CHAPTER 1

'Craaaaaaasssshhhh'. The sound echoed all through the entire house in the dead of the night. My father was having another fit this night and as usual,every piece of China ware and every breakables in the house suffered the abuse. He eventually replaced them anyways so it always gave him something to use as a stress reliever. I never understood why he threw those things whenever he was experiencing one of his 'moods'. Maybe the sound it made while hitting the wall was soothing to him or rather the feeling of being able to break something made him appear stronger than he felt.

With everything my father had gone through,he never resulted to alcohol. He simply came back home from work,screamed his head off and threw pieces of breakables across the room and eventually slept off,woke up the next day and repeated the same cycle. Whenever he slept,Dani always went to sweep the pieces of broken glass to avoid him stepping on the broken pieces. My father's awkward behaviour really scared us in the beginning but at this point,we were used to it. When it started newly, immediately after mummy left, Damon would always cry at every outburst. We did hush him so daddy wouldn't hear him crying so he resulted to silent tears and whimpers. Dante never cried though but he would always be teary-eyed and made small sob-like sounds but he never failed to always console Damon every single time. Dominic on the other hand, appeared indifferent to the entire situation at a point he looked as if he was dissociating. He never reacted,never said anything,never made a sound. He spent even more time on his phone,texting or even scrolling online. It was like he wasn't even aware of his surroundings. It even looked like he was in denial of the whole thing and never for once thought of it or allowed it to affect him.

Dani became a new mother to us. Infact she really took on the role devotedly and dedicatedly. She made the meals regularly. She never missed for once. She forced us to do our laundry and she did daddy's laundry herself. She even made us take turns in cleaning the house. I don't know how we would have managed without Dani. She never for once showed any form of weakness,kept a smiling face and never for once talked about mummy. None of us ever brought up mummy's name anymore. Mentioning her became a somewhat taboo between us. None of us said anything concerning her or the fact that she left her five children and suddenly disappeared with just a letter addressing my father that she was tired of being a mother and a wife.

To say that was weird and bizarre was an understatement but the letter was the only thing my father got. It threw him into an emotional wreck,the tantrums,the breakables,the rage,the detachment. We never got to see daddy smile anymore. He never made jokes with us,never asked about us except whenever we really needed something and Dani was the one who asked for us anyway. It's like we lost our father too in the process and it tore our family apart.

Daddy tried to look for mummy. He tried locating her,all to no avail. Mummy didn't have any living relatives that Daddy could contact anymore so he was really helpless in that situation. He tried so hard to accept the fact that she was gone and there was nothing he nor anyone could do about it. There was a limit to what a man could take. Abandoning a whole family of five children for him to take care with nothing as much as a single letter was emotionally wrenching and I knew daddy was pushed to the point of almost ending his life if not for the fact that he had responsibilities to fulfil and care of.

On this particular night,as soon as the glass landed on the wall,I shuddered at the thought that my father was having one of his episodes again. He hasn't had the episodes for close to three months after continuously having them for almost five years after my mother's disappearance. After these three months,we were all hoping he was finally getting better and that the episodes had stopped but this particular night had us all shook. It was heart-rending, seeing and hearing your father that was once the light of the family,behave continuously in an asinine manner and there was nothing we could actually do for him.

Shortly after the first glass hit the wall,Damon ran into my room,his face full of tears. I was astounded. Damon never came to my room much. He was much closer to Dani and Dante. I thought he even feared me to an extent or maybe he saw me as someone who was unreachable.

So why was he here? Where was Dani? Why was he not with Dani?. I continue to watch Damon run up to my bed,my face contorting with worry as soon as I noticed he was crying, his face was all messed up and tears were streaming down his young face. His eyes that had a shade of light blue,now looked deep blue due to his eyes filled to the brim with more fresh tears that threatened to drop even more and soil his face.

"Drew, Daddy threw the glass at Dani"...Damon said,almost out of breath. My eyes increased thrice it's original size and my stomach dropped.

My voice shaky,I said, "W-What..?!"

Damon,still sobbing and tears gushing down his face in massive torrents,continued.."Dani went to give daddy his dinner as usual,Daddy just came back from work,Daddy threw the glass at Dani"... Even without Damon arranging his sentences in a coherent manner,I had already pictured exactly what he was saying.

I stood up abruptly,like someone being haunted by a ghost,the effect of what Damon said automatically created a reaction that I didn't even know when I sprang out in a run and got to my father's room.

Daddy was shaking like a dry leaf hanging on the tree during harmattan, so much that he almost looked like he was about to pass out. Dani lay on the floor, bleeding massively, looking like she was unconscious. The side of her head specifically around her temple had been grazed and there was a massive pool of blood as Dani lay unconscious on the floor. In a frantic haste,I dialled the police immediately as that was the first thing that came to my mind. Damon was weeping profusely, Daddy was still shaking and I couldn't even process my thoughts.

Shortly,the ambulance came immediately and took Dani to the hospital. I entered the van to be with her. I told Dante to look after Damon, Dominic was nowhere to be seen at all. Even in the entire ruckus,he stayed and never moved from his room.

I stayed with Dani throughout the night. The doctors were able to stop the bleeding and they fixed Dani up and had her head bandaged. I was able to see her after everything and stayed with her in the hospital throughout the night. The doctors assured me that it wasn't a very serious injury and that she would be able to go home the next day.

Relieved, I took to time to call Dante to ask him how everybody was. Dante told me Daddy never left his room after the incident and Damon found it very difficult to sleep that day. As expected, Dominic stayed in his room throughout and never even came out for once. I was at least relieved that everyone was okay.

Early the next day,Dani finally woke up. She looked around, kind of confused as to where she was.

"Drew,where are we?"... She was looking around, frantically touching the bandages on her head.

"Drew,can I have water? I am very thirsty"... I rushed to her and gave her water immediately to drink. She gulped down the whole water in the cup,making that deep sounds you make when you drink water after a very long time of being thirsty.

"Daddy hit you with the glass when you wanted to serve him his dinner last night".. I told her."You lost consciousness so we are at the hospital to get you fixed".

She looked at me ,wide-eyed,unable to utter any words..

"I see you are awake,my dear,how do you feel?".. the nurse came in and asked Dani.

"My head is seriously pounding,like I can hear the beatings in my eardrums ".. She said.

The nurse gave her two tablets of drugs to drink and then said to me.."Make sure you get her to eat as soon as possible. The doctor will come soon and then she will be discharged". The nurse seemed very kind and smiled very lightly at us before leaving the room.

"Drew,please don't do or say anything to him".

I turned to look at her,my eyes turning red with fury. Did she just insinuate that I let my father go scot-free without even saying anything to him? For almost killing the only person gluing our family together at this point?

"If you think I will let him go without making his life a living hell for this,then,I am afraid,all these 24 years we have been together as siblings,you don't know me enough".. I almost shouted.

"HE ALMOST KILLED YOU, FOR WHAT..!!!??? BECAUSE HIS STUPID WIFE LEFT?!! WHY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO SUFFER BECAUSE HE MARRIED A VERY WICKED WOMAN THAT HAD TO LEAVE HIM PROBABLY OFF TO BE WITH ANOTHER MAN?!"

I took deep breaths to calm myself down because we were in a hospital and I couldn't afford to make other patients in the hospital uncomfortable.

Dani looked at me with eyes filled with sadness and intense pain, she wanted to say something but she couldn't mouth the words. We were interrupted by the doctor who entered immediately.

The doctor came in, did his work and discharged Dani. We called an uber to take us directly home.

As we were approaching home, Dani turn a tearful eye to me and said.."Drew please..Don't say anything to him,let it go"

I looked at her and said nothing,still contemplating what to do and how to go about the situation. I couldn't just forget the fact that my stupid, incompetent father,almost killed the one person keeping us from falling apart because of his inability to get himself together for five years.

Immediately the uber dropped us infront of our house,Damon ran to us shouting so happily and flung his small body towards Dani. He was so happy that I could feel the joy emanating and radiating from him. He eventually started sobbing while Dani patted his back gently.

Next,Dante came and gave Dani a big wholesome hug. He too was slightly shaking. As they parted,Dominic came forward as well. For someone who always had a very stoic expression whenever he was around anyone surprisingly, even looked like he had been crying.

"Your bandages are stylish though," Dominic said, trying to sound lighthearted.

"Come here you fool," Dani gave him a very massive hug.

"I am so glad you are okay," Dominic breathed.

"Yeah,I know Dom,I know. I am so sorry for making you all worried," Dani said.

They all started heading into the house. Damon clung to Dani like his life depended on her,like if he held her any less tighter,she was going to disappear.

I was equally heading back with them when Dominic stopped walking and held me back looking seriously into my eyes. Dominic was now much taller than I was,even though we had a whole seven year gap between us, I had look up at him with much fierceness in my eyes as I could muster inorder to maintain some sort of dominance over him, irrespective of the height difference.

"Don't say anything to him,he's not in his right senses. He didn't do it purposely,"

I looked at him,the anger of what happened,fresh in my memory,the words I uttered next coming out of my mouth like hot acid,sounding worse than I intended it to.

"Why are you all defending him? What if he killed Dani? Will you still stand here and say the same thing you just said to me now?. Dom,let go of me before I break your arm and I mean it literally!"

I pushed his arm off aggressively and continued walking back into the house. I knew my brother was hurt by my actions but the hatred that was burning in my heart towards my father, didn't even leave me room to consider Dominic's feelings and emotions in the matter.

I got into the house,it was as if my siblings were all waiting for my next action. I glanced briefly at them and then advanced towards my father's room.