When the angry words darted over my head as I worked on my coloring book, I barely heard them. When I stepped over my father like a lumpy carpet, passed out in the hallway, inches from his bedroom, I merely giggled. When my mother quickly remarried and we needed to move from our home, I took a long last look at the huge tree on the wall of my pink room — stenciled by my mother, leaves falling, grass and white picket fence surrounding — picked up my favorite stuffed animal, a Dalmatian with a torn ear, and left.
Our new situation was different but not better. We upgraded from Brooklyn to the suburbs. We now had a pool, which I was afraid of, and a live-in housekeeper who hated my mother and resented me and my brother. There were two new stepbrothers and a stepfather whom my younger brother and I had met only a handful of times. We are all young, angry and scared, including the adults who fought even louder and dirtier than my mother and father had. Read more..
Published in The Washington Post by Alisa Schindler 11 March 2017
