An Overstayed Welcome: Finding Home

Chapter 10

When we arrived, mom began to cook us some food. It usually took her a while to cook, so Julia and I ate some Teddy Grahams cookies. Dad was not there and she did not demonstrate any displeasure. Coincidentally, dad arrived home when dinner was finished and we all sat down to eat. Mom and dad did not talk much until later on that night in their bedroom as Julia, and I sat outside in the hallway while Anahi and Lina were in the room with them. We heard them shouting and we could not stop crying. I could not think about anything else no matter how much I wanted to.

The air hung dense in the home the next morning as mom dressed me and Julia dressed herself. I did not know what say, so I stayed quiet all morning. Mom was quiet as well and so was dad and Julia. Julia and I walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus till it showed up. We did not speak during the ride to school. I did not know how to begin or what to say about what occurred the day before. I could tell that Julia was worried and in an attempt to not think about it and worry, I began to daydream. I daydreamed my way out of worrying and did not think about it anymore.

Monday came and went and every day was like the other. The tension hung thickly round the house. Mom and dad barely spoke and Julia and I were too afraid to say anything. We spoke to mom when dad was not around and only spoke to dad when we had something to ask him. For some reason unknown to us, we believed that mom was in the right and that dad was a villain of some sort. We hung round her as though she was a heroine and a figure of justice. We never stopped to think wether she was wrong or right.

The weekend came before I realized it and on Friday evening, mom, Giselle, and Chavela got together at Giselle's. Julia and I were at Giselle's while dad was in bed watching television. Julia took that time to go up stairs to Giselle's bedroom where we played with her jewelry and pretended to be older women. I also kept snacking on the snacks and the food mom made. When it started to get late, dad came to tell mom that it was time for us to go to bed. Mom did not reply to him and did not tell us to go to bed either.

I did not realize it was late, nor did I want to go to bed. Julia begged to stay up longer, and I began to plead as well. He was reluctant but let us stay up a while longer and warned that he would be back to make sure we went to bed. Mom was not paying attention to him; she was still mad at him for the night that they fought. I wished to know why they fought then and as I did I wondered if I truly wanted to know. I realized it was probably better that I did not know. While Giselle, Chavela, and mom spent the night smoking, drinking, and talking away, Julia and I spent it playing music and dancing.

If dad had not come back to tell us to go to bed, I would have stayed up longer. Julia and I went to our bedroom and fell asleep. Mom and dad had a yelling match right before. Mom did not want to stop but dad told her it was late and that she had to go home and be with her family.

Mom yelled and then dad yelled and in our frightened state, Julia and I stood silently watching them until dad told us to go to our room. It was not unlike mom to party and to spend time with friends, but it was unlike mom to pick fights with dad and to go against what he said. I recalled the times that dad and her had fought while in Mexico. While those were big and borderline, if not, actual domestic violence, they were few. It was not as constant as they had begun to be.

Saturday morning came and, as always, I was up and ready to eat. Dad was not there. He was gone. I was also up before mom, so I got a chair and grabbed a bowl to eat some cereal. Julia was awake as well and ate with me after blessing the food. Though dad and mom weren't around, we felt the need to bless the food we had. We had not always done it, but since we started attending church it felt right and did so before we ate. We turned on the television to watch cartoons. After several minutes, the sound of the cartoons on the television woke mom up.

When she got up off the bed, she went into the kitchen and began to cook as we kept watching Inspector Gadget. By the time she was finished cooking lunch, we were watching something else but stopped as soon as we heard her call out for us to go down and eat. Julia and I spent the rest of the day going in and out of the house while mom cleaned and did the house chores. Giselle came around the house and lingered  to listen to music with mom until dad came home late in the evening.

Once dad got home, Giselle only stuck around for an hour or so and mom and dad sent Julia and I to bed. Mom and dad  stayed up talking. The next morning we woke up to get dress for church. I was both surprised and glad that dad took us and that mom and he were not fighting. Dad took us but stayed out in the car while we went in. Something inside me hurt knowing that he did not want to go in, and that pain hurt in a way I could not explain. As I sat there enjoying singing hymns and worshipping, I felt a twinge of disappointment knowing that my father had chosen not to go in and instead stay outside.

When church was over, the pain was not there anymore. Dad was out there waiting on us and we went in the car and drove home. When we got there mom began making food for us, and I went outside and tried not think about how hungry I was when I noticed that Giselle and someone else walked over to the house. I hurried after them and followed them inside. Once I walked in through the front door, I heard Giselle introducing the guy that accompanied her as her brother.