My Father's Mistress

I never knew how he could find her so attractive. How he could of left his wife and children for such a cold hearted object of desire. He gave his life to and for her and she never even glanced at the thought of his sacrifices. I never saw her as attractive, something worth leaving for or even something worth tormenting his family over.

 She was cheap and exposed herself as if her skin was made of glass for everyone to see her contents. Even when I see his mistress still today...so many years after my father gave his life for her, she struts her stuff acting as though nothing ever happened. His mistress sits quietly, displaying a angelic like demeanor, though if I pass by she seems to steer and mock me. I say nothing, though the heartbreak still exists, I say nothing. She would be the reason my mother was left to raise five children on her own, she is the reason why my mother bared such multiple shades of black and blues, she would be the reason why my mother worked two jobs so we wouldn't starve or be homeless.

 How could he have walked out on my mother, his wife, the person he took vows with. How could he leave her to face the world on her own. My mother knew about his secret love affair, she realized where all her hardworking money was being spent and eventually her committed love for him slowly died.  I could rant on and on about the reason I have come to blame his mistress. The reason I had no father growing up, his mistress was selfish and visits with him was based on her terms. The reason my brother had grown up so resentful of my mother, was she not women enough to hold on to him. No father figure for us, his mistress won him over, she gave him what he needed and he was entrapped with desire, that even the parts of him he let go so easily.

 Although I was young I was not naive, I could see right through her, when my father was broke he was no longer good for her and he knew it. He would beg, borrow and steal just to win her back. How he would spend what little money that was to be used for child support, strutting her around and showing her off at the local bars. But It was the excuses he made for her that made me lose my dignity for him. The lies he told, the denial of being with his mistress and the dignity I lost for myself every time I looked into his water logged and redden eyes. The thirst for her was strong and nothing would compare to her in my father's mind.  Her and her false promises of a future, of a long for filling life, of companionship...she is a liar.

 My father's mistress still makes promises to unsuspecting lost souls. Promises that she will be there for them, to some she may be irresistible, with her dark complexion, curves that would be glorious for someone to hold on to, and her long neck that was just made to have a set of lips to wrap around.  She is not stupid, she manipulates the poor minded to get what she wants, she offers freedom from trouble that may plague a individual, a cool drink of excitement for others. She is a master of fantasy for most, a time machine for a life of despair and a exit from reality. I had tried to challenge her in the past, to see what my father desired and so many wanted a taste of, but she made me nauseas to look at. I instead wanted to yell at her , to scream away the years of anger and frustration she inflicted. I wanted to call her a bitch and a thief of hearts, a cheap version of a real woman, a slut and a home wrecker, but the words couldn't come out. I so desperately wanted to break her, but I knew deep down inside it wouldn't work, if it wasn't her it would be another version of her to do the same to someone else.  I could of never of thought of her as a replacement as my father so easily did, she could have never replaced my mother and what she sacrificed for us. She could never replace the few last images and memories of my father before her. A tall elegant man, suave, vibrant , charismatic and proudly called "dad" by me. Instead she replace a former version of my life and my father with a delusional family, one filled with embarrassment, hardship and loneliness.  My father once called proudly, became a former shell of himself, she wore him down leaving him flustered, shaky and old. She weaved herself into his mind, once filled with brilliance, now filled with emptiness, and distant memory that she still won't own up to.

He was the blinded fool, he was my ill fated father. He gave his life and all his worldly possessions to his mistress.  He died alone without her beside him. She betrayed him and he still loved her up until the end. It was my mother and her children that cried as they lowered his body into the ground, and it was his mistress that did not attend the funeral service.  I thought to myself that the love of my father's life, must of felt badly, maybe that's why she wasn't there.  I then had to remind myself that his mistress was cold hearted, a tall drink of what my father perceived has desire, a devious substance without any remorse. No she didn't come that day, she sat there perched and waiting to become someone else's mistress and a home wrecker, she sat there perched her glass skin exposing herself for all to see, she sat there perched with her angelic like demeanor, she sat there perched on the cold shelf much like her heart, she sat there perched convenient to everyone, everywhere, she sat there perched on the local liquor store shelf.

 Veronica White

                                                                                                               

by ourana