Swam all across the ocean blue

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight

So, Mom moved out, Dad moved in, and I became Insta-Pseudo-WifeMother.  I made sure Nick and Taylor were up, fed, and dressed in the morning before leaving for school.  After school, I'd go to the daycare to pick them and walk them home.  Once there, I looked after them (while trying to do my own homework) and made dinner before Dad came home.  I made sure Taylor was bathed, read her stories, and put her to bed.  Even though her room was right across the hall from Dad's, he never heard her if she woke during the night; instead, me - in the basement at the opposite end of the house - would "sleep" with one ear open, flying up the stairs to her at the slightest noise.  (I swear to this day that that is the source of my sleep issues.)  That was my life.  Day in and day out.  For two years.  At the age of twelve.

Needless to say, I didn't have a "normal" teenagehood.  When my friends were out gaining independence, learning from mistakes, and obtaining problem-solving skills, I was making Hamburger Helper (still can't eat that crap to this day) and helping Nick with his homework, making sure to constantly toe the line and be a "good" kid.  He would do things like agree to pay me $125! whole! dollars! per month to babysit Nick and Taylor all day, all summer, then either borrow money from me (which I'd have to chase down in order to be paid back), or try to convince me he'd already paid me - I must have "forgotten" and "spent it all" already.

It was never good for me when Taylor would choose me over Dad, or when Nick would listen to me instead of Dad.  I lost count of the number of times he would SCREAM at me "YOU'RE not the parent, *I* am!  Do YOU want to start paying the bills?!?" in reply to totally and completely unrelated things - I guess he was stressed: that's how he chose to deal with it.  Oh, and going out looking for a new girlfriend multiple nights a week.

Yeah, remember the last entry?  The one where Mom stayed out all night on a school night and scared the living hell out of me?  And how I alluded to it coming back to bite me in the ass?  The first time Dad did it, I freaked.  Again.  Thought he was dead in a ditch somewhere.  Told him so: he apologized and promised it wouldn't happen again.  The second time, I was still a little worried, but mostly annoyed.  Told him so: he  promised it wouldn't happen again.  The third time, I was pissed off and and told him so.  He threw it back in my face all, "What, so it's okay for your mother to do it, but not me?"  Um, hello?  Dude, you were THERE: you saw FIRST HAND how NOT okay it was for Mom to do it.  The fourth time it happened, he figured he'd "make it easier" on me by taking Nick and Taylor with him (so instead, I just worried about whether or not they were fed and put to bed at a decent time).  Fed up by his failing to be home at the promised time, I called Mom: her and Brad came to pick me up.  I locked my bedroom door* and went to their house for the night.  It wasn't until the school called looking for me the next day at 11am that he realized I wasn't home.

*The lock on the door was to keep him out.  I got my own phone line for my 13th birthday (with the understanding that the monthly bills were MY responsibility - I was far from a spoiled brat, thank you veddy much).  The following Christmas, Mom and Brad gave me a cordless phone.  Dad didn't have one.  I'd come home from school to find that he had gone into my room, taken my phone, and was using my line.  No matter how many times I asked him not to, he still did it.  There was also the incident in which he was driving me to a party (read: a bunch of awkward, pre-pubescent boys and girls running around like fools, listening to music, and eating potato chips, pretending we were sooooo mature) and he asked me all sing-song like "So, is RyYyYyAaAaAn gonna be therrrrrre?" in a way that you just KNEW he knew something he shouldn't.  When I asked him how he knew about Ryan, he stammered and said I must have told him.  I looked him dead in the eye and told him that the ONLY way he'd know anything about RyYyYyAaAaAn was if he had read my diary.  His M.O. is to get blustery and righteously self-indignant, flipping things around so you end up confused and come out feeling like you've done something wrong, all at top volume for maximum disorienting effect: "I didn't do that!  I would NEV!ER! do that!  YOUUUUUU told me!"

The lock went on my door the next day.

Living away from Mom was hardest on Taylor.  Every time she'd spend the night with Mom and Brad, she'd end up in hysterics when they brought her home (where she would only take comfort from me, which didn't go over well with Dad - he already had issues in the not-good-enough department).  About two years after he moved in, Taylor went to live with Mom and Brad.  Of course, then the weekends she'd come to stay with us, she'd spend them upset and missing Mom and wanting to go "home."  She would cry: he would yell at her.  She would run to me: he would yell at me.  One night, the screaming and yelling at us got so bad, I went down to my room and called Mom to come pick Taylor up.  That didn't go over well, and things went downhill fast from there.

The end would come not long after while I was in the middle of my daily after-school phone call with Mom.