I can't even stomach calling him father or Dad. The bastard's dead. He can't hurt us anymore. Mother's doing it for him. Mother's too saintly to express rage about her husband.
Anger is evil.
She never expressed rage about her parents making her endure seven long years of unendurable pain, missing high school, the shame of a nervous breakdown. Better that the cycle continues through the generations than go through the pain of letting go of the fantasy of a loving family. Truth and honesty lifts the black cloaks of depression suicide, and unhappiness. For my children. For generations to come.