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173 Bajo la Misma Luna (Under the Same Moon) elizabeth vargas My last memory of my dad is him sitting across from me in an orange suit in handcuffs with his head to the floor because he was too embarrassed to even look at me. We talked but I couldn’t hug him or touch him. There were two large tables in between us where we had to put our hands because if the guard saw you put your hands under the table they would kick you out. My dad was in jail after I had to call the police on him when he hit my mom. But right now the only thing that was running through my mind was the faded memory of when I was a child and I had eaten a bad McNugget from McDonald’s. My dad told me not to eat it but I had to prove him wrong and when I ate it I found out that he was right, I shouldn’t have eaten that McNugget. Because of that nugget I had such a bad stomachache and all I can remember is my dad grabbing me up and just hugging me, wiping the tears from my eyes because I was his little girl and making everything better. Then I realized that it was my turn to help him out and wipe the tears from his eyes, but I couldn’t because there was this big man standing there in between us. That man with his revolver was the only thing stopping me from jumping on top of the table to run and hug my dad. A month later my dad would be deported to Nicaragua, separating our family forever. This wasn’t how I pictured things turning out when I called the police that night. When I was little my dad was awesome. He taught me and my sisters and brothers to ride bikes. Saturdays was our special day with our dad and we would always do something fun. He would drive us up a mountain with all the bikes and then ride down playing hide and seek along the way. He took us rock climbing on Bernal Hill. He taught us to respect others but also that we need respect. Especially the girls. He wouldn’t let anyone, even his friends who were guys, speak to us disrespectfully. 174 • elizabeth vargas But as I got older my dad began drinking more and more. He had started drinking when he was only thirteen. He came from a family of twelve kids in Nicaragua and he had to leave school after second grade to work selling fruit. His dad would send him out with money to buy fruit and sell it for double, and if he didn’t sell enough he would get beat when he got home. My grandfather was a really bad alcoholic and my dad still has scars from my grandpa hitting him. As time went on, my father started repeating those patterns. He started drinking more and he wouldn’t come home for weeks and would ignore us when he did. When we tried to get him to go out with us as a family he wouldn’t come. I think he felt guilty and embarrassed. He would say, “I’m just a drunken old man, why would you want me around?” On my eleventh birthday, my older half brother died, and his death really affected my dad. My dad got locked up the first time when I was eight. He came home really drunk, screaming and threatening my mom. My grandma, my mom’s mom, lived with us, and when she heard him she called the cops. Then when I was twelve years old he got arrested again but this time it was for domestic violence against us, his children. My dad had always hit us with a belt to punish us, but it got to where it was for nothing. And he always acted jealous around my mom. One day he couldn’t find the phone because he’d been using it the night before drunk and didn’t remember where it was. But he said, “Your mom must have been using the phone to talk to her boyfriend. You should have been watching her instead of letting her do that.” Then he whupped us for that. Finally my mom decided it was abuse and she called the police. But she was also the one who went to...

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