Resting on the threadbare loveseat with my knees pulled close to my chest, I sat silently as my world came crashing down upon my shoulders. My eleven-year-old self was slowly absorbing the unconfirmed information that had been lingering surreptitiously in the back of my mind for the past month. The couch cushions to my left slightly indented noted the presence of my sister to the left of me, her steady breaths turned irregular upon the confirmation of my deepest fear. Peering past my tear-welled eyelashes, my mother sat solemnly in the recliner in the corner of the living room, and my father’s sturdy frame made an outline in the sunlight pouring through the picture window as he sat on the couch. My heart dropped, my stomach felt as if I had been kicked in the abdomen. My vision turned fuzzy, as my mother turned to my sister and I and said, “We’re getting a divorce.”

The spin of the rotary lock, the metallic click of the latch, my sister’s handwriting curved across the lined page, the diary had opened its secrets to me. I silently flipped the pages, listening intently for the creaking of the stairs signaling her approach. My eyes scanned accounts of school happenings, boys, friends, and then a torn-out page that was folded purposefully into four sections. My fingers fumbled as I opened the message, and my heart beat quickly, edging up towards my throat. The e’s swooped into l’s, the i’s hastily dotted before moving onto another word, they told me more information than I was willing to gain. My own sister had found a divorce lawyer business card that had accidentally fallen out of my mother’s purse, and conclusions were made. I stood in a daze and reread the message several more times before darting out of my sister’s bedroom. I refused to accept this as truth: at eleven, I was unable to comprehend an unhappy outcome to my “normalcy.” Thus, the information was shoved to the very back of my mind, where cobwebs hung heavily and a thick dust coated each memory; it was only at night when the world seemed to slow that I would contemplate this horrible, yet, unverified story.

About a month later my sister and I lay in my bed, covers pulled up to our chins. Discarded Italian ice containers lay on my worn down blue carpet, silver spoons that had been licked clean of their syrupy lemon taste rested beside the containers, the television flickered in the afternoon light filtering in through my bamboo blinds. Giggles vibrated my springy mattress as we watched The Wedding Planner: Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey had just been caught breaking off a vital organ of a garden statue. Her hazel eyes squinting, her button nosed scrunched upwards, my sister laughed uncontrollably as the situation played out. And the warmth of her body radiated underneath the comforter providing me with an extra source of coziness. Then the back door slammed closed, footsteps echoed across the peeling kitchen linoleum, items were dropped on the kitchen table, and finally muffled movements indicated someone walking down the carpeted hallway to my bedroom door. My mother peeked her head around the doorframe, her dark black hair hanging limp around her face, her weary eyes partially concealed by her dark-rimmed glasses, and she said, “Can you girls come into the living room?”

After the initial blow wore off from my parents’ announcement, my sister and I retreated to our individual rooms. Curling into the fetal position under my sheets, my hot breath filled the small space beneath my bedding. Salty tears ran down my cheeks, onto my tongue, and upon the cotton sheets printed with multi-color stripes. The Italian ice containers lay forgotten on the floor, the DVD player’s automatic shut down left the television screen bright blue with abandonment, the only sound was of my heavy breaths as sobs racked my thin frame. I laid there without speaking a word, even when my father and then my mother came to check in on me; I laid there until finally sleep came to me.

The days following came with a sense of resentment. They came with a feeling of secrecy: my friends’ parents were all together. Thus, I keep it welled up inside of me; it weighed heavy on my heart, my mind, my soul. My mother moved out the next day, and I was unable to deny the obvious truth of the matter. The “normal” life I thought I had been living was just a lie, a misunderstanding. I was eleven. I was naïve.