Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

“Jordy, why don’t we let daddy continue blowing up the balloons, while you and I go over the guest list,” Camille suggested. “That way I know exactly how much food I need to buy when I go to the store tomorrow.” Damien and Camille Chavez were decorating their Mexico home for their daughter, Jordyn’s, 8th birthday slumber party that Saturday.

“Alright, Mommy.” When Jordyn stood up to follow her mother to the dining room table, she caught a glimpse of her father; his face was slightly purple and he was gasping for air. Jordyn stopped, “But Mommy, Daddy needs our help. We can’t make him blow up all these balloons by himself.” Jordyn smiled at her father, who looked back at her with an orange balloon in his mouth.

He returned her smile, “That’s… ok… I don’t… need any… help,” Damien said between puffs of air. In Jordyn’s eyes, he looked ready to pass out. He struggled to catch his breath and tie the inflated balloon at the same time.

“Don’t worry, Baby, we’ll come back and help Daddy as soon as we’re done. I promise,” Camille reassured her daughter.

Once at the table, Camille looked at the list that Jordyn had written the day before. “Ten!” Camille gasped, pretending to freak out. “I was thinking more like three! We don’t have enough room for ten kids to spend the night… and… the cost of the food… oh boy! But… I guess we’ll manage… although we may go broke. Then we’ll have to sell the house and live out on the street in a cardboard box. And, we won’t be able to pay for public school anymore, so we’ll have to take you out and home school you… except, we won’t have a home, so we’ll have to box-school you instead, and…”

“Oh hush, Mommy. You say that every year,” Jordyn laughed.

“Well, why break tradition?” Damien Chavez said while getting a coke from the fridge. He smiled at his wife and kissed his daughter on the forehead. Then he went back to blowing up the balloons while Jordyn and Camille planned the menu for the party.



When Jordyn got off the school bus the next afternoon, she ran inside, excited to continue decorating for her party. She couldn’t wait to see what her mom bought at the store after dropping her off at school.

“In here, Sweetie,” Camille called when she heard the door open and shut.

Jordyn entered the living room, where she found her mother tying ribbons to the balloons they had blown up the previous evening. She grabbed a balloon and some ribbon and got to work. When they finished tying the balloons, they washed laundry until suppertime.

“Where’s Daddy?” Jordyn asked when she saw that it was 6:00. “Shouldn’t he be home by now?” Jordyn asked her mother when they finished the last load of laundry. Damien Chavez worked as a professor at a community college in their hometown of Santa Rosalia, Mexico, and he usually arrived home around 5:30.

“I’m not sure where he is. Let’s go ahead and set the table. Maybe he’ll be home soon.” Camille and Jordyn set the table and sat down to eat. “How about I say the blessing tonight?”

After the prayer, Camille reached for her chicken sandwich, but Jordyn stopped her. “Mommy, we can’t eat yet. We have to wait for Daddy,” she pleaded.

“Ok, Sweetie, we’ll wait.” Camille and Jordyn put their plates, along with Damien’s, in the fridge, and went into the living room, where they had laid a pile of clothes on the couch. They began folding them while waiting for Damien to return home. An hour later, all the clothes were folded and put away, and Damien still hadn’t come back.

“Where is he?” Jordyn asked her mother.

“I don’t know.” Camille caught a glimpse of the worried expression on Jordyn’s face, and she quickly added that she was certain he was alright. “Let’s go ahead and eat. When Daddy gets home, we can sit with him while he eats.”

Jordyn finally agreed to eat without Damien when she heard her stomach growl. Camille walked to the fridge and retrieved two of the plates; they said another prayer for Damien’s safety, and started eating.

After supper, Damien still wasn’t home yet, and now Camille’s worry began to show through. For Jordyn’s sake, Camille decided it was best to find a way to distract themselves from worrying too much. She went to the hall closet and took a puzzle from the top shelf.

But before Jordyn and Camille could even open the box, Damien came barging through the front door. “Where’s my supper?!” Damien bellowed. He didn’t look too good. Jordyn noticed that his eyes were blood-shot and he could barely stand up, let alone walk straight. His voice indicated anger, but his face expressed another emotion. Jordyn was perplexed and terrified. She couldn’t remember ever seeing sadness upon her father’s face, nor heard anger in his voice, but now that she had, she didn’t ever want to again.

Jordyn wanted desperately to cheer him up; to have her daddy back, “Daddy, Mommy made your favorite… chicken sandwiches! It’s in the fridge.”

“Well, it’s no use to me in there, now, is it?” Damien said in a mock tone. As he stumbled to the fridge, he looked in the living room, and noticed all the party decorations. “What are we celebrating? No, don’t tell me. We’re celebrating the fact that Camille finally got her lazy butt up and cooked something for dinner.”

Jordyn was shocked. Her father had never spoken to her mother that way. She looked over and saw the hurt in Camille’s eyes. Then she looked back at the satisfied look upon Damien’s face. She wanted to tell him off. She wanted to ask him what on earth was wrong with him. But instead, she answered his question respectfully, “They’re for my birthday… It’s tomorrow, remember?” Jordyn didn’t know what else to say. He had blown up most of those balloons himself; how could he not remember?

“Oh. Right,” Damien looked very confused. He looked back at his wife, “So where’s my supper?!” Damien started yelling again.

“Jordyn told you, it’s in the fridge,” Camille said as politely as she could manage, although it was obvious that she was still hurt by his words and appalled by his state of being.

“So… what? Are you expecting it to jump out of the fridge and bring itself to me?” Damien raised a fist and punched Camille in the face, hitting her right eye, “Go get it!”

With tears streaming down her face, Camille walked into the kitchen and did as she was told, but Jordyn couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong with you?!” she exclaimed. “You’ve never treated Mommy like that… nor anyone else, for that matter. And… if I punched someone like that, you’d punish me. W… Why are you being such a… such a jerk?!”

Jordyn quickly found out that she had made a huge mistake. Damien took off his belt and grabbed Jordyn’s arm. “You want to be punished? How’s this for a punishment!” he hit her lower back. “Haven’t I told you to never disrespect me? How dare you call me a jerk!” After ten strikes, Damien finally let go of Jordyn’s arm, and she fell to the floor, tears streaming down her face. “Go to your room,” he demanded. “NOW!”

Although she was in excruciating pain, Jordyn got up as quickly as she could and hurried to her room, afraid to anger her father any more. Once in her room, she closed the door and fell on her bed. The tears that had previously been running down and soaking into her shirt were now absorbing into her pillow and bed sheets as she lay sobbing.

Jordyn couldn’t understand it. What’s his problem? she wondered. He’s never acted like that before. He must be sick… He sure looked like it. But, why did he hit Mommy? She didn’t do anything wrong! And… I was just standing up for her! …But, I guess I deserved to be spanked. I shouldn’t have called him a jerk… Jordyn was torn between feeling guilty and ashamed of what she’d said, and feeling angry towards her father for hitting her mother. …but, ten times?! He never spanked me that many times before… nor that hard… that really hurt! After a few more minutes of conflicting thoughts, she finally decided that she should go apologize. Slowly, she made her way back downstairs.

Halfway down the hall, Jordyn heard her father screaming. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she could tell that he was furious. Jordyn stopped and tried to decipher his words; she was soon startled by a loud pop, followed by the sound of metal objects crashing to the floor, and her mother crying. She quietly ran to the kitchen door and peaked inside, trying her best to remain unnoticed. What Jordyn saw next would terrify her for years to come: Camille Chavez was sitting on the floor. Behind her was an empty pot rack, and lying all around her were its contents. She was developing a black eye where Damien had first hit her, but now she had a bloody lip as well. Damien was standing in front of her, bent down so that he was face to face with his wife. He was screaming, but his slurred words were incomprehensible. His left hand held tight to her shirt collar, while his right hand held a steak knife up to Camille’s throat. Jordyn’s mind started racing. What am I supposed to do? I can’t just stand here and watch him kill her. Jordyn did the first thing that she could think of: she hurried over to a chair in the living room, grabbed one of the balloons tied to it, and popped it with her fingernail.

Just as she’d hoped, Damien forgot about Camille and turned his focus on her. “That’s it! When I get a hold of you, you’re dead… Dead!” Damien let go of his wife’s shirt, dropped the knife, and ran into the living room, tripping every few steps. Jordyn ran out the front door and down the street to a friend’s house, running in and out of the trees the entire way there, in hopes that her father couldn’t follow her. But after only a few feet out the door, Damien stopped running, and went back inside. “Ahh, good riddance,” he muttered, and he fell over on the couch and immediately went to sleep.



A year later, things had only gotten worse. Every day after school, Jordyn came home and greeted her mother, and every day, her mother’s reply was cold and distant.

“Go to your room and wait for your father to get home,” Camille demanded, without even a glance in her daughter’s direction. Camille no longer looked at her daughter, for fear that she would see Damien in Jordyn’s eyes.

“Where is he?” Jordyn would ask. She was certain he was no longer working as a professor. No school would let their students be taught by a drunk, she reasoned.

And her mother’s answer was always the same. “Don’t be retarded,” she would scowl. “He’s at work. Now, do as I said and get your butt up to your room.”

Around 8 o’clock, Damien would finally stumble through the front door. He would first walk into the kitchen, where Camille was quickly trying to reheat his dinner.

“Why wasn’t it already heated?” he would ask. Then he would slap his wife across the face. “I swear, Woman. You’re the laziest person I’ve ever met!”

A year ago, Camille would respond to his question, not realizing her mistake until it was too late. “Well, Sweetheart,” she said foolishly, “it was ready a few hours ago, but… it got cold.”

“So… what? Are you saying that I need to get home sooner?” he inquired. “Are you ordering me to hurry home?!”

“No… no... I just meant…”

“I know what you meant, you lazy, good for nothing, ungrateful little...” and, again, he would slap her. “Listen here! You do not tell me what to do. I am the husband; you are the wife. You do as I say, got it?!”

Camille would then focus on the task of putting his dinner on the table, while trying her best not to break down and cry.

Nowadays, Camille didn’t respond. Instead, she simply put his dinner on the table, and tried her best to ignore his harsh words, although she couldn’t help but be hurt by them.

When he finished eating, Damien would stumble up to Jordyn’s room. Jordyn had learned quickly over the past year not to leave her room while her father was eating supper, so he knew he could find her sitting on her bed, prepared for the inevitable. He would proceed to lecture her for everything that happened the day she ran away, but because of his slurred speech and angry disposition, Jordyn could hardly understand what he was saying. Nonetheless, she was sure he was blaming her for things she had nothing to do with. Then, when he was tired of yelling, he would beat her until he decided to quit. Then he would leave her in her room to sulk, and go to bed.



On the weekends, the routine was basically the same. Every Saturday and Sunday, when Jordyn woke up, her father was already out of the house. When she asked her mother where he went on the weekends, Camille would lie and say he’s at a teachers’ workshop. Then Jordyn would be made to clean the entire house before she was able to eat.

That particular Saturday was the day before her 9th birthday. As Jordyn cleaned the house, she worked up the courage to ask her parents if she could have a party for her birthday. Just a small one, she pleaded, as she rehearsed what she would say in her head. They’ll never go for it. Why would they? I haven’t been the best daughter. I mean, who calls their dad a jerk? And what good daughter runs away from home? I don’t deserve a party, Jordyn convinced herself, and she continued cleaning. A few hours later, as she was dusting out the attic, Jordyn saw the “Happy Birthday” banner lying on top of a box marked 'birthday decorations'. No one’s perfect! I deserve a party just as much as anyone else. They can’t keep me from having fun. That’s not right. Jordyn decided once more to try and ask her parents for a party.

After she finished cleaning the entire house, Jordyn skipped to the kitchen and poured herself a bowl of cereal.

“I sure hope your chores are complete,” Camille said heartlessly, as she walked into the kitchen and grabbed a soda from the fridge. “You know what’ll happen if they’re not.”

“Yes, ma’am. The house is clean.”

“It better be.” Camille left the kitchen, successfully avoiding Jordyn’s eyes once more.

After finishing her breakfast, Jordyn cleaned her dishes, and ran into the living room, where she found Camille reading the daily newspaper.

“Mom?”

“Jordyn, can’t you see I’m busy. Be a good girl for once, and don’t bug me.”

Jordyn took a deep breath and tried again, “Mom, I was just wondering…”

Camille sighed. “What is it, Jordyn?” she asked, still looking at the newspaper.

“Well… I was hoping… since my party was cancelled last year… that maybe… I could… have one this year?”

“You’d have to ask your father, and I’m sure you already know what he would say,” Camille said in a monotone voice, still hidden behind the paper. “Besides, your birthday’s tomorrow. Even if he did allow you to have one, it’s too late to plan one.”

“Oh… right… o… ok…” Jordyn dropped the subject and went upstairs to her room.



Friday night, despite the fact that she had just received another painful beating from her father, Jordyn laid in bed, excited and restless.

Her mother had been invited to spend all day shopping with their neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, on Saturday, and since Damien would undoubtedly be away until supper, it was the perfect time to celebrate her birthday. Jordyn had it all planned out: since she no longer had very many friends, it was very unlikely that her house would get messed up, so all she had to do is make sure they were out by five so she could get rid of the decorations before her mother got home around six, and she was sure not to get caught.

All week at school, her and her two best friends, Becca and Alycia, had been planning what they would do. Becca would spend the night at Alycia’s on Friday night, and Alycia’s older brother, Tommy, would drop them off at the beginning of Jordyn’s road around 11 o’clock on Saturday morning. Becca and Alycia would then walk the quarter mile to Jordyn’s house. They would hang out until five, and walk back to where Tommy would pick them up. Jordyn would straighten up, and everything would be fine.

Much to Jordyn’s delight, her plan was working. It was almost five, and Alycia was about to call Tommy. Just then, Damien burst through the front door.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked Jordyn after he shoved Becca and Alycia out the door and locked it.

“I… I was just…”
“You were just being disobedient!” Damien slapped her across the face. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t kill you. I can’t believe you’d go behind my back and do something like this. What, you didn’t cause enough trouble when you called me a jerk and ran away? You had to plan a party without permission as well.”

“Daddy, please. I just wanted…”

“Shut up!” he demanded, and he slapped her so hard, that she hit the wall behind her and blacked out.

Around four in the morning, Jordyn woke up in her bed. Camille was sitting in a chair beside her, tears silently streaming down her face. On the floor were three stuffed suitcases.

“Wha…?” Jordyn started to ask, but Camille motioned for her to be quiet.

“We’re leaving,” she whispered. “We’re going to the U.S. to start a new life, away from that… that… that monster. Come on…” Jordyn jumped out of bed, grabbed a suitcase, and followed her mother to the car.