Strong in the Broken Places by Quentin Vennie

Author:Quentin Vennie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2017-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Life at home with Tamia got more and more hectic. Our money issues exacerbated other things that had been lingering under the surface. We both loved Christian and wanted to be the best parents we could, but the strain between us was undeniable. We were both very young—I was only 23, Tamia was 21—as well as hotheaded and bull stubborn. In some ways we mirrored my parents’ relationship. There was never any violence, but our youth, inexperience, and competing desires just rippled into everything. They ate up the best of our intentions and eroded our genuine feelings. It reached a breaking point: For everyone’s sanity and livelihood, we agreed to separate.

The morning after we came to this decision, my father was at the house in an attempt to mediate the situation. Tamia was packing her things and told my father privately that I was “kicking her out.” My father came over to me while I was sitting in the living room.

“Quentin, I don’t know what—”

“You promised me we’d always be together,” Tamia yelled from the bedroom, “and you’d always be there for me!”

My father ran with it, suddenly a model dispenser of justice. “You’re supposed to be a man, son,” he said to me. “And you’re supposed to take care of your family no matter what! You can’t just kick this girl out; she’s telling me that—”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about!” I shot back. I was furious. Not just at how wrong the message was, but the gall of the messenger. “You got some nerve coming at me! You haven’t honored your commitment since I was seven years old.” I told him he was the last father in the world who could give out this kind of scolding.

He flipped, cut in the way that only the truth can cut you. “You’re not going to disrespect me; I’m still your father.”

“The fuck you are! You just some guy who had sex with my mother! You feel that strongly, you let her stay with you!”

He grabbed me and slammed me against the wall, and we started shoving and tussling until Tamia’s screaming made us stop. I stormed out of the house and went for a walk, my anger coursing through my blood, my adrenaline spiked for hours afterward. Once I’d calmed down, the tears flowed out of me, the frustration a palpable force. I closed the door again on my relationship with my father, tired of letting this man back into my life, sick of giving him a free pass to disappoint me again and again. The most infuriating part was that nothing had changed; he still didn’t know me at all.

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