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"I sat and waited. Finally, she looked at Daddy and said, 'Well, are you going to tell her or am I?'
"Daddy turned, threw a look at her that would have shattered her face if it was a fist, and then turned to me and softened his expression.
"'Misty,' he began, 'you probably have noticed that this ship we're all on has been in some stormy waters lately. The old boat has been rocked and rocked and frankly, it's taking in too much water.'
"'Oh God,' my mother said, 'just tell her and skip all these stupid comparisons. She's not a baby, Jeffery.'
"'If you don't like the way I'm telling her, then you tell her,' he said and I realized they were even fighting over this.
"I knew what they were going to tell me. I felt it, sensed it, practically heard the words before they were spoken. I just dreaded hearing them from their lips because I would then know that it was really happening, that this wasn't all just some passing bad dream.
"'What your father is attempting to tell you in his clumsy fashion is we have decided it would be better for all of us if he and I got a divorce,' Mommy stated firmly.
"I looked up at him and he looked down. Then I turned to her and said, 'Better for all of us? This is supposed to be good for me?'
"'It can't be good for you to be in the middle of all this every day, every minute,' Mommy said. 'It's affecting your schoolwork, too. We've already spoken to a counselor and he's assured us that your dramatic downturn is due to our marital problems,' she said.
"I remember being shocked by that. They had spoken to a counselor, told him about their personal problems, our personal problems? This had been started and had been going on for some time without my knowledge. Never before in my life did I feel more like a stranger in my own home than I did at that moment. Who were these two people? I wondered.
"I looked at Daddy and then at Mommy and thought how they had both changed. They were both trying to be younger, but suddenly they both looked so old and decrepit to me. What happened to my parents, to my beautiful parents who used to attract so many compliments?"
I paused.
"Where do people go when they change?" I asked the others. They saw I was really looking for an answer.
"What?" Jade asked. "Go? I don't understand."
I looked at Doctor Marlowe. This was something she and I had discussed before: my theory that people die many times before they're buried.
"The two people that were my parents were gone," I told Jade. "Those two people somehow died:'
"I don't understand," Star said, her head tilted a little to one side. "You're parents are still alive, aren't they?" "Not the way they were to me," I said.
Jade's eyes narrowed as she thought about what I was saying. Then, she nodded gently.
"I get it," she said. "She's right. My parents are different people now, too."
"Well, I'm still not sure what you mean. Maybe because my parents are really gone," Star insisted. She looked at Cathy, who pressed her lips together as if she was afraid she might comment.
"You will," Jade told Star.
"Oh, you know what I'll get and what I won't get? What are you, the therapist now?"
"Don't direct your hostility toward me," Jade said in a firm, take charge demeanor.
"Direct what? What's that supposed to mean?" Star cried, her eyes flashing
.
"Girls, take a breath," Doctor Marlowe interceded. "Come on, everyone relax. Just sit back and think about what Misty has said. Just digest it all for a moment and later we can talk about it."
"I don't know what there is to talk about. It's dumb. Dead, not dead, gone;' Star muttered but sat back with her arms folded. Her large dark brown eyes looked from Jade to me and-then to Doctor Marlowe.
"Do you want to continue, Misty?" Doctor Marlowe asked.
"Okay," I said. I took a breath and continued.
"My parents were both looking at me, staring at me, waiting for my response to their announcement, I guess. 'What do you want from me?' I asked.
