Night Is Gotham

It was about 9:45 at night when I heard the front door creek open and slam shut. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a shiver went through my spine.
Dad was home.
I slowly got up off my bed and walked over to my door, pressing my head against it to listen to his heavy footsteps.
“Evelyn, I’m home for your birthday! Let’s celebrate!” his deep voice was closer than I had hoped. I backed away from my door just as he threw it open. He had an unsettling smile on his face, which made me even more uneasy.
“Lets go downstairs and talk about your day, you’re 21 now maybe we’ll have a drink,” he said still smiling. I followed him out into the hallway and down the stairs. I wasn’t sure where this was going but I knew it couldn’t be anywhere good.

We walked into the kitchen and he grabbed himself a glass. He grabbed the only bottle of wine from the wine fridge and poured half a glass. He extended it out to me,
“Would you like some?” I shook my head and smiled slightly so he wouldn’t think I was being rude.
“No thank you, but I’ll sit with you” I said sitting across from him at the table. He looked at me over the rim of his glass and took a big swig. I felt my palms become sweaty as I braced myself for what could happen next.

“I heard you had a visitor today” he said turning sideways in his chair and looking out the large window that overlooked our vast yard. I nodded and looked down at my hands.
“Ya, Mark came to pick something up for you” I said slowly not looking up at him, I was starting to feel very scared and didn’t want to look up for fear of him snapping.
“I remember when Alfred was with us, he never let a stranger in” my father said more to himself than to me.
“Mark isn’t a stranger he’s-“
“It doesn’t matter! You let him in the house without my prior knowledge” he said cutting me off and raising his voice.
“He’s been by here more than once this week and you haven’t said anything until now” I snapped, immediately regretting my quick and crass retort.
“I see, so what did he want?” he said his voice calm. I looked up at him, he had turned back to face me and was sipping on his wine.
“He wanted a blue binder from your office, said you asked him to pick it up. I grabbed it for him and-“ my father slammed his hands down on the table. The glass tipped over, wine spilling onto the table, and rolled off shattering on the floor.
“You went into my office? I thought we talked about this” he said standing up and walking over to me. I pushed away from the table and backed away from him. He stopped for a minute and turned his face away from me. I could hear him muttering under his breath but couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Evelyn, we’ve talked about this before. No going into Daddy’s office!” he yelled slamming his hand down on the table. He wasn’t looking at me, or talking to me really. He seemed to be talking to someone who wasn’t in the room. I felt myself start to panic as he looked up at me.
“Evelyn, your mother loved that name” he said to himself quietly. Then he lunged toward me knocking me backwards over the couch. I rolled off and onto the floor crawling away from him as fast as I could. All I needed to do was make it up the stairs and into my room faster than him and I was safe. I stood up and made a dash to the stairs.

He dashed faster.

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled back, throwing me onto the floor.
“You’re not supposed to go into the office! You can’t let strangers in it’s dangerous!” he yelled grabbing me and tossing me into the back of the couch. I put my hands up to shield my face and anticipated the next blow.
“Why doesn’t she learn these things?” he cried looking up to the ceiling. I tried again to use his distraction as a way to get up the stairs but again he was faster. He grabbed my arm and threw me onto the stairs. I hit my head hard against the edge of the stair and let out a small yelp. I held my forehead and sat on the stair for a moment, trying to get through the pain. I looked up at him, his face had changed from rage to calm. He pushed his hair out of his face and walked past me, kicking me on his way up the stairs.
“Happy Birthday” he said down to me, stopping at the top of the stairs before going into his room and slamming the door.

I pushed my self up, grabbing onto the rail for support. My ribs were sore and my head was throbbing. To be honest this wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. It was a thin line between beatings and hospital stays. A sick game he played, keeping me on edge. Only once had he gone to far and I ended up in the hospital for a week with a fractured hand and a slight concussion. That was on my 12th birthday. I always wondered why no one had said anything or tried to help me, I assumed by now that it was because my father was Bruce Wayne. He apparently held some kind of hierarchy over Gotham, at least that’s what I looked at it as.

I can’t even remember the last time we celebrated one of my birthdays, probably because of the concussion.