Face to face

It was a cold and stormy September night, 14 year old Jillian Debero crouched low in her hiding place in the kitchen pantry. Her father, Roger Debero, was on a particularly brutal rampage that night. He always drank too much and got too rough with her and her mom but tonight was different, her mom was scared. Her father was yelling and breaking things, her mom, Noreen, told her to hide in the pantry and stay quiet. Little did Jillian know, those would be the last words her mother would ever say to her.

She heard glass break and her mother’s screams. Jillian thought about coming out of the pantry to try and help her mother, to get them to safety, but her legs wouldn’t budge. Just then she saw her mother fall to the floor right in front of the pantry door, her nose dripping with blood. Jillian was terrified but she decided that she had to act, she would just have to force her legs to move. Her mother must have known what she was thinking because Jillian saw her mom shake her head no, it was so subtle that she almost missed it.

The next thing Jillian saw was her father stand over her mother, he bent down, grabbed her arms and pulled her upright. Her mom was shaking and crying the whole time. Time seemed to slow down after that. From the crack in the pantry door, Jillian saw her father shove her mother against the kitchen counter, he called her a disappointment. He said she was a horrible wife and that he deserved better. He then grabbed the butcher’s knife and stabbed her in the gut. Jillian saw her mother fall to the floor again, this time oozing blood at an alarming rate. Her father again bent over her mother and said that now he could finally be happy.

Jillian sat frozen, she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run to her mom, but fear held her in place. Terrified that her father would remember that she was there and come after her too. Jillian looked at her mom once more and watched as she drew her last breath.

Jillian knew it was only a matter of time before her father found her, she had to get out, to get help. With tears streaming down her face, she tried to quietly open the pantry door. With a quick look around the room to make sure it was empty, she tiptoed over to where the phone was sitting on it’s receiver. Her hands were shaking as she made her way out the back door as quietly as she could and called the police.  

Her father was arrested and taken to jail for murdering her mother, and Jillian went to live with her aunt.

The trial was brutal, she had to tell her story, which meant reliving everything that happened that fateful night. In the end her father was sentenced to 20 years in prison, far too little if you ask Jillian, and she had to endure years of therapy and nightmares.  

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Jillian is now 25 years old and living on her own in a small one bedroom apartment. Her aunt, her mother’s sister, tried to make sure that Jillian had a quiet peaceful life since that terrible night. It was a huge decision for Jillian when she moved out, but both she and her aunt felt she could handle it.

Everything was fine until Jillian got a call informing her that her father was being released early. She couldn’t believe it, he had only served 11 out of his 20 year sentence. He should have spent the rest of his miserable life in prison.

Jillian tried to get a restraining order, but was denied. Her father had been deemed a “changed man” and the judge encouraged her to give him a chance.

Jillian heard a knock on the front door and stood frozen when she opened it.

“Hi honey,” Roger Debero says with a shy smile.

Jillian starts breathing heavy and blinking furiously as she stammers, “Wha...wha...what do, do y, you want?” 

“I came to see you, I want to make things right,” her father claims. 

Jillian finds her voice at that and exclaims, “Make things right? There is nothing you can say or do that will ever make up for what you did,” Jillian says, looking directly at her father.

“Please, honey,” Roger Debero says to his daughter.

“No,” Jillian shouts, interrupting anything her father might have been trying to say, then adds, “Do you have any idea what you did to me?”

“Jillian, I,” he starts. 

“You beat me and my mom every night and then you murdered my mother right in front of me! How could you possibly think that I would want anything to do with you?” She shouts.

“5 minutes, that’s all I ask, just 5 minutes and I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want,” Roger pleads with his daughter.

“I don’t need 5 minutes to decide that I never want to see you again. I made that decision a long time ago. You never should have gotten out of prison,” Jillian says through gritted teeth.

“The thought of what I did makes me sick, I wish I could change things,” Roger tries.

“Well you can’t, what’s done is done, and now I have to suffer the consequences,” Jillian retorts.

“I know I made mistakes,” her father says. 

“Mistakes? Is that what you call it?” She says laughing bitterly, then adds, “What you did was not a mistake. We tried to get you to stop drinking, you wouldn’t listen. I hate you, don’t you get that? I want you out of my life, I never want to see you again.” Jillian says forcibly.

Jillian hears her father say he’s sorry as she slams the door shut and turns the locks. She stands there for a while shaking. How could he think coming here was a good idea? Did he really expect her to forgive him? The longer she stands there the angrier she gets. She never wants to see that man again.

She makes her way back into the living room and tries to calm down, but instead finds herself pacing. She can’t sit down, she can’t relax, not after that encounter. What was he thinking? He had some nerve coming over after everything that he did.  

Jillian comes to a sudden stop when a disturbing thought enters her mind. She's had zero contact with him after his arrest so how had her father gotten her address? As that thought takes hold the shaking increases, she can't catch her breath. She's having a panic attack. Tears roll down her cheeks and she drops to the floor as images of seeing her father murder her mother come flooding back.  As abruptly as the panic set in, it vanished, and now she knew what she needed to do.

She stops and looks around the room. She likes this apartment, it's small and cozy and the first place she ever had to herself. It’s also not safe, he found out where she lives. With one last look around she sets to packing, she’s just going to have to move somewhere that she’ll never have to come face to face with that monster ever again.