Childhood Fleeting Pt.2

My mom worked away from us for about 2 years. My parents argued every weekend that she was home.  Hours and hours were spent with my dad yelling at my mom and my mom stubbornly ignoring him. She knew how to push his buttons and vice versa. I don't remember what they fought about, I was trying to keep my siblings away from them and go outside. Sometime that wasn't possible so we would hear everything. Sometimes they would fight about arguing in front of us, oh the irony. There were about 2 times that are burned into my memory though forever. One occasion, my mom was being irrational and just freaking out. She was yelling at me to go call the cops which would have meant leaving our acreage (we didn't live there) and running down the road to a neighbour's house. I didn't listen to her, instead I did as my dad said and took my siblings in the house and kept them entertained and away from the windows. My dad managed to calm my mom down. She said he was keeping us from her even though he was with her outside and we had gone into the house alone. Keep in mind, this is how I remember the incident and I may not have the full story.
The second time things escalated was a night we were at home. I only remember bits and pieces of the night, good ol' repression. My parents were all out screaming at each other and it didn't matter that we were right there. We were all crying. My mom didn't seem like herself in the least, she seemed to have blacked out with rage. Her eyes didn't make normal eye contact, it was distant and blank. My dad seemed to be the more rational person and he was trying to talk her back. My mom refused to hear any of it. My brother was crying in the bedroom and stuttering, telling my mom to stop. My mom ran to him and my dad tried to stop her but she just threw him off and kept going. She wiped out on a garbage bag full of clothes by the bedroom door when she tried to round the corner. She biffed it good and screamed. She had bruised her leg and wrist (she bruises like a peach to begin with) and screamed that my dad did that to her. He was no where near her but she screamed that's what she would tell people and had the bruises to prove it. My dad was freaking out, he knew that it would be his word against hers. I don't remember anything else from that night.
I cried every weekend that my mom left along with my youngest sister. I always thought about hiding on the car floor since my mom left in the wee hours of the morning when it was still dark and then popping up once she got to the city and staying with her for the week. I never tried it.
My dad would tell me about their relationship and repeat things she had said to him. He was treating me like a friend rather than his child. He admitted that he was putting too much on me yet he didn't stop. He was losing all that he thought he had...

Once Upon a Time... I was born

     So I was born in the springtime when May flowers were coming up. I've been told that a few days later, it snowed. Go figure. My brother and sisters soon followed me into this world and that is when things got interesting. My siblings and I had a fairly decent relationship with our parents; they were firm, even strict at times but always loving. They were always there if we needed a hug or a tickle.
My parents home-schooled us because they didn't want to make us ride the bus for over 2 hours everyday; we lived in right on the border of two school districts and either direction had a long bus ride.  My dad wanted to teach us life skills like taking care of the house and shopping for groceries. We had our school work to do first of course. We learned our math and English and science just like everyone else. We learned how to work independently. We were in swimming lessons with fellow home-schoolers and my sister and I took piano lessons. My parents loved to entertain friends; I remember many games of Scrabble being played at the dining room table and the laughter throughout the house. In my little head, everything was wonderful. I had no idea that beneath the exterior of our happy family, a tiny black hole was on the verge of swallowing up life as I knew it.
   I suppose the when I noticed something wasn't quite right was when my parents went back to school. My dad needed to finish his high school in adult education and my mom needed to finish her accounting clerk diploma (she became pregnant with me while she was in her course). My grandma babysat us during this time while my dad was at school and my mom was living in a different city to finish her course. We only got to see her on the weekends for that year. That was pretty hard, my youngest sister was only 3 yrs old at the time. During this time, I became more responsible for helping take care of my siblings. It was my job to make sure all of our schoolwork was packed to take to grandma's, that my youngest sister had her toys and Pull-Ups packed and that we all had our winter clothes dried and ready to wear. I was about 8 or 9 yrs old at the time; just old enough to take on more responsibilities but not really old enough to be like another parent. Of course I just saw it as something that I had to do and I didn't see myself as another parent but rather a responsible older sister.