June 2021

No one is home when I arrive, but then again no one knows I am going to be here. Otherwise, I am sure that they would be there. There is an unexplainable, drop in my stomach as I stood in the living room. My bags around me at my feet, I look at the photos on the wall trying to remember happier times, easier times. There was me in my dance costumes between the ages of four and eight years old. Sparkles and sequins with a grin so big it covered my face.

I sigh going up to my room, Owen runs past me for her own and I sigh as stand in the doorway of mine. I already feel confined and restricted and I haven't even entered it yet. I take another breath before I step foot into my bedroom. It's still the same, then again I had only been gone two weeks, not years.

I place my bag on the bed, sighing as I set down next to it.

I thought maybe I could do this.

"Mommy?" Owen asks from the doorway head tilted as she watches me. "Why sad?"

I look up at her, then around my room and then her once more.

Could I do this for another two years? I already felt stifled and it had been barely an hour here but was I ready, was I ready to be in that sort of relationship that was live-in? Maybe I could couch surf, make time between friends' places?

"Mommy is just thinking that is all," I tell her as I let her crawl onto my lap. "Do you like it here?"

"Don't know?" She asks confused.

"Would you rather live all the time at Daddy's? Or do you like being here with grammy and paw-paw?" I try to put it into her words so she would understand. Part of me is scared to know her answer because if she liked it here I would probably suffer my way through it for her

"Like Mommy daddy?" She asks and I smile sadly. "Miss grammy and pawpaw?" She adds on her little nose wrinkling and brow furrowing over the questions. I play with her pigtails for a moment as I don't know what to say to her.

"Daddy Mommy happy?" She says. "Mommy grammy no-no mean?" She says it with the simple logic of a child because she is one. We try to teach her to not fight with others or not be mean, yet she sees me and mom fight and argue weekly.

I sit on the bed for a few more minutes, before I hear a footstep. Too heavy for mom I conclude, and before I could hazard a guess I hear Tank's nails on the floor.

"Tank!" Owen scrambles off my lap

"Don't run!" I call out after her, getting up to follow her.

"You're home," Shirley says rather shocked and I shrug my shoulder.

"I don't know if I am or not honestly," I tell him quietly.

"Fair enough," Shirley nods his head. "Mom will be back soon I think?"

"Can you watch her?" I motion to Owen who is with Tank playing on the floor. "I don't know how this will go honestly?"

"Of course, I can take her to the park," Shirley says looking at his phone.

"Thanks," I say with a shaky smile.

I go back upstairs once they were out of the house and I search out Olivia's number. It takes a minute, but eventually, she picks up. After a moment of pleasantries and general catch-up, I bring up the main reason for my call.

"I don't know what to do Liv, really I don't," I say sighing into the phone. She had decided to stay in New Brunswick for the summertime.

"What happened to staying at Ken's place?" Olivia asked confused and curious about my sudden change of mind.

"Nothing I guess?" I say sighing. "I don't know, I just don't want to burden him. We've been doing this for three months at this point and I don't know…I feel guilty?"

"You feel guilty? Okay but why? Do you think it's too soon? You don't love him like you thought you would? You think your parents were right in some strange way?" Olivia asks without missing a beat.

"No! Of course, I love him," I say indignantly. "But what if he feels like I just used him to get out of the house?"

"Even if you did, which I'm not saying you did. Does it matter if he doesn't mind or care Rilla? He's told you, that you are welcome there. Maybe it's time to have a chat about how bills will work and finances?" Olivia says. "Stop worrying about what others may think and just focus on you and Owen."

"You sound like my shrink," Rilla says under her breath.

"Well, that's what happens you take a psychology course in school, though really it's not my forte so don't fire the other one just yet," Olivia tells me.

"Damn," I say sarcastically. "Because I said something about something the other week and Beth just sat there quietly saying she needed a moment. She didn't even write anything down, just sat there processing until I was like. 'Wow, if you're that speechless I must be winning this therapy stuff. She didn't find it as funny as I did."

"Yeah I don't think making your doctor speechless is winning at all really," Olivia says deadpanned. "That said, how will all that stuff work if you're not at home? I mean your dad pays for it doesn't he?" She adds on.

"Yeah, he does and honestly I don't know?" I say quietly. "Everything is messed up and I just don't know what to do, or where to land. God even Owen can vocalize that living with my parents makes me sad and that I'm happier with the only other person she has seen me with, which is Ken?"

"If you're three year old can see it, then maybe that's your answer? It doesn't help that you and Ken have history, a long history. Honestly, you act like you've been together for ages and not just a few months. So don't think of something new, if things had been different three and half years ago you would have been together from the start?"

"I thought you were worried about us being together?" I say questioning her.

"I was, but I rather you be happy and healthy and if that means putting my feeling to the side then I will," Olivia tells me. "Which is the truest sign of friendship, but don't get me wrong if he hurts you in any way, he will pay for it and I will make you listen to me rip him to shreds to make you feel better in the process."

"Really and what the first thing? He drags his fork on his teeth occasionally?" I say rolling my eyes.

"Well, that is annoying, but I was going to say the time he threw you under the bus because he hated himself." Olivia reminds me of the past. "Which sure, he's worked on himself since then, but he still hurt you that day and I will never let him forget that I know that!"

I go to say something, but I hear a car pull up and I turn towards my window, kneeling on the bed I look out of it and see Mom in her car.

"I have to go Liv, my mom is home and well, I have choices to make," I tell my friend.

We say goodbye and hang up my phone bracing myself for whatever Mom would come up with.

I really had no idea what to expect in actuality.

"Oh you're home," Mom says rather shocked and confused to see me upstairs. "I didn't think you actually…" She refers to the text message I had sent Dad earlier this week.

"I'm not," I say quietly. "I thought maybe I could, but I don't think I can," I tell her honestly and see something in her break.

"Rilla, please?"

"I've been sitting in this room for over an hour trying to decide, trying to figure out what to do because I don't know what to do. I just know this room isn't it anymore, it just feels haunted at this point. I don't know what I'll do, but I have a job and I have places to stay or crash at night while Owen stays with Ken."

"So that's your choice, Owen with Ken and you jumping around places?" Mom says with a touch of edge to her voice as if she thinks I'm crazy.

"It's an option? Owen will be looked after which is the main thing, isn't it? It has to be better than her watching us constantly fight and yell at each other. Watching us hurt each other every week, doesn't she deserve better than that?"

"I'm never going to have you back again am I?" Mom says sighing and sits down next to me.

"Not while I'm here," I tell her honestly looking down at my hands.

"You know your father has a video of us, I had caught you looking at yourself in the mirror, and I already knew at that point you weren't happy about growing up as you were when you were ten. I tried so hard…to give you every positive attribute, that everything was pretty on you because you were my beautiful child. Then we were laughing on the bed, giggling as I tickled you, making you promise that you wouldn't be too hard on yourself, that growing up was hard work but it was worth it. You told me that it better be because so far it wasn't all that fun. It was one of the few times I remember you telling me that you loved me in the past ten years, where it wasn't more of a Thank you or gratitude for something." Mom says quietly

I frown looking down at my hands. The memory is fuzzy at best because not long after that everything began to fall apart. Walter during his episodes which led ultimately to the time he tried to hurt himself. An overdose( I think back to Christmas frowning about what I said to him, though he had laughed when I apologized saying that if I was going to insult him, at least get it right.) Issac became my tutor, it was all mingled together.

I hear mom sigh.

"I know it won't make a difference to you, but I am sorry for everything, and I should have never read your journals. I should have respected your privacy." Mom says next when I don't say anything. "Also if you're going to do this, just stay with Ken. And this isn't some reverse psychology either Rilla, I may not like the idea, but I rather you be somewhere safe than floating around your friend's houses."

I look at her in sheer amazement.

"Not having a home, or having a place to sleep isn't something I wanted any of my children to experience," Mom says quietly.

I was about to say something but she hold up her hand.

"Before your Aunt Marilla was allowed to take me in a spent a few good weeks in a group home. It wasn't a nice place, it wasn't kind, and it was crowded but I was only going to be there for a few weeks until the legalities were settled. I had just lost my mother, and no one seemed to care. I had one photo of her I had been allowed to bring with me. After two weeks I ran away from there once. I actually tried to sleep in a tree, they found me of course and the next day finally everything was settled out of necessity and Marilla picked me up. Still dirty from my weekend outside, because I hadn't been allowed to bathe because I would wake up the younger children. I cried in her car, I cried as she brushed my hair and gave me a haircut which I needed. I didn't realize she collected the things from my room back home. I wasn't ready for that. She had a photo of mom on a desk and I threw it at the wall. I had a lot of anger and she just let me be angry and cry. She also hid away all my childhood photos and of my mom until I asked for them. Still, we constantly argued, and after a really big fight with Marilla before senior year. I think it was actually about your father. I don't quite remember anymore, but I ran away again, actually, I tried running away a lot back then but this time it had been different. Aunt Diana snuck me in at night, and so did some of the other girls for a while but some nights I slept in old barns and some very unsafe places. Finally, the Barry's gave me the spare room until I was ready to go back. I learned years later that Marilla had talked to them and I stayed there for the summer, helping with chores and watching Minnie May. When I finally went back to Marilla's she just fed me dinner and told me sheets were fresh on the bed."

I feel like this is moms way of saying that the door is always open, but it shocks me slightly because Mom doesn't talk about those years of her life that much after her mother died.

"Then of course I told I was pregnant two months later…and we fought again. I tried to hitchhike to your father's college that night. Matthew found me, it was cold and raining. He just bundled me up and wiped my tears and said that everything would be okay," Mom says shaking her head at her younger self. "You think I don't understand you, and maybe I don't sometimes because times have changed and you young people have to ten times harder these days with social media and cameras everywhere. But I do understand to a degree about trauma, I know what it's like to not know where you belong, to feel confused and unsure about what to do or where to go in life. I know what it's like to love someone that you want to hate because they let you down."

I can only assume her own mother by the last part.

"I know this won't make anything right, I'm not telling you to try and get you to stay. I just want you to know where this all comes from, and why I am the mother I am." Mom says standing up. "I need to start on dinner now."

I only nod my head.

I stay for dinner, which is quiet, minus Owen's constant chatter of course, about how she got to walk Tank with Uncle Lee and how it sounded like she got to hold the leash. We were halfway through our pasta when Dad came home partway through dinner. One quiet look between my parents, or maybe it had been a text told him all that he needed to know.

I feel like dad wants to say something, but mom shakes her head at him, hand on his chest as she gets up to greet him. A silent let it go. It's just a strange moment as usually it's reversed, that he is the one telling her to let it go.

"We're going to go back to Daddy's," I tell Owen as I quietly pack a few more things for her this time around.

"You too?" She asks with a tilt of her head.

"Yeah, mommy too," I say nodding my head to her. "You okay with that?"

"Cuddle bad dreams?" Owen asks me with a worried pout. "Door no open?"

I blush slightly but shake it off.

"Of course, you can come to cuddle anytime, if the door is closed all you have to do is knock all right? Sometimes Mommy and Daddy like a little bit of privacy which is why the door is closed." I tell her and give her a small boop on the nose. "But if you knock we will always answer it."

"Okay," She says nodding her head solemnly.

I texted Ken asking if he could pick us up and that I will explain later, to which he does. Dad loads up our bags into the car with Ken. Quietly speaking to each other, I watch mom hug Owen goodbye and that she would see her soon.

Mom looks for a moment as if she was going to try and hug me, but decides against it before going back into the house and coming out with a gift bag. "I was going to wait until your first day, but here." She passes it to me. "Joy said you were looking at it, I hope it's the right one."

Inside is the bag I liked that had been in the window, the cross between a messenger bag and a backpack.

"You didn't—," I start saying. "Thank you," I say quietly and I move to hug her ever so slightly.

I hug dad and kiss his cheek.

"You know you can keep the car," he tries to tell me.

"No, I can't," I say shaking my head. "It's not fair if no one else got a free car to use," I tell him. "Not that they would care, but it doesn't seem right to me." I shake my head.

I look back at both of them before I slide into the car, Owen is already settled in and I look at Ken.

He pulls away slowly, as I watch my parents get further away from the car until he backs out and drives down the street.

"You're okay with this?" I ask Ken for the hundredth time it feels like.

"Unfortunately like your parents, I rather you be at my place than couch surfing. Though my reasons may be a bit more selfish," Ken replies with an impish grin. "I've gotten used to you sleeping beside me after all."

"I didn't feel right taking the car," I say quietly. "All the others had to save up and buy their own, I can easily catch the bus from your place. I was going to ask you to take Owen full time, while I just crashed at Lillie's and Dahlia's as well as your place."

"Understandable, we can make it work with this one, thought what changed your mind though?" Ken asks curiously.

"Mom said she may not like it, but she rather me be in a safe place than bouncing around. I guess I would want the same for Owen one day as well?" I sigh. "We talked, or she talked anyway."

"Even if it risks disagreement, I agree with your mother," Ken tells me to which I shrug as he continues, "This weekend we can go over the budgets and bills and figure out how things will work for us?"

I nod my head, "Do you want money for this month's rent?" I ask him.

"It's already paid, I know with the internship you may not know exactly what you'll be making but it can work out over the month?" Ken explains.

"Well, on the bright side you, you don't have to give me money?" I remind him.

"I never minded paying to help raise Elowen," Ken reminds me with a look.

"What bout me?" Owen chirps from her seat.

"Nothing Baby, just that you are adorable," I tell her. He lets us into the apartment and Owen does her own thing. He ends up in the kitchen, through the universal junk drawer it seems and pulled out a set of keys.

"You'll need these," he passes them to me. The original set I had years ago while pregnant, that I had back when we began dating other people. I look at them smiling, looking at the pink keys I had chosen to be cut.

"I am glad you are here," He whispers giving me a kiss. "But I do have something to finish and send out before 10 pm, so I must sadly do a bit of work tonight?"

"Go, go," I wave him off, and I grab Owen's bags and go to the room and get them unpacked before getting her into bed for the night. Ken works quietly as I unpack my own things before I lay down on the bed. Is it our bed now?

I go to the only place where the video mom said Dad might have still.

Facebook.

I scroll through his account he still uses, more than most of us children it seemed. I find his videos and scroll through them. There were lots of them of us kids, elementary and high school graduations, my recitals, Shirley piano playing, and us kids running around on the beach. Joy's wedding, and then I see it and I click on it.

It was strange to see it, through the distorted view of my childhood. Mom hadn't lied, it was me and her giggling on the big bed, as she tickled and went over every freckle and spot and why it was beautiful.

The memory is more vivid this time around. Remembering how she had found me looking in her full-length mirror, at my ever-changing body. Not happy, not liking the changes that were happening. I was only ten why would I?

The lens of distortion skewed so much of my life even at that young age but seeing myself at that age while knowing just how mean my siblings could be. I had been a healthy child, and if Owen looked like what I had looked like I wouldn't have worried much like my parents hadn't, I was growing and hitting my growth spurts early. I was a touch on the chunky side with the baby fat on my face, but I still already starting to crave to be dainty like my sister who seemed to miss that awkward stage, or had I been too young to remember when they have been 10 year years previous?

My laughs and giggles rang out as mom joined in, we hadn't realized that Dad was recording us. I was happy, I was loved and mom petted and made me feel normal, and special that day. Reassured me that the others would catch up, that I was beautiful and this was just a part of life.

The video ends far earlier than my memories of course. Because I remember that day, because within that year…within that year Issac would come into my life and ruin everything and had changed the course of my life.

Ken seems to sense my mood as he comes up silently behind me and wraps his arms around my torso and I replay the video once more.

Hope everyone enjoys this, and more about Why Anne is the way she is. Any comments or questions are always welcome!

Tina.