This is what I remember:

We had a family tradition. On weekend mornings, the brother and I would go to Mom and Dad�s room and engage in my favorite activity. It was an hour or more of family warmth. We children would cuddle, hug, tickle and, in general, have a wonderful, laughter-filled time with the folks. The brother and I would �hide� amid much giggling, as Dad �tried� to find us. Sometimes we would hide in the closet. Sometimes we�d try the armoire. Most often, though, we�d huddle up under the covers of their bed. Even though you might think of that as a bad place to hide, it really was the best.

Dad always found us in the closet. We were always discovered in the armoire. He never found us under the covers. He would hunt, call out, threaten unending tickles� sometimes he would threaten to put Tabasco on our dessert� still, he couldn�t ever find us. In �frustration� he would announce that he had to think about where we could be. Then, he would pretend to sit on us. The brother and I would erupt into shrieks of laughter and the tickle-cuddle-family warmth-love-fest would commence.

Those weekend mornings made the rest of the week worthwhile. I lived for those bubbles of time when we were, indeed, the perfect family. The brother put away his finkdom. Mom was relaxed and fun. Dad was loving and everything I�d ever wanted in a Daddy. Idyllic is too bland a word to describe those mornings.

One morning I woke, took care of my morning maintenance, and made my bleary-eyed way to the best part of my life. I opened the door and immediately noticed that the brother wasn�t there. Yes! Score! I�d just scored some extra cuddle time with the parents. I entered the room and noticed that Dad wasn�t there either. Oh, man, that was rich. I got super-extra-fabulous-once-in-a-life-time cuddle time with Mom. Just me, no one else. That was like going to someone else�s party and getting two frosting roses on my piece of cake.

I didn�t make it all the way to the bed. I didn�t have time to say �good morning.� Mom�s voice instantly deleted all joy from my morning. Her words slapped me into a world of confusion and fear.

�What did you do with your father�s two silver dollars?�

I stood where I was, part-way into the room. Time froze around me for a moment as my emergency response system kicked into overdrive. I examined that sentence, going through a check-list of what each aspect of it meant.

1. Two silver dollars were missing.
2. They belonged to Dad.
3. No one knew where they were.
4. The brother had already been confronted and had denied contact/knowledge of them.
5. I was the only other kid in the house, therefore I must have taken them.

Mom and Dad knew I was the culprit. There was no room to wiggle. The Jury was in and the verdict was guilty.

Time stuttered into motion again and I stumbled out my acceptance of guilt. �Uh� they�re� uh� in� um� my� uh� drawer?� I hoped silver dollars were small enough to fit in my drawer.

We scoured the two small drawers of my dresser. No silver dollars. Hmmm, maybe silver dollars were too big for those drawers. We scoured every drawer in my room, one after the other. All eleven of them. No silver dollars.

Mom was so mad at me, she hated me so much she was crying. I made my mother cry. This realization birthed another realization. This wasn�t a normal kind of trouble. I understood that if Mom was so angry with me that she was crying, I had to make sure I found those silver dollars. If I didn�t find them, the world would stop turning.

It didn�t matter that I didn�t know what silver dollars were. It didn�t matter that I didn�t know how big or small they were. It didn�t matter that I couldn�t remember ever having touched a silver dollar, let alone taken two of them. I made Mom cry. It was my fault. I must have taken the silver dollars without knowing it. I really, really needed to know what silver dollars were in order to respond to this crisis.

When my room had been turned inside out, I said the silver dollars were in the bathroom. When the bathroom had been demolished in search of these elusive� things, I suggested another place to look. Each new place, after being thoroughly searched, sometimes three or four times, would turn out to house no silver dollars. Not even half a silver dollar. Understanding how important this was, however, I turned my guesses to places outside the house.

I said I�d bought candy at the 7-11. This was the same store that was across the street from the grade school. It was across the busy street. It was considered a highway by many. However, I figured a store would be a safe bet. There was no way to prove or disprove that I�d bought candy there. Unless � and this thought chilled me to the bone for a moment � unless silver dollars were like sand dollars, not really money.

The tension grew and I was grilled about having purchased exactly two dollars worth of candy, no change. I was partially relieved because I had guessed correctly. I was also confident that I could explain the exact amount, being as how the 7-11 had penny candy bins. The tide had turned, in my mind anyway. I had finally come up with an explanation the angry people wouldn�t be able to disprove. Maybe now I could receive my two or three swats, go to my room to think about it and life would return to normal.

Though we � surprise to me � went to the store to verify that I�d spent the silver dollars there, before that could happen, I had to be dressed. In order for me to be dressed, I had to have clothes. In order for me to have clothes, Mom had to bring them to me. To do that, she had to drive to where I was.

After the house had been turned upside down and rotated on a spit for a while, I finally �confessed� to the candy splurge. I don�t actually remember that. In fact, I don�t remember much. My memory picks up again, in stilted, slow motion, with me in Mom and Dad�s room. Dad was there this time. Mom was not. Dad was so enraged that his face was red. His body shook. Spittle flew from his mouth with each word he snarled and on every exhaled breath. I was so far beyond fear that terror was the same as joy.

This portion of the memory plays in my head like a silent movie� like someone hit the mute button. I don�t remember the physical sense of touch. I suppose it�s like a security camera. My brain kept recording the events even though I had no conscious awareness of them. I had passed �tilt� a long time ago. I saw things happening to a little girl�s body I no longer occupied.

There is a scene in a story I read once where a character is looking at the world through his own eyes and through someone else�s. He�s seeing this double vision, both perspectives, simultaneously. Like that, the actual �spanking� portion of my punishment happened in two perspectives. I remember him from the little girl perspective, looking up at him. I also remember the event as if I were the security camera, catching all of the action from a higher angle, from outside my body.

Anyway, in silence I remember Dad�s angry, violent, enraged face. I remember the beating, after more than two hours of tearing the house apart. I remember being hit from the backs of my knees to the small of my back. I remember being hit with a belt and a switch. I remember so many blows that I stopped counting, then stopped crying, then stopped registering pain. Then, I stopped feeling.

I remember Dad yelling the whole time. I don�t remember what he was saying. I don�t think it even registered. I don�t know if he was actually saying anything. Maybe he was just snarling, grunting and growling. He was more like an animal than a man. Then I remember that the beating stopped. I don�t know why he stopped, but I always figured that he�d simply exhausted himself.

When the beating was over, he looked at me with revulsion, rage, disgust and absolute hatred pouring from his eyes. His words hit me with the power of a sledge hammer to the gut; a sledge hammer wielded by Paul Bunyon himself.

�There is no room under my roof for a thief and a liar. Get out of my house!�