Chapter 13: The Last Happy Day

It was a beautiful summer day just before school vacation when my world ended.

I remember the last time my mother and father were still married. I didn’t know it at the time but it was the last day I would ever feel safe as a child.

It was the last time my family would still be whole and still be a family...

I’m eleven years old and Sara, my eight-year-old little sister, and I were laughing together while playing house in the backyard. I built a playhouse where pine needles and sticks outlined the walls and rooms, gardens and sheds of our pretend household.

On the lawn of our backyard, I would outline the walls of our playhouse like the house plans I saw pictured in Popular Mechanics. I would add and erase details like closets, windows, and storage spaces. Because everything was one dimensional, all our playhouses were single story structures.

Sister Sara played mom and I played dad. She did mom things, and I did dad stuff - mostly collecting sticks to improve our home. Other times Sara and I went shopping together and gathered weeds and green things to take home so that Sara could cook supper.

We were a happy family. Then we heard our mother calling us into the kitchen. Joyce said it was time for a “talk.” A rush of dread came over me as I did a quick inventory of real and imagined sins and transgressions.

What had I done wrong this time? Kitchen talks were almost never good news. Getting called into the kitchen was worse than a summons to the principal’s office at school.

When I saw two chilled glasses of lemonade waiting for us on the kitchen table, I knew it must be bad news. Joyce never served us beverages during the day. As soon as we were old enough to open the refrigerator door, our mother told us that we were old enough to serve ourselves.

“Maid service,” she’d said, “does not come with childhood.”

My sister and I climbed onto the stools in the kitchen breakfast nook and waited. Joyce adjusted her position and looked at each of us in turn and said, “We need to talk to about your father and me. We are?”

“?getting a divorce?” I finished her sentence.

Joyce tilted her head to one side and gave me a strange expression. Something between shock, surprise, and anger. Most likely, it was an annoyed mix of all three. She blinked several times, opened and closed her mouth, licked her lips and said in a low voice, almost a whisper, “Yes. We are getting a divorce.”

Leaving the lemonade untouched, I jumped down from the stool and returned to our pine needle playhouse.

Then I kicked the shit out of it.

Stuff happens.

TRIGGER WARNING