My hands shook like a small dog. My eyes darted back and forth from my mom to the truck. My lips quivered with a scream that wouldn’t come out. The moment I looked up was the moment that my mother left me forever.

“Hailey, did you do your homework?” my mother called to me at the foot of the stairs.
“Yes Mom,” I replied. I hadn’t really done my homework that night. Mostly I sat upstairs in my room, listening to my iPod and writing in my journal.
“Alright. Dinner will be done in about ten minutes. Make sure you come down to eat. Your father is coming home tonight so we’re eating in the dining room...as a family.” She added that last bit because, well, in general terms, I was a loner; I went to school and talked to no one, I went home and talked to no one. I usually ate my meals in my room or in front of the TV in the den. But tonight was supposed to be “special” because my dad was coming home from his trip to Italy. He had gone for “academic studying”. But I knew that was code for “female anatomy studying”. He was cheating on my mom and she was oblivious to the whole thing. I had once walked in on a conversation he was having with the woman from Italy. Her name was Isabella and she sounded like a sl** to me.
“Whatever.” I would obey tonight, but only because it would make my mother happy for once in this past month without Dad.
I loved my mom; she was intelligent, pretty, strong and she had the most beautiful voice in the entire world. She used to sing me asleep every night with a song that her mother would sing to her. I can still remember that song: “Blue skies, smilin’ at me. Nothin’ but blue skies, do I see. Blue birds, singin’ a song. Nothin’ but blue birds, all day long. Blue skies, all of them gone. Nothin’ but blue days, from now on.” My mom was the best in the world…
A couple minutes after mom and I talked, I heard the phone ring. Mom picked it up and said, “Hello? … Richard?”
It was dad. She moved away from the kitchen and consequently, that was where the vent in my room led. I could no longer hear their conversation, so I tried to sneak downstairs and eavesdrop. That didn’t work. By the time I got down there, she was already off the phone, the tears in her eyes spilling over the brims in short little bursts. At first I didn’t know what to think. Then I knew exactly what had happened: she found out about Isabella.
“Your father’s not coming home today,” Mom said, her voice shaking and cracking.
I took a breath, ready to hear the worst, and asked, “Why not?”
Mom sunk to the floor and started sobbing. Her body shook with heartbreak, something I had never seen in her before. Now, hunched over on the floor in front of me, I didn’t see the strong independent woman I once knew. I saw a broken, beaten little girl in need of my help. I took her hand and pulled her up.
“Come on Mom,” I said. “You can’t just stay here crying like this. What do you always tell me? Keep your chin up and think rationally.” I led her over onto the couch and sat her down. “Alright Mom, I’m going to go get you a glass of water. I’ll be right back.”
I came back about a minute later and she was watching TV, acting as if everything was fine.
“Hey Hail,” she said, calling me by the childhood nickname no one had used on me in quite a while. “You want to go get some ice cream?”
“Mom…” I started. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I mean, are you okay to drive?”
“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“I don’t know you just don’t seem like yourself.”
“Hailey I’m fine. Now go get in the car, I’ll be right there.”
I was a little confused and shocked, but I didn’t want to make her angry so I got in the car. I don’t know what I was thinking…I should have said no.
Mom got in next to me and pulled out of the driveway. She picked up her phone, dialed a number, and put it to her ear.
“Hello?” I hear coming from the phone. It sounds like Ms. Sanchez. Ms. Sanchez was Mom’s best friend and her confidant. She always went to the elderly woman for support and advice.
“Silvia?” my mom said, sounding like she was on the brink of tears again. I handed her some tissues from the glove box. “Silvia, Richard is staying in Italy… He told me it was to do more ‘research’.” She said it like she knew it was a load of BS. Good, she knew about Isabella. “No, I don’t know why. Actually…that’s not true. I know exactly why… I didn’t tell you about this but that’s because at the time I didn’t think it mattered. About a month ago, before Richard left, I walked into the computer room, where he said he’d have his dinner. I don’t think he knew I was there because he kept going on with his work once I set his food down on the table next to him. I happened to glance at his computer screen before I walked out and I saw the word ‘PRIVATE’ on an email of his. I know it’s not right, but I stayed behind to see what it was. When he opened it I saw a picture… Yes, a bad picture. I didn’t think anything of it at the time; actually, I thought it was spam. I don’t why I was being so stupid.” My mom went on and on to Ms. Sanchez about my dad and Isabella. She didn’t know who the woman was, and neither did I really, but it turns out I knew a little more about their relationship than she did.
“Alright… Yea… Ok, I’ll talk to you later Silvia.” Mom put the phone down in her lap. Everything was very quiet for a while. Then she said, “Hailey, do you know how to take care of yourself?”
It was out of the blue and very unexpected but I replied, “Yea mom… You taught me well.”
“Alright.”
She seemed to want to leave it at that and I got very afraid. I just cast it off as something she was worried about and needed an answer to. Little did I know she was about to make me prove I could take care of myself.
We were coming up to a place where there was a side street. There was a truck that was also coming up to that street. I looked at my mom and saw the fear in her eyes; no, not fear…determination.
My hands shook like a small dog. My eyes darted back and forth from my mom to the truck. My lips quivered with a scream that wouldn’t come out. The moment I looked up was the moment that my mother left me forever.