Happy

After his father died he asked his mother what had made him happy. She had no answer. He reckoned it could have been having a drink and telling stories but he had only done that a few times in the 48 years he'd known his father. He fixed the family cars when he could, kept the lawn mowed, cut trees, but he tired easily and no one liked to help him because he ended up in a bad mood. Always. He sometimes talked about his mother but those stories were about his getting whippings and when his mother was much older and in the nursing home he didn't like her very much. He admitted that. His older sister said, "He liked you, David. You made him happy. You were his only son." But David hadn't forgotten the beatings that went on and on until he thought they had stopped, until his father's belt was back on and then he would whip it off again and lay it across David's bare legs. His father made him strip to his underwear for his beatings. So what made his father happy? David couldn't come up with an answer. His father was dead so what did it matter?