Daddy’s been dead for 20 years.

Sometimes I feel I’m still stuck at the age he left me. Eleven years old right after my first period. It’s interesting he chose to take his own life right when I entered puberty. Maybe it’s coincidence. But from my perspective, he didn’t want to meet teen me. Not another teenage daughter. Not a third time.

I’m sure my family has different ideas. They explained some of them to me when it happened. He was depressed, passed over for a promotion at work for a new guy he had to train to be his boss, estranged from his eldest daughter, disappointed in his middle daughter…guilty for abusing me?

I doubt he even knew he abused me.

He wanted a son and no one can convince me otherwise. I was the baby, the last chance, the accident that was hope become dismay.

I didn’t have the word nonbinary when I was a child. I don’t know if I would have embraced it then. I honestly don’t think it would have made up for the fact that I was AFAB. Daddy wouldn’t have seen the difference. And I wanted so desperately to be what was expected of me. I wanted my parents to be happy.

Mom was, for the most part. When I was perfect. Perfect meaning straight A’s, quiet, studious, polite to adults. Popular, cooperative, friendly? Didn’t matter. Back burner to what she viewed as success.

Daddy wasn’t.

I could tell. The way, no matter what I did or how I behaved, he nicknamed me Brat. The way he relished beating my bare back and butt with his leather belt. The way he only interacted with me when he took me away on his hobbies — hunting and fishing. I did like fishing, the one time we went out on the lake. But I was still so meek around him, so quiet, so scared that even “I love you” would be met with a backhanded slap. Forget laughter. Forget tickles. Forget birthday wishes. I couldn’t look that man in the eye.

I didn’t dare ask him why my friends got to go to the amusement park and we never did. I didn’t dare ask him for swimming lessons. I was almost too scared to ask him to teach me to ride a bike again. I’d given up the first time, and he threw my bike, training wheels and all, in the back of his truck and drove it to the dump.

I still can’t swim. I did learn to ride a bike, with the help of my best friend’s dad. He was my role model for what a father should be. Capable of discipline when necessary, but not scary. Loving, caring, guiding. Full of laughter and piggyback rides.

I was jealous of her, but happy he existed. A man I could talk to. A man who taught me not all men were to be feared.

When my father died, I was relieved. My mother wasn’t. She loved him. She needed his support.

I didn’t need any more welts on my back. Spanked for laughing too loud. Spanked for talking too much in class. Spanked for a C on my report card. Spanked for kissing a boy. Spanked for getting trapped behind a stuck bathroom door (when I finally got out). Spanked for hiding underneath my bed — because I knew he would spank me when he discovered I had rescued my book from the trash. My book he threw away because I was reading while eating my breakfast cereal. That’s it. Reading while eating, at the table by myself.

Oh, but spanking’s not abuse, it’s discipline! Corporal punishment is a valid form of parenting!

You tell yourself that. I hated my father and learned absolutely nothing from his punishments other than fear. Not obedience. Not respect. Fear.

I’m glad he died. I can’t imagine how frightful I’d be now if I’d had to live with him as a teenager.

I’m sad for the ones that miss him, for the hole he left in their lives. I’m sad my mom never found someone else and is old and alone. I’m sad my husband and I are the ones stepping up to care for her. I’m sad my older sister feels so guilty even this many years later. I’m sad my eldest sister never responded when he reached out and is now also estranged from me. (But she kept her mental health intact. You dodged a bullet sis.)

Always Daddy. Never Dad. Too disrespectful. Be adorable always and maybe he won’t hit you. Be adorable and quiet. Lilting voice and small, shrink up so small so maybe he’ll ignore you.

I’m 31 and still, in the cis male gaze, I shrink.