Kate Marigold sat on the edge of her bed thinking about him.  The man she called “dad” for sixteen years would be home soon and with that, she knew what was coming.  Ever since her mother died four years ago, the family dynamic had changed.  Initially, her father Jordan Marigold, comforted her every night for months after her mother passed away.  Over time, he became distant and dove into his work or spent time with his friends and associates while she waited at home.

One day, two and a half years after her mother’s burial, Jordan came home after a night with the “fellas” as he called them.  The smell of alcohol wafted from his clothes and seemed to ruin the immediate area.  He clambered up the stairs mumbling and bumping into everything around him.  On a few occasions, it sounded like he had fallen down completely, only to get back up and continue trudging toward the master bedroom.  She heard him as he made his way up the steps and came out to help him.  Her dad had been drunk many times after her mom died, but today seemed different.  She ran to his side and propped his arm around her shoulders for support.  She guided him as best as she could, but his large frame made walking difficult for them both.  She kicked open the bedroom door and pulled him in.

“Jesus dad, you stink!” She shouted as she plopped him into the bed.  The framework of the bed itself groaned loudly as it adjusted to Jordan’s weight.

She began to take off his dress shoes and socks as he propped himself up on his elbows.  Even though only the glimmer of moonlight entered the room, she felt his eyes on her.  “You’re a wonderful daughter,” he said, the strong odor of the alcohol hitting her in the face with the power of a punch.  “I know losing your mother was hard but its time that we move on now.”  She paused for a moment and thought, “two years is enough time to be over my mom’s death?”  After she removed the second sock she placed her father’s shoes next to the bed and began to leave.

In an instant he grabbed her hand.  Just moments ago, he was barely able to stand, now his grip is like a vice.  She pulled several times to break free, but the grip only tightened.  He said in a low stern voice “It’s time to move on now I said,” pulling her toward him, “your mother had certain responsibilities around this house and I’ll be damned if you’re not going to pick up from where she left off!”  He pulled her close as she began to kick and wrench her arm away from him.  He pushed himself off the bed with his free hand and then wrapped both arms around her.  His nose was merely centimeters away from her face.

“Don’t you love me?”  He said smoothly, the stagnant and stale smell of beer and mixed drinks forcing its way into Kate’s nostrils.

“Yes!” She screamed as tears began to erupt and flow down her face like waterfalls.  “Please dad, p-p-please just let me go!”

He smacked her across the face with the back of his hand hard and she fell to the bedroom floor.

“It’s time,” he said while unbuckling his belt, “that you take on a new role in this house child!”  His pants fell to the floor, exposing his erect penis.  He picked her up from the floor with ease and threw her on the bed face down.  He forced her head into the mattress with one hand while pulling roughly on her underwear with the other, the sound of the tearing of the fabric seemed to echo off the walls.  He was strong, but she already knew that.  The times of riding on his shoulders to the Perdition City Fair or to the zoo, the times that he would hold her tightly after her mother passed away, she felt in those days that her father’s strong arms could protect her from any harm.  However, in that moment, those arms and that strength were being used to shatter her childhood.

Once Kate’s underwear was ripped from her body and thrown to the side like trash, he entered her anal cavity.  She screamed louder than she ever screamed before mainly because she had never felt this type of pain before.  He began to thrust, roughly while making savage and animalistic noises.  As he continued, he pushed her head even further into the mattress to muffle her cries for help.  Kate’s mind wandered then, back to times when she would talk about sex with her friends at school.  She swore that when she lost her virginity it would be to a guy who truly loved her.  She imagined sex as a beautiful joining of two souls, sex was passion, sex was gentle, sex was beautiful.  This was not her reality.  Her first sexual experience was a violent and forceful act pushed upon her by her own father!  With the deed nearly done, Jordan punched her in the ribs with considerable force.  Her body clenched as a result, causing him to orgasm.  The final thrust was so deep and painful that Kate passed out.

She woke the next day in her own room.  A searing pain shot through her backside which caused her to wince as she sat upright.  She got out of the bed and approached her dresser with each step more painful than the last.  She propped herself up against the dresser and stared into the mirror.  For a moment, she could not recognize the person staring back at her.  Her hair was disheveled, dried tear streams covered her face like lines on a road map.  Her eyes were sunken in with no signs of happiness or innocence in them.  Her right side began to throb.  When she pulled up her shirt, she saw where her father had struck her during his climax.  A deep red, purple and black bruise covered her ribs.  She felt ashamed, she felt dirty, she felt sorrow.  Kate wanted, no; she NEEDED to take a shower.  She wanted to get the smell of her dad’s cologne and alcohol off her body.  She made her way slowly to the hallway bathroom.  As she opened her bedroom door, she smelled food cooking downstairs but paid it no mind.

It felt like hours to get to the bathroom because of the pain, but it was only a few minutes.  She closed the bathroom door behind her and locked it.  Getting undressed became more difficult than she initially thought.  Her entire body seemed to ache.  She was overcome with a sense of dizziness as she entered the shower.  Bracing herself against a shower wall, she turned on the water.  “Hot,” she thought, “I want to burn this stench off of me!”  As the water hit her face and traveled down her body, she felt her muscles relax.  She closed her eyes briefly to enjoy the moment.  She opened her eyes to watch the water and her troubles wash down the drain only to see the water turned red.  “Blood” She patted her rear end with a hand and then brought it up to her face.  Her fingers were covered in dried blood that was breaking lose in clumps due to the water.  She cried once again and sat in the tub clutching her knees to her chest.  Watching her blood circling the drain like an endless river of red.

When she gathered up enough courage to leave the bathroom, she did.  She put on some fresh pajamas and walked down the stairs.  The smell of the cooked food was stronger as she descended the steps, “What is that smell? Pancakes?”  She entered the kitchen to see her dad cooking with an apron and hat on.  He did not seem like the animalistic demon that attacked her last night, he was plain Jordan Marigold, her dad.  He looked at her briefly and paused.

“Breakfast!” He exclaimed, “Blueberry pancakes, bacon, eggs and a big glass of apple juice for my girl!”

She did not know what to say or do, Kate nodded slightly and approached the dining room table.  She almost thought that the entire incident was a very lucid dream until she sat down and felt a pang of discomfort on her backside.

Jordan laid a plate in front of her with all of her favorite breakfast meals.  After pouring her a large glass of apple juice, he sat down at the table across from her.  He smiled.  He began a conversation that Kate would never forget.

“Daddy did something terrible last night,” he said, “I cannot take back what has been done, but I can try to make it up to you.  Nothing I can say will make you feel better, believe me, I know, it’s just that I really miss your mom and you looked so much like her last night.”

Kate didn’t look up at her father as he spoke, she simply stared at her food, trying to hold back tears.

“See,” he continued, “I’m determined to make things right by you, but…….”  He stopped suddenly.

Kate looked up to see what was wrong, to see why he had stopped talking.  At that moment she realized that he stopped so that she would make eye contact with him.  He spoke again after gaining her attention.

“But to make things right, I’m going to need time.  If anyone found out about what I did, I could go to jail.  We don’t have any family that live anywhere near Perdition, you know that right?”  She nodded as he spoke, “we got to keep this between us.  Your friends won’t talk to you because they’ll know what you let me do.”

“What I LET him do?”  Hot blood shot through her body and her fists clenched.

“I am respected in this community sweetheart, and if something like this got out it could ruin us, both of us.  If you love me, you keep this between us ok?”

Even though telling someone is the right thing to do, she did not know how her friends would react to something like this.  Would they understand or would they treat her like some type of slut?  Besides, who would believe her?  Her father had plenty of friends and as he said, he was respected among many people in the city.  She could not take that chance.  She spoke three words “I won’t tell.”

Jordan Marigold smiled from ear to ear and approached her.  He patted her on the head with a heavy hand and kissed her on the forehead.  “We’ll get passed this, you’ll see.”

Unfortunately, they did not get past it.  Although that day two and a half years ago was the first time that her father raped her at the age of fourteen, it was not the last.  On days when things went well for her father, the attacks were mild, he would mount her and have his way.  On bad days, he was violent, leaving bruises and pain in his wake.  She stopped crying during each incident to the point where she believed she had no tears left to shed.

There she sat, on the edge of her bed.  Her father had called her a half hour ago and told her to “wash up”.  His secret sign that he had a good day and was coming home soon to have “quality time” with his daughter.  She couldn’t go through it anymore.  She could not stomach the thought of him touching her, kissing, penetrating any orifice that he saw fit.  The only man that she had intercourse with was her FATHER!  She poured a mountain of pills in her hand.  She knew her best friend Angelique’s mom was an addict and that Angelique stole drugs from her mother constantly to sell to older kids in school.  She thought about Angelique and the times they shared.  She confided in her one day about the rapes and was not judged by the actions as she feared.  Angelique held her like her father used to and although she urged Kate to tell police, she swore to keep the revelation secret.  When she asked Angelique to get her an unspecified number of meds, Angelique became worried, thinking that Kate would take the pills herself.  Kate of course, gave a story about using the pills to get revenge on her father.  Angelique loved the idea and really wanted to help, but Kate declined.

Kate hated lying to her friend, but she had a plan for the pills for weeks now and if her friends knew her true intentions, they would do everything in their power to stop her.  As she held the pills in her hand, she was surprised by the weight.  She dropped the empty bottle which contained the drugs on the floor.  The bottle made no sound as it hit the carpet.  She thought to herself “That’s how I need go….quietly.”  She placed the pills in her mouth and laid back in her bed, crunching and chewing on them as calmly as she could.  She held a small white tube in her hands and stared at it until her eyelids got heavy.

“I can’t let him ruin our lives.”  She said softly as a single tear trickled down her face.  Kate Marigold was dead thirty minutes later at the age of sixteen.

Angelique discovered her body a few hours later.  It was Sunday afternoon and she knew that Kate did not go to “work” with her dad on Sundays.  After knocking on the front door for what seemed like hours, she used the spare key Kate kept under a false rock to enter the home.  At first, when she saw Kate in the bed, she thought she was asleep but after shaking and rocking her for over five minutes, she knew what had taken place.  The police were contacted instantly and responded to a scene of Angelique Beaumont sitting in the bed holding Kate Marigold like a baby.  A single white tube laid at the foot of the bed.

Two hours later Perdition Police Department’s Investigators Rose O’hara and Scott Baskins entered the “Greatest New Hope Baptist Church” with heavy hearts.  The pastor was finishing his Sunday sermon while they waited just off the stage.  O’hara approached him and provided a proper greeting.  After identifying themselves, they spoke with him in private.

“Pastor Marigold,” she said with a somber voice “I don’t quite know the proper way to say this but…” she paused and took a breath.  “Your daughter Kate was found deceased by a friend.”

“What?” he replied, tears welling in his eyes.  “Why? How? What happened?”

“It seems sir,” Baskins interjected, “that she committed suicide.  An empty pill bottle was on the floor and it corroborates her friend’s claim that she gave Kate a lot of pills for an unknown purpose.”

“My G-god,” He stammered as he sat down heavily at his desk.

“That’s not all Mr. Marigold,” her friend found her clutching a white tube.  It was a Ready-Test home kit from June’s Pharmacy.  Your daughter…..was pregnant.”