January 14, 2006 was like any other day of my life. It was a chilly Saturday afternoon. I was waiting for my mother to pick me up form Ellie’s house. When I called my mother the day before she sounded weird. I couldn’t exactly pin point what was wrong, but I didn’t see a need to dwell on it.

When my mother finally picked me up, her face seemed . Her voice was still a bit off, but I figured she was just getting a cold or something.

“How was Ellie’s house?” she asked absently keeping her eyes on the road.

“It was awesome. Are you okay?” I asked in a weird tone.

“Yes, I’m fine.” She said as she drove past our house. Once again, I didn’t think anything of it, though I should have. I thought we need something from the store or something. When we drove past the community college, I started to get suspicious.

“Where are we going?” I asked impatiently.

“We’re going to our new house.” She said barely audible.

“What?” I screamed bursting into tears. A new house? Why? Everything was going perfectly for once and then we move to Victorville of all places.

“I decided I was tired of your dad and all his crap I moved you, me, and your sister to a house in Victorville, near Mesa Linda Middle School.” She said trying to hold back tears. How could she just get tired of my dad? I didn’t think it was possible. I wanted to say so much, but the only thing that would come out was tears.

I couldn’t speak for the rest of the ride to my “new home”. We passed Mesa Lind Middle School and shortly after took a left tur
on to a street that led to a “cookie-cutter” home community. I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the turns, though there weren’t very many of them.

My mother finally stopped in front of a small one-story house. The front lawn was covered in fake green grass that looked like it hadn’t been mowed in a few months. As we drove up the small cement driveway, I saw a bunch of boxes stacked against one of the wall of the tiny garage.

As I stepped out of the car I realized that I hadn’t stop crying yet. I tried to pull myself together before I followed my mother into my new “home”. When I had finally stopped myself from shedding another tear, I walked through the open front door.

The walls were covered in stacked boxes and there was barely any space to move. I looked straight ahead and saw a hallway leading to what looked like a living room. I turned to my right and saw three open doors. The first one led to the bathroom, the second had my sister’s bed in pieces lying on the floor, and the third one had my bed already set up and boxes stacked wherever there was room in the tiny space. I figured that the room was mine for the time being.

I walked into the tiny room and started to go through boxes. My mother must have had enough time to get the boxes for the move, but not enough time to pack properly. Everything in the boxes was just thrown in there. I really didn’t care about the boxes being messy inside. I wouldn’t have cared if they were neat and properly packed, I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to call my dad and see if he was okay. I reached for my phone to dial his number, but before I could even flip it open my sister came into the room.

“Mom doesn’t want us to talk to dad until she thinks it’s safe.” She said softly. I didn’t understand what she meant by “until she thinks it’s safe”. My dad wasn’t violent or anything.

“That’s not fair Nina. I want to talk to dad.” As I said the last word the tears crept up again.

“Just turn off your phone, Kaitlyn.” Why didn’t she care that our mother would do things like this? It just wasn’t right at all. Even though I didn’t like what was happening, I turned off my phone, like I was told.

For the rest of the time until dinner, I just sat in the room, which I was suppose to call mine, crying and going over what went wrong and when it had all started to crumble in microscopic pieces that seemed absolutely impossible to put back together again.

When my mother had sent all the movers home and had gotten most of the boxes out of the hallways, she called my sister and me to dinner. She had used the oven to make a frozen pizza. After we had declared our spots at the new dining table, we sat in silence and began to eat. After awhile my mother broke the silence.

“Kaitlyn you’re going to Mesa Linda starting on Monday.” She said calmly. Did she really expect to me to leave everything behind just because she got “tired” of my dad?

“You can’t do that! You move me here against my will and now you expect me to leave my friends in the middle of the year?” I exclaimed, kind of shocked that my eyes were dry as sand paper.

“Yes, I do.” She stated as if I was a five-year old girl trying to get out of her vegetables. I stormed off to the room I had been hiding in before. I had so much to say to her, but I knew it was better to walk away then to get into a fight with her, I needed someone to talk to. I turned on my phone and I had 6 new voicemails. They were all from my dad. I listened to the first one.

“Kiki please pick up. Where are you?” His voice sounded frantic. “Please pick up.” He started to cry. I couldn’t listen to him cry; it hurt me so much to hear him cry for me. He had only cried once before and that was my Great-Grandmother died. I deleted the rest of the messages without bothering to listen to them. I turned my phone off again and put it under my pillow hoping to forget the sound of my dad crying.

The rest of the night I stayed up thinking about random things that made me cry even more. I would never forget January 14, 2006 for three reasons. One, it was the date my mother left my dad. Two, that day I cried more than I have ever cried before. And last but not least, three, it all happened exactly five days after my twelfth birthday.