1. My brother
My mom had abandoned me in the little blue house with white shutters. My name is Melanie and I'm 16 years old. This isn't the first time she had just taken off. Usually she's only gone for a few days but it had been a whole 2 weeks. I was getting everything done that I needed, all my schoolwork and my job. I had a next to nothing pay at the local grocery store that didn't pay the bills that Mom had left. Now I was alone in a dark house with no food while my mom was probably off partying in god knows where. She hadn't called or tried to contact me in anyway to make sure I was all right. Maybe she's not coming home this time. What was I going to do then?
As I was thinking about this my crappy cell phone that hardly gets any reception rang. I looked at the screen it was my brother that I hadn't talked to in years.
*******
My brother abandoned me when he met a girl right out of high school and married her. When I got upset and asked him why he was leaving me all he said was that he had to get away from all this. That he'd had enough of mom. So I figured out that I was on my own the day we packed all Rennie's stuff up and put it in his car. He told me we would always keep in touch but it's been two years since he left. I had seen Rennie only once during that time and that was the first Christmas, he came to celebrate but that was all. We hadn't even been invited to his wedding.
*******
A lump in my throat formed when I thought about him never keeping contact with me. I took a deep breath and answered the phone.
"Melanie??? Are you there?" Rennie asked in a very worried tone.
I hope my voice wouldn't sound shaky as I answered him, "Yeah, it's me."
"Thank god!" he sounded relieved like he was really worried about me, "I've been calling the house phone for three days now but it's disconnected or something. What's going on? Is mom there?" He was firing all these questions at me like I was being interrogated.
I couldn't answer right away I was still trying to get a grip on my shaky voice, "Yeah I'm alright," was all I could force out. He probably suspected something.
"No, I don't think so. There's something you're not telling me," he said in a wary tone.
There was no way I was going to be able to lie to my brother, he knew me too well. I sucked in a deep breath and told him, "Mom left again but …" I couldn't finish I just sat down and started crying. I hadn't really cried in years! Every time my mother left I had been able to contain myself because I knew she would come back, but this time she'd been gone a long time and then my brother called. I just cracked.
"Melanie, it's okay. I'm here," his voice had turned soothing but it didn't really help because he had never been there for me. I wasn't sure that could change. "I'm coming to get you just hold on."
I wasn't really listening at that point. I couldn't make sense of what Rennie had just said. I was thinking about mom and how she doesn't even care and why Rennie had all of a sudden picked up the phone and called his lone lost forgotten sister.
I was wiping the tears out of eyes when I herd the tires of a car driving up the gravel driveway to my house. Even though I herd the knock on the front door as clear as day I still just sat there. Then the door opened. We still had the spare key in exactly same hiding place as when Rennie still lived here.
"Melanie, are you here?" he asked.
I didn't want to answer for some reason. I just sat against the side of my bed waiting for him to find me. He walked in to my room then and just sat down beside me saying nothing.
We must have sat there for 2 hours when his phone started ringing.
"Hello," he said in the same tone he had used with me. I couldn't hear what the other person said.
"Yeah I'm fine. I'm with her right now." So they were talking about me. I would bet money that he was talking to Tory, his wife.
"Yeah we'll be home in a little bit." He paused for a minute then said, "Okay, I will. Love you. Bye." He hung up the phone and looked at me.
"Okay grab what you want and your coming with me." He ordered me in a very serious voice.
I was a little stunned, but I recovered enough to say, "What?"
He didn't answer me but stood up and started gathering my clothes. I just sat there and stared at him. I didn't care if he took all my stuff I wasn't going with him. I hadn't even seen him in 2 years! Why was he doing this now? My mind was racing to come up with an answer but I couldn't think of anything.
My brother left the room with two bags of my stuff. He was only gone for a couple minutes and then came back. He walked right up to me without missing a single beat and scooped me up in his arms. He carried me like a baby all the way out to his car. Then plopped me down in the passenger seat and buckled me. I probably look like I was in a coma because I hadn't moved or even blinked. I just stared at the pretty little blue house as we backed out of the driveway and felt very sad. This was my home.
We didn't talk the whole way. I didn't trust my voice to ask the questioned that was on the tip of my tongue.
Rennie was the first to speak, "I'm so sorry Melanie!" He almost cried. What did he have to be sorry about? None of my questions had been answered just more brought up. "I had no idea that things would get this bad when I left." Oh so that's what he was talking about. Well it wasn't that bad, was it?
We were turning into a rich looking subdivision, were all the houses were humungous and all the lawns were perfectly mowed. I finally talked, "Where are we going?"
"Um, this is Tory's and my house," he said sheepishly while turning into what had to be the biggest house in this whole place.