The faint, distant wail of police sirens was a familiar lullaby in the grim reality of my childhood. My tiny fist, barely bigger than a pebble, hammered against the solid thigh of the man who terrorized our home, a futile effort against his immense, drunken frame.

"You shut up! Or I'm going f*ck you until you're dead!" His large hand clamped over my face, the stench of stale beer and malice filling my nostrils. Mother's pleas, choked with tears and desperation, echoed through the cramped room, 'No! Please, not her. Do whatever you want with me. Just don't touch my daughter.'

Her cries, her pathetic begging, fueled a cold, sharp blade of contempt in my heart. Why did she let him? Why did she accept this endless torment? The crimson smear on her lips, a brutal reward for her efforts to shield me, barely registered. I wasn't crying. I was watching. Watching them, watching the world, learning the bitter lessons of power and powerlessness. 'I feed both of you, I own both of you!' his roar reverberated, the same words that had scarred my young mind countless times. My mother tried, oh, she tried, absorbing every blow, every insult. But he wouldn't listen. He never listened.

And then he entered the room where he had thrown me, and in that moment, something inside my mother snapped, irrevocably.