I woke up to the sound of my parents' quarrelling. I thought of it as my wake up alarm because the quarrelling goes on every single day. I popped up on one elbow and looked to the outside of the room through the slightly opened door. My mom was pointing her finger at my dad's face, and she kept on shouting. My dad, on the other hand, did not forfeit. He shouted back. I had a feeling like they were competing in a high note singing competition.

Tired of their screaming, I put my other palm on the mat and pushed myself up to a sitting position. I stared at my cute baby brother. A dark-skinned infant sleeping peacefully with an old rug wrapping around him. He took after my parents in almost every way, skin, eyes, nose and lips. It seemed I was the only one with fair-skinned in the family. I had no idea who I took after but my mom told me that my grandmother was originally someone from the city. She fell in love with my grandfather when they bumped into each other at Bokor Resort. So, I assumed I took after my grandmother's complexion.

With just six-month old, my little brother is so small and delicate. But with lack of nutrients, we were all small and emaciated even for our ages. Still, I had always been thinking that he was the cutest baby in the world.

I got up and went to pick up a metal basin full of water from the edge of the window at the kitchen, and splashed my face with its container with my head leaning outside of the window. We used dew to wash our face in the morning because we needed to be conservative with water as much as we could. Then, I bent down to pick a Dutch over out from under my kitchen counter and cleaned it with a towel nearby. I had to make porridge for breakfast, and to do so, I needed to get the water from the big jar downstairs. Still, I did not want to go out while my parents were about to kill each other; so I tiptoed to the door and listened. The sound did not subside, and my mom kept on sniveling until she lost her voice. I stared at the clock. It is 7:00 in the morning. I could not hesitate anymore or else my dad would be more furious if the breakfast came late.

I inhaled deeply, caught a door knob with my quivering hand and stepped outside. My dad was the one who caught the sight of me first because he was standing in the opposite direction while mom was giving her back to me. He stopped shouting and looked at me with his scary eyes that I could feel my knees buckled. I ran quickly down the stairs and started my morning chores. I was pouring the water into the Dutch over to wash the milled rice when, unsurprisingly, the fight continued. But what really caught my attention was the mention of my name.

"Why do you have to pick a fight with me every day? Why don't you just find a resolution?" my dad said.

"A solution? What is it then? If I had known it, I wouldn't have let us suffered this much" my mom replied angrily.

"You know very well what the solution is. Why don't you just sell Sonita's ring? I think it worth hundreds of dollars. We may at least be able to fight the starvation in our family for months." calmly said by my dad.

"No. No matter what happens, I will not sell this ring. Besides, you will just use the money to buy that stupid alcohol and get yourself drunk rather than spend the money wisely on the family's matters. So, no selling anymore. Period." my mom finalized the fight.

I dropped my attention from their fight back to my chores. I was making a fire out of broken branches when I saw two big feet descending from the stairs. I did not have to peer to notice whose they belong to; it was clearly my dad's. I immediately adverted my eyes from the stairs and continued igniting the sparks from the wood. Even though I did not look at my father's direction, I knew he was glaring at me. Lucky for me, he just walked away without coughing a word. I had no idea why my dad hated me so much. I had done many things I could in order to please him yet it never satisfied him. I sighed and busied myself with the porridge. After it was done, I put them into two bowls, and carried them upstairs to my mother and little brother along with the soy source.

"You don't want to eat?" my mom asked when she saw I put only one bowl in front of her.

"No, mom. I am not hungry." I whispered a reply. I, then, pour the soy source into the other bowl and brought it to where my brother was sleeping. I shook him awake, and put my hand under his shoulders to bring him to sit on my lap. I scooped a spoonful of porridge up near my mouth and blew it before I made my brother swallow it.

After breakfast, I prepared to start my morning chores. It was then did I realize I didn't have much chores left. I used to clean the house, give grasses to the cows at the stable, feed the pigs and chickens at the farm behind my house and helped my dad with the rice plantation works at the field which is one kilometers away from my house. I stared at the empty spaces which were used to be filled with animals, and found myself lonelier than before. During the last three months, we had sold all our livestocks, even one of our cows, to the market in exchange for some little money. And we weren't the only one. One of our neighbors even sold their livestock ranching area, while another moved to the nearby province for seasonal harvesting. It weren't that we were in debt but we needed the money for food. Usually, our income came from the harvesting. But not this year.

Three months ago, when there should be rain, there wasn't. The soil was very dry until you can see the cracking fluctuating lines on the surface. Thus, it was very hard for our animals to plough. We had been waiting for four months now, but the rain did not came as much as we wanted. I remember one night when it rained, I could hear people cheering from the head to the tail of the village. And from that day onward, the rain never came again. In addition, the hot temperature somehow kept on increasing that we could even get a sunburn if we were to exposed to the sun for only fifteen minutes. In this moment, the rice field were all neglected and covered with Arylide-yellow color of the dry straws instead of greenery.

I was so deep in thought that I didn't notice my dad standing behind me. The sound of him clearing his throat made my whole body stiffened, leading to the falling of the broom I was holding.

"Don't you have better thing to do than just staring into space? We all are facing starvation, and all you do is nothing. Where is lunch? Bring me food, I am hungry."

"But dad, it is not the time yet." I replied, trembling with fear.

"It is time whenever I say it is. Now, stop talking back and bring me my lunch! " snarled my dad as he sat down on the old bed nearby.

"But dad, I haven't made anything yet. It is not yet the time, so−"

Bringing himself up into a standing position, he grabbed my hair and yanked it backward making me staring into bottom of my house's first floor. He stood so close that I could feel the smell of the alcohol giving off from his breathe. "You! Why have you never been so useful? Also, why did you come to my house if you couldn't even do anything? Why don't you just get lost back to your−"

"Stop it right now!" my mom snapped from the middle of the stairs. I guessed the sound of my dad woke her up from her nap. "And let go of my daughter, you drunk!" she said as she came down from the stairs and headed toward us.

He chuckled before letting go of my hair and pushed me to my mother. My mom steadied me in her arms to keep me from falling from the push. I had never seen her so angry at dad before. Her eyes were full of rage that she could spit fire from them. Even my drunk dad seemed to notice it because he backed a step away and left his mouth agape. He glared at me one last time before heading off again to the wine stall, I guessed. I didn't know I was crying until my mom turned me to face her and used her gentle fingers to wipe the tear off my face. Then, she hugged me and said, "It is alright now baby. I won't let him touch you again. I promise."

Later that night, dad still did not come home. I thought that he might be too drunk to get off the chairs from the wine stalls, not to mention whether he would be able to find a way back home or not afterwards. Everyone except my dad was sleeping on the first floor, and I was lying on a mat with my back against my mom's stomach. It must have been nine o'clock at night, but I couldn't bring my eyelids to close. So, I twisted around and faced my mom face.

"Mom? "

"Hmm?" she replied without open her eyes.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Am I, well, dad's biological daughter?"

My mom's eyes were wide open and she forcefully though unconsciously, grabbed my shoulder. "What did that man tell you? Did he say something about your birth? I swear on the angel if that man have told you anything crazy−"

"No, mom. He did not say anything related to my birth. And you are huring me."

She stared at her hand on my shoulder, then withdrew it back to her side. "Sorry, I was just shocked. So, what makes you ask that kind of question out of the blue?"

"I just am confused. I mean, I just don't understand, mom. What did I ever do to him? Why does he hate me so much?" I could feel the lump on my throat.

"No, it is not like that, sweetie." she was helping herself on one elbow while the other hand was stroking the back of my head. "He just undergoes pressure. You should know that the drought this year is very serious. It makes the whole village starves. He just worried too much so sometimes he might acts harshly."

I looked into her sad eyes and realized that it is a lie. She just tried to comfort me. Still, I did not want her consolation to go in vain. I just nodded my head in agreement and crawled to her arms and slept.

Tried as I might, I just couldn't forget about this.