Trying Hard to Ignore You

Liar

Christmas came and passed, and New Years, and Emily moved to America and she has been staying with me.

Months have passed, and it's July now, July 4th, and everyone is in New York to celebrate.

Kendall is pregnant, she's eight months already. She was pregnant during Christmas, but hardly, and I'm so excited to be an Aunt.

I finally met my Grandparents and they're very nice. We're at the park down the street from Spencer's house to have a barbecue. Everyone is laughing and partying, and Mum is standing off to the side, arguing with my grandparents, and she has been for a half hour.

Everyone keeps kind of looking over there.

Spencer and I are getting married on October first. We're talking about the wedding with everyone.

Emily is my maid of honor and Kendall is my bridesmaid. Spencer made Noah his best man, and Will his groomsmen.

"I wonder what they're fighting about." I say, looking over there.

"I don't know." Emily frowns.

I look at Ethan, and he shrugs.

"No clue."

Ethan is going to walk me down the aisle.

Spencer didn't have his cousins be his groomsmen because it would overrule my girls, and he told me he's not close with them anyways.

Finally, they stop arguing, and my grandmother walks over to us with a purpose, and my Mum keeps whisper shouting at her.

She looks at Spencer's family.

"I'm sorry." She says, and then she looks at us.

"Your father didn't die. He's alive, and well, in Saratoga Springs. She gave you, Ethan, up when your father went to get us downstairs in the waiting room. When she had you, Audrey, he never left her side. He left your mother and tried to take you girls with him, but she refused, and did something terrible to him that wound him almost dead in the hospital! She took off and left the house in his name, and the more money that piled up, the worse it got! He left because she's a drug addict! She got rushed into the hospital over an overdose! Audrey, you don't remember, probably because you were so little, but you were four years old and she overdosed and you called the police! You, at four years old, saved her life! You guys were put up for adoption, and your father was heartbroken without you guys! All three of you! By the time he showed up to pick you girls up and find Ethan, he got arrested from not paying the bills your mother left him! He has been looking for you three for decades! I had to take all my money and bail my son out of jail! And honey, that scar, right there?" She points to the scar I've had on my palm for as long as I can remember. "When you were three, you tried to take a cookie off the counter without asking and she held a cigarette bud to your hand. She is not a parent, she is a drug addict. Your mother is insane."

Silence.

A memory hits me, a memory I have long forgotten.

"No, dammit, you can't leave me!" Mummy shouts at my Daddy.

I'm just three years old. Daddy has his bags packed, and he packed all my favorite toys and clothes, and all Emmy's favorite toys and clothes.

I take my little sissy into the food closet and close the door, listening.

"Josephine, you are insane! You are no good for my children! I will not stand around and let you press cigarettes to my daughter! You already got rid of my son! Audrey, Emmy, my sweet girls, come here, we're going to go somewhere safe."