My home upon the lake—Lake Lucerne Circle— my address still rings the back of my mind at the sound of the word “lake”. There’s a bittersweet longing I feel every time I think of the place I used to call home, as that place was my safe place, truly in my child heart. 

My home where the walls were spackled with these never-ending patterns. Shapes I would fit a storyline across the blobs of brown and white and yellow, whatever color my mother felt like painting. I remember the one shaped like a horse on my bedroom wall. I would stare at it every night, considering its shape to be a buffalo or a peanut instead. I called those walls the watermelon room, as they were painted half green and pink since I was a baby, and hadn’t changed until I moved. That room was the last room I said goodbye to while I stared at the eggshell white that replaced the color. 

That house has memories packed in every corner, such as performing shows for my parents with my sister, and setting up little seat labels on the couch with their names on it, or the time my sister and I spent an entire spontaneous weekend creating a very professional iMovie about 2 princesses getting lost in a new world. It featured my dad as the king, ruler of the alternative world (plot spoiler).  

I remember the spontaneous rainy day, I was maybe 6. Those occurred often in Florida. Kiana and I went to play mermaids in the public pool with our dad while Mami was at work or at home making lunch. We played until the day was grayed with clouds full of God’s tears about to rain down on our fantasy. The sky poured down pelting rain as Daddy rushed to the car with our towels for soaking wet skin. The warmth of the car interior held me tight as we drove our minute drive back to our house on Lake Lucerne Circle.

We got home, dried off, and I remember putting on my comfiest pajamas, grabbing my iPad cushioned with a pink rubber case and my stuffed animals, and jumping on the chaise in the corner of my living room next to the big window with the dusty brown shades to watch Littlest Pet Shop for hours during the storm without a care in the world. I had never felt safer anywhere else than my favorite spot on that chaise in my childhood home during a thunderstorm. 

As I grew older I found myself waiting till the hours repeated themselves, pm to am. Mami never told me why Daddy was working at a restaurant. She said he found a new job after losing the old one, but I didn’t know we were just getting by. My dad would find me up in my room at 2:00 AM. 

“Daddy, how was work?”

“Good, go to sleep baby it’s late.”

“Okay, goodnight Daddy.” 

“Goodnight.” A hug and a kiss. He was still wearing his Melting Pot apron. It smelled of restaurant goodies, hints of cheese fondue, and something bitter. It was always the same smell. The very last smell I recognized until he was gone to our new beginning, his new beginning.  

I never prepared myself to leave the place I’d always known. Our dreams of California stored in big brown boxes. Her dreams, his dreams, their dreams. I knew that Daddy needed to make some money, so living without him for a while was a little less hard knowing he was already up in California earning hope for the family in his new new job. Since he was gone, it was up to us women to fix the broken mess of our home that survived with us since 2002. Mami never had to be alone before, never had to be the man of the household. As soon as my dad left it was as if our even the infrastructure of our house began to fall apart along with our sanity. All we had to do was fix every single thing that my parents left neglected for years and years, building up like unwanted memories stacking inside the broken shower floors, the terrible AC, and a fleeting feeling that we’ll truly get out of this place one day. To do that all in one summer was a nightmare I don’t think I’ll ever really remember. I couldn’t imagine the place that I grew up in would become a place to swallow me whole. The walls which held me close now choked me, I couldn’t breathe beneath the weight of my responsibility: rid the bedrooms, paint the walls, paint the fences, change the floors, rip out the carpet, fix the floors, fix the walls, keep it together, keep it together, keep it together. 

…

Stress can do anything to anyone, it’s a devil which unleashed among the right person can do all the wrong kinds of evil. This one turned my Mami into a monster. In any case, the effects of living in a place for too long and letting the broken world around it consume you is only one result, your last memories of the place will be your worst ones.