Laurie kisses me and says "I love you" every time I'm about to get into my car and drive somewhere. She worries about me and she requests that I text her whenever I get to wherever I'm going to.
Most parents would be reluctant to say which of their children they prefer, but when we were growing up, it was pretty easy to figure out which one each parents liked the most. Luckily for Laurie and I, things were evened out. Even though our parents never admitted to it and said they loved us both the same, my Mom used to have more interest in things that I did and my Dad used to have more interest in things that Laurie did.
The dynamic between my parents was such that it always felt like my Mom was the boss and my Dad was her assistant. Whatever decision my Mom made was the final decision, and my Dad stuck by her even if he didn't agree with it.
Needless to say, when Mom kicked Laurie out of the house, my Dad wasn't very happy about it. Laurie looked to my Dad for support, but in this situation, that wasn't something that he offered her. My parents were a team, and even if they disagreed with each other, my Dad followed my Mom and they stood on the same side in every situation. But that changed a little bit after Molly was born.
Molly didn't have a father or any family from her father's side, and when she was born, Laurie decided that she didn't want Molly living in a world with no family. She would try to get a hold of our parents and tell them that they have been forgiven and she wants them to see the baby. My mom, who was relentlessly stubborn, told her that she didn't want to meet Molly. I try to be an optimists and think that maybe her reason was that there was a part of her that was filled with regret and guilt for what had taken place before.
Dad was different.
Laurie was living by herself at this time, and Dad would always stop by her place on his way home, play with the baby, buy Laurie supplies for the baby, and sometimes he would even cut her a check to help her out. There was probably a time when Dad was in love with Mom, there was definitely a time when Laurie was the apple of his eye, but as time passed by, there was no one he loved more than Molly.
It's hard to believe, but Dad seeing Laurie and Molly without Mom carried on for almost a year, but things changed when Laurie called Mom a week before Molly's first birthday.
"Mom, I'm going to be having a party for Molly next weekend" Laurie said over the phone
"Okay"
"I really want you to be there" Laurie said
"Your dad and your brother will be there" Mom replied
"How is it not driving you crazy that you haven't met your grand-daughter? How is it not driving you crazy that you haven't seen me in over a year"
"We all make our decisions Laurie" my Mom replied, "You've made yours, I'm making mine" and she hung up.
Mom left the house to go to work, and while she was out, Dad and I were preparing something for her at home.
Dad pulled out old photographs and looked for pictures of Laurie's first birthday. He went to the store and bought decorations that matched the pictures from Laurie's first birthday. He got a big printout of a picture of baby Laurie from that day and he hung it up in the exact same place that Laurie's birthday cake was many years ago.
When Mom came back, she was surprised at what she saw.
"What is all of this?" she said as she walked in
"This is a reminder of the promise we made to Laurie on her first birthday" Dad said. "You and I promised her that we will be there for her whenever she needed us. Right or wrong, we have got to protect her"
Mom looked at me, and then back at Dad.
"Laurie's baby is turning one." Dad said "We all need to be there for Molly and for Laurie"
The next weekend, Dad and I showed up at Laurie's house for the birthday party. There was cake, presents, party hats and toys, but the thing that brought the most joy to Laurie happened two hours later when Mom walked in and met her grand-daughter for the first time in her life.
The relationship between my parents and Laurie changed from that day. I would be lying if I said that things ever got back to normal, but the most encouraging sign was that my Mom and Laurie had started working on fixing their broken relationship.
Mom and Laurie felt like they had a lot of catching up to do. Every week, on a Wednesday, either Laurie would come over to our house for dinner, or we would go to hers. Even after I moved out, this was a tradition that was built within our family.
But things in the Davis household never stay peachy for too long.
The months and years flew by and everything was going about as well as they could have been, until there was one more person added to the dinner party. Laurie's boyfriend, Ben.
My parents had no reason to not love Ben. He was great to Molly, he was great to Laurie, he was kind, he had a good sense of humor and most importantly, he was a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan,
I enjoy watching football, but I was never really great at understanding all the subtleties that go into the game. I used to watch football with my Dad but he didn't feel like he could talk to me about personnel, a 3-4 vs a 4-3 defense, when the right time is to blitz a quarterback or when Mike McCarthy should call a run play or a pass play. Dad felt more comfortable talking about that kind of stuff with Ben.
Ben slowly became the son that my Dad never had. While I was making music and hanging out with the gang, Ben and Dad would drive to Green Bay and watch the Packers practice during training camp. They spent a lot of time together.
It didn't end with football either. Ben and my Dad would start going to baseball games together too. Laurie was thrilled about this. There was nothing that made her happier than the fact that her Dad and her boyfriend were spending so much time together. She didn't realize at the time that this was a study for Dad. Maybe he was paranoid because of all the boys that had mistreated Laurie in the past, but there was something about Ben that wasn't right to him. Dad was spending a lot of time with Ben to figure out exactly what it was.
After some time, things started to get a little more serious between Ben and Laurie, and one day, Dad and Mom walked into Laurie's house and Laurie had an announcement for them.
"Mom, Dad, I think Ben is going to propose to me" Laurie said
"Laurie! That's so great, I'm so happy for you" Mom said
"Well, he hasn't proposed yet, but we've talked about it and we went to the mall and we were looking at rings together, so I think it's going to happen soon" She said.
Mom and Laurie were very excited about the whole thing, but Dad was a little less than thrilled.
"Well, that's good for you Laurie, but are you sure this is something you want to go through with?' Dad asked.
"What kind of question is that Dad? Of course we do" she responded "We've been together for a while now"
"Well, that's a big decision to make Laurie, are you sure that Ben is the person you want to start your life with?" Dad asked
"He's not even proposed yet, but if he does, then yes, Dad" Laurie responded
"I don't know, Laurie"
"What don't you know? That he treats me with respect? That he's great with Molly? That he's a responsible adult with a good job and he cares about me?"
"I don't know if I trust him"
"How could you possibly not feel like you can trust him? You spend so much time with him, you guys have so much fun together, why don't you trust him?"
"I don't know Laurie, it's just a gut feeling"
"It's not a gut feeling" Laurie answered, "This is a pattern with the two of you. You guys always muddle up whatever exciting event I have going on in my life"
"That's not fair" Mom responded.
"That's not fair? You guys kicked me out of your house and caused me so much misery when I had my baby. You ruined that whole experience for me"
"That was a long time ago, Laurie, I thought we've moved on from that" Mom said
"And now, I might be getting married soon, and you're figuring out a way to ruin that for me too" Laurie explained.
"Laurie, I'm looking out for your best interest" Dad said
"No you're not. You're just being selfish"
"You're calling me selfish?" Dad asked, giving Laurie a chance to take it back.
"I'm saying that you're being selfish"
"I think we should probably get going Laurie" Dad said
"Yeah, probably" Laurie replied.
"We'll talk about this when cooler heads prevail" Dad said. He walked over to Laurie to give her a kiss on the cheek before leaving, but Laurie walked away into her room feeling disgusted with them.
It's amazing how we can have the ability to feel responsible for something that we are clearly not responsible for. Sometimes when a bad thing happens, it's almost impossible to shake off that feeling that you had something to do with it, even if the smarter part of your brain knows that you didn't.
It's not solely Laurie's fault that she got pregnant before she was an adult.
It's not Laurie's fault that our hyper-Christian fanatic parents kicked her out of the house when she got pregnant.
It's not Laurie's fault that after Mom and Dad left her house that day, a car tried to change lanes on the highway and didn't realize that my parents car was too close and slammed against them, crashing their car over the divider and into traffic coming in from the opposite direction.
Mom and Dad didn't survive.
Laurie was the apple of my father's eye, they had a great relationship and many great conversations. The last one that they had was one of their worst.
Laurie kisses me and says "I love you" every time I'm about to get into my car and drive somewhere. She worries about me and she requests that I text her whenever I get to wherever I'm going.