My parent’s divorced when I was little. That’s when everything got so complicated I guess. I never thought I would be able to be the girl that went home to a mother and a father. I was wrong. My dad was never father of the year, he received weekend visitation and. It didn’t take very long for him to be put into jail. He was in and out of jail my entire life. Weekend visitation turned into a weekly phone call. The weekly phone called then turned into every other week, every month, then they just stopped. My mom and dad fought anytime they talked. I never understood how they had been married.
I don’t know if they ever really loved each other. Maybe they were too young, or maybe they got caught up in the moment. Everyone wants to feel loved; maybe they thought getting married would make them be in love forever. It doesn’t though; it’s a promise to love each other through anything. That wasn’t the only promise they broke. Promises were meant to be broken though.
The summer before first grade my mom moved us an hour away from where we lived. It was a place called West Greenwhich. We were moving out of my grandparent’s house into a trailer just the two of us. It was sudden and kind of strange for her to move us, but I was little and didn’t question anything. Turns out her boyfriend lived down the street. I found that out a while later, and yet again everything changed. John began spending nights in our tiny little trailer. My dad was still out of the picture. About a year after I met John we moved in with him and his roommate. The owner of our trailer wanted to knock it down, so they made us leave. John offered to let us stay there.
Everything changed again. I lived in a house with a fisherman, my mom’s boyfriend and my mom. It was small, two bedrooms. We turned a storage room into my bedroom, or maybe it was a real bedroom. I’m not sure what it was. The whole wall was a door; I used a curtain for privacy. I had a closet though; it used to be my hangout. In the closet I had a picture of mom and dad on their wedding day.
There were fisherman’s hooks around. There were also hunting guns. The couches were ripped and the whole place was a mess.
Even though I had a dad, John took his place for a while. We did everything together. He was actually more of a best friend than a dad. I rarely saw my dad, so John stepped in for things like the father daughter dance. I lived with him until the summer before third grade. By then John had been my father for a while, but I never forgot my real father. I would talk to him occasionally.
I can’t explain my relationship with John, my best friend doesn’t even come close. My mom and I didn’t always get along, but when he was around everything was okay. I don’t know what happened there either but mom packed us up and we moved back to my grandparents. I only saw John once after that. I guess that’s all I was worth to him. Or maybe he thought it was too painful to talk to me, either way I have a right to be mad at him. We emailed for a while but he began ignoring all my emails. He didn’t care anymore, and I wasn’t going to be the annoying kid that doesn’t get the hint.
I remember spending a Christmas waiting for my dad to get out of jail. He had been in for a year. Something must have changed then because my dad began to be my dad again. Weekend visits became somewhat regular. I saw him almost every weekend. My dad got a girlfriend and started taking me there. She was nice, from what I saw. She had a son though, he had been thirteen, and I was only six. Ryan must have had anger management problems, he was always getting mad at his video games. Nobody noticed though. I guess it’s hard for the adults to notice when they never left the bedroom. My grandfather told my mom that I shouldn’t be allowed to go there anymore, and thankfully she made it stop. I didn’t know that when I stopped going there I wouldn’t see him anymore.
His girlfriend was jealous of me, and she wouldn’t let him come visit me. He chose her over me .They had two kids and then they broke up. After the break-up the weekend visits started again. By now I was ten. They still remain semi- regular. He had another girlfriend since the psycho jealous one, but I can’t even begin to describe that one. Mom moved us again about three years ago, we now live with her new boyfriend. I’m sure you’ll hear enough about him.
