The RollerCoaster Life... A story of overcoming a traumatic childhood

Chapter 1: Going From Five to Twenty-five Overnight...

I awoke to the sound of the ringing telephone. Through foggy eyes I could barely make out the time on the VCR. It read 3:26 a.m. Even though I was only 5, I knew a call at this time of night couldn't be good. I heard dad answer the phone, but couldn't hear what he was saying to the person on the line. After what seemed like hours, (It was really only about 3 minutes.) dad hung up the phone and told my sisters and me to hurry up and get dressed. We did what we were told without question, because we knew better than to question dad, even though we had a million questions running through our minds.

After only a couple minutes, we were all piled into dad's '76 Ford pickup and was zooming toward my grandmother's house. My sisters and I still didn't know what was going on, but we were growing more frightened by the second, yet we remained silent. Literally, four minutes after we left home we were pulling into granny's driveway. Dad told us to get out and go inside. Then he sped away without another word.

At this point, we were no longer frightened, we were terrified! We slowly walked up the walk to granny's house and climbed the steps. She had the door open waiting for us. She tried to make pallets for us so we could go back to sleep, but it didn't take her long to see that sleep would not come. We wanted answers. We wanted to know why dad had to go away so fast. Our grandmother was easy to talk to and we didn't have to worry about making her mad, so finally my oldest sister Melanie asked her what was going on.

Granny was hesitant to say anything at first. Even though she was dad's mom, she was afraid of making him mad too. She of all people knew his temper better than anyone. After failing at trying to divert our attention by offering us something to eat, she finally sat down and told us the truth. The phone call dad had received came from the hospital. They called to inform dad that mommy had passed away. I honestly didn't understand what my granny was telling us, but when my sisters started to cry, I did too. I knew it had to be something bad to make them cry, yet I just couldn't comprehend what was actually happening.

Around 9 a.m. dad returned to pick us up. He then took us to the funeral home to pick out the dress that mom would be buried in. That place had a creepy feeling to it and made me feel strange. Yet, I knew I couldn't say anything or else I would be in big trouble, so I kept my mouth shut tight. It seemed like it took an eternity to complete everything dad had to do to arrange mom's funeral. I was never more glad to leave.

As soon as we got home dad started yelling about the house being dirty and told us we needed to get it cleaned up. He assigned us all things to do. I boldly spoke up and told him I couldn't reach the sink when he told me to wash the dishes. He just commanded that I stand in a chair or whatever it took to get the job done. Then he stormed out of the house.

My sisters and I hurried to get our tasks done before dad returned. We had no idea how long he'd be gone, but we knew we better be finished before he got home or else we would be punished. We had no idea at the time that we had no need to hurry for he didn't return until the wee hours of the morning. I didn't understand how he could just go away and leave his 5, 9, and 10 year old children to fend for themselves. He also forgot to feed us that day. Little did I know that was only the beginning.

If you guys like Chapter 1 and want me to continue just let me know. If you hate it and want me to stop, let me know that too!

SimMommy05 wrote:If you guys like Chapter 1 and want me to continue just let me know. If you hate it and want me to stop, let me know that too!

Looks good so far.
It was a bit sad. I'm interested to see how it continues.

SimMommy05 wrote:If you guys like Chapter 1 and want me to continue just let me know. If you hate it and want me to stop, let me know that too!

This is amazing! A little bit sad like Callum mentioned but amazing. I look forward to see you push the Members Writers Club into something else. Hope this attracts more writters...