divorced...

“We are getting a divorce and think its best you each decide which parent you want to live with,” said my mom.

            I was eleven.  My sister was thirteen and a half.

            The hovering bomb had finally dropped.  We stood, motionless, in shock like four lost souls lingering over their dead bodies. 

            What do we do now?

            Where was the light?

            Then we floated apart.  My dad and sister went for a walk. My mom went to the kitchen and I took council with Henry, my stuffed monkey.

            “Alana will go with mom.” I picked at Henry’s loose, felt nostril. “She doesn’t like dad and he doesn’t like her.”   (Alana was the glue of our fate; the accidental pregnancy.) Henry’s brown eyes and perpetual pink smile stared back it me, always available.

            “I’m about to start getting my period.” I whispered, falling back on the bed, hugging him close. 

            I can’t imagine anything worse than asking dad for pads or tampons. 

             “I have no choice, Henry.  I have to go with mom.” I closed my eyes.

            Later, I stood in the doorway of my parent’s room.  My sight obscured by welling tears.  My dad, alone, looked up from his book and smiled.

            “I’m sorry.” I blurted and ran to him, sobbing.

            A year later, I’d watch my parents remarry each other. 

            Six years after that, I’d go through a similar scene, in the kitchen, mom leaning against the counter, my dad against the stove, me at the kitchen table, again deciding what to do, but this time I was eighteen. I had no interest in becoming a surrogate wife to my dad and my mom was done. I chose to move out.

            Perhaps this is why I have no interest in marriage.

            Luckily, I still have Henry.