Not the happiest childhood memory. But an important one nonetheless.

         The dank smell of the rain from the previous day hung in the air. It invaded my nostrils with the force of a battalion of soldiers.  There were leaves strewn on the ground that gave a satisfying crunch as I tramped across them.  I slowly walked up to the base of the emerald green staircase that led to my front porch.  Waiting for me on the rough wooden swing sat my little sister.  Her cherub-like face showed no emotion, as per usual.  Brown around the pupil, subtly fading to green, her eyes gazed off at an abstract fixed point in space.  I never asked where her mind goes when she stares like that, I don’t need to know.  And I doubt she would tell me anyway.  I walked up the steps deliberately, one by one.  I walked to the swing, sat by my sister, and began to rock back and forth.  With every movement I felt the rush of air, momentum, and freedom come over me.

We sat like this in silence for more then ten minutes.  The only sound was the creaking of the hinges that held the swing to the roof.  Neither of us knew what was coming.  But we knew it was something big.  Bad or good, we couldn’t have had less of a clue.  I heard the car before I saw it.  I din’t turn to watch my mother pull into the spot, park, or turn ofF the engine and slam the door closed.  I still did not look up when I heard her healed cowboy boots click as she climbed all eight stairs to the porch.  “I need to talk to you girls, and what I have to say isn’t easy.” She said.  I had an urge to meet her gaze but resisted.  I didn’t want to see in her eyes what she might say.  I suppose she took our silence as a resignation, a willingness to listen to whatever inevitable horror she was about to relay to us.  The seconds felt like hours as my breath caught inside my rib cage.  My heart seemed to beat twice as fast as I waited for her to spit out what she wanted to say.  In nearly emotionless voice my mother told us,“Mama and I won’t be together anymore, I’ve decided I need to leave and live on my own away from her.”

The words hung in the air as a hanged man dangles from his noose.  I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think.  I felt like I was about to vomit, the bile in my throat threatened to push out of me with as strong a force as Niagara falls.  I heard my sisters voice as If it were coming from a million miles away say, “Where will you stay Mommy?”  Rachel responded, “I have an apartment at Berwyn and Sheridan, I’ve actually been staying there for three months.  I would have told you sooner but I didn’t want to upset you unless I knew it was a permanent decision.  Now I know without a doubt that it is.”  

The world was spinning, the leaves looked too red, or were they orange? All swirling together blending with the grass, the trees seemed to be closing in on me.  Dangling too near to my head for comfort.  Nothing seemed real.  Not only was she leaving us, she already had.  She was a liar, nothing but filth, deceitful by nature.  This was unforgivable, no level of graveling could ever restore my faith in her.  

I balanced myself, grabbed onto one of the old victorian poles of the stair railing, and pulled myself upright.  Without even a glance back in her direction I turned on my heal and darted back into the house.  The loud clank of the front door slamming was my cue.  The tears began to flow and I couldn’t stop them.  I sank down onto the smooth, freshly buffed wooden floor and wept.  It was hours before I finally pealed myself off of the ground.  It was that day that I mad a silent vow to myself.  The vow being, no matter how awful, twisted, or immoral what I have done might be, I will never be deceitful.