Shattered Relationship

We have no pictures together other than one. In it I am seven or eight on a family trip to a theme park. I wear a blue shirt and short jean shorts and my hair is pinned back into a bun. My mom wears an orange sleeveless shirt with her hair pinned back as well. She is thin with jet black hair that grazes the middle of her back. We are on a ride where a boat swings back and forth. I got on the ride with my mom and sister. I thought I was old enough to handle it, little did I know. As the boat rose higher and higher when it swung in the air, I yell to get off. My sister laughs at me as the conductor slows the machine down from his control station. I can’t remember the last family vacation that was actually fun like the one from the picture. Now we fight every trip we try to take together, so we have quit taking them.

That trip was the last moment I remember being happy with my mother and the only picture of us two together alone. The bickering between us began my freshman year of high school. I was fifteen, and like most teenage girls, I fought with my mother about everything, especially when my father was out of town which was often. She always nagged me about irrelevant things like cleaning my room, the bathroom or doing the dishes or laundry. My friend Courtney lived down the street, so I would always walk to her house to spend the night to get away from my mother. I was always questioned when I wanted to go to Courtney’s, partly because Courtney was a year older, but also because my mother thought we were going to meet up with boys. Courtney’s mom was a lot more lenient and would let us go the mall and movies alone. We usually met up with boys or had them pick us up from Discover Mills Mall to go to a house party, so my mother was right.

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Krista Tate currently lives in Atlanta, GA, and is an undergraduate student at Georgia Southern University. Your comments and feedback are welcomed. Email kt00673@georgiasouthern.edu.

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One night I was grounded and Courtney still begged me to come to her house. My father was out of town for UPS. I’m unsure where he went. I was about to sneak out when my mother came into my room demanding my phone and said that I had to clean up and start the laundry. I don’t know exactly what else we fought about, but it started to get ugly. As we yelled back and forth, her patience grew thin and I saw she was drawing back to slap me. Instead she stormed to her room down the hall to get a clothes hanger. I thought to myself, I’m not a little girl anymore, hitting me with a fucking clothes hanger won’t do shit. I warned her, “If you fucking hit me with that, I’m gonna hit you back!”

“If you hit me, I swear, Krista, I’m going to call your father,” she threatened.

We continued to argue and she hit me with the wire clothes hanger. I punched her back in the triceps hoping that would be enough for her to walk away and realize I wasn’t playing this game with her. “You little bitch!” she screamed and stormed off to call my dad. She stomped her feet and returned to my room without knocking and handed me the phone.

“Krista what is going on? Why are you giving your mother a hard time when I’m out of town?” my dad sounded sad.

“She’s crazy. I’m not giving her my phone, I hate her. She just hit me for no freakin reason!”

“Can you just get along till I get back Sunday?”

“Whatever, Bye.”

Ever since that night I have despised my mother and refuse to even call her mother. Her name is Deborah to me. After my freshman year, my mother changed. She began eating more and changed her long thick black hair to a short brown and blonde bob cut. Her eyes have dark circles under them, and she shops more because nothing ever fits. Every two weeks on Saturday is her normal routine of going to the hair dresser to bash my father and tell all of our family business to whomever will listen, I know because I have been with her. Then she plans a night out with her friends to get drinks and go to dinner. But before, she has to go find new shoes at Payless and get a new outfit. It is a shame all the money she wastes in one day, knowing the bills still haven’t been paid for the month. My mother is so concerned with keeping up with her friends and spending money on herself, she neglects the important bills assuming my father will pay them.

Before my father was forced to take early retirement from UPS due to “budget cuts,” he made almost $80,000 a year. My father took care of my sister and me and paid for almost all the bills. My mom never complained except about little house chores and demanding him to cook dinner by the time she got home, because she can’t really cook. I laugh looking back at the petty fights the two of them would have. My father cooked, did the dishes after, did our laundry, worked all week, paid the bills, and found time to coach me and take me to all my basketball tournaments or practices. My mother demanded food on the table when she got home and I still don’t know why my dad complied with her wishes. Now that I’ve grown up and my father makes not nearly what he used to, my mother became a little gnat bugging everyone including my sister and me. Nothing is good enough for Deborah. If dinner isn’t ready by the time she gets home from work she bitches; if the clothes from the dryer aren’t folded, or the bills aren’t paid on time, she bitches. My dad is stressed out, their relationship went downhill a long time ago, but it began getting worse my senior year of high school when my dad started smoking crack. I’m unsure if that is when he really started, but that is when I started noticing the change in him and my sister told me about the addiction. My father found an outlet from our family and most importantly from Deborah. I don’t condone what he does, but if I had to live with Deborah every day, I’m sure I would be a pot head or alcoholic. The relationship got to the point of separation and my dad moved to Covington to stay at a friend’s house after my mom threw him out with only a bag full of clothes, and then changed locks on the door.

My father and I worked a girl’s basketball tournament at Suwanee Sports Academy one weekend beginning on Friday. Because Covington is far from the gym, my father had stayed at my mom’s apartment with me on Friday and came home that Saturday. All day my mother had been texting him asking if he was going to pay the cell phone bill and my car payment. She called and left a mean message asking where the grocery coupons were so she could go to the store, although she already had groceries. She just likes to complain and start shit over nothing and I find it very pitiful. My dad and I got home around 9:30pm Saturday and the fighting started.

“Where are the coupons, Reginald?” my mother questioned with no patience in her tone and a wrinkle in her brows.

“I took them. Why? I cut them out and had no groceries since you kicked me out,” my dad replied.

“Whatever, Reginald.”

“Where are my navy gym shorts and the Peach State shirt I just got the other weekend?”

“I don’t know!” she yelled back acting confused.

“You do know, Deborah.”

“I don’t know. Look in the dryer.”

“You know they aren’t in the dryer. You threw them in the trash, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Deborah, stop lying. You threw them away, just say it. Whatever, I’m out of here.”

My father stormed in to my room and began packing his things, huffing and puffing with frustration. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m going home Krista, I knew it was a mistake coming here.”

“No! Just stay we have to be up early in the morning!”

“I’ll pick you up at 7.”

“Fine,” I surrendered hoping he wouldn’t forget. I refused to talk to my mother the whole night because she knew she was wrong and had lied to my father. I fell asleep and morning came quickly. I woke up, showered, and put on my Peach State Basketball t-shirt and shorts, ready for the last long day of the tournament. I brushed my teeth exactly as 7am came around and my father still wasn’t there. I burst into my mom’s room asking for her phone. I called my dad, no answer so I called again; no answer. As the touch screen hung up, it showed a text message my mom had sent my father right before I came in. It read: I know where you are. I just hope you didn’t steal money from Brandon and can explain to Krista why you didn’t pick her up! (Brandon was the tournament coordinator) I didn’t even look at her when she asked if I needed money for gas. I just left the house slamming the front door behind me. I got in my car, plugged in my IPOD and turned to the song “Reminded Me” by Tyga.

I’d hoped you see my face and that you’d be reminded….I couldn’t stay away I couldn’t fight it. Somehow at that moment I imagined my boyfriend and how I could really use his comfort. I knew in his arms, I could forget about my parents. He always kissed me on the forehead when I was sad or upset. The song reminded me that I need an escape from these two people who were so awful for each other and needed to be with the one I loved. My escape was eight hours away though, so I was stuck.

As the black entrance gate to the apartment complex opened, I started crying. I knew where my father was, he didn’t really go home. Now I understand why he always goes away after my mother and he fight. He just wants to escape reality for however long the high lasts. Well, who said it was ok for him to do so? At the end of the tournament, I had to explain to Brandon why my dad wasn’t there to work that day, and as I did, I broke down in tears again. Brandon looked at me puzzled as to why I was crying. I explained everything; Brandon was like a brother to me and had let me work these tournaments since high school. “Damn,” Brandon said stunned. He was at a loss for words and had to sit down just to get over what I had told him. His wide eyes looked at me and I knew there was nothing he could have said to really help.

“How are you handling it?”

“I’m fine.” I replied.

“No really Krista, how are you handling it?

“I mean I’m fine, just trying to continue doing me. There isn’t anything else I can do.”

“Damn that’s tough.”

I walked out of one of the offices we chatted in after twenty minutes and went to my car to leave. I sat in the hot car with my face in my hands and cried, not just tearing, but a real cry. I hate this shit. I hate this feeling of always feeling abandoned. I really hate my mother and I’m always going to blame her for driving my dad away all these years. She pushed their relationship to the edge and watched it tumble down and break. She doesn’t ever think she is wrong and fails to realize that her actions affect our entire family. She tore us all apart and I don’t blame my sister for moving all the way to California. I hate needy, high maintenance people who only want people to take care of them, while they spend their own money on themselves. Our relationship will never be the same, and pictures like ones alone together probably will never happen again. She’s dead to me.