Part 3

Sorry about my update lateness!!! (Exams and Busyness have left me at a brutal loss of time.)
So enough of my complaining, and here is my new post:


Marybeth and Shaiyla had developed through the havoc of our family, seeing and understanding every detail of their marriage woes. Marybeth transformed into the sixteen-year-old skank of high school. She couldn’t keep her pants on if her life depended on it! The dinner table always had a new guy that was her latest squeeze. One day, Kaiyla asked why she couldn’t hold onto one guy. Marybeth, like always, ignored the question and moved on with life.
Shaiyla wasn’t as bad, but progressively falling into a party-scene at the early age of thirteen. The kids would go over to each other’s houses and break into their parent’s wine cabinet while they were out. Mom became stressed and showed it with the thick mane tingeing with silver in selected areas. Dad had been promoted as a CEO in his building company and now traveled for the job. We had money, but no one was seeing it, except Dad. The “Build-It-Up!” company merged with Glomerol Company (A furniture company) to bring customers the combination of a new edition along with up to 50% savings on new furniture. (Believe me, I’ve seen and heard ENOUGH ads on the merging operation.) Dad would travel to California for weeks on end (Which was both of the corporations new headquarters), with only one or two stories to tell us about the paradise state.
Change came after my fourth grade play. During intermission, I looked through the edge of the curtains to find my mom and sisters. Mom was just walking in. She briskly sat down in her seat in the back row with Shaiyla and Kaiyla clearly upset. “Uh-Oh” was my first thought, not seeing Marybeth, who had recently attended Kaiyla’s second grade play about garden bugs. (Kaiyla was the customary lady-bug.) I made it to the finale singing clearly some ridiculous song about morphing animals (Who knows why they picked a play for the curriculum.) While other families greeted their children with loving hugs and proud puffed chests, my mother put her hand gently on my shoulder, squeezing twice. “Double Uh-oh.” This was the mother-daughter language that dated back to the terrible twos. It meant that we had some talking to do else where, and by the expressions on Shaiyla and Kaiyla’s face, it wasn’t pretty. We got out to the car in a rushed fashion, with my little heels clicking against the cement. The unusually warm March breeze blew my beautiful pink dress back, exhibiting the new flower tights that Mom had bought. Mom began to sniffle. All emotions burst forth as the van doors slid close for the long, miserable ride ahead. “Dad is such a prick! I hate him!” Shaiyla announced. Emotions flowed in retaliation. “Where is he? Is he in California?” I squeaked frantically. I looked from Mom to Shaiyla, and even to Kaiyla for some sort of an answer. It was Mom that delivered the harsh news. “ Dad went away for awhile. We…separated.” The word hurt. ‘Separated’ seemed to split me down the middle. It wasn’t until a few months later that I realized what being truly separated meant. In May of 2000, after living only two months apart, Mom and Dad decided on terms of divorce. It made me angry when I found out. Mom, Shaiyla, Kaiyla, and me had lived respectively for the past two months with no real trouble. In fact, Marybeth was also out of the picture, and the wonderful voice messages no longer littered our answer machine or conversations. Heidi was now in custody of her, after actually holding down a respectively good job, and grew up more so. It would have been kinda ridiculous making her live with a family she wasn’t even blood-related to.
I had become like everybody, another broken kid in just another broken family. Another statistic. The resourceful and beautiful fourteen year old Shaiyla, The precious and spicy ten year old Kaiyla, and me, the peacekeeper and traditional eleven year old started court dates. This is when my life began to turn sour. Dad wanted to get a divorce because in this new land in which he traveled, he had accidentally procreated a child out of wedlock about a year ago. After the truth finally came out, I contemplated the whole summer saying just the right words that would affect him. Mom was never the enemy. Mom was always a good to us kids, she just got frazzled with competition of Heidi verses Marybeth. I never did get to say those cunning and sly words though. My world was shaken even more so.
Child support was brought to table. At one of the many meeting breaks, Mom threw up her hands. “I can’t pay child support for all of you, but I can’t support you either.” “What does that mean?” Shaiyla asked suspiciously. “I can only keep one of you.” She said with no emotion in her eyes. It wasn’t until three months later, after the bloodiest battle alive, that the court came to a decision. Dad wanted to tie up child placement soon because school was starting in three weeks. I was confident between the split because Mom knew how inseparable Kaiyla and me were. She knew that we were like two peas in a pod, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly. Mom also knew that I was having a rough time living in the area and had virtually no friends except Kaiyla at school . Shaiyla gave her too much trouble and couldn’t control her with the partying. Kaiyla was the youngest and most impressionable. Mom wanted Kaiyla.