The Switch

chapter 27

Erin

All week my mother called in, she told work she had the flu, but truthfully she was trying to spend as much time with me before the other shoe droped. As the week went on, we got more and more aware of the lack of police showing up. This made my mother paranoid. She thought that they might have been playing with her, waiting for her to slip up. To me this made no sense, and I was growing concerned with how she seemed to be changing.  she's drawn all the curtains, telling me to stay away from the window, just in case someone was watching. She wanted to spend every second with me she could, which meant we both slept downstairs on the couch.  A couple times this week my father had attempted to call and he even came over once, but my mother  made me pretend as if we weren't here. She said that with him trying to get custody of me, if he found out about what happened, he wouldn't hesitate. It all made a lot more sense now though, why she didn't want to become a part of a law suit my father may have wanted it why she didn't want anyone to know we were the Missing family from the switch. The one no one could contact.

Friday morning though my mother seemed less on edge, and it was strange. "I think we should go out today." She said as I yawned walking into the kitchen that morning.

I look at her questionably for a moment, "what?"

"There's a family amusement center about an hour from here, we should go." She puts a bowl down in front of me, next to the cereal and milk.

I shrug as I make my breakfast, "we never do stuff like that, why now." When she doesn't reply I look up just in time to see her shift from a worried expression to a fake smile.

"It'll be fun, and I wish I would have done more stuff like that when you were younger." I choose not to say anything about it and just smile.

"Okay," after that we ate breakfast together, her asking about how my school work was going and me trying my best not to overthink the reasoning for our spontaneous outing today.  I was a bit apprehensive about leaving papa Frank, but he just grunted and layed back down in the living room. Not happy about us leaving him, but wanting to nap anyways.

The drive there felt like we were going down memory lane, she spent the entire time telling story's about when I was a kid. At first I went along with it, but  after the fifth story, I started to get annoyed. Thankfully we got to the park, and that was less filled with story's and more just us enjoying our time together. It was on the ride home that it finally got to me. I couldn't put up with it anymore halfway through a story about me painting papa Frank.  "Mom what's going, you've spent the whole day acting like your never going to see me again?!"

"I just want to spend time with you before..." She trails off,  and I sigh.

"Mom, I know your scared, but maybe things will work out." I tell her, not really sure of that myself.

"Erin, I've decided to turn my self in," she says slower, looking straight at the road, refusing to look over at me.

"What! You can't, they'll take you away, who's going to take care of me, mom I need you." How could she make this decision with out me. This was all my fault, why did I have to push things. I should have just left it all alone, but I let my need to know ruin everything.

"I don't want to leave you, but this week I put my self in the Jacobs shoes, and they need closure. It's also the right thing to do, how am I supposed to set a good example for you, I did something wrong, and I have to face those consequences." She says and I notice a slight tear in her eyes.