I was at the tail end of my twelfth year when that summer began. I should have known what was coming. I should have seen the signs, or read the tea leaves, or used some other such means of divining the future, but I didn’t. Maybe it was easier to focus on what was normal in my life, or, maybe my brain just chose to block out all of the tension that had been building between my parents. Tension is too soft a word, now that I look back on it. In truth, the icy refusals to speak to one another had been like a silent tsunami barreling towards our family, each wave building in intensity, until it crashed into us, unleashing screaming matches so powerful that they finally brought us to our knees.

And then, like a thief in the night, my mother roused us, my brothers and I, from a restless sleep and told us we were leaving the only home we’d ever known. Feeling sleep drugged, and horribly confused, I slid out of bed and stumbled around until I was dressed in cut off shorts and a t-shirt with a sticky, rainbow patch iron-on on its front, and slid my feet into a too small pair of flip flops.

I slipped out of my room like a wraith, and moved down to my brothers’ room. My oldest brother, Terry, who was only nine, was dressed, but curled up on the floor, sleeping, I supposed. My mother was pulling a shirt over my youngest brother, Shaun’s head. He was only six, and he was crying, telling her he wanted to go sleep in her bed, but her movements were determined as she grabbed a pair of shorts from his dresser and held them open, telling him to step into them. When they were finished, she shook Terry awake, and, like lamb to slaughter, we followed her out to the car, only she walked right by it and continued on to the street.

“Where are we going?” I cried, as I ran to catch up to her.

“We’re meeting someone down at the corner.” she said, as she bent down to pick Shaun up.

“Who? Who are we meeting?” I asked her, as the beginnings of fear began to spread like a black mist inside my mind.

“It doesn’t matter, Christy.” my mother answered, as she marched down the street almost gleefully, it seemed, at least to my eyes.

I wanted to run back to my house. I wanted to go ask my dad what was happening and why he wasn’t coming to stop this madness. I didn’t, though. I should have. I know that now. But I also know that it might not have made a difference if I had, and that’s the saddest thing of all.

When we reached the corner, there was a car waiting. I didn’t recognize it. A man that I also didn’t recognize was sitting behind the wheel. My mother opened the back door and hurried us into the backseat. She slid into the front beside the man, and spoke softly to him as my arms automatically reached for my brothers. We huddled next to each other, trembling from sleep exhaustion and uncertainty, while the man drove.

We arrived at a small, brick house. The man, Gary, ushered all of us inside. He took us down a tight hallway to a room with a big bed. My mother told us that she was going to stay up and visit with Gary, but that we were to get in bed and go to sleep. As she left the room, we climbed under the covers and Shaun cried as I rubbed his back and tried to calm him down.

“Christy, what’s happening?” Terry whispered.

I could hear the fear in his voice and understood it for what it was, because I felt it, too. I didn’t have any answers for him, so I just started humming Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star until they both quieted and fell asleep. Eventually, my mother came into the room and slid into bed on the opposite side of me, with the boys between us. I wanted to question her, to ask her why she had done this to us, but it seemed like a fruitless endeavor, so instead I lay still, willing myself to fall asleep.

An hour later, maybe two, just as I was about to drift off, I heard the door open quietly and I stiffened as I saw the shadowy figure of Gary step into the room. Through squinted eyes, I watched him approach my mother’s side of the bed. He stood silently above her for several long minutes, before turning away. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was too soon, for instead of leaving the room, he came around the bed and padded softly towards me. I could feel him standing behind me, but I didn’t move. I hoped that he was just checking to make sure that we were all safe and asleep, here in his house. I hoped that he would go, but he didn’t. I felt his hand land softly on my shoulder. I didn’t know what to do, or how to react, so I did nothing. I had a habit of tucking one arm beneath my pillow, and throwing the other up over my ear as I slept on my side, and so I felt his hand slide down over my barely blossomed breast. I was certain that he could feel my heart as it leapt out of my chest, but he didn’t seem aware of it as he fondled me. Time seemed to stop as my brain screamed in silence. I wasn’t so young that I didn’t know that men touched women there, but I wasn’t a woman, I was a child.

His hand suddenly slid down my still boyish hips. I felt his fingers catch on my underpants, and then he lifted the elastic trim and I jerked away, as a gasp of outrage flew out of my mouth. Gary pulled his hand away. I shifted closer to my brother. I could feel Gary staring down at me. I knew that he wanted to continue, but was weighing the risk. Several moments passed as I lay there, terrified, and then, thankfully, he left the room.

My mother turned over to face us, and for a second, I thought I saw the white of her eye catch the moonlight. I didn’t sleep that night. I was too scared that Gary would come back, and too horrified that my mother might allow it to happen.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, my mother told Gary that she’d slept just fine and I choked on my Cheerio’s. I wanted to scream that I hadn’t slept at all. I wanted to point an accusing finger at the man who had touched me, had molested me, all while she slept just fine, supposedly, but of course I didn’t.

Gary’s small eyes leered at me as he told my mother that we were welcome to stay as long as we needed. I waited with bated breath until he left to turn the Sunday morning cartoons on for my brothers before I rushed to tell my mother that I didn’t want to stay there. That we couldn’t stay there. Not one more day.

I wanted her to ask me why? I wanted her to dig deeper, but she didn’t. It wasn’t my place to decide, she said, as she gestured for me to help gather the bowls.

The day passed so slowly. Anxiety, though I didn’t know that was what it was called then, hung over me like a cloud, gathering in intensity as the night crept ever closer. I wanted desperately not to be there, but it wasn’t up to me. If it were, we would be back home, with my father, where I felt safe, and loved, not in a strange house with a man whose eyes followed me, lecherously, all day long.

Finally, just as Gary stood up and turned the TV off, and Terry and Shaun whined for just five more minutes, my mother came around the corner and announced that we were leaving.

Pure joy bubbled up inside my chest. Maybe my mother did want to protect me. I ran into the bedroom and gathered our belongings, only realizing as I came back out that I had no idea where we were going. Anywhere had to be better than there, though, right?

I stayed glued to my mother’s side as she thanked Gary for letting us stay there. I could tell that he was mighty disappointed that we were leaving, but I didn’t bother to hide my happiness. I was practically floating when we stepped outside. There was another car waiting alongside the curb, a station wagon that I recognized as belonging to my mom’s friend, Amanda. I liked Mandy. She was nice, and she had a daughter, Bonnie, that was my age, and a son, Dustin, that was Terry’s age.

That night, tucked safely beside Bonnie in her canopied bed, I was thinking maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Mandy would talk some sense into my mom, make her see that we belonged back home with dad.

That wasn’t what happened, of course. Just two days later, my mother announced that she was taking us to a park to meet someone special, and that we were to be on our best behavior. I had been playing with Bonnie, so I dropped my Barbie doll and went with my mother. We walked to the park, where a man waited for us. His name was Stan, and he seemed nice enough when I said hello, before racing off to the swings with Terry and Shaun.

It wasn’t until we had left the park and were walking back to Bonnie’s house, that my mother informed us that Stan was her new boyfriend, and that she was going to go away with him for a week. I suppose I was too young to realize that it was unlikely that my mother had only just met and became Stan’s girlfriend in the four days since she’d left my father, but it didn’t cross my mind.

“But what about us?” I asked her.

“You’ll stay with Mandy and her family until I get back. I’ll be back before you can even miss me.”

That week did go by quickly, but my mother didn’t return. She didn’t return the following week, either. Periodically, as the summer went by, I would hear Mandy in the kitchen, heatedly whispering into the phone, but she would only smile and grow quiet if she happened to catch me trying to eavesdrop. Of course I was curious. Of course I wanted my mother to come back. If not for me, than for my brothers. Shaun, especially, was distraught by her leaving us. He would often climb into my lap and cry for her, and I felt myself becoming more and more enraged that she was off with a strange man, rather than with us, her own children.

As early summer turned into late summer, and the heat drove even us kids indoors, Mandy started having muffled arguments behind closed doors with her husband. It didn’t take me long to realize that they were arguing about us. I could just make out what they were saying if I put my ear to their door, which, I’ll admit, I did a few times.

Mandy’s husband, Freddy, wanted her to call my dad and ask him to come get us, but she said that she couldn’t do that because my mother would be furious. No, she said, they would keep us a little longer, for, surely my mother would come back soon and take us with her.

I was desperate to believe that Mandy was right, that my mom would come back for us soon. But, honestly, part of me just wanted to stay there, where, if I kept my mind right and didn’t allow myself to question why my mother hadn’t come for us, or why my dad hadn’t came for us either, I could almost pretend that I was just on a prolonged sleepover with my friend.

School started soon after, and my days were more about dealing with separate classrooms, different teachers, an enormous lunchroom filled with people that I didn’t know, and a locker with a combination that I could never quite remember. Still, I had a small, core group of people that I had grown up with, like Bonnie, and we would talk in the hallways during passing period, or slip each other notes through the slits in our lockers.

Busy as I was, I still took notice as the calendar in Mandy’s kitchen flipped each month. It was now early December. I had not seen my mother, or, for that matter, my father, in six months. And, because I was so highly attuned to it now, I could feel the tension between Mandy and Freddy building just like dark clouds stacking on top of each other as a storm brewed off in the distance.

The storm finally came on a Wednesday, just a week before Christmas. I was at school, trying to pay attention to Mrs. Haley teaching us about the Great Depression, when her intercom buzzed. I heard my name and my head felt like a thousand bees were swarming inside of it as Mrs. Haley told me to gather my belongings and go down to the office. I wanted to think that maybe my mother had finally came for me, but it was a man that stood waiting for me in the principal’s office, instead. His name was Dudley, or Derrick. I can’t remember, and I don’t care. He informed me that he was taking me to a foster home. I was in a daze as he went through the motions, signing me out of school, leading me to his car, all the while making small talk as I barely nodded in answer.

It wasn’t until we were standing in the foyer of a house, as he introduced me to a woman by the name of Sharon Baker, that I thought to ask where Terry and Shaun were. He told me that they were together, but Mrs. Baker didn’t have room for three foster children, so we had to be separated. That was when I began to cry. I was still crying, great, heaving sobs, when Derrick, or Dudley told me he would check in soon, and left me with Mrs. Baker.

She ushered me up the steps and down the hall to a room with twin beds, telling me that I was going to share a room with her daughter, Sasha, who was still at school. She also had two boys, Cliff, and Jordan, who slept in a room across the hall.

I continued crying off and on through the rest of the day and evening. I could tell that it was bothering Mrs. Baker, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I met the rest of her family at dinner. They seemed nice, but flustered by my presence. I was the first foster child they had ever had, and I now know that they wanted me to be grateful for their taking me in. They had probably been expecting someone who would be effusively thanking them for their goodwill, not acting as though they had just lost everything they had ever had, which, just saying, was exactly how I was acting, because it was kind of true.

Life with the Bakers’ was fine and terrible, equally. Sasha was several years younger than me, so we didn’t have much in common, and, she was truly spoiled. Cliff was two years older than me, and secretly smoked out on the roof when he could get away with it, and Jordan, or, Jordy, as he was called, was a little rat fink that I quickly learned to keep a watch out for. Mr. Baker was almost never around, and I doubt that he said more than ten words to me during the seven months that I was there. Mrs. Baker was kind when someone was watching, and far less kind when someone wasn’t. I quickly learned that my role in the household was to ‘help’ her, which was shorthand for do everything that she didn’t want to do. I mopped, vacuumed, scrubbed toilets, dusted, ironed, and watched Jordy whenever she had to step out for awhile, which was more frequent than you would imagine. As long as I did everything she asked without complaint, she would give me a dollar a week, which I saved up to spend at the mall that we would go to on the weekends.

Every now and then, I would be allowed to talk to Terry and Shaun on the phone. They were staying with a family called the Duncan’s, and they seemed happy enough, or at least that’s what I told myself because it was easier that way. At night, early on, I would pray that we would all be reunited with our parents’, but as the months wore on, I eventually stopped praying and just lay there, hoping for sleep to come so that I could finally stop aching for the comfort that only a parent could give.

One day, Dudley showed up and informed me that we were going down to the courthouse for a visitation with my father. I was as shocked as I was elated. Finally, my dad was going to get us back. I had waited so long. I had wanted this so badly that my entire body would vibrate with the longing to be reunited with him, and my brothers, and, truthfully, even my mother.

When we arrived, I was escorted to what appeared to be a break room; there were tables and chairs, candy and drink machines, and, most importantly, my brothers, who flew into my arms as soon as I stepped into the room.

“We’re going to see dad!” Terry exclaimed. He’d grown a couple of inches since I’d last seen him. So had Shaun. I wondered if they’d noticed that I had changed too.

We couldn’t seem to stop hugging each other as we waited for our dad to come in. We shared our thoughts that maybe we were finally about to go home, that surely dad had been working behind the scenes to get us back. Who knew, maybe it would even be that we were going home today.

Ten minutes passed, then another ten, and finally the door opened and our Aunt Margaret stepped into the room.

“Where’s dad?” I asked her, as she went around the table kissing our cheeks and telling us how big we’d grown.

I could tell that she didn’t want to answer, and I could feel the excited hope begin to wither away inside of me. He wasn’t coming. I knew it as surely as I breathed. But, why?

Aunt Margaret mumbled something about our dad missing us something fierce, but she couldn’t seem to find the right words to tell us why he hadn’t come. She stood up as Derrick came into the room. There were tears running down her face, but I just felt cold and angry as she told us to hang in there and left.

That night, curled up in bed, my mind kept going over the day, rehashing every single detail, examining it carefully for some sign, some answer as to why my father had thought it would be good to arrange a visitation with his children that he hadn’t seen in over a year, only to not show up, and to send an aunt that seemed to know the answer, but wasn’t willing to tell us.

Life carried on. I made a few new friends, and started liking boys. I shaved my legs for the first time, and learned how to curl my hair and put on blush and lip gloss. I even decided to practice my cartwheels and splits, and try out for the cheerleading team when school started again.

And then, out of the blue, on a sunny day in late July, Mrs. Baker got off the phone and asked me to come have a seat at the kitchen table. She told me that she had just spoken to Family Services and we were to be returned to our mother. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just sat there, running my hand again and again over the floral vinyl tablecloth.

“Aren’t you happy, Christy?” Mrs. Baker asked me.

I nodded quickly, fearful that if I didn’t show happiness, that they would decide not to send me back to my mother, and I did want to go back, or, I thought I did. Did it even matter what I wanted? Had it ever?

Terry, Shaun, and I were turned over to my mother at the courthouse. She was wearing a yellow sundress and she looked blissfully happy as she gathered us up in her arms. Stan was there, too, only, he didn’t look happy at all.

They took us to a tiny house that they were renting in a part of town I’d never seen before. We settled in, or, the boys settled in, I should say. I never really did, now that I think about it. There was something transient about it, and I felt on edge even as my mother was acting as though we hadn’t just spent over a year of our lives without her because she had left us. She never said a word about it. She never once brought up the fact that she’d left our dad, and then she’d left us. Abandoned us, really, like we were no more important to her than a discarded tissue. And she did it for a man that was quickly showing us his true nature.

I didn’t like him, I’ll admit it. He didn’t like me, either. I desperately wanted my mother to leave him and take us back to our home. Our real home. With dad. Instead, she was giddy as she told us that her divorce had been finalized and she and Stan were planning on getting married. I was devastated, of course, and spent every moment that we had alone trying to get her to see reason, but it was all for naught. Just a month after we had reunited with her, she and Stan got married at the courthouse.

School started, and, once again, I found myself an outsider. It was getting harder to make friends as I got older, and even if I had a friend, I wouldn’t want them to come over anyway. Stan was always home. He rarely kept a job longer than it took to collect his first paycheck, and when he wasn’t working, he was usually drunk. Our cupboards were bare most of the time, because any money he earned he quickly spent on booze. We were lucky if we got to buy a loaf of bread and some bologna.

When money was especially tight, we would all pile into his car and drive around to my mother’s various relatives so that she could go ask them if they had a twenty to spare. The negotiations would go on for a bit, and it would usually end with her clasping a five, or, at most, a ten dollar bill in her hands as she sheepishly returned to the car. Stan, of course, would yank the money out of her hand and admonish her for not getting more. I hated being left in the car with Stan, so I always accompanied her inside, and I knew how much shame she must have felt as she begged her aunts, uncles, cousins, even a nephew, for money.

What made it worse was that the money just fueled Stan’s alcohol dependency, and made it certain that he would drink himself into a rage, stomping and storming about, driving us kids into our bedrooms to hide in fear from him all night long.

I stewed about it, of course. I couldn’t help myself. Every chance that I got, I pleaded with her to leave him. I told her how unhappy the boys and I were, but our misery never seemed to penetrate because she refused to leave him.

Only a few months passed before we were kicked out of the house. We moved into a trailer. The boys and I now shared a room. It was the heart of winter, and every morning I would wake up shivering so hard that I thought my teeth would surely shatter. My mother, never a religious woman, took to dragging us to every church near us so that we could avail ourselves of any free handouts they offered. She had to, because there was nowhere left to turn.

I am sorry to say that when the arguments between her and Stan began in earnest that winter, I was sort of elated. After a particularly horrific argument, one that saw him shove her backwards into the kitchen cabinet, my mother told us to put our coats on. We left the trailer and walked to another one, where a woman that my mother had befriended lived. She drove us in the driving snow to a women’s shelter. That night, after eating the first full meal that we’d had in months, the boys and I slipped into bed beside my mom and I dared to dream that maybe, just maybe, she was going to leave him for good. I was there the next morning, when the head of the shelter talked to her about us being allowed to stay while she searched for work. They would teach her job skills and even provide her with a professional outfit for interviews. It sounded like a dream come true, and, when she told us that afternoon that we were leaving, that we were going back home, it made my heart break that much deeper.

For a brief time, my mother’s leaving seemed to have a positive effect on Stan. He found steady work, and we moved out of the trailer and into an apartment again. I found a stray kitten and named it Della. We were gifted some used bikes and Terry, Shaun, and I spent the spring riding the neighborhood until it was too dark to see anymore. It was, more or less, an idyllic time, and it didn’t last. One night, in a drunken rage, Stan grabbed my pregnant cat, Della, and threw her out our second floor window. Beyond distraught, I tore outside and searched for her in the dark, screaming her name until I was hoarse and Terry finally came and got me. If I had hated Stan before, it was nothing compared to what I felt now. Sobbing with grief, I implored my mother to let us leave, but we stayed. Of course, we stayed.

Throughout the summer, Stan and my mother argued. After a particularly bad one, my mother, once again, left. This time we went to stay with a woman she had met at one of the churches we frequented. She was a single mom and rented out the upstairs of a home. By now, I knew better than to think that this was it, even as their separation went on for a week, and then another. At the end of the third week, my mother and her friend left to go to the laundromat up the street. Soon after, there was a loud banging at the front door. Terry ran towards it before I could stop him. He gasped and backed away from the door, his face going pale.

“Who is it?” I whispered, as I gestured for him to come follow me towards the back of the house.

“It’s Stan,” Terry cried, “He’s got a gun, Christy.”

“A gun?” I didn’t want to have heard him right.

The banging on the door intensified, and I could hear Stan scream, “Open the fucking door! I know you’re in there, so open the goddamn door!”

“What do we do?” Terry asked, his eyes wide in alarm.

The only thing I could think to do was hide. I looked around for Shaun but didn’t see him.

“Where’s Shaun, Terry?”

“He’s … I don’t know.”

The door handle rattled and we could now hear Stan banging at the door with his knee. Shaun came running down the stairs. I grabbed him and all three of us started running towards the back door. I remembered that there was a shed in the backyard. Maybe we could hide in there. I was in charge. I had to make sure that Terry and Shaun were safe.

I flung the back door open and told them to run to the shed. As they ran across the backyard, I turned and stalked back to the front door. I was going to try to stall Stan. I felt shaky as I opened the door a crack. My heart dropped to the floor as I saw Stan turning the corner of the house. I shrieked bloody murder and ran for the back door. I opened it and ran outside, nearly colliding with Stan as he approached. He grabbed my arm so tightly that I had bruises for a week after, and bellowed, “Where’s your goddamned mother?”

“She’s not here.” I said. My eyes couldn’t stop staring at the gun in his hand.

“Bullshit! Where’s your fucking mom, Christy? Tell me, or I swear to god I’m going shoot you in the fucking head.”

“She’s not here. I’m telling you the truth.”

He shoved me backwards, angrily, and started yelling for her.

The boys both came rushing out of the shed, and I started crying, telling them to run for a neighbor’s house. Terry reached me and he grabbed my arm and we all took off, as Stan screamed that he would be back, and next time he wouldn’t leave without my mother.

We ended up hiding in an alley several houses away until we saw his car drive away. My heart was racing as we stood in the alley, waiting until my mother and her friend came walking down the street pulling their trash bags of laundry in a kiddy wagon with a wonky wheel.

The words came tumbling out of my mouth the moment we caught up to them. I was expecting her to be alarmed by Stan’s behavior, but she seemed rather pleased, telling her friend, “Well, well, well, look who’s missing me.”

My heart wrenched inside my chest. I couldn’t even begin to process the devastating emotions that were whirring inside of my mind as I realized that what had happened to us didn’t phase her in the least.

We went back to Stan’s the next day. I could barely look him in the eye, and it killed me to see my mom fawning over him.

One night, probably not more than two weeks later, I was taking a bath when the unmistakable sounds of an argument drifted through the door. I tried to ignore the hollering back and forth, the sound of a fist hitting the wall, and the slam of a cabinet door, by slipping beneath the water. I held my breath as long as I could. When I finally came up for air, it was eerily silent.

Suddenly, the door flung open. I whirled around to face the doorway. Stan was there. I flung my arms up to cover my chest as water dripped in my eyes.

“Your mother left with your brothers. You can get the hell out, too.” he said, as he turned away.

Shocked, I stood up on shaky legs and grabbed the towel. Tears were pouring down my face as I hastily dried off and threw my nightgown over my still damp body. I stepped out into the living room. Stan was draped on the couch, watching TV.

“Where did she go?” I asked him, fearfully.

“Who the fuck knows? And, who the fuck cares,” he threw his beer can at me. It struck my shin, “Go on, get the hell out of here.” he ordered me.

I was scared. So scared. And then I thought that surely my mother was waiting out in the hallway for me, or maybe down in the foyer. I opened the door and stepped out. The hallway was empty. I ran down the steps, “Mom?” I called, as I turned to go down the last set of stairs, “Mom?”

The foyer was empty. Maybe outside then. I opened the door and stepped out. The night air was chilly and my wet hair had dampened the entire back of my nightgown. My body shook as I stood peering into the darkness. My mother wasn’t there.

I was alone, clearly. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back upstairs, that was certain. I started walking, my bare feet already hating the rough surface of the concrete beneath them. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out where my mom would go. I saw a group of older boys standing under a streetlight down the street. Their voices were raised as they jostled with each other. They made me nervous, so I turned and started in the opposite direction. I suddenly remembered that my mother’s cousin lived nearby. I had only been to her house a few times, all of them in the daylight, but I was hopeful that once I got nearer, it would come back to me.

The tears were still threatening to come back, but I tried to stay focused on how much my feet hurt, instead of how much my feelings were hurt that my mother had just left me there, with Stan. I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t seem not to. The pain was like a raw wound that just couldn’t heal because the scab kept getting picked open.

As I continued to walk, fretting at the night sounds and tensing whenever a car drove by, something began to harden inside of me. This life, it was so damn hard, and it wasn’t going to get easier. I knew that now. We were never going back to the way it used to be, and it was time to accept it. My mother was never going to protect me. She was never going to put me first. She would always choose someone other than me. And my father, well, he wasn’t going to be in my life either, it was obvious.

A small house in a row of small houses suddenly looked familiar to me. Maybe it was the toys in the front yard, or the tire swing that hung by a frayed rope from a gnarled tree branch. This was it. Maybe.

My feet felt like they were bleeding as I approached the dark porch. I heaved a sigh and tapped on the door. There were loud voices inside, boisterous, even. I tapped harder, until my knuckles protested. The door suddenly swung open as the light spilled out, nearly blinding me. I blinked furiously, until my vision cleared. The man standing in front of me was my mom’s cousin’s husband. He chuckled and stepped to one side to allow me entrance.

My mother was sitting at a table playing cards. She was laughing.

I stepped inside a room filled with people, but I had never felt more alone.