It was a bright summer day. I was with my sister, playing in the front yard. It was never this calm. My older brother was at Boy Scout camp and my dad was off somewhere. It was uncommon for my dad not to be around. He was often either in Bermuda on a business trip or at work. We didn't even see him much on the weekend. My mom stayed at home and didn't  work until I started kindergarten so she primarily took care of my siblings and me.

We walked into the backyard of my house. The grass was tickling my feet and the sun was making my blond ringlets even blonder. My mother was sitting in the familiar yellow armchair that seemed to reflect the sun from the fresh coat of paint my dad put on. We ran up to her, our bare feet trampling the lush grass as we went. As we inched closer, I could vaguely see the expression on my mother's face. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth was almost in a frown, she was so upset it looked as if she was in the verge of tears. I wondered what was wrong because this was a rare sight; and still is. It still is. As of today I've only seen my mother cry twice. Whatever was going on was definitely bad.

As she saw us coming, she put a false smile on her face, her dimples showing. We were standing in front of her and she seemed same as ever. Her curly hair looked as if it had red highlights peeking through the black from the sun. The only reason I knew it was a false smile was her eyes. They were hard, cold. These weren’t the eyes of the mother I knew. Recently she had been distant, staring as if she could see straight through the wall into outer space. I know this now but at the time I was too young to comprehend any of it.

My mother told us in a “rip the band-aid off” sort of way: “We’re getting divorced.”  I looked to my sister. She was my catalyst for understanding any of this. It was bizarre, she seemed almost positive about the situation, ranting on and on about this and how it would be a new chapter in our lives and how we could prosper from it. Many people  would ask what I thought in this exact moment. The truth is, I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention, I couldn’t. It was like I saw her mouth moving, and heard the words, but I didn’t understand any of it.

The next thing that I remember is being in my father’s familiar gray station wagon pulling into a driveway. This wasn’t a house of family nor friend. I wondered who the blue and white house belonged to and why I was there. There was a small park across the street where children were laughing and playing. I didn’t like it. Why are they so happy? Why are they so happy, so complete while I’m here and empty.

I didn’t like any of it. In fact, I despised it. I wanted to live on Geoffrey Drive with my family. I didn’t want to live on Morris Avenue in a little blue and white house. I wanted to go to my house. Not this random white house, mine. It turned out that this was my dad’s house. I had split custody and still do. It was the lawyers that decided this. The lawyers with the suits and the briefcases. The ones with the “reassuring” smiles that made my siblings and me go to therapy for years. the ones that smiled at us but you could see the pity in their eyes. They decided this and not my parents. Why are they trying to split up my family? I thought.

I finally understood all of it. Why my dad was at work all of the time, why my mom was always shipping us off to art class in Philadelphia, all of it.

The last thing I remember is praying, praying to God that it wasn’t my fault. Until last year, I thought it was. Now I see what I didn’t back then. Now I see that why they did for me back then was possibly the best thing that could have ever happened to me.