All I See is Red

chapter 23

The doctors had come to the conclusion that my mother had bipolar disorder and was showing early signs of schizophrenia. With proper medication and therapy they said she would hopefully make a full recovery.

The police and child protective services questioned Sammy and I. It broke me to hear him speak about what happened when they left. I had no idea.

He said they went to a small town not two hours south of here. He said she told him they were going to start over and that she would find a job and then come back for me. She enrolled him in school and lied about them having a house. Though she really believed they did. They lived in a shelter down town and sometimes just on the street. All of their meals came from the shelter and often times he didn't eat at all. He tried to find his way back here, but an eight year old can only do so much.

My mom had legitimately thought that she had a job and a house. She thought she had only left me for a short amount of time and not almost five months.

"Normally under these circumstances we would place him in foster care," the social worker told us. My heart stopped beating. No. "But, since you are legally an adult now, since you are married, he can be under both of your custody. You'll have to sign and change everything over to your name."

Woah, full custody of my brother. "What about when my mom gets better? If she gets out of the mental facility?"

"Then that will be up to you and a judge to determine further custody. You can suggest she not see him, you can give her visitation rights, it will all be up to you and the judge and how her progress goes and her mental state of course."

I gulped, Boston's hand squeezed my thigh under the table. "Okay, where do we sign?" he asked.

"Here you go," the social worker said. She handed us stacks of papers and we signed every single one of them.

Then we had to re-enroll him in school and put everything under our names. He was now our responsibility.

How did my life come to this?

"Hey, it's okay," Boston said just as I was about to cry. I cried all the time. My life was a complete joke.

"It's not okay," I said, just letting the tears fall. "It shouldn't be this way. We are just kids. We shouldn't be taking care of other kids."

"It's okay," he said pulling me into him. "Stop getting stressed about it. Everything will turn out fine, it always does." I guess he was right. It just didn't feel right.

I needed time, but we had no time. It was Sunday and Sam started school on Monday. We had to move Sammy into Bella's bedroom, and get him ready for school the next day. He was excited to go back to see his friends after so long, but he was afraid too.

I was afraid. I was afraid of messing up. He was only eight. I was in charge of an eight year old. And in six and a half months, I would be in charge of a newborn as well.

I scrambled to help him get ready Monday morning. There were too many people in this house. I had to get ready for school as did Boston and Sammy. I had to make breakfast while Maria got Bella up and ready and then she left to take her to daycare and to the cafe.

I got really dizzy right before I was about to run down the stairs for the third time this morning. I held onto the wall, taking a deep breath to try and get it to go away.

"Babe, what's wrong?" Boston asked. He grabbed my arm to keep me from falling over.

"Just really dizzy." I shut my eyes momentarily and it passed. "I'm good now." I picked back up of bag from the floor and started down the stairs. "Sam let's go," I called. He was shoving food in his mouth when I got down.