When a Hug Isn't Comfortable

Chapter Five

Things got really bad once my mom started buying furniture for her new house. My dad totally lost it.
Before we left the house, my parents were screaming at each other. I took my brother outside. it didn’t help. You could hear them screaming from a mile away.
Once we got in the car, things started out calm again, but then, of course, they started up again. It all started with my dad.
They were arguing about what my mom had taken from his house, to bring to her house. I wasn’t really listening, but soon, my dad turned to me.
“It’s like a game we play,” he started, “what did mommy take from my house this time?”
“Richard…” My mom said
“Shut up!”
“What is wrong with you!” my mom shrieked, “you just told me to shut the f*ck up!”
“No I didn’t, I just said-”
“No!” my mom screamed again, “you told me to shut the f*ck up!”
“Okay,” my dad said, a little too calmly. “now I’m REALLY going to tell you to shut the f*ck up.”
It was horrible. The whole thing. I just closed my eyes and prayed that my brother wasn’t listening.
This went on for weeks. They were the worst weeks of my life. My family was torn apart. the two people who made me split apart. I feel torn in half too. like when I’m with my mom, I have to be anti-dad, and when I’m with my dad, I have to be anti-mom.
I guess what I had to learn was that this was for the best. As horrible as it was, it would have been worse if my parents stayed together.
I also had to learn that, in life, there are good changes and bad changes. A good change, maybe, is like when you get a pet or something and a bad change is when someone dies, or when somebody you love moves away. And sometimes marriages don’t last.