My littlest brother and I were in the kitchen when he heard it--my dad throwing a glass at the wall. Cracked through the plaster. I stood in the kitchen until they were quiet again, then left.
My older little brother walked into my room a few minutes later. Said he thought mom could use some support, so we walked out to the living room where she was sitting, crying. Asked her if she was okay, she said yeah, I think I finally am.
Sat there for a long moment, me, my mom, my older little brother. He finally said, "Dad threatened to kill you. That's not okay."
Before I could even get the shock from my brain to my face, dad walked out. Sat there staring at us, then started to laugh. Older little brother said, "Well aren't we cute, standing there laughing with our smug little smile and our thumbs twiddled."
Dad, in typical dad fashion, says, "You wanna go?"
Little brother, in typical nineteen-years-of-repressed-rage fashion, stand up and says, "Yeah, actually, I do."
Dad starts to say, "Well then let's go." but makes it to about halfway through "let's" when he suddenly finds himself with my brother's fist in his stomach.
I've never been prouder.
Dad goes down, my brother on top of him. Mom starts screaming. I yell at them to stop. They don't. Dad ends up in the corner near the door, my brother pounding away, when mom gets over there and tries to restrain dad. I pick up the phone.
"Stop it right now or I'm calling the fucking police!"
Dad doesn't stop. Mom sits on top of him. I dial 911.
"Stop!" Dad says. "You have no idea what you've just started!"
He finally stops. I hang up. Dad just keeps repeating, You have no idea what you've started, The police are going to be here, You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into.
The next few minutes, things happened one after the other. Police called back, mom told them it was a domestic dispute call, they said they'd be sending over an officer to check it out. Dad keeps muttering, No idea, So stupid, Get your weed out of here, and starts rounding up his gun collection. He says, "The police are going to be here and I'm probably going to jail." Says, "They are going to confiscate all my firearms." Says, "It's up to you guys. You can tell them there was nothing physical, because if you tell them it was physical, I am going to jail."
Me, mom, and brother tried to discuss it in the kitchen. Dad walked in one, two, three times before I told him, Give us some time to think about it."
Mom decided not to tell the police anything, so when they showed up, we did our best Brady Bunch impression and they left without fanfare.
I walked back to my little brothers' rooms and told them I did not feel safe. I told them I'd like to take us all to a motel for the night, and that I'd pay. Older little brother said he didn't think it was necessary, little little brother agreed to stay. Told them to watch mother. Gave little little brother my flip out knife. Told him to take care of it. Told older little brother to take care of him. Left them with strict instructions to call me if anything happened, and I left for the night.
Called mom this morning for a follow-up make sure everyone's still alive sort of call. She said she wouldn't be divorcing him, and that she knew I was disappointed but she hoped I'd understand, with the way me and The Veil have been lately.
I told her not to compare our situations, that even at our worst we've never threatened to kill eachother or attacked our children, and hung up on her.
I am not going home.