Flash forwards six more months and we (my brother, sister, mother and I) are on a Greyhound bus. It is New Year's Eve and we are going back to Texas. There are fireworks going off outside the window. Mom says that it is her brother's birthday. There is a baby in the seat near ours crying. I let the baby play with my new bear. That made the baby happy, but she threw upon it and my mom made me throw it away.
Flash forward two years. I am just finishing up the fourth grade and other than my mom and her mom (who we lived with) fighting on a regular basis, life is uneventful. Then, my father shows up with tickets to Hawaii, he wants us to move there with him. We do.
Flash forward one year. Dad and mom are fighting about something again and she screams. I run into the room and dad is sitting on her head. He finally gets up, but she can't move her neck. He is sorry he says, he always says he is sorry. She forgives him. I hate him. He starts crying and she hugs him and my brother hugs him and I hate him more.
Flash forward three years. I am staying with a friend in Kona. Her phone rings at two in the morning and I hear her dad say that I am there. Then he says something about my house being on fire. He brings me the phone and it is my neighbor. My house is burning. I cry for a long time. The next day my mom calls to ask if I can stay with my friend longer, I don't want to stay, I want to go home. She says that the house is gone, everything is gone. Stay there. I was fourteen. A few months later, we are on a plane back to Texas. But that's another lesson.
~Kate
Labels: History Lesson
