Homeward Bound

Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since we’ve been in the same two bed, one bath room. I guess it sucks, but when you’re a little kid you don’t notice. All you know is that your parents are trying; or well, my Dad was.

The cat is getting restless. He wants to run around in more than just this tiny, cramped space. He wants to run through the grass and never come back here. Where is here?

My Sister and I rarely go to school anymore. We take a new bus route now too. It’s just us on a large yellow bus. Not even one of the small ones - which would be much more suitable for only us two- it’s like we purposely got given the large one as a neon sign to say “Here’s a nearly empty bus with two lousy kids”. We were pretty lousy. Boy were we lousy.

I was wearing my striped shirt for the second time that week since laundry seemed to be our last priority and no one at school suspected anything. They probably thought it just got washed and I liked wearing it so I wore it again. My shoes were worn down from years of walking and gym classes, but my backpack was how it always was - clean, in shape, full of books - it was the only thing in my life that seemed to be going right. My backpack.

Dad has found a house now. An actual house. No more sleeping in the same Queen sized bed with my Sister, no more staying around his girlfriend’s house and having trouble falling asleep on her waterbed and no more cereal bars for breakfast, right? Right?

Boy, I can’t wait until we get there. It’s a two story, blue shutter, white walled house with a backyard half the size of a football field - perfect for a family. There’s even a basement with washer and dryer. Laundry can become important again. My Sister and I still share a room, but at least we sort of have our own space.

The closet is filled to the brim with nothing but air, and we sleep on the floor in sleeping bags (almost like camping) for now until we finally move the furniture into the house. Our Dad's room is next to ours, a bathroom in-between. The only odd thing I found was that the kitchen had carpeting.

Our older sister, who we'll call Amy for the sake of this story, stops by at least every other night dropping off food or groceries or to stay the night when her and her boyfriend, who we'll call Max, aren't getting along. Amy has a different Mom from me and my Sister, but she's family and her boyfriend - boy is he into his sports.

It's been a month and still we haven't moved anything into the house. Dad spends longer nights out and comes home smelling more and more like alcohol. He keeps a bottle of "sleeping pills" at his bedside and a stash of bottles in the closet - some empty and some full. Things are getting bad again.

Now I and my Sister don't go to school at all. I got sick and she got bored. We didn't have friends anyways. We started a new school when we moved. That girl only let me sit with her at lunch because she felt sorry for me. I enjoyed my math and science classes though because they were my favorite and best subjects at the time; also the teacher seemed pretty nice - I had him for both subjects.

Our Dad had some common sense and called our Mom. It's amazing what you can do when you're not totally drunk. We went to the airport to pick her up; I and my Sister were clueless. Then we saw her walking through the terminal and thought that she was just visiting. We hugged her tight and then went to get something to eat. Our parents, divorced, spoke about things while I and my Sister flittered about at the salad bar, trying to see how many vegetables we could stack upon each other before the bowl overflowed.

It's Christmas time now. Dad said we were going to have a Charlie Brown Christmas. We tell Mom this and she looks unhappy. Its two nights before Christmas Eve, so Amy and Max stop by to give us presents. We loved them.

Dad didn't come home and it was coming up one in the morning. Mom tells us that we're coming back with her to London.

We're leaving New Jersey.

Amy and Max hug us all tightly, knowing that this is the last time we will see them for a while and they leave to go home. We spend the night talking with our Mom about what's going to happen.

We leave tomorrow.

The morning of the next day is here, and we've packed up all we could - our clothes, the small amount of belongings we wanted to take and we hand the rest over to Amy (she came by to bid us goodbye one last time and take the cat since he couldn't come with us). I hugged our kitten tight - let's call him Tiger - and didn't want to let go. I got him for my birthday, about the time when all of this hectic stuff began and he was there to make me happy. I could tell him what I was thinking and I knew he wouldn't judge me or tell anyone. I cried for a bit and unwillingly handed him over to Amy. She'd take care of him and fine him a good home - she promised.

So, we loaded up into the car and boy was it a long journey to the airport. It was even longer since it was coming up Christmas snow and traffic everywhere.

We got there, bought a pack of cards to pass the waiting time and took the seven hour flight to London.

This would be our new home.

Home - what is that exactly?