"Get out of this house!" iyelled my mother. "I don't want to see you in this house again!"

After that, I heard the front door slam and a car start. It was Christmas Eve of the worst Christmas ever. My mother had thrown my father out of the house for the second time in the past two years.

When my parents started fighting that night, I had locked myself in my room and begun to cry. My parents fought a lot lately and I didn't want to hear them fight anymore.

An hour after my father left, I was still locked in my room. I was crying and hoping that no one would bother me.

"Lisa, will you please come downstairs," my mother pleaded with a tone in her voice that indicated she had been crying. "I would like to talk to you."

"No!" I yelled. "I don't feel like talking!"

"Please, honey, I want to explain what's going on between your father and me," she said. She was now in front of my bedroom door.

"I don't want to!" I cried back. When I was younger I had a problem not wanting to talk to my mother at all.

After a while, I unlocked my door and slowly made my way downstairs. When I found her sitting in the den, she told me to have a seat. She tried to explain what had happened that night. She also asked me how I felt, but I wouldn't reply. I just sat there and ignored her. Whenever she got on my nerves I ignored her. Inside I felt like she had betrayed me because she knew I loved my father very much.

When she finished, I told her that I wanted to spend Christmas with my father. She said fine, and told me to get ready so she could take me to my grandmother's where my father was staying. Her reaction made me feel as if I had hurt her, but at that moment I just wanted to be with my dad.

When we were in the car, there was tension between us. Even though I felt bad for wanting to spend Christmas with Dad, I thought how much happier I'd be at my grandmother's house.

When I arrived, my father's mother and sisters were sitting in the large living room talking. They were around the fireplace with the Christmas tree glowing in the corner. The whole room made me feel welcome. I looked around for my father, but didn't see him.

"Are you okay?" my grandmother inquired, as she gave me a big bear hug. "Is your mother okay?"

I said, "Yes, we're both fine. My mother wishes all of you a Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Yvette," my grandmother whispered.

"Where's Dad?" I asked. None of them knew where he was. "Well, I'm going to bed. Good night."

Later that night, while I was in the guest bedroom, I was trying to figure out where my father might be. This led me to thinking over that dreadful night. I hoped my parents would never get divorced. My mother's action was like a child's favorite dream being shattered to pieces.

My parents separated soon after Christmas. For the next month and a half, I lived with my mother and visited my father every weekend. The separation didn't bother me too much until I realized that they were never going to live together again. When I realized this, it hit me hard. Then I started to speculate that my friends didn't care what was going to happen to me. I also felt no one else in the world could feel the same emptiness of a broken family. I also remember feeling separated from my family and lonely for my father.

At the beginning of February, my mother told me she wanted to take me to Canada where her family lives. I refused to go to a country where I didn't understand the language or the culture. I also wouldn't go because I didn't want to leave my friends or my father. I felt that my mother would feel that I didn't want to be with her. It worried me because I loved her very much even if I couldn't show her.

About two weeks after she told me she wanted to leave, she told me she was going to go the next day, and neither of my parents wanted me to stay at my house alone. I can remember going roller skating that day like I did every other Sunday.

My father picked me up with his girlfriend with whom he had been living. I had known about her, and it didn't hit me that he might even marry her some day. It took about an hour for us to get to North Sudbury, where I would be living with my father, his girlfriend, and her four kids. We pulled up to a blue house. On the way, my father was telling me that her children didn't even know that I would be living with them.

I can remember walking into that house with a feeling of horror. I was afraid that none of her children would like me. They all looked surprised because there was a "new kid" in the family.

Well, it took a long time for us all to get along with each other. It is now five years later and I think that even though my father married his girlfriend, we all still feel uncomfortable around each other at times. I know that we will always feel uncomfortable, but I hope that someday my step-sisters and step-brothers will accept me and treat me like I am a real sister. n