Beatriz Quiroz - Impasse

I never thought I'd actually have to testify against my father in court. He loved me unconditionally and never let me down. I was his 'prized possession'. He would braid my long, copper colored hair and would tuck me into bed. His blonde hair and blue eyes made me think he could have been a movie star. Marilyn Monroe would have happily sang him happy birthday in her sultry voice if she had ever met him. His sharp facial features attracted many women and I could never keep track of them. I could usually hear him go insane when the girls did something he didn't approve of. Whether it was put on a dress too short or heels too high, his temper was always extreme. I'd hear the shattering of glass mixed with the muffled screams of the girls. I never actually saw him kill any of the women he brought home. I mean, I did see the blood stains in places and how our car would start up at midnight and he wouldn't come back until midday. My nanny, an old woman named Jane, would come into my room and pray the rosary quickly while she thought I slept. I was alert and surprisingly not terrified of my father. I don't think he could ever hurt me the way he hurt those women. I was absolutely right. In my 24 years of living he never laid a hand on me. He always showed up to my ballet rehearsals, my little league games, and even went to the play I was only an extra in. He cried at my  elementary, high school, and college graduations. He cut my hair for me and held me as I cried when John broke up with me in 8th grade. He let me sleep in his bed for a week when I watched the Exorcist.  His blue eyes showed how much he loved me when I presented him with a bouquet of flowers on Mother's Day. The way he shed a tear on my prom night and whispered that he loved me more than the moon and the sun. So as I take these slow sips of my rodenticide laced green tea occasionally, I lay on my fathers queen sized bed and hold his favorite shirt tightly. I never saw the monster they said he was. How he murdered 60 women in a course of 20 years. The way most bodies were found in an old cabin deep in the bowels of a forest. I don't want to think about it anymore, so I  close my eyes, clutch the only thing I have left of my father, and drift off into an alternate universe in which my father hadn't killed my mother or anybody and he wasn't on death row.