I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules

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

Part Nine

I think it was a Thursday.  I’m not really sure after all the time that has passed.  I was talking to Mom on the phone while Nick played upstairs; Dad was on his way to pick Taylor up to bring her to our house for dinner.   I heard the knock on the door as she told me to hang on.  Again, I don’t really remember the specifics of the conversation, just that Mom told Dad to have Taylor home by a specific time (she was in kindergarten and it was a school night), and that somehow devolved into him screaming at her that HE’S Taylor’s parent too, and that SHE doesn’t get to make ALL of the decisions (sound familiar?)  ,Next thing I knew I could hear Mom’s voice raise and scuffling when she picked up the phone and SCREAMED for me to call 911.

I was frantic.  I stayed on the phone with her (she hadn’t hung up) on my phone while I raced upstairs to use Dad’s line to call 911.  I was in the process of trying to answer the operator's questions when Mom came back on the phone to tell me that he was gone and it was okay.  I apologized to the 911 operator and hung up that phone, only to have her tell me in the other phone that I needed to get Nick and get out of the house NOW – that Dad was on a tear and had threatened that she would “never see” us again.

I didn’t know what to think.  I didn’t know what to do.  I hurriedly got Nick into his shoes, telling him more and showing MY fear more than I should have, to the point that he was hysterical because the poor kid had no idea what was going on.  We flew down to the end of our dead-end street, launched over the chain link fence at the end of the road (well, I did: poor Nick got stuck, which only made him cry harder in his fear, which made me more panicky and demanding), crossed a busy street, and bolted down to where my best friend lived. 

In the meantime, Mom had called Grandmonster and told her that if she had ever loved Mom or us (they hadn’t been on speaking terms since The Grandparents went back on their word to help us out when we moved into the house), she would go to Leah’s (my friend), pick us up, and take us to Mom’s without arguing or asking questions – Mom would explain once we were there.

Grandmonster did as Mom asked.  I don’t remember the car ride to Mom’s.  Once we got there, though, Dad had gotten home and found us gone, so called to tell Mom she couldn’t “kidnap” his kids and that he was coming to get all of us.  Mom called Brad at work and asked him to come home, then had Grandmonster take Taylor to a family friend’s because she blissfully oblivious to what was going on.  Brad got home around the same time Dad arrived.  When Brad opened the door and tried to speak civilly to Dad, Dad got all worked up and tried to bodily force his way into the house – Mom and Brad were both trying to hold him back (he stomped on Mom’s bare foot in the process hard enough that she still has a faint mark), everyone was screaming and yelling, poor Nick was sobbing, and again I’m directed to call 911 for the second time that day...  (At some point before I retreated to the basement with the cordless phone, I told Dad I hated his fucking guts.  Eep.)

An RCMP officer came to the house; he spoke to the adults while Nick and I “played” in Taylor’s room with the door closed.  Eventually, he came in to talk to us; we ended up in the living room with the adults and the officer asked where we wanted to stay.  Dad piped up with, “Well, obviously Chibi’s staying here” (don’t forget: I wasn’t technically his blood relation – it wasn’t complete callousness on his part).  Poor Nick really didn’t want to go home without me, but Dad sort of... bully-cajoled him into going.  I think I stayed home from school the next day.  (I don’t really remember how or when we moved all of my stuff out, but I never went back after that day.)

Poor Nick called Mom from his babysitter’s house after school the next day in tears because he was worried about/missed me.  Mom had Brad go pick him up and bring him to their house.  The original agreement was that he would finish out the school year at Dad’s (two weeks), and they’d re-evaluate at that point.  The poor bugger didn’t make it past that weekend: Mom and Brad went from one child to three pretty much overnight (it was so sudden, Nick and I had to share a room over the summer until Brad could get some walls up in the basement to make a room for me).  

Things felt safer, but the angsty teenage bullshit was just about to hit...