The smell of sunscreen, seamlessly intermingling with the sound of children crying formed an intoxicating sensory experience on that warm, Floridian day.  Sun shone down unforgivingly upon America’s middle class, desperately trying to calm their ill-tempered children, whose mouths let loose a cacophony of angry wails.  The setting of this frustrated depiction? Walt Disney World, located 40 minutes south of Orlando. To be specific, it was in the queue for the famed “It’s A Small World” ride that the Connors Family stood, seven members strong.     

This was the summer of 2017, and we were on our annual trip to Florida, courtesy of my grandparents.  

We had been waiting to board the ride for about an hour, and the whimsical theme song had played non stop throughout.  Now, there is only one result that is borne from extreme heat, annoying music, and being old—conditions that my grandfather had been stewing in for the ride’s entire wait.  That result is irritability.  

Finally, the seemingly endless queue gave way to an expansive concrete patio, adjacent to the waterway on which the ride’s boats traveled.  The smiling attendant instructed us to stand in boarding slots labeled with the numbers two and three, the last line we would be forced to endure before boarding the pastel colored watercraft.  I stood with my grandfather, and father, while my mother, grandmother, and two sisters occupied the other lane.

The boats slowly bumped to a stop, having already deposited their former passengers on dry land.  Water displaced by their movement sloshed onto the patio, quickly flowing into strategically placed grates that would most likely deposit it back into the man-made canals.  Metal doors at the end of each line jerked open, allowing access to the hard plastic benches we would soon be seated on.  

As my grandmother moved to board the boat, Grace, one of my two sisters decided to switch lanes.  No one except she knows the exact reason for the switch. Nevertheless, she began to walk from the end of her queue to the end of ours.  

Two feet.  My sister had only two feet to walk, moving from one bench to another.  The traversal of both of those feet took exactly two seconds. Two seconds is the perfect amount of time to walk two feet.  It turns out, two seconds was also the perfect amount of time for my grandfather’s irritability to affect his “decision-making” skills.  

As my sister slowly came to a stop, her body’s inertia carrying her a fraction of an inch farther, my grandfather extended his arms.  His hands were placed in a triangular shape, the shape optimized for greatest force. His hands remained in that shape until they made contact, hitting my sister in the chest with as much strength as he could muster.  My sister was lifted off of her feet and flung backwards onto the cold, wet, cement patio.

Powerless to stop him, we watched in horror.

My grandfather boarded the boat.

My grandfather was immediately yanked off the boat.

I would learn later the reason for the attack.  I would learn later that my grandfather had seen my sister leaving the line my grandmother was in, and interpreted it as an insult to her, a declaration that she was not good enough, at least in the eyes of my sister.  I would learn later that my grandfather was abusive and delusional, a pernicious blend of character traits.

However, all coherent thought had been banished from my mind, replaced by vague clouds of confusion and fear.  

My grandfather, no longer in the boat, was being dragged out through the exit, much to the dismay of the very young cast members, by none other than his daughter, known to me as “mom”.  

Our entire party was silent, half running half stumbling towards the park exit.  However, it was the silence of the eye of a storm. One filled with nervous expectation, excited apprehension.  

We had almost made it to the front of the park.  In fact, it was directly in front of the row of turnstiles that typically deposits joyfully exhausted families to the transportation area, that the final altercation burst into being.  

Like the cork of a wine bottle being shot by mounting pressure, my grandfather finally exploded.

Words flew like arrows, profanity mixed with personal insults, cutting into old wounds seemed healed.  Though the only casualty they thought of was their own relationship, it is the tendency of war to harm innocents, those who have no place in a battle waged since long before their birth.

  Contrasting the anger, fear, and anguish of an unexpected quarrel was the woman standing a few feet away, a plush glove on her hand, styled in the likeness of Mickey Mouse’s.  She looked on in horror, subconsciously waving her hand back and forth, as if performing her usual job would resolve the battle that was being waged in front of her.

The image of my sisters and grandmother crying and hugging each other as our family was torn apart is forever seared into my brain.  

Separate buses back to the hotel.

Separate trains back to the airport.

Separate planes back to Rhode Island.

Separate lives, split by the selfishness of a father and daughter, of a grandfather and mother, of a broken family.

I have not seen my grandparents since that day.

However, that day I can never forget, as it is the day that magic and happiness were revealed for what they truly are; a facade to hide the true darkness that lives everywhere.

Even the happiest place on earth.