Whiskey Lullaby

Prologue

For twelve years I watched my world crumple and die around me. First it was my little sister. She died in my mothers womb when I was eleven. It crushed my parents more than it crushed me. That is until my mother committed suicide. I guess I don't blame her; she had really wanted another child. After my mother died things changed.

My father took up drinking; thank god he wasn't abusive though. He still loved me, I knew. The loss of his wife and baby was really hard for him. Every day I would prepare breakfast for him, and greet him 'Good morning, papa, the day is looking beautiful,' and every day he would reply, 'yes it does look lovely, doesn't it? But not as pretty as you, princess,'. Every day I would smile and help out around the house, as if everything was fine. Every day I would watch as papa drank himself sick.

And one day, it just stopped. I greeted my father as always after he had fallen asleep in the chair by our old fashioned fire place in the morning, but he didn't wake up and reply to me like he usually did. I sat down the tray of food I had prepared and shook his shoulder a little bit, trying to wake him.

"Papa, it's time to get up. It's a new day," I pushed. He did not wake. I started to panic when I could not hear his breathing, and I searched for a pulse. None. I ran to the kitchen and called the police on our corded phone, told them my situation and I hung up. I went back to the living room, and that's when I saw the shattered bottle that had fallen out of his hand the night before as he fell asleep, never to wake up again.

The police, social services, the orphanage, people I didn't even know, they told me it would get better. They say it get's easier as time passes, but they lied. I...I think I'm starting to give up.

I'm afraid.