2 Chapter 1: Goodbye (Josephs POV)

I woke feeling tired, I just wanted to sleep a little bit more. I knew what the day was, I felt terrible about it everyday for the last couple of months. It was my 18th birthday, and legally in our division we were allowed to kick out our kids at that age.

My father hated me, I wish I could say I didn't blame him and say it was all my fault my I could not bring myself to it. He beat my mother nearly every day and he beat my little sister as well. I hated living with him but there really was nowhere else to go.

But I had been smart, I had been working for nearly 4 years now. I saved up a large sum of money working at a bar in the back. Normally it should be illegal but I was not selling the alcohol. The guy at the front was good friends with my uncle, he died a couple years ago and no one really knows the reason.

His large sum of money got sent to my father and not my mother even though it was his sister. My brother went to that bar very often that I worked at, he talked a lot of trash to the owner. But he knew that none of what he said was true.

They were low on funds now, my father drank a lot, sent a bunch of money on girls, he went around cheating on my mother a lot. I could not say I was sad about leaving them. I was more sad for my mother for still living with him and being married.

My mother wanted a divorce but it was illegal for her unless the man consented. So she had been stuck with him while he beat her every day after she got home. My father always beat me until about 2 years ago when I fought back and hurt him pretty bad.

I just felt bad about my mother and my sister, especially my sister, it was a hard world for a woman to live in, she was not allowed to work at many places and she basically had to get by with what their husband gave them.

My father had bought a huge house and spent so much money he complained about it and he never worked. I was just tired of it and I was ready to leave, I'm sure he was ready for that as well. I personally was afraid to be out on my own, I wasn't ready for it... No one had taught me anything about it.

My father had tried to steal some of the money I had a couple of times. I put the money into a large safe an my bank, I was ready to go over there and get it from there. It was a safe bank, a lot of people went to bad banks for investing and the bank got shut down.

My bank had been there for hundreds of years, I had not done it for investing but only really to save funds. The owner at my bar I worked at knew I was moving and he said I was still free to work there he would pay for the horse rides over to work and give me a bit of a raise.

I was thankful to him, the people that came into the inn were regulars, there really often wasn't very many new people but the owner easily got by and he had some cash to spare for himself, he was the one that told me which bank to deposit my money in, in the first place.

I was probably going to work there the rest of my life, I could get a job on construction maybe but I was a bit scared of heights and having stuff fall on me. The owner did not have a wife or children he told me when he died he would pass the torch over to me like his father did to him.

He was like a father to me, he was always close friends with my uncle, and he knew how my father was. I missed my uncle, I was really young but he was always nice and caring to me. He always told me that after he got out of the militia he would get my mother divorced from my father.

That wasn't how things had worked out however. He got enlisted as one of the main roles in the military and they had gone over to other places and taken over them. He did not like the job, but it payed well and he always sent letter to my mother.

Then one day, my mother randomly got a letter telling her that my father had been murdered at night and all of the money was going over to her husband. He had not spent it well, it was enough to get a whole family by through a life time.

He had already used nearly half of it and it had only been about 3 or 4 years since he had received it. I could not say that I hated my father, I guess I could say that I did not understand him. He used to not be so bad but my mother told me he had mental issues and his father used to beat him.

That was probably were he got it from. When I was really young nearly 5 years old my sister was born my father was always happy and he worked at a good place making a solid amount of money. It had all gone downhill since then as he liked to always tell my mother.

I told her when I got enough money for them they could come live with me, the owner of the bar I worked at, Jim, was giving me a 25% raise. I would have enough money to get by and then some. She told me just to take my sister though, she was going to try and make my father better.

She had been trying to do that for years though... It had not worked so well so far. He continued to beat her and he did not listen to anything she told him, he called her names and said "women don't know how to live in a mans world" Sometimes I would want to tell him that she knew more than him but I knew that that would make him more upset and beat her even worse.

I got up from my bed, my father was still asleep and I assumed that my sister was helping my mother with stuff in the kitchen like she usually did in the morning. I had the day off because Jim knew that I was turning 18 today and he knew what was going to happen.

He gave me time off and said he would pay me for the day, I thanked him for that, he did not need to be so kind but he always was to me. My life was basically straight at this point and I knew what I was going to do with my future.

I would miss my mother and my sister Maria. I went opened the door to my room and then went downstairs. It was a very large house, not quiet a mansion but it had 6 rooms and only 4 of them were being used. Of course he put my room the furthest back from his the day after I had fought back.

I began walking downstairs, not surprisingly my mother was in the kitchen not too far away from where I was at right now. My sister was mopping the floor and smiling like she usually did, she always would even though she knew that the life she lived in was bad.

It could be worse my mother always told me. At least we had a place to live in, fair enough I suppose. I was just happy and ready to leave but I was still afraid. Jim told me I could sleep in one of the rooms at the inn for free til I could fend for myself.

But I knew all 4 of those rooms were always full and he got a solid amount of money from them. I was just going to live in a small little place not too far away so I could go to work and me with my mother and sister at the same time.

Where we lived at right now was less than a block away but where I was moving to would be about a mile away and it would be a bit of a walk for me to just walk there everyday.

Cabs went through pretty often so I would wait for one to take me to the bar. Once I was 21 I could work up front but I liked my job in the back because I really did not like talking to other people.

We had 3 people that worked at the front in different days and different times usually on an 8 hour schedule. There was a younger lady that worked in the back that was always friendly to me. She was about 20 I was tempted to ask her out a few times but I always told myself that I was underaged.

Now that I was 18 I figured some time soon that I would try to shoot my shot. I knew that she was not married and she was good looking, 1 of the guys at the front flirted with her a lot, and so did a couple of guys that regularly came in. I thought it was a bit strange because they were all older.

"Hey Maria!" I said to my sister as I walked into the room. She smiled at me and then gave me a big hug. I loved my sister so much and I knew she looked up to me.

"Hey Joseph! Im going to miss you, mother is about make a nice breakfast meal for you." She said to me. I smiled and then I nodded to her saying that I understood. I knew that they were not going to want me to leave right away. So I walked closer to my mother.

Her eyes for a bit red basically telling me that she was trying to hold out all of her tears. I knew how much she cared about me and my sister. She always wished as the best and always gave us good advice.

"Come her mom... I love you..." I said to her. I came and and hugged her very tightly and she then kissed me on my cheeks. I sat down at the table and let them finish of what they were doing, my sister was mopping the floor in the kitchen and living and my mother had just put something in the oven.

"What are you making?" I asked my mom. She pulled something else out of the oven and then she looked over to me and smiled.

"I'm making some ham, some potatoes, some rice and some cranberries for my little boy." She said to me. I grunted and then smiled back at her. She knew that it annoyed me when she called me a little boy. That's also what my father called me but he did not mean it in the friendly way that she did.

"That sounds nice... I can't wait..." I said to her. Ham and potatoes were my favorite especially when she put her homemade gravy all over it. I sat down and looked outside through the window.

We lived in downtown, it was a very large window in the room, taking out nearly the entire wall, someone had thrown a rock at it a few years ago.

My father had been upset for so many days and he took it out on my mother as if it were her fault. It had cost him quiet a bit for him to fix up the window, before it had been colored and you could not really see through it. It had been a picture of Jesus and his mother right as he had been born.

Now all it was, was a glass wall that you could see people through. I had seen a couple of people staring through it a couple of times. They were probably jealous about were we lived, they probably did not know the lifestyle that we had.

My father I thought about him upstairs, wether or not I should say goodbye to him. I figured that I probably should even though he probably would not say it back to me. He had changed so much and definitely not for the better, which was everyone's goal in the end.

There were people walking down the streets but not as much around the time it got dark when people got off of work. The streets were filled up during that time, it was for the better that we lived downtown thought.

You would think it would be loud with all of the people going down streets but it was not all that bad, the house had been made very well. It was also safe from being robbed with my sister being at the house a lot and it being in the middle of a big city.

The city was not as big as one of the cities that I had been to with my father a few years ago. Nowadays we did not really go outside and go on vacations very often anymore. It also took a while to get there and back.

It seemed like that vacation was around the time that things had really gotten very bad. My mother and father had gotten in a fight and he had hit her, he had told her he was sorry but after that he had done it nearly what seemed like everyday since then.

My mother yelled over to my sister she had just finished mopping around the house. She walked through from the other room and then put the mop down in one of the closets.

My mother and sister put all of the food down at the table and then they took their seat down at the table. My sister was smiling and my mother who had looked as if she was crying earlier looked a lot happier now.

"Maria, you say the blessing for your brother." My mother said to my sister. My sister nodded and then she leaned back in the chair. I closed my eyes and then lowered my head for the blessing.

"Dear Heavenly father, we bless this food that it shall nourish our bodies and we thank the animals for giving us this wonderful meal that our mother has made for us." My sister started, she started as the way she always started when it was her turn to say the blessing. Our father was hardly ever there for the meals and when he was we didn't say a blessing.

"Bless my brother Joseph that he will have good luck and he will work hard for the next stage of his life... We say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ amen." My sister said. Then we got up and I began filling my plate up with everything, I grabbed some green beans as well so that I could stay healthy.

My mother always told me that I would not want to be fat. I could not do anything, run, or work. I knew that she was right but it still kind of scared me so I did not eat as much as I did a few years ago.

I began eating, the meal was so delicious, I waited till I was finished with my first couple of bites and then I thanked my mother. She nodded to me and then smiled to thank my appreciation.

Once I was finished with it, I got some cake and a bit more potatoes for my desert as my last part of my meal. The cake was fantastic as well.

I sat down for a few moments just thinking about how good my mother was at cooking, my dad would always say that was the only thing that women were good for, I thought it was a bit messed up but it seemed that most of the people at the bar agreed with him on it.

Once everyone was all done we put the rest in a little bin of storage for whenever my father woke up and decided that he was hungry and then I helped my mother was all of the dishes.

Normally I would not but there were a lot of plates and other things we had used to eat all of it. My mother nodded to me once we were done and then she smiled at me.

She then looked a bit sadly which I was a bit surprised of but I sort of suspected what it was. I knew that she was going to miss having me around, same for my sister as she almost looked like she was going to start crying. I figured if things got too rough I could take them both in.

Financially things could get a bit dicey but I think we could make it by and my mother and sister could both get cheaper jobs, my sister was about to turn 14.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, I already knew what the answer was going to be but I still figured that I would ask her anyways. She looked at the ground for a little while until she felt like it was safe for her to respond to my question.

"I'm just going to miss you... Thing's are going to be a lot harder with you not around... Promise me that if things get to hard you will take your sister..." She said to me. I looked at her a bit sadly, I knew that I stood up for them all of the time and always made my father stop. It wasn't going to be like that anymore, he would have free rain on basically everything now.

"I promise..." I said to her. My sister began to cry and my mother moved her over and gave her a hug as my sister then wiped the tears from her face. "I'm going to go upstairs and so goodbye to David..."

My mother looked a bit scared now but I just shook my head as if it was my way of saying that I would be perfectly fine. Me and my father seemed to disagree and get in fights a lot but I still cared about him, or at least who he used to be.

"Are you sure? I don't want him to get mad that you are leaving our anything." My mother said to me. I just nodded and we sat back in silence for a little while before I finally got up from the table.

"Yes... He is my father, he was going to kick me out anyways..." I said to her. She nodded and then I began walking over to the room that he slept in apart from my mothers room that was right beside his.

I knocked on the door, and he slurred something that sounded like a what but I could not tell because he had been so drunk last night and I probably had just woken him up.

I walked into the room anyways and it smelt disgusting. It had not been cleaned in such a long time, my father used to make my sister clean it into she had found some things in there that he had probably not wanted her too see.

"I just wanted to say... Even though we fight a lot... I still love you, and I will miss you. Goodbye dad..." I said to him. He looked down at the ground after he got out of the bed. He looked a bit sad which was something I had not seen from him in a while. But he got up and he just nodded to me.

"Well... Goodbye..."