The trial is over.......now what?

After the judge handed down his sentence it was over. I turned and look at dad as if saying "now what?" He looked to the right and began walking out of the courtroom. I picked up Lisa and followed him. You need to realize that because his sentence had been suspended that meant he could just walk out of the courtroom too. Right behind me. I could barely swallow. My palms were sweaty. Was he going to stop me and ask to see me, or Lisa? Did he hate me for what I had done to him? If he did, how could I ever forgive myself. Was he going to have a confrontation with dad once we were outside? Was he going to ask me and Lisa to come home? Did he still love me? And the question I still ask myself today...........Does he know how much I still love him? I just wanted him to now how much I still loved him. Now don't start jumping up and down thinking I must be crazy to still love him. You have to keep in mind I was seventeen. The part of a childs brain the deals with judgement is one of the last parts to mature. This also makes it difficult for teens to understand the consequences of their actions. I have learned that after 19 years of counseling. That is why some teenagers make such bad choices. And as I walked out the courtroom door with him following only a few feet behind me all I wanted was for him "my prince" to wisk me away to never never land and live there with me and Lisa happily ever after. With my heart in my throat, dad and I never turned around and walked directly to his car to head back to Virginia. I wished he had said something, anything. I love you....I hate you.....I didn't care what it was, I just wanted him to say something. As we left the courthouse my heart became heavier and heavier. I could not believe my parents and that stupid sheriff had talked me into doing what I had just done. They kept telling me I was young and life would go on. I would fall in love again and I would forget all about him. Dad and I didn't have much to say on our trip home. I did feel safe with dad. I had spent several years missing him so much that I was happy to be with him. There was a time in my life when my dad was number one over everything in the world. Until "HE" came along. Then dad was bumped down to number two. It was early evening when we made it home. Both of us exhausted and Lisa was just happy to get out of the car. We had basically been traveling all day.

Still with few words being said, dad fixed himself a drink and sat down at the kitchen table. I got some toys for Lisa and laid her on the floor to play. Dad didn't say a word to me as I came into the kitchen and stared at him with his drink in his hand. Nor did he say a word to me when I went to the counter and fixed myself a drink. If this is what he does to cope with things maybe it will work for me too. So there we sat. Across the table from each other with drinks in hand neither of us saying a word. As I sat there I remember thinking "I sure hope all of you are happy now!!!!!!!!!! You got what you wanted and now here I sit, miserable. And drinking." Now please don't get me wrong. I don't want to give you the impression that this was the first drink I had ever taken in my life because that would be a joke. Before I was married I drank with my friends all the time. We partied every weekend. This was just the first time that I "REALIZED" I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. I know you have heard this a million times before but I am living proof that "children do live what they learn". And at seventeen I was still learning. As time went on I became more and more lonely and more and more depressed. My grandfather would leave for work around 5 am every morning. He would come home around 2pm, have a few drinks, eat some dinner and was in bed by 7pm. Dad worked from 11pm to 7 am and would sleep all afternoon and most of the evening. He would get up around 9 pm and would be out the door by 10:15pm. to go to work. For the most part Lisa and I spent our time alone together looking for something to do. Dad was real big into CB radios at the time. So much so that he had one in the house too. In an effort to help me get to know some people he taught me how to use it. He introduced to me the people he talked to all the time in hopes that I would make some new friends. Every Friday night all of his CB radio friends would meet and the Golden Coral for dinner together. That was where I met them. Sarah and Robert. Sarah was in her late 30's and Robert in his late 40s. They had two children, a daughter named Myrna who was their biological child and boy named Robby who they had adopted after trying for many years to have another child. I was a single mom living with two old men. No female influence in my life at all. No one to help me when I wasn't sure if I was taking care of Lisa the way I should be taken care of her. This is where opportunity for me and Sarah's desire to adopt another child crossed paths. She fell in love with Lisa the very minute she laid eyes on her. And it didn't take long for Robert to fall too. In the first month or so that we knew each other Sarah expressed to me one many occasions how she so desperately wanted to adopt another baby. She was becoming very attached to Lisa and so was Robert. I must admit as a young mother I really needed a break. But GIVE LISA UP? NO WAY!!!!!! So we decided we would kind of share her. I would meet them at the Golden Coral every Friday night. We would have dinner and socialize with everyone for a few hours. Then when it was time to go home I would let Sarah take Lisa home to spend the night with her. At some time during the afternoon or early evenings on Saturday dad would give me a ride to their house and I would pick her up and bring her home with me. It appeared that this arrangement was meeting both of our needs quite well. She was still mine and I had some help I really needed. Not everyone in my family was happy with this arrangement but they all lived hours away from me and I needed a friend and some help. Robert and Sarah treated Lisa as if she were their own. She came home with something new every week. Sometimes it would be new clothes, sometimes it would be diapers, milk and/or baby wipes. All of which I couldn't afford. I had no job, no government assistance and child support? Well I never saw a dime of that money. I wasn't about to tell them they couldn't help. I had been counting on dad for everything.

The weeks went by and before we knew it was Lisa's 1st birthday. Dad had found a house that he wanted to buy and the three of us had moved in a few weeks earlier. Up until this time most of the friends I had made were dads age. But now we were living in a small community where there were girls close to my age. I was able to become friends with them quickly but there lives were nothing like mine. Most of them were juniors and seniors in high school. They were cheerleaders and softball players. They were in band and dated boys their own age. A life so opposite of mine. There were days when I wished I were part of all that. Friday night football. Saturday night dates. Junior senior proms. But I had something they didn't. I had Lisa. And she loved me. And I loved her. It was hard trying to be a normal teenager and a good mother at the same time. One minute I would have a house full of giggly girls talking about who they had a date with on Saturday and the next minute I had this beautiful blue eyed little girl calling me mama. It was hard to even know who I was. Trying to live a normal life as a teenager and be a good mother to a one year old is like trying to be two totally different people at the same time. Two identities trying to live in one body. Give yourself a fighting chance in life. It got very hard to find a balance between the two.

Another lesson better left unlearned.