Three days. That’s all I was given. I had three days to pack up all my belongings and say goodbye to my life here in New York City. It would have been easy if I had…I don’t know…a month’s notice. But it was an unexpected decision by my parents. As the good girl that did all her work, ate all the food from her plate, and bought them gifts on holidays, it was no longer an option to me when my Daddy told me that we were leaving.

My father, Melvin Porter, the strong silent type, didn’t even wait for a response from me when he entered my room late last night and uttered the two words that will change my life forever: “We’re leaving.” I waited for him to explain why but instead he turned his back to me and walked out, just like how he acts in the office. I couldn’t blame him for not acting like those fathers you see portrayed in the movies and sitcoms. I just brushed it off, just like my mom and sister did. Daddy was never home. He was either working on a case or scouraging the streets for evidence. There were only two loves in his life, his career as the most successful lawyer on the East Coast and his faith. He drove his family of four, well now three, now that Kit’s run off to elope with her high school sweetheart, to St. Paul’s Chapel to worship and pray. I always stood in between Mom and Dad, pretending to pay attention to the pastor’s words but never quite “listening.” I was never much of a religous person.

My mother, Maxine Porter, was a stay-at-home mom. But because of our clean habits, she’s never really doing much around the house, mostly sitting down, catching up on her Mary Higgins Clark series. I have never seen her kiss Daddy on the lips, it’s only a subtle, quick peck on the cheek each time he was home and when he left. I guess their intimacy just died throughout their years.

My older and only sister, Katherine Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Is-Now, was the sore thumb in the family. While we stayed in for New Years, she was out with her “friends” lighting fireworks on the city’s tallest towers and throwing them into the street. She was a magnet to chaos and was on the right path to self-destruction. I never was close to her because she was never home and when she was, her bedroom door was shut and locked. So when she packed up her things, announced her engagement and took off, with Daddy yelling behind her on her way to her fiance’s car, my heart didn’t throb from pain. Now it’s as if she never existed.