CHAPTER TWO: Lessons from the Shadows

In our house, there were rules.

Not the kind taped to a fridge or printed in a church bulletin.

These rules lived in the air, in the tone of a voice, in the pause before someone answered.

Rule one: Keep your head down.

Rule two: Don’t ask questions.

Rule three: Pretend everything’s fine.

If you followed them, you got “peace.” But it wasn’t real peace — just the absence of open conflict. A fragile quiet, the kind that costs your voice.

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For a while, I tried to play along. I kept my mouth shut. I smiled when I was supposed to. But the script didn’t fit me.

I noticed too much.

Felt too much.

Questioned too much.

It started small.

The way my father’s voice could drip with honey in public, then turn to vinegar in private.

The way my mother’s smile stopped just short of her eyes when certain topics came up.

How relatives could talk about love and faith, then use silence like a blade.

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And then there was the faith factor.

We were a church family. Sunday services. Prayers over every meal. Scripture quoted like currency. But I learned early that Christian didn’t always mean Christ-like.

Faith in our house was like Sunday clothes — worn in public, folded away the second we got home.

At night, the masks came off. That’s when I started asking myself questions I didn’t know kids were supposed to ask:

Is this what family is supposed to be?

Is this what faith is supposed to feel like?

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I didn’t have the answers yet.

But I knew this:

If I wanted the truth, I’d have to go looking for it myself.

Even if it meant walking alone in the shadows.