Chapter 1: The Currency of Obedience
The first time my father handed me a leather belt instead of an apology, I was nine years old. It was a thick, braided piece of cowhide, heavy enough to pull my small arm down when I took it. He didn’t use it on me that day; he just placed it in my palm after I had accidentally dropped a porcelain plate, a silent, terrifying promise of what the rules were in our home.
The last time he reached for it, I was seventeen. And that was the day the entire foundation of our family finally shattered.
I grew up in a sprawling, meticulously maintained house in suburban Atlanta, a place that smelled permanently of lemon Pledge and stifled resentment. In our home, obedience wasn’t a virtue; it was the only acceptable currency. My older brother, Evan, could hurl a glass vase against the wall in a fit of teenage rage, and my mother would instinctively pivot to blame me because the hallway hadn’t been properly vacuumed before the incident.
In the twisted taxonomy of our household, “son” translated directly to “royalty.” “Daughter” translated to “indentured servant.”
