I always thought I had an ideal family, like the one you would see in a movie. A mom, dad, sister, and dog. We all lived together in the perfect-sized house, in a nice, little neighborhood. We would always have Taco Tuesday dinner, and my sister and I watched movies and played games together. We would get into these extremely intense games of Monopoly. I was always winning at first, but my sister stopped at nothing to beat me. We stayed up until midnight playing and could’ve gone on all night long, but my mom realized it was a school night and yelled at us to go to bed (even though we would always try to convince her to let us skip and stay home the next day). What more could a little girl dream of? Laughter and love filled every room in the house, but as they say, “Nothing lasts forever.”
As I got older, my family started to drift apart. My dad got up early for work every morning and came home late at night with bags under his eyes. After school, my sister, Molly, and I, both sharing a love for dance, had rehearsal for hours. Eating meals together as a family became more of an “if we have time,” rather than part of our daily routine. Then the dreaded money issue became a usual topic of discussion between my parents. Paying for one competitive dancer was overwhelming, let alone two! Money conversations turned into money arguments, which turned into money fights. Like any other normal kid, I hated seeing my parents constantly yelling, but I hated even more that my little sister had to listen to it. I used to bring her into the basement every time someone picked a fight. Of course, she always thought I just really wanted to play dress-up with her and her favorite Build-A-Bears, but the basement was the only room in the house where we couldn’t hear what was going on upstairs. The one thing I never did understand, until much later, was why my dad sometimes didn’t come home at night after work. When he did, he shoved me into my sister’s room for a “sister sleepover” claiming my bed was the most comfortable. This was actually Molly’s favorite night of the week, even though I couldn’t help but wonder what was happening. My hopes and dreams for my perfect family were soon turned to dust when my mom took my sister and me to the courtroom.
            My sister and I wondered why we were wearing our Easter dresses, but we both knew better than to ask. My mom’s curly, brown hair was neatly pulled back in a clip and her lip gloss shined in the sun as we walked towards the dull-looking building. The only thing that lightened the mood was the revolving doors, which my sister and I fought back the urge to run through a few more times. My sister and I were led to a conference room to wait. Opening the door to the room was like walking into heaven for a nine-year-old. How could my parents bring a little girl into a room with chairs on wheels and expect her not to spin around in them until she felt dizzy? We played for a while until I realized that drinking three juice boxes was probably a bad idea. I told Molly to stay put while I went to the bathroom. Only one problem ‒ I had no idea where the bathroom was. As I was walking down the long, narrow hall, I saw my parents through a window. My dad was fiddling with one of his cufflinks uncontrollably and my mom was applying lipgloss for the third time since I’d been standing there. Slowly, I opened the door to the courtroom where I watched my life as I knew it come to an end. First, my dad signed, and then my mom, while tears filled her eyes. I closed the door and decided I didn’t have to go to the bathroom anymore. By the time my parents came back to get us, my sister and I were both asleep in a chair. I woke up during the car ride home, and they were talking about how they were going to tell us the news.
            “Maybe we shouldn’t tell them yet. They’re not ready.” my mom cried. She turned around to check on us, so I quickly shut my eyes and pretended to sleep.
            My dad answered, “We’ve already waited too long. They’re going to find out sooner or later and they’re better off hearing it from us.” His hair, that looked wet, but had the same consistency as concrete earlier in the day, was beginning to lighten back to its original color and fall over his face. I could see through the rearview mirror that his eyes were plastered on the road. I wasn’t even sure if he was blinking.
            I leaned my head on the window of the car and watched the buildings and trees as we drove by. The warm, sunny day outside was no representation of how I was feeling on the inside.
Molly might’ve had no idea what was going on, but I did. My heart sunk to the bottom of my chest and I dreaded the conversation that was coming my way.
“We’re getting a divorce,” was the last thing I heard clearly. I saw my dad’s mouth continue to move, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The word “divorce” just kept repeating in my head; each time getting louder and louder. How could they do this to us? How could they love each other one day and not the next? I refused to accept it. I was not going to be the kid at school who lived in two houses. I was not going to have a broken family. I looked at my mom, who hadn’t made eye contact with us since the beginning of the conversation because she knew if she did she would burst into tears. I could see the hurt in her eyes could tell she felt like she was letting us down. My dad grabbed the tissue box and wiped his face. This was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry. At the time, I didn’t even think he knew how. He passed the tissue box to my mom who placed it in my lap. I turned to my sister. She seemed even more upset and confused than I was. I had a whole two extra years of memories with my perfect family. She barely knew what marriage was, and the word “divorce” just overwhelmed her. I realized that I couldn’t act as though this news was the end of the world ‒ if not for my parents, then for my sister. She couldn’t see that her older sister, her role model, was being torn apart. I had to show her that this didn’t have to be the end. It could be the start of a new beginning.
Looking back, I’m starting to understand more and more why my parents decided to get a divorce and I think my sister did too. It turns out that they’d been thinking about it for a long time and had no intention of destroying our family like I’d originally thought. It had just gotten to a point where being together would’ve have caused more pain for everyone than it did happiness. As I got older and my parents continued to move on from this bump in the road, my mom explained to me one night, “I did it for you and your sister and I did it for as long as I could handle.”
To this day I still think of my sister as my best friend. Going through a divorce at such a young age was hard on both of us, but I wouldn’t trade what I got out of it for anything. Laughter and love continue to fill every room in not one, but two houses and although my sister and I might be a little old for midnight Monopoly games and Build-A-Bear fashion shows, just being together turns a bad day into a good one.
I knew I was going to be alright, and I knew Molly was going to be alright too. We’re probably luckier than most kids with divorced parents. Even though they live in separate houses, my sister and I still see both parents all the time. They no longer fight, and I always tell my sister to look at the bright side ‒ we get double of everything! Two Christmases, two birthday cakes, and two places to call home. But, most importantly, we have each other. The divorce has brought us even closer together, and now, I can easily call my sister “my forever best friend.” Any difficult time is hard to go through alone, and I am beyond grateful to have had her by my side through mine. A perfect family may be made up of a mom, dad, sister, and dog, but my perfect family is good enough for me just the way it is.