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Begrudgingly Going
Amanda McCarl
“Mandie,” I felt my mom’s gentle nudge on my shoulder, I had never hated her touch more than that moment, “honey, do you want any breakfast before we start?”
I pretended like I hadn’t heard her. I groaned and shifted so that she wasn’t touching me anymore. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted less than to talk to her. I remembered what that day had in store for my family and I the minute Mom’s voiced pulled me out of a shallow, restless sleep.
“Mandie,” this time her voice was more firm, “Mandie, let’s go, we can’t take our time this morning.”
“OKAY!” I grunted in my best effort to show her how annoyed I was. I heard her immediately leave my room and go into my sister’s room to give her the same routine. Of course, Mernie’s reply was much different than mine had been, it usually was.
“Hmmmm…good morning mommy, yeah, I’ll have some breakfast,” I heard Mernie say in a sleepy sweet voice. How could she be so calm? Was she really okay with all of this? I was angry at her for not being angry.
I heard Mom make her way down the stairs to the kitchen to make us both some breakfast. She’d make me breakfast regardless if I hadn’t said I wanted anything. Mom took care of me no matter how bratty I was choosing to be.
I rolled over, rubbed my eyes and cracked them open to survey what was left of my things. My room looked like it had been repossessed. It was completely empty except for three large boxes in the middle of my room. One of them was open; I was to throw the sheets, pillow, and blanket I was sleeping with into the open box when I got up. This would leave absolutely nothing that was mine in the space that had been my room for the past three years. I looked around at the bare walls and tried to remember what they had looked like just a few days ago. There were pictures of my friends and me laughing at the bowling alley, my first voice recital, me running track, and posters of all my favorite bands. I tried to remember where I had packed my posters and pictures. They would be the first things I’d unpack when I got to Grandma’s house. That is if I was allowed to put things on the walls.
“Hi sissy,” Mernie said as she poked her head in my room, smiled and then jaunted down stairs. I didn’t respond, just continued feeling sorry for myself and being convinced that mine was the most unfair life of anyone else under the age of fifteen years. I was also sure that Mernie was simply acting happy because she wanted Mom and Dad to think she was an obedient, wonderful, ideal child. She didn’t really have to try very hard; they already thought she was perfect.
“AMANDA, let’s go!” Now my dad’s voice carried its way up the stairs into my empty, bare and depressing room. This was serious. I didn’t want him to come up and get me motivated. That would just make a horrible day unbearable.
“I’m coming!” I snapped back in a voice that was just enough to convey my irritation but not quite enough to make him truly pissed.
Pulling the blankets off the bed in such a rotten mood resulted in a few ripped sheets that would probably catch up with me later. I stuffed the bedding in the open box and closed it…the last box. I sighed heavily and looked around one more time. Now the room, my room, contained nothing that was connected to me. I felt suddenly disconnected from the room, from the house, from myself. I couldn’t believe my parents were making me go through this for the third time. I was jealous of my friends who had never moved the ones that still lived in the same house they were born in. It was pointless to cry and say, “I don’t want to go!” By this time, I didn’t really want to stay either. I knew that there were good reasons why we were going and that I would be glad we had left in the long run. At the same time, I wouldn’t be a true fourteen-year-old girl if I had gone willingly and without any kind of attitude.
I turned and walked out of the room, not taking time to take a last look or say good-bye; I’d have to come back up to get these boxes later. As I made my way down the carpeted stairs I remembered how Mernie and I had played Barbie dolls on them countless times only a couple of years ago. My friend Bethany and I had slid down these stairs so many times we were beginning to leave tread marks. I had sat on these stairs and listened to my parents argue about the very event that was about to take place. I felt a lump in my throat begin to form as I walked down the stairs that morning; I knew I’d never play on them or sit on them again.
I made my way down to the dinning room, reluctantly, and as slowly as I could. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I sure didn’t want them to talk to me.
“Your dad brought donuts from the gas station,” mom said in a sweet apologetic voice as I sat down at the table. As if buying breakfast pastries made up for ripping me away from my friends, my home, and everything familiar and comfortable.
“I’m not really hungry,” I replied curtly, under my breath as I plopped down at the table. I looked at the donuts for about thirty seconds before grabbing one and eating it anyway. Mernie was starting in on her second and finishing a glass of milk. Her long, wavy, blonde hair was lying almost perfectly on her back. I always wanted long blonde hair. My hair is stick straight and brown, about the color of the material that falls out of the ends of barnyard animals. Mernie’s hair was just another reminder of how pristine and faultless she was compared to me. I knew I caused my parents grief, it’s not like I was naïve about it. And it’s not like I wanted to be a pain or the “angry teen-ager,” but I couldn’t just pretend like I didn’t feel anything.
“I put some clothes in the bathroom for you two to put on and then you can put your pajama’s in that suitcase in the living room, okay girls?” Mom said and she started to clean up the breakfast things.
“Okay,” we answered in unison, Mernie in a charming, sugar-coated voice and me in a monotone mumble.
I finished my glass of milk, realized that I probably shouldn’t have eaten anything, I was already feeling sick to my stomach, and the ball of dough that was now residing there didn’t help. I went into the bathroom to change. I thought about taking a shower, but figured it would be pointless since I was going to sweat so much loading up the U-haul. Illinois in August is about as hot as a menopausal women in Jamaica. The day was going to be miserable, physical and emotional.
It was about 9 am when we started loading the U-haul. Some of my parents’ friends came over to help carry boxes into the truck. I couldn’t help telling them every once in a while to “be careful” or “make sure you don’t drop that one.” That was my life in those boxes. Every piece of clothing, every toy, every book, every memento, every memory was packed neatly in those boxes that were being man-handled and thrown without a care into a truck.
We had loaded about half of our furniture and boxes into the U-haul when my best friends Sam and Ashton came over to say “good-bye.” I choked up when I saw them because I knew that they had come to see me for the last time. Part of me wished they hadn’t come at all; it would have been a lot easier. It was hard to look them in the face; all six of our eyes were trying to fight back tears.
“Can we help with anything?” Sam offered.
“No,” I answered quickly, “I think we are actually almost done.” Truthfully, I didn’t want Sam or Ashton to help because then reality would’ve set in that I was actually leaving. I wanted them to fight for me to stay. I wanted the loading process to take as long as possible. I wanted to stay as long as I could.
“Alright,” Sam said, “Well, I guess we better get out of your way then.” He said this with pain in his voice. I could tell that he wanted to get the good-bye over with. I wasn’t ready for it yet.
“No,” I said in a slightly desperate voice, “don’t go yet, we should take some pictures together.” This was ridiculous, like I really wanted to remember this day like it was some sort of event that deserved to be immortalized in a photograph. Sam and Ashton seemed to think it was a good idea though. I found my backpack and located the disposable camera I had put there because I couldn’t find anywhere else to put it. “Mernie can take a picture of us.”
The three of us stood in front of the U-haul and pushed fake smiles onto our faces for about three pictures, and then Mernie lost interest and went back to carrying boxes. Sam and Ashton stayed until the last box was on the truck. We said good-bye and I watched them walk away down the street, I watched until they turned the corner and I couldn’t see them anymore. It felt like friendship was walking away from me, I was afraid that I would never feel friendship again. I was angry that I had to leave Sam and Ashton, what if I never made friends like that again?
Eventually, we said “good-bye” to everyone and climbed into the vehicles. Mernie and my dad were in the U-haul truck and Mom and I were in our car. I planned on sleeping for most of the drive, mostly because I didn’t want to talk to her; and because the U-haul didn’t have air-conditioning.
The drive from Vermilion Country, Illinois to Helena, Montana takes about twenty-four hours. We would stop in St. Cloud, Minnesota (the first place I was forced to move from) at my aunt’s house to spend the night. Then bright and early the next day we would set out for my grandma’s house in Helena. We would be staying there with her until we found a house. I was enraged that neither of my parents would have a job when we arrived in Montana. How were they going to take care of us with no jobs? I was embarrassed to tell people that my family was going to live in Grandma’s basement until we could afford something better.
I avoided saying anything to Mom until we were close to Chicago. She asked me if I needed to stop for anything.
“No, I’m okay,” I replied. Mom’s voice was so apologetic and soft. I started to feel guilty about being so angry with her.
“Mandie, I am sorry about all of this,” Mom said in a painful whisper. Her tone made me tear up. She was hurting to, she didn’t want to move her family hundreds of miles away and start all over. This was probably harder on her than it was for me, she had to deal with her feelings and deal with me too.
There was still anger inside of me that didn’t let me respond to her right away. All I could do was choke back tears and pretend to ignore her.
That ride to Montana was the longest and hottest car ride I can remember. The U-haul broke down in the middle of North Dakota. We had to stop and wait for the U-haul company in Bismarck to pick us up and get us another truck. I kept thinking this is a sign; we should probably just go back. But we didn’t go back; we arrived in Helena in the late afternoon of the third day of our trip. I still had a horrible attitude and had said probably ten words to each of my family members combined during those three days. I just didn’t have anything to say, and I was trying to deal with the fact that we were really never going back home.
“Hello, Amanda Catherine!” Grandma cried when she saw me, she always used my first and middle name. She pulled me in to hug me and I tried to act happy to see her. I would have been, if I hadn’t had to live with her from that point on. She was glad we had come to stay. Grandma lived alone in a big house; Grandpa had died about two years before. His funeral was the last time we had been out to her house.
We unloaded; it took the entire rest of the day, my uncle came and helped. Mernie and I started setting up our room. That’s right, we had to share now. That was just what I needed, to share a room with a princess. I split the room in two and made it very clear (I thought) that Mernie was not to cross the line. That didn’t last long.
When we got all settled in (or as settled as you can be when you, and your family of four, are living in someone’s basement) Mom and Dad started to look for schools for Mernie and me to attend. It was the middle of August, so they had to look fast. I wasn’t excited about starting school in a new place where I knew no one. I found myself being jealous of kids I didn’t even know who had known each other since kindergarten, I had no idea what that felt like.
My parents chose to send me to Rocky Mountain Christian High School. It was only about five blocks from my grandma’s house. We could walk home every day. I was so nervous on the first day of school that I almost threw up in the shower. I wore a red tank top and new jeans to class the first day, Mernie dressed up in a skirt and blouse. Mom took a picture of us together, standing next to Mernie I looked like a homeless hick. At least she was still in junior high and wouldn’t be in the same building as I would.
When Dad dropped me off at the high school, I’m sure I was shaking with fright. He looked at me and smiled. “You are going to do great, honey,” he said.
For the first time in weeks I wanted to hug him and cry, tell him I loved him and ask him to take me home. Then it hit me. “Take me home” didn’t mean back to Illinois. “Take me home” meant, stay with me. Home wasn’t a place, it wasn’t that house in Vermilion County, and it wasn’t Grandma’s basement either. Home was with my Dad, with my Mom, with Mernie. A sudden rush of guilt hit me. I had been treating my family like dirt, being angry at them for taking me away from my home when all along they had been my home. I lost it.
“DADDY, I’M SORRY!” I wailed as rivers of tears poured down my face. Snot was bubbling out of my nostrils and I blubbered about how much of a jerk I had been. Mernie was looking at me sideways probably wondering what the heck was wrong with me. My dad was trying to hold me and calm me down.
“I know you’re sorry, sweetie, it was hard on all of us, but we are still a family, we are here for you. We know you love us and we love you too,” he said in a comforting tone. “Don’t worry…shhhh…it’s okay.”
“BUT I’M A TERRIBLE DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I shrieked through tears of remorse.
“No you are not, Amanda,” Dad said. He grabbed my chin with his thumb and pointer finger and made me look him in the eye. “I love you.”
I inhaled shakily and tried to stop crying. Mernie was still confused and was still starring at me with a look of bewilderment.
“You still have to go to school, you know,” Dad tried to make me smile.
“I know,” I half laughed and half cried. I rubbed me eyes and nose with a napkin
that was in the glove compartment. Taking a deep breath, I hugged my dad, and Mernie who hugged me back.
“Have a good day, sissy,” she said.
“I will.” And I did, I felt like an emotional load had been lifted. The school day was great. I liked the teachers and I even made a friend that first day. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected.
That experience taught me that family is more important than where I live, and family is the only thing that will never leave me. No matter how mad I could get at my parents, or how jealous of Mernie I was, I love them. I love them more than anyone else on this earth. We’ve moved again since then, but it wasn’t as big of a deal the next time; I knew that as long as Mom, Dad and Mernie were with me, I was home.
The End.
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