"My Birthday"

“My Birthday”

It was a rainy day in February. It was my birthday. Mom, Dad, Michelle, and Kayla were taking me out to dinner, but we were waiting for Michelle to get home. We all knew about Michelle’s problems, her addictions to drugs, even if Mom and Dad thought I was clueless. I really wasn’t as clueless as they thought. I’d heard about all of these things at school, school is not as innocent as you think.

“We’re going to be late,” Dad yelled up the stairs at Mom while trying to decide what jacket he was going to wear.

“We have to wait for Michelle to get home, we can’t leave without her,” Mom said back fixing her hair in the mirror.

When Michelle came home I was sitting on the couch. I couldn’t tell that she had been using something, but I soon began to notice. She didn’t look right; I could see she was crying.

“What’s wrong with you, why are you acting like this Michelle,” my dad yelled, I hated when he yelled.

In the past my dad had dealt with alcohol problems, I didn’t know very much about this because I was only about four but I knew Michelle had been taking the same kind of classes he took to get better.

“How did you do it Allen, what am I supposed to do,” my older sister yelled back crying hysterically.

Sometimes it bugged me that she didn’t call him Dad like me and Kayla, but that was understandable because he was her step-dad and not her real dad. That wasn’t what was bothering me now; Michelle was making my birthday horrible. She had made my parents upset many times before, but did she really have to be this way on my birthday?

“Go outside Michelle, go wait in the car or something,” my Mother said as she walked down the stairs, looking very upset with my sister.

I loved my sister there was no doubt about it, but sometimes she just made it hard to love her. Especially when she was like this, I hated seeing her like this.

“I forgot something,” I told my mom really only saying this because I knew sooner or later she was going to tell me to leave the room.

I stood in my room looking out my window watching it rain. I tried to count the rain drops on my window, I couldn’t. I almost wanted to cry. Michelle was ruining my birthday. She had made a lot of other things in my life time bad but never my birthday.

Then I heard it, the yells and arguments of my family. I’d heard this many times before. Kayla yells at Dad about Michelle. Dad yells at Michelle. Mom yells at Dad to stop yelling at Michelle. Michelle yells at everyone. Mom yells at Michelle. This was something I was used to. Most of the time I wasn’t involved so I was used to just listening to them fight. Today they were standing in the drive way. I remember thinking why they were out there in the rain.

“Michelle you need to get a life,” my Dad yelled at my sister.

I wonder what Michelle was thinking, or if she even was. I could tell she was in her own little world, not even aware of what was going on.

Then it happened, Michelle fell. She hit the cold, wet ground. I could tell my Dad was mad, he was always mad. I could tell my Mom was upset, she was like this a lot lately. And I could tell Kayla really didn’t know what to do, but what none of them could tell was how hurt I was. They couldn’t see it. I didn’t exist at that moment. And the worst part of it all, it was my birthday.

“This is not happening,” I said over and over again.

“Michelle you need to get in the car,” I read my Moms lips from my room.

“No, no I’m fine,” My sister tried to say, but it wasn’t worth it, she was going to the hospital with my mom whether she wanted to or not.

Michelle and my mom left, they were going to the hospital. The rest of us got in the car and went to dinner like nothing had happened.

At dinner, all everyone talked about was what had happened at home. I was tired of hearing it, but I didn’t speak up. I never spoke up; my voice didn’t matter when it came to these things.

My sister didn’t see it, no one told her, but the things she was doing was changing everyone’s lives.

For me, she had ruined my birthday. I was mad. She took the one day that was supposed to be something for me and made it all about her. I know she didn’t know what she was doing and she will never remember it, but I always will.

For my Dad, she made him furious. Coming home late, not doing what she was asked, everything just made my Dad angry. All he ever did was yell at her. This made him feel the need to yell at the rest of us. He would yell at me for every little thing, even stuff like the dog barking. I had no control over that, but he would yell at me for it. He would yell at my Mom when he didn’t like what she cooked for dinner, and he would yell at Kayla whenever he thought she was doing the wrong thing with her own kids.

The person my sister had changed the most was my Mom. She always seemed depressed or sad. She would often yell at me for little things too. It really worried me.

My family went through dinner saying things about Michelle. I just tried to ignore it all. Finally my Mom got there. She looked tired and cold. Dealing with my sister made us all tired. We were sick of her behaviors. No one wanted to deal with it any more. My mom was saying stuff about my Michelle; I blocked it out and ate my dinner.

That night when we got home I went to bed. I didn’t really have anything to say to any of my family members. I don’t think I slept that night. I was wondering where Michelle was, if she was OK.

In the next couple weeks I got over what had happened. Kayla had another baby, a boy. My Mom seemed to be back to normal and my Dad wasn’t yelling all the time. Michelle was in a half-way house. It’s like rehab, but she lives in a house with about thirteen other girls and they go to meetings, to help them get better. They all had different kinds of problems.

We went to see her sometimes. She told us how they had things to do every day. They would clean, make the meals that they would eat, and normal things every person does. They were not allowed in their rooms during the day and they had to turn the lights off at ten o’clock every night. She made friends at her house, it was kind of weird because when she went there she didn’t have any friends, she had lost all of them.

After a few months of being there, she was allowed to spend the night at our house sometimes. We would drive an hour or two to pick her up. Most of the time I went with my Mom when we had to pick up my sister, it was alright.

My sister had changed. She was different, in a good way. It was almost like she had finally grown up a little. With my sister being clean you could actually talk to her and she would understand you. I had never seen her like this. With my sister being 6 years older than me, all I remembered was her being high all the time, even though when I was little I thought she was just supposed to be this way.

I had begun to forgive my sister for all the things she had done.

“I’m sorry Ashley, I really am,” Michelle said to me over the phone. She knew my parents were harder on me because of what she had done and they didn’t want me to be the same way.

“It’s OK,” I often replied, not really knowing if I was really OK with all of this.

My sister and I stayed in touch. We would call each other when we could, write letters, and even get to see each other sometimes. After awhile she was allowed to get a job, because soon she would be done with all of her rehabilitation and would have to be out on her own. She worked at a small pizza shop near her house. It was a nice place.

I finally felt as if I had an older sister to look up too. My parents still worried, but they will always worry. That’s what parents are for. Michelle and I get along pretty well now that she’s clean, we still argue sometimes, but that’s what sisters are for.