About Divorce - A Third-Grade Journal

Mom looks serious sitting on our low bed, her business skirt tightly hugging her upper legs. She pats the spot beside her, signaling for me and Toni to come sit.

"I can't just leave Ken and Barbie," I dispute, holding up the well dressed dolls as evidence. "We're in the middle of an important wedding."

"Jenna..." my mother's tone advises that I listen. She pats the bed again. "Toni, you too."

I drop the dolls with a sigh, fold my arms, and bounce down on the bed like a rubber ball in synch with my sister.

"What?" This better be good.

"I have something very important to explain to you both." Mom pauses to run her hands through her hair, combing two thick shoulder length strands back out of her face. Inhaling deeply first gives her enough breath to spill the news in one airy, tired sigh.

"Your Daddy and I are getting a divorce."

"What's a divorce?" Toni twirls a curious finger around a lock of her springy hair. She's not afraid of asking things she doesn't know.

"It's when two people decide that they will be nicer to each other if they don't live together." Mom says. "Here's the paper that says so." She unrolls the official certificate so I can see it. Real proof on printed paper. I draw back and touch my opposite shoulders.

"You mean Dad's not going to live here anymore?" The tone of blue in Toni's eyes deepens. Her freckled nose scrunches.

"That's right." Mom has this way of looking up at the ceiling when she gets sad.

"But where will Dad stay?" Massaging my watery eyelids with my clenched fists is as comforting as swaying in a rocking chair.

"Your Daddy's going to find a new home, honey."

My body suddenly feels funny, like I've just been in a car crash without even moving. I fold forward, diving off the bed to join Ken and Barbie lying bent and stiff on the floor. We're now all in one suffering heap together. Their wedding is off. My family is over. I cover my face and peek between my fingers at Toni, thinking about how a simple word like divorce has already changed her face, making her mouth bend down, her eyes redden.

"Look what you did to Toni." In a fit of protest, I swing my hands away from my face pointing at my sister, defending her. "Take it back," I insist, looking Mom straight in the eye. "Don't ever say that again."

"I'm sorry Jenna. I can't take it back."

"Yes you can. Just do it." I say matter-of-factly. I'm not giving up on my family that easy.

When I see my command isn't working, I try another approach. In my most charming and convincing voice, I sing, "I bet I could fix your divorce." I suggest it so sweetly, I think Mom might go for it.

"Nobody can fix this Jenna," she says shaking her head at me, probably not even realizing she just said the four most unbearable words I've ever heard.

Only a few days pass before Dad starts packing up his moving boxes with books and records that belong back where they were on our shelves. I'm trying to stay close to his side for as long as possible before I have to leave for school. I linger behind my Dad's busy, bent over body, taking special note of the way his hair curls around his ears and the way his shoulders hunch forward ever so slightly even when he stands up straight.

I will do anything if you stay. I can't seem to say the words out loud, but maybe he'll hear my thoughts.

"Hurry up and get dressed for school Jenna." Mom sounds her usual morning alert. "Toni's already ready."

"I can see that," I say smartly. She's eating breakfast in the dining room. How she can eat at a time like this is a mystery to me.

"Listen to your Mom," Dad says, shuffling by me, dropping a box by the door. He gives me a poke in the belly which usually makes me laugh, but not this time.

I trip up the stairs to my bedroom, yanking down the first thing I see from my closet, a brown and blue plaid dress. Whipping the polyester garment over my head makes my hair snap and stand up with static. I'm rushing too fast, but I don't dare slow down for fear of wasting precious time that I could be spending with Dad.

In my haste to dress fast, my right foot punches through the worn toe of my navy blue knee sock, costing me the time it takes to make a quick fix; a knot tied at the tip of the sock. The knotted sock will come up a bit lower on my calf than the other, but that's no bother. Squeezing the knot into my shoe is no big deal, either. I'll just pull it out through the last band of my sandal.

Time's up. It's time to go.

"Now get going or you'll be late for school," Mom says, sending us off with one brown paper bag lunch each. There's something lumpy and heavy weighing on the bottom of mine. "Give your Daddy a kiss goodbye."

I want to say goodbye to my Dad but I decide to leave him just like he's leaving me, to show him how bad it feels to have someone you love just disappear on you. I run straight past him out of the house and scramble down our concrete porch steps as fast as I can to escape the awful thing I did to him.

The misery I'm trying to dump on my Dad just clings to me tighter. It tugs at my insides, beckoning me to go back and have that last hug and kiss goodbye. I won't go back, though. He has to understand how bad this feels.

And so I walk in step with Toni, away from our hopelessly broken house with a great painful pulling in my body, desperate for things to go back the way they once were; family dinners, bedtime stories, and even broken records.

Help Is On Its Way is available on Amazon.com.