deserves grace.

It’s unbearable grieving for this man. This man who could’ve been a father. This man who could’ve been a protector. This man who could’ve made his family feel safe. This man who had infinite chances to do the right thing but never chose to.

So I chose estrangement.

I chose to lose my father that night.

Parker Jin (a pseudonym) is a Korean American mental health therapist living somewhere in the netherworld of the United States. She’s passionate about spreading awareness about Complex trauma/PTSD, learning more about humble and decolonized approaches to therapy, and helping others in their healing journey. She’s currently writing a memoir to share her own experiences with Complex PTSD. In her spare time, she likes to take naps where dreams blend between her unconscious and reality, reading, and cuddling with her menace of a rescue pup, who is the love of her life.