My Angel

I think I’ m ready for him to leave now.” This was my sign from God. He unburied the strength that I didn’t know existed any more. When we went home, my husband had busted in through a basement window and was drunk, once again. He walked into the living room as we came in, and showed me the bottom of his shoe, and how he had stepped in something in the neighbor’ s yard . He purposely ground his shoe into the carpet, and then told me to clean it up. My son Nicholas spoke up and said “dad, I need to tell you something. I don’t feel safe with you any more. You need help.” Jim looked at him and said some awful swear words to him, and before I knew it I had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, opened the front door, and threw him right out and down the steps, and told him to NEVER come back, and that I was calling the police.

I took all of his belongings to his brother’s house and left everything right on the curb next to their trash. I filed for a restraining order and it became very ugly. He was arrested after calling 21 times one night from a pay phone down the street saying he was watching me. I filed for a divorce. It was close to Christmas, and I had used every bit of money that I had to pay for the attorney, who also practiced tribal law. He said that it was important to get the papers filed quickly because he could fight for custody and take my children to the reservation. Tribal courts could step in and place my children in Native American foster care for up to a year. It was the end of November when I sat my children down on the sofa, and told them that there wasn’t going to be any Christmas this year. I had to spend all of my money on the lawyer so that I could keep them safe. My son Nicholas said, “that’s okay, mom, as long as we are together. That’s all that matters.” My beautiful six year old daughter Kelsey looked up at me with her big brown eyes, and said, “That’s okay, mommy, don’t cry. I don’t care.” Griffin, my little golden haired baby boy, looked at me with his sparkling blue eyes, and said “don’t worry mommy, Santa will come.” The phone rang.