I was born in Thomasville, NC to a teenage mother an an absentee father. As a child of course I didn't know how hard my mom worked to get through nursing school and keep us afloat. I thought it was no big deal that I saw my biological father maybe twice a year and a phone call very now and then that never lasted more than three minutes and always consisted of the same three questions- "how's school going?" "What've you been up to?" "You don't have a boyfriend do you?" But ever since I could remember my step dad was there for me.
Even now with him living in Florida, I communicate with him more than I do any biological member of my family. I have three younger siblings by my mother ages 5, 8, and 10 and a two or three year old sister by my father that I never see. In my childhood I became acquainted with secrecy, it was a dear friend of mine. My step dad- Andre- loved me like I was his own, but he had a drug problem. To an outsider nothing could be detected as 'off' in my family, and my mother worked very hard to keep it that way. You'd never know one of my siblings or I always had to go to the store with Andre so he wouldn't take off, and I always had to make sure I got the credit card back from him when my mother went to work, so he wouldn't leave me with my siblings in the middle of the night, not to be seen for at least three days or until he ran out of money.
Thomasville is a small community, so it wasn't uncommon that everyone knew everyone else's business. I was never more mortified than the time I was in third grade and my friend said she'd heard Andre was on drugs. I felt like I'd been exposed myself. I denied it profusely and tried to make it seem like she didn't know what she was talking about, but now I'm sure she knew I was lying. One weekend Andre would be with me at a travel softball tournament being dad of the year, but the next week he's missing in our car and my bat bag gets stolen out of the back. I always tried to stay mad when he got back, I would talk to him for a week, but he was family and let's face it- the 'stay at home dad' Andre was nothing like the 'ditch my family for drugs' Andre.
The summer after my 8th grade year my mother had finally had enough. I've been seeing this go on since I was 9 and I knew it started way before then, so I'm thinking it's about time. Of course the weekend we were supposed to move Andre disappeared with the Uhaul keys in his pocket. We had to rent another one and move our entire house in three days because we didn't have rent money. We started our life anew as a family minus one and Andre checked into the Malachi house. I figured I'd seen it all before it wasn't going to work any better this time than the previous times and I was fed up with his antics.
Eight months... that's the longest I've ever been without talking to him, that's how long it took me to decide to start taking his letters. In the mean time I'm babysitting my brothers and sister day and night because my mom works at Duke hospital and we still live an hour and a half away in High Point. We made the best out of a bad situation, I guess. Money was still tight so mm found a friend to stay with a few days at a time to save her the drive. So here I am a freshman in high school worried about not only my homework, but Lennox's preschool homework and Deacon and Iyanna's school work as well. I had to make sure everyone ate dinner, had their lunch packed and then get up and get everyone ready for school in the morning. I'd make sure Deacon and Iyanna made it to the bus okay, but if Lennox's ride to preschool didn't show up I couldn't just leave him- other arrangements would have to be made. The summer after sophomore year we decided to move to Durham, but I was going to my Dad's for the summer and the kids were going to Florida to stay with Andre. It turns out living with someone you barely know is actually kind of hard, so after tow and a half weeks I went back to High Point and spent the rest of my summer with my friend Shay.
When it was time for the kids to come home back in August my mom wasn't financially prepared, so they started the school year in Jacksonville. Now a year later I've started my senior year with over half of my family still in Florida. By the time they come back I'll be leaving for college..in Florida- go figure.
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