my voice

Chapter 7: It might be different

            After graduation was over and such I did begin to go over and see my father again a little bit more frequently. He was still with the same woman and she really was so loving all the time. Way to good to ever be with my father. She baked all the time made homemade items all the time, one of my favorites was her homemade bread! It had a nice sweet taste but a very light one. So of course she was happy to see us when we started coming around occasionally again.

          We didn't really start doing anything, we would just go over here and there to the house for a little bit and then wed leave. Every time I pulled into his driveway I just always felt so nervous. So for awhile he was good everything was going smoothly. We would go over maybe have dinner and then go home. 

          During the time we didn't see my father he went and bought all these things. Keep in mind though still not yet did he have any money ever to help us out ever. No school shoes, No school supplies, no birthdays or Christmas's. So he bought himself a boat, he got a pull behind camper, he got a little paddle boat for the pond at his house, he got a Polaris rzr, side by side. So of course we seen he had all this money to buy all these things but never once cared if we had the things that we needed. 

         So whatever at this point it just was, what it was. During the summer months my dad, his girlfriend and my brother and I would go up to Raystown lake with the boat. He had a couple different tubes to hook to the boat and wed go tubing for the day and it was always so much fun. We would stop and get like subs and some chips and some water and Gatorade at a gas station along the way throw it in the cooler and throw it back on the boat. 

       All day long for hours we would be out there on the lake and it was like for this short amount of time my dad laughed and had fun with us and it felt like I actually had the dad I wanted. He'd make which ever one of us wasn't on the tube be the one to watch while he drove. So he'd be driving the boat trying to go over the waves from the other boat to throw us off the tube and he'd turn around here and there laughing and smiling while were getting thrown around on the tube and he's trying his hardest to get us to fly off.

      Let me tell you when you flew off, you flew off. Body flying through the air a face full of water but you came up with a smile on your face laughing, and when he'd turn around to pick you up he would be grinning from ear to ear so proud of himself. If every day could have been like that I would have never needed to ask for anything else.

     We had four wheelers when we were younger but when we stopped going over he sold mine but Austin's was still there. So when he would suggest riding Austin would have his four wheeler but I had to ride in the side by side with dad which was fine because I really got enjoyment out of just the meaning behind it.

     I thought that he had finally seen the bigger picture and all this time we had been away and not seen him that he missed us and he was so appreciative now that we had decided to start coming around again. He still would make snide little comments here and there but it was nothing like it was before.

     So our time over there became more frequent. Sometimes when wed be over there he'd wanna do something at our grandparents house so wed go over be in the garage doing whatever it was to be done. Typically the way it went was the men would be in the garage and the women would be in the house, usually in the living room because my gram loved to crochet so you could find her on the couch in the living room with the needle and yarn in hand. 

    Typically Tina (my dads girlfriend) would be with us as well, unless she was up visiting her family. We would sit in the living room and chit chat until it was time to go. Sometimes it might be a half hour, other times it might be 3-5 hours. A set time was never in play. I did drive but wed always go in one vehicle because my father would always say " we wont be that long' the thing is you never new if it was true or not. 

   My dad wasn't a horrible person 100% of the time and I feel like that is a lot of the reason why I kept going back and giving him chance after chance, hoping one of the times I gave him another chance that he would be different. The good parts of him were never permanent, they were temporary. He only put on the good sides of him when he wanted to suck someone into his bullshit. Like a damn black widow spider.

   Soon enough the times we were over there he started making his ignorant comments again, and just about anything. He would talk about the car I bought (which was my first ever car that I had to buy all myself) saying it was a piece of shit and I made a stupid purchase and I got played. I let someone make a fool of me. Austin was just really driving at this point and so he would say the same things to him.

   In return then we stopped going over as often it might be maybe twice a month now instead of ya know every weekend maybe. It was like after he felt to comfortable in the fact that we would just always come back around that he just was ok with disrespecting us at any cost.