“So, you think you’ll memorize properly next time?” “Yes!” I plead to my mother with my eyes. Why aren’t you raising your voice or your hand to protect me? Why are you just standing there next to him? What could possibly be holding her back? Was she afraid of him? She had asked him to come over. Was she partly to blame? In the moment, I cannot accept that the only parent I know would willingly give me up to be bound and beaten. He is the evil one, not my mother. That had to be the truth. So why, then, had she phoned him and asked him to come over? Why?
