Kids In Orange: Voices from Juvenile Detention

Chapter Three

The First Time Dad Leaves

At twelve, I have never seen Dad cry until he sits on the edge of the bed he and Mom share and tears drip down his cheeks.

"Your mom and I are getting a divorce." Dad's soft voice breaks on the word divorce.

I stare at the shag carpet and wiggle my feet inside my new white Keds. I am required to have these shoes for the Girl Scout Pom Pon squad where I wear a green vest with a large daisy and a green and yellow skirt that flares to walk in our local community festival fall parade. I am not supposed to wear the white tennis shoes, with their little arch support, anywhere but in performances, but somehow, they have found their way onto my feet today.

"Mindy?" Dad says softly.

"Mmmm..." I say. It's not as if I don't know why Mom and Dad are divorcing. It's not as if I don't understand how my stomach tightens every Saturday night when Dad pours just one more drink. I count how many times the ice hits the glass and by the time Dad lights the wick on the Kerosene lamps, which always sit on the formal oak dining room table that matches the bed in my parent's room, I can hardly eat our weekly spaghetti dinner Dad cooks using his special recipe. My stomach is too tight as I wait for the moment when the spaghetti sauce and noodles will land on the carpet, dishes will break and the shouting begins.

During middle school, I spend hours lying in bed reading young adult stories of divorce and addiction. I am those characters in the stories and I am searching for answers which I will not talk about with teachers, counselors or friends. Later, this will guide my own career as I write stories of characters dealing with divorce and addictions. It will also guide the book choices I pick for the kids in the poetry workshop, selecting books which detail characters struggling with addictions and abuse.

It's not as if I don't understand this moment I am having with Dad or why the divorce is happening.

I do understand.

But, what I don't understand is how Dad, who sits on the edge of the bed and tells me he is leaving, how this is the same dad who drinks too many Manhattans and my hurting stomach sends me to the doctor with what mom thinks is an appendicitis, but no one can find anything wrong and the doctor doesn't asks me what goes on at home. How is this also the dad who takes me bike riding on the trails at the university and drinks chocolate milk in the school cafeteria with me? The same dad, who takes me to his office where he spends Saturday afternoon working on his electric typewriter as I work on my homework using pens that hold small soybeans in the plastic tops. The same dad who helps me with my Girl Scout cooking badges and we cut up pieces of red and green peppers to place in Saturday morning omelets? How is this the same dad, who knows when I need quiet and alone time, because as a writer, he needs it too? How can this dad leave?

Dad tries to explain that Mom and he couldn't work it out. He tells me he tried to attend AA, but it didn't work for him. He tries to explain he just can't make Mom happy. He tells me it's not as if he doesn't love my brother, sister and me anymore. He says the divorce has nothing to do with us and how he feels about us, the marriage with my mom just didn't work. I squirm on the edge of the bed as Dad's words of divorce hurl me into one of my after-school specials I watch on our color TV upstairs in the playroom with the orange and brown shag rug.

Dad's tears run down his face and I look anywhere but at him, focusing on the oak bedside table on Dad's side of the bed. If I open the drawer, will Dad's black bible with the gold zipper be gone? I don't know why Dad has this bible. Dad is not a religious man. On Sundays, while Mom takes my brother, sister and I to church, Dad reads the paper, smokes his pipe and drinks Bloody Mary's with a stick of celery. Sometimes, Dad allows me to skip church and he drives me to the donut shop. We stand in the entryway where the line is three deep. Amidst the pink stools, pink tiled floor and pink painted walls, I order a chocolate-cream-filled donut. Dad orders chocolate long johns. We toss in a few sugar-frosted and glazed donuts for my brother and mom. As a baby, my sister does not get a donut. Dad calls it The Church of the Old Donut Shop. He tells me church doesn't have to take place in a church. It can be anywhere-even here in a donut shop. It's something I remember years later, as I walk on the wide and spacious northern Oregon coast beaches, with my dog running off-leash by my side on Sunday mornings. Afterward, I stop at the small tourist town bakery for a gooey pastry, and as I sit on the benches outside the shop and bit into the chocolate, I can almost smell Dad's pipe and hear the rustle of his Sunday paper as he eyes me over his reading glasses: Church of the Old Donut Shop.