This April 11th will be 11 years from that Thursday. The day my world was turned completely upside down, and not in the way most 17 year olds worlds get turned upside down. Just the September before I was a girl going into my junior year of school, a couple weeks after the start of the year the twin towers were attacked. I lost the sense of security I always felt growing up in this country. April 11th I lost so much more.
After leaving home I went to the SAT prep course and started balling the second I saw my friend. My mother had called her to tell her I wasn't coming because she had to talk to me about something, my friend later told me she thought I was pregnant or something. That night I wound up sitting in a parking lot with another friend of mine, both of us crying on and off for hours. The next day was a big blood drive at our school and I had pledged to donate a couple weeks earlier, plus I couldn't stay home I needed the support of friends and my teachers. I immediately went to my favorite teacher's classroom when I arrived at school, he took one look at me and kicked everyone out of his room, I sat there and cried for the first two periods of the day. He had already known, my mother had told my guidance counselor and he spoke with that teacher knowing I would go to him for support. I donated blood and then left for the day, most of the students that donated had permission to only stay half the day. After I left my friend's mother took us to get our nails done. Everywhere I went I saw someone that looked like or had mannerisms like my stepmom. I hoped and hoped that it was all made up, that my stepmom really ran away and was back in my town hiding out. That Saturday I went back to work, I was working as a lifeguard and swim instructor at the YMCA, I was closer to my bosses than my mother and found that being around them and the kids helped me to not think about it.
At some point that weekend my mother took me to visit a couple that were friends with my dad and stepmom. They very sternly said that I should not attend any kind of memorial service that my stepmom's family had from her, and my mother agreed. I wanted to go, I wanted to say goodbye, I did not do anything wrong. A week or two later I found her obituary in the newspaper and it had a memorial service listed but I didn't go.
Time started passing, every once in a while my mother would tell me she spoke with my dad's lawyer or my aunt or uncle. I was never very close to his family, nor was I close to my half siblings from his first marriage, and after this we were pushed even farther apart. My mother would tell me if there was a hearing or any new information she found out. However over time she started keeping more and more from me, and even took it to some extremes when I was older but that's for another post. I finished up that school year with absences totaling higher than all my years in school and grades my lowest ever. I wasn't allowed to tell people, I told a couple close friends and my bosses at work. My mother only told my one aunt (on her side of the family) because I went to school with my cousins and in case people started talking at school. But my mother did not want my grandmother to know and wanted to limit as many people knowing as she could.
So here I was 17 years old, I just lost two parents in one day and I had a very weak support system. I had my mother (who was at first telling me he could have never done it, then telling me I owed it to him to be there for him, then completely flipping again as I got older which is also for another post), my stepdad (who was always great but was the life isn't fair get over it type), my bosses and teachers, my teenage friends, and a boyfriend.
My friends were as good of a support as 17 year olds would be. They listened to me but had no idea what to say to me. I was also the one they always came to for advice, which they stopped doing because they felt their "little" problems weren't something they could "bother" me with. Over time a distance grew between us. They wanted to go out and be young and stupid but knew I was going through a rough time so instead of doing something that I wanted to do they would just go out without me. They didn't want to think of it and nor should they have had to. My guidance counselor didn't even know what to do with me, the last time I visited my high school he saw me and quickly put his head down and walked past me as fast as he could. My boyfriend stuck around for two more months and then disappeared, my mother worked with his father and heard rumors that his dad made him break up with me. My world that was flipped upside down was now crashing down around me.
I started receiving letters from my dad, there would be this little piece of paper in the envelop (like a fortune from a fortune cookie) that said the letter was from an inmate at a correctional facility. At first I could barely read them, there was no way I would write him back. But my mother pushed me to, telling me I was all he had, my siblings and his weren't there for him so I should be (even though I was by far the youngest). The letters wouldn't say much, maybe one day I will dig them out and post portions of them, he would also include pictures he would draw.
Some point over the summer my stepbrother (stepmom's only son) traveled to their home, he was older and had lived by me still, and had the local sheriff drove to the house (crime scene) so he could break in and steal important documents. My stepbrother is a lovely person... As my high school health teacher would have said he's a druggy burnout loser. When my dad and stepmom lived by me he would break into their home and steal things and he only came around his mom when he needed money. So I know he broke into the house to get whatever money he could and not to get things that were important to remember his mother. I have a small plastic tote that can fit under a bed, that has my mementos from both of them, that's it.
The summer ended and my senior year began, my circle of friends completely changed and I spent as little time as I could at home. I would get letters from my dad every once in a while, he would promise me he would call me as soon as he was allowed to make calls. We had heard a couple different stories from the sheriff and my father's lawyer, the usual insurance money or an affair stories as to why. That February came and my father took a plea deal. The lawyer told my mom that they would have called us as witnesses, my mother because he called her the couple days before and me as a character witness, but my father didn't want me to go through that so he took the plea deal. He was sentenced to 35 years and could go up for parole after 17 years.
My dad did it, he killed my stepmom. He took her life and ruined so many others in the process. I loved my stepmom and I loved my dad. How could I love my dad and not be on his side at the same time? Was I a horrible person for not turning my back and hating him? Did I betray my stepmom?
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