It was a beautiful afternoon in summer. Lenni got out of work a bit late. She was tired and bored. So, she got fast food and went to the mall. Lenni likes going to the mall. But she could not go there more than once a month. Lenni was poor. She lived pay check to pay check. Her father left her when she was seven, and she has been miserable since then. Her mother was not so nice to Lenni and her little brother since her dad died. Many of a time, her mother would look at her in disgust. She never understood until when she was about seventeen.
"She looks more and more like her dad when she grows up," Lenni heard her mother talked on the phone one day.
"The way she talks and her facial expressions are so much like him." Lenni's mother bit her lip with hate.
"She has all of Ben's family's habits. I don't know how that happened." Anger was so evident in her mother's tone that Lenni could not bare to stay and listen. Lenni's mother would always say bad things about her father. She would try to have Lenni hate him. It was not a success. Lenni never hated her father. But that did not mean that Lenni was not mad at her dad. She went up to her bedroom that day full of tears. Her father was her best friend, her hero. She missed him so much, and she only got to see him once since he left them. It was at the grocery store. Lenni remembered being so happy.
"Daddy!" Lenni screamed. She darted from her mother's side to him. The next thing she noticed was her hair being pulled so hard it felt like it was coming out. Then her head hit the shopping cart. She fell, her head barely touching the cart's little wheels. Lenni cried. But her mother paid no heed. She grabbed Lenni and threw her into the cart.
"That's for not obeying me," Her mother said angrily.
"Leave her alone!" Her mom shouted at Lenni's brother. He was approaching her in effort to comfort her. Lenni remembered her brother sobbing. He was only six and was not used to being yelled at. Lenni was nine and was by then used to being her mother's punching bag.