K. Randis - Spilled Milk

“All finished?” he asked, handing me a glass of water.

“Yep.” I handed him the papers.

He stared at them. “I’ll need to open these, and read them, then have you initial them in front of me. That all right?”

My face flamed. “Oh, sure.”

He read for several minutes and I chipped away at the nail polish on my fingernails to pass the time. When he finished, he showed me where to sign and led me back out to Gina and Uncle Bruce.

Office Stubaker suggested that my aunt and uncle take my mom and the kids to New York until they could talk to Dad about my testimony. Uncle Bruce nodded his head.

“You all right kiddo? You did a great job.” Gina turned and smiled at me as we headed out of the parking lot.

“Yea. I think so. I had to write down what happened. It was hard for me to talk about it. I didn’t know what words I was allowed to say in front of him because he’s a police officer.”

“Oh, honey. I’m sure he’s heard it before, but I’m glad you could write it down if that’s what made you comfortable.”

“Where we going now?”

“Your mom’s. Aunt Jean and Lou are there letting her know what’s going on.”

I cringed. I remembered back to when she got the letter in the mail and didn’t have much to say except for how hard it would be for the accusations to be true because of money. Now that other people were involved, I imagined her reaction would be much different.

As if on cue, when I walked through the front door Mom came towards me with open arms and tears streaming down her face. “Ohhhh Brooke! I am so sorry. Oh my God, Oh my God.”

When I pulled away from her I was surprised to see Thomas coming at me with tears in his eyes. “Brooke, are you okay? I’m sorry.” I held his head to my chest and Kat was suddenly at my side, squeezing me and crying just as hard. Adam was at a friend’s house but Mom had a call out for him to come home.

“Okay, everyone listen here.” Uncle Bruce took the reins. “I need everyone to go upstairs, pack a bag with at least a week’s worth of clothes. We want to be out of here in a half hour. Go.”

Uncle Bruce explained to mom that the police officer suggested the safest thing for her to do would be to stay with family until they could start their investigation. “What about school?” Mom asked. “Do they know you live in New York?”

“Just call the school in the morning, tell them you have a family emergency. Don’t tell them where you’re staying though. Also, write a note on the bulletin board that you had to take the dog to the vet so David doesn’t wonder why she’s gone when he gets home in the morning. We’ll take her with us too.”

Gina nodded. “Make sure you go to the bank first thing in the morning since you have a joint account. Take everything out. If you don’t, he will. You have kids to take care of.”

Mom nodded and went off to pack a bag.

“You were so brave tonight.” Gina wrapped me in her arms and stroked my hair. “You’re in good hands now, you’re safe. Lou and I are going to go home now, we should talk to Paul.”

I nodded. “Tell him I’m sorry.”

“I will not.” Gina shook her head. “There is nothing in this world you need to be sorry for.”

We didn’t get to New York until three in the morning. We were all exhausted and crashed on the beds they had set up. I didn’t wake up until after two in the afternoon the next day and I moved through the motions of going downstairs to face everyone. After eating some crackers I headed upstairs to take a shower again. I felt like I couldn’t get clean enough.

The calls to our cell phones started around four P.M and every time ‘DAD’ flashed across my screen I jumped a little. I eventually turned off my phone. Two weeks went by and the police stayed in touch with my mom.

I overheard Mom telling my Aunt that Earl had called her friend Ellen, somewhere she frequently went for tea. Ellen truly did not know where we were when he asked, and obviously out of ideas of where we could be Earl huffed into the phone “Well, Brooke must have said…”

“Brooke must have said what?” Ellen had asked. Earl ignored her question and hung up the phone.

I started to get a flurry of text messages from people from school:

Brooke u ok? Ur dad came into work 2day. Wanted to see where u were, where u at?

Are you ok? Haven’t heard from you. No one was at your house

BROOKE CALL ME. YOU HAVENT BEEN AT SCHOOL FOR THREE WEEKS.

I miss u. Its Judd im barrowing chalkys phone. Text this # pelase. R u alive?

The police told us not to answer any phone calls or texts and we weren’t allowed to let anyone know where we were. Instead I had to listen to voicemails of Cristin and Judd pleading with me to call them. They had no idea what was going on.

The only one who did know was Paul, but I never heard from him. I hoped every time I heard my phone go off it would be him asking how I was. Instead I got a text from Cristin:

Pauls dating soccer chick Lea, since when?!? Seriously CALL ME.

I shook my head and turned off my phone. My aunt must have noticed me moping around and I wound up telling her all about Paul and his mood swings and how he dumped me to date one of the easiest girls in school.

“Did you guys, you know?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Twice. He wanted to more, but I didn’t, really. A lot was going on.”

Aunt Jean nodded. “You know what though Brooke, he wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t experience what a fake girl was like, you know? Let him have sex with other people and when he comes crawling back to you make him fight for it a little.” She winked and ruffled my hair. “You’re too pretty to be hung up on one guy anyway.”

It made me feel a little better, but I still wished he would text to see if I was okay. He was the only one who had any idea I was even alive and I wanted his support too.

Another week went by before the police told my mom that Earl was no longer allowed back at the house and we could come back. We filed for a Protection from Abuse order right when we got home to keep him out until they could gather more evidence. The PFA meant that if he came anywhere near the house, school or work that we could call the police and he would be arrested.

As we headed back to Pennsylvania I tried to come up with reasons to tell everyone why I had suddenly disappeared. I turned my phone on and was bombarded with six text messages from Judd. I closed my eyes and smiled. At least someone was going to be happy to see me.

“I bet you’re excited to get back to school huh?” Mom chipped away at small talk as we crossed the George Washington Bridge. The sun was just setting as the city disappeared in the side view mirrors.

“Yea. Not excited to catch up on all the work I missed. Especially chemistry.” I groaned just thinking about it.

“Chemistry? I didn’t know they offered classes like that in high school.”

“Yea.”

We were all headed back to start a life we didn’t know how to live. With Earl out of the picture everyone was going to have to adjust, make sacrifices and learn how to grow as a family. I imagined us all sitting at the dinner table, laughing, passing around a table full of food and talking about each other’s days.

“It’s going to be hard to go back into that house though.” I said it nonchalantly and flipped my phone open to see if Judd had texted me back.

“What do you mean? Dad won’t be there.”

“I know. But the memories are.” I shuddered picturing Earl in every room of the house. It was going to be a hard adjustment to convince myself that he wasn’t coming back.

“Yea?”

“I don’t know,” I started, “Don’t you think it would be nice if we sold the house, started somewhere new?”