A New Beginning

Part 4, Greedy People

  If I'm being totally honest I don't have a damn clue what I'm feeling right now. I'm sitting in this car with practically a stranger, but an oddly familiar one. I was raised to hate this woman yet somehow I felt comfortable in her presence. I haven't seen her in years but there's a general sense of peace being with her, my mom. That  seems like such a weird concept this woman is my mom, she birthed me, loved me, and cared for me before I was taken from her and I spent the past 14 years of my life ignoring her as to not upset that ex stepmonster.

I sit there processing for a few more minutes while she is clearly trying to figure out where to start the conversation because, "so how have you been" doesn't sound right. Like what the hell would I even say to that, "oh you know pretty good, growing up, being an adult now is pretty cool" that would make things insanely awkward. Finally she decides on

"So I got you a new dresser for your room. I figured you would like that better than your backpack."

"Yeah I would, thank you." I release a weird giggle trying to keep the mood light.

"Okay Mackenzie"
By the tone of her voice I know she means business and shit is about to get real.

" I want you to know I've always loved you and the only reason I stopped seeing you is because I gave all my mental and physical energy along with every dime I had for the first 11 years with no success. I took your dad and Zoe to court as much as I possibly could. Even you know they lied about Isabella's dad and my sister being violent so you couldn't spend the night with me anymore. They attacked me from every angle to make it impossible for me to have you and Raven but you have to know I try my hardest. On top of that I also had Taylor and Isabella to worry about and it got to the point where I didn't know how I was gonna feed them because I was so broke from all the legal fees."

At this point we're both crying. I knew everything my mom said was true. Dad and Zoe did lie a lot and played dirty when it came to the custody of Raven and I. I blame Zoe mostly because as I've stated before she despised my mother solely because that meant dad had loved her first. The same way Zoe has been playing dirty for primary custody of Ben and Mike. My dad wanted a clean 50/50 divorce but that wasn't good enough for Zoe. She knew my dad had on her that she was verbally and mentally abusive and that she was an alcoholic. Since she wanted primary and didn't want him to whip that out against her in court she decided to gain the help of her millionaire dad to hire the best lawyer.

Said lawyer is absolutely tearing my dad apart. Earlier when I said Zoey practice her temper tantrum on me that was gonna be used on my dad I meant she yelled at me for 20 minutes over something I had no control over, then when my dad woke up to get ready for work she was immediately up in his face screaming and yelling at him about the actual dumbest shit she just got done yelling at me about. Little did my dad know she was setting him up to make him yell at her. After multiple attempts to make her stop and leave him alone he said "Do you want me to punch you in the throat?"

She had the voice recorder going on her phone and caught him saying that. She waited completely unbothered until he left for work, then called her parents and the police to the house at midnight telling them he was such an abusive man and look, she had a recording to prove it. She put on quite the show that she was actually terrified for her safety so on and so forth. I'd like to make it clear my dad has never and will never hurt anyone. He might look intimidating but hes actually a teddy bear that loves and protects his family.

Anyway to sum that little rant up they played dirty and hurt whoever it took to make themselves happy because they were selfish, greedy people.

"If it makes you feel any better I have never really hated you. I was always told that you had abandoned me and never loved me which gave me some issues, but I've always tried to convince myself that that wasn't true."

"I love you Memzy."

" I love you too Mom."

The rest of the hour-long drive to Fort Riley we were chatting as if we were old friends. I catch her up on my current hell of a life and she tells me how the rest of our family has been doing.