You cannot love someone you fear - at least not at the same time. As a child, though, it seemed normal to Violet to ricochet between the two, depending on whether he was drunk or not, or just simmering with resentment over an imagined slight. But as she grows, so does her own resentment, although she knows better than to let it show. On the upside, the constant dread of his next night of rage intensifies her glee each time he makes a fool of himself. For a while that's enough, but as time goes on, he spirals further out of control, until the night she's always known was coming. Something has to change; someone has to be an adult, and there's no one left but 16-year-old Violet. In fiction, that would be the uplifting end of the story; real life isn't so tidy.