What exactly is normal? "chapter 5"

Kym had taken Dakota and left for her parents house and Randy was in jail. The house was quiet and things were good. Grams and pop took care of me like they always had but there wasn't this darkness hanging over the home anymore.

Randy was in jail for 9 months. When he was released he came home and found a job, but he wasn't my dad,  he kept to himself, work, home, sleep, that was about the extent of it for him. A month after Randy got out of jail Kym started calling him and wanting to work things out. They started going on dates leaving Dakota with grams and pop. After a few months they decided it was time to try a family vacation, they packed up the car and took me and Dakota on a camping trip in the mountains.

That first trip was amazing! We had so much fun! We rode horses and went on these carnival like rides they had in a near by town. We had campfire food, Kym and Randy told stories, we went on hikes and roasted marshmallows. At the end of the 3 days we were there Randy and Kym looked like the perfect couple, they were loving, and sweet with each other, when we got back home Kym moved back in, we took that camping trip a few times that summer.

We were on the road to do one last weekend in the mountains before school started. Randy was being very short tempered during this trip and they were arguing a little, I was thirsty and Randy refused to pull over so Kym grabbed this leather pouch flask thing my dad had and handed it to me, Randy tried to stop her but I got it and took a large gulp from it. I started choking and gaging and my mouth felt like it was on fire. Kym took the flask and took a sip from it and it wasn't water.....it was vodka. Kym was furious that he had been drinking and driving with all of us in the car and they got into a fight. Randy pulled over, drug Kym out of the car and beat her horribly. My brother and I were left in the car for what seemed like forever. It had gotten dark and another car passed by, the first one of the day. He stopped and saw us in the car and took us to a police station in the next town.

The rest of it is all kind of a blur. I remember sitting with a lady in a room with three chairs and my brother sleeping in a play pen. Grams and pop came and got us and took us home. The police went and found my parents car and found my dad way off the highway in some woods crying by my mom who he thought was dead. She wasnt, but any longer and she would have been. He was arrested and my mom was taken to a hospital. Kym filled for divorce the day after she was released.  Again Kym took Dakota and went to her parents house and I was left with grams and pop......that was fine with me. 


Two years passed and I hadn't seen Kym once, Randy was in prison. I was a happy little girl, I was in the third grade at a private Christian school, I had a ton of friends and I was finally leading a normal childhood. At school one day we were painting self portraits and an office helper came to my class to get me. She took me up to the office and as I rounded the corner there was Kym. I ran to her and grabbed her around her waist hugging her, she grabbed me and left.  Kym took me to her new apartment where she was living with a new man named Kent.

I loved seeing Kym and I was having fun visiting with her. When dinner time came around I told her I  wanted to go home, Kym yelled "YOU ARE HOME DONT YOU EVER ASK TO SEE THOSE PEOPLE AGAIN!

Grams and pop filed for joint custody of me and my brother. Kym fought that tooth and nail but she lost and ended up sharing custody with them.

During my moms relationship with Kent there was a lot of abuse, he was very verbily abusive to me and Dakota and physicaly abusive to my mother.Kents daughter and son who were older than me and my brother stayed with us every other weeked. His daughter decided one night to show me what sex was, I told Kym  the next day and she didnt believe me, I didnt tell her again after that, it went on every other weekend for months. I still to this day dont know why I didnt tell my grams and pop but I didnt. After Kent beat my mother so bad she miscarried there baby she left him and back to her parents house she went, this time she took Dakota AND me.