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.

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