THE ANNOUNCEMENT

This story was written on January 28th 2018 for my English 107 class. It is the first essay I ever wrote in college.

I remember the first day he left like it was yesterday. Well, he didn’t actually leave, because he never physically said goodbye, but quite similar because he never came back. Maman (Mom in French) called all of us—me and my three brothers—into the living room. She had an announcement to make. I remember she looked nervous and sad. She had been feeling this way for quite sometime now, but I never bothered asking why. Maman always gets nervous and anxious for useless reasons, as every mother does, so I assumed one of us had done something wrong. As I was sitting and waiting for my brothers to arrive, I looked at my mother and what I saw struck me. She looked blue. Dark circles were covering her eyes, her beautiful blonde and curly hair hadn’t been washed in days and she had been wearing the same clothes for days. There was no more smile on her face or happiness in her eyes. She looked depressed, exhausted, beaten, and in pain. My brothers finally showed and we all gathered around her, like birds waiting to be fed. I looked at each of my brothers, one by one, to see if one wore a guilty face; with them, it is easy to know when they have done something wrong. They usually look down and can’t stop fidgeting. Surprisingly, they all seemed as confused as I was. My father, who looked as depressed and tired as my mother, was standing with his arms crossed and eyes staring at the wall. A few seconds later, my mom stood up, took a deep breath and with tears dripping down her face, looked us straight in the eyes and said,

“your grandparents are getting divorced. Or I mean, Grandpa is leaving us. He hasn’t been nice to me or your grandma. If anyone wants to talk about it, feel free to ask me questions at any time.” She stood up and left, crying to her room. We didn’t see her for the rest of the day.

The harsh reality only hit us a couple of minutes later, when my little brother Max started crying, then I did and at some point everyone was in tears, even my dad. None of us were expecting this—I was shocked—. My grandpa, mean? None of this made sense to me. My grandpa wasn’t mean! He’d always been so nice to me, always helped me with my homework, cooked me my favourite dishes; he was anything but mean. I don’t recall most of the conversation that followed, it was very blurry and blank to me. I was so speechless. Maman never explained in detail what happened—but I knew he had done something awful—even though my mother overreacts from time to time, I had never in my life I seen her like this.

A few days later, she was still stuck in bed, looking like someone who had just been sentenced to death, barely eating and only getting up when absolutely necessary. I tried to ask my dad about it, but his explanation was vague. I even asked my best friend, who wouldn’t lie to me under any circumstances, and yet nothing. It just seemed like no one wanted to tell me the truth. All I knew was that my grandpa had left us, left me, without saying goodbye.

I was quite young at the time, five years younger than I am right now, and I took it very hard. I was so mad and hurt over his departure and I started questioning his love and affection towards me. I cried a lot that week. I was sad—sad because I would never see him again.

A few weeks had passed since my mother’s announcement and none of my siblings seemed to care anymore, or at least it seemed like no one did. My house felt empty and dark; my mother was still lying in bed, crying every night, while my dad was desperately trying to cheer everyone up. At some point they both tried convincing us that everything was back to normal by buying us gifts, bringing us to restaurants and letting us invite friends over. Yet a week later, our sad routine was back on track; my mother went back to her room and all the fighting and arguments that had started after the announcement resumed. They woke me up one night with their arguing, and I couldn’t help myself not to listen to what they were saying;

“Do you really want me to leave,” said my father,

“I don’t know, I am confused, and I am in pain,” said my mother with a timid voice.

This was the first night of my life that I prayed. I was so helpless and worried—it was my last option. I weakly got on my knees, gripped my shaky hands together and prayed out loud. I didn’t pray for him to come back nor for my parents to stop fighting, but for him to suffer for what he had done to my family. …

Months later, the joy and happiness of my family were finally back. My mother swapped her sweatpants and oversized t-shirts for her casual, but elegant wardrobe. My overexcited grandmother moved in with us and my parents never fought over anything ever again.

The last piece of evidence I ever found on the subject was what traumatised me the most. Worse than maman’s face before the announcement, worse than my parents fighting. The recording tape that I found that one night still haunts me 5 years later… I was carelessly lying down on my bed, playing on my new phone I’d just received when I opened this app called voice recorder. A few vocal notes had already been recorded but none had titles. This phone wasn’t brand new, it was my mother’s old phone and she didn’t completely reset the phone, so it was normal that some data such as photos, messages and emails were still on it. I assumed she just completely forgot about this app because what was on it was disturbing and should have been deleted. When I played the first tape, I immediately recognise my grandpa’s voice, but mean words were coming out of his mouth, really mean words;

“You bitch! I wish you were never born, you stupid child, you have ruined all life, I’ve never fucking loved you anyways, fuck!”

There was more to it, many more recordings, but this summarises the whole message. My grandpa is a cruel human being, who’s never loved me, my mom or my grandma. I would never wish these types of words or treatment upon anyone. The complete truth is still unknown to me to this day, but I stopped asking questions when I found the tapes.