A New Life

            I've been living in the same place for all my life. Except for the brief move my family and I took when I was ten only to be taken back to my hometown by my stepfather who threatened to charge my mother with kidnapping if she didn't return my younger, half-sister to him.
             What nerve of him!! To this day I wish he would have just left us alone. What would he have been able to do with a 4 year old girl? Nothing because he did nothing when we all lived together. Alas, he came in his van and picked us all up. Now, granted we were on our last leg and living from day to day hoping we wouldn't be evicted from our small apartment in Maryland but we were for the maost part, happy with each other. .
             My grandmother (who was strangely supportive of a man she swore to hating) came along for the ride. I guess as a tactic to get me to want to come home as well. I stuck by my mother and was unwaivered in my loyalty to her. My stepfather gave my mother a "choice." To either come home with him and my grandmother or go to jail for kidnapping. Not wanting to go to jail, my mother complied and came back with him. .
             We weren't home for a fortnight before my stepfather (who will refer to as That Man from now on) returned to my grandmother's farm, where we were staying, to pick up my little sister. As my mother got my sister ready to leave, the poor little 4 year old girl who didn't understand what was going on, began to cry for my mother. That Man snatched my sister away from my mother and began walking to the van. As my sisters whimpers grew into screaming, That Man hurried her into the car. As my mother came over to the van to say good-bye, That Man pushed my mother out of the way which then led to an all out brawl. My grandmother called the police and soon the officer was there arresting my mother on charges of kidnapping that had been filed before That Man had come to Maryland to get us in the first place.
             My mother ended up going to jail for quite some time and during that summer, I grew from an unsuspecting child into a very emotionally strained and confused preteen who ended up avoiding her mother because I didn't understand at the time, why my mom would leave without saying goodbye.