We never really ate together as a family. The dining room was technically there, but it might as well have been a museum exhibit: off-limits, pristine, and unused. My sister and I could sit there together sometimes, but my father never did. I don’t have a single memory of him at that table. Instead, on the rare occasions we were required to eat together, it was in my parents’ bedroom. The TV was always on—sports or a nature documentary, which my sister hated.

Eating wasn’t about the food or the company. It was about rules.

“The bread,” he’d say, “you cannot eat it that way. You cannot bite into the middle and then the crust. Tear a piece, chew with your mouth closed, and swallow before you reach for another.” His tone wasn’t harsh, but it left no room for deviation. It was less a suggestion and more a decree, as if consuming bread improperly was an affront to some sacred order.

I tried to follow his instructions once, tearing the bread carefully, chewing slowly, and swallowing deliberately. But when my fingers slipped and I tore the piece unevenly, his disapproving glance was enough to ruin the meal. My sister barely ate at all, her head bowed in silent protest. After that, we avoided eating with him altogether. We’d sneak bowls of cereal or reheat leftovers in the kitchen before he came home.

At the time, I thought all families were like that—ruled by arbitrary laws. Brush your teeth for five minutes, no more, no less. Don’t use too much toothpaste, and never, ever leave the water running. Squeeze the toothpaste tube from the bottom, not the middle—what kind of animal does that? Don’t eat pastries from the bakery; they’re frivolous. And when he was home, you couldn’t just sit idly; you had to look busy. He’d notice otherwise, and he’d yell.

He had rules for everything, even what I could read. Fantasy was making me dumb, but The Lord of the Rings was acceptable because my brother liked it. Harry Potter? Absolutely not. “It’s nonsense,” he’d say. And my hair—oh, my hair. “You cannot wear it down like a whore,” he’d tell me. “Tie it up properly.”

Yet, for all his rules, my father was a paradox. He was sociable, talkative, and had a way of making friends easily. People liked him. Loved him, even. He was generous with his time and endlessly charming—traits I struggled to reconcile with the man I knew.

“I knew I wanted kids when I was seventeen,” he once told me. “Imagine that! So young, and yet I was certain.”

But my sister and I often agreed he shouldn’t have had kids. For someone who studied the sociology of family, he seemed to miss the point entirely. We weren’t a family; we were cohabitants, orbiting around him and his rules.

When I was eighteen, I left home. My sister had already escaped, and it felt like survival to me, too. I cut contact, though he didn’t. He’d call, send messages, insist on explaining his actions. “We didn’t have money,” he’d say. “I worked hard, full shifts at work, and then came home to farm so we could survive.” He wanted me to understand, to excuse his behavior, but it was never enough. His hard work didn’t erase the rules or the fear they instilled.

I don’t forgive him. Maybe I never will. My memories of him are steeped in the tension of doing everything wrong, of being told how to exist properly. I am alone now, except for my sister. She is my family.

Even so, his rules linger in me long after I stopped following them consciously. One night, standing in the bathroom with my boyfriend, I realized just how deeply they’d rooted themselves.

We were brushing our teeth together, and I noticed, with mild satisfaction, that he squeezed the toothpaste tube from the bottom, just as my father would have approved. But then, to my horror, he moistened the toothbrush before applying the paste. And worse—he left the water running as he brushed.

“You should turn the water off,” I said automatically like it was a fact everyone should know.

He looked at me, amused. “Oh, I never do. My father always left it running.”

I turned the faucet off myself, suddenly irritated, though I wasn’t sure why. The rules were still there, clinging to me like cobwebs I couldn’t quite brush away.

My father remains a mystery to me. A man of rules and contradictions, discipline and charm. I wonder, sometimes, what he hoped to achieve with all his rules. Did he think he was teaching us something essential, something we’d thank him for one day? Or was it just about control, about creating a world where everything bent to his will?

I may never know. But I do know this: his rules shaped me, even as I rejected them. They taught me how to measure myself by impossible standards and how to follow the proper way while resenting every step. And though I’ve left them behind, they remain in the background, a quiet reminder of who I was—and who I refuse to be.

Jovana Ciric

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