When my Dad left

When I was a sophomore in high school I received a notice while in my biology class that there was a call for me at the front office and I should be ready to go home for the day. I grabbed my backpack, book and notebook and was ushered towards the office by some receptionist person that I had never seen before. I was getting sweaty walking the halls with this unknown woman, struggling to put my things away in my pack as we were walking. Part of me was excited to leave school, but another part of me felt like the reason I could be leaving might be serious so I was getting more anxious as we approached the office. Upon entering, I was instructed by the principal to pick up the phone on the counter. I picked up the phone and said hello, it was my mother letting me know she was going to pick me and my sister up to take us home and to be ready outside the school in 15 minutes. I hung up the phone and turned around and there was my sister, just as anxious as I was. She asked me what was going on, and I shrugged my shoulders and told her mom was coming to get us and we needed to meet her outside.

A few weeks prior to this, we had a family dinner at the house on a week night, kind of unusual that we were all there...my dad usually works late or out of town, my brother was always at rugby or soccer practice while not trying to impregnate whatever girlfriend he had at the time, my youngest sister was always home and my sister that was just a year younger than me we were always at soccer practice during the week. So, this week night dinner felt planned. We were told by our parents at this dinner that somethings came up with my dad's job that may have some legal implications and he was due in court the following week. Us oldest kids asked if we could attend and we were told we have to be in school. We tried digging to get more info from our parents, but they were being vague and it was making them uncomfortable so we dropped it and that was that.

My sister and I waited outside the school for our mom, she showed up dressed to the nines with a new cigarette freshly lit hanging out the window of her must have Mercedes Benz. She wasn't much for obeying traffic signs so she rolled through the series of stop signs and slammed the brakes when she got to us outside the front door of the school. I jumped in the back seat and my sister in the front and my mom peeled out quickly while she was aggressively yanking on the cars controls with the cigarette dangling out of her mouth and the ashes were flying everywhere.

We started hitting her up for info, why were we pulled from class? Was today the court date for our dad? What happened in court? She was anxious and angry in her tone and she said I will fill you in when I get your sister and your brother is waiting for us back at the house.

We picked up my youngest sister at her grade school and made our way back to our big house in the country that was custom built not that long ago. The ride was long and quiet. My youngest sister in the back with me was complaining that she did not get lunch yet and started begging my mom to stop for food somewhere. My mom was annoyed and from what I could gather, food was the furthest from her mind. I told my sister that I would make her a sandwich when we got home.

Finally upon arriving the garage door opened and I see my dad's town car sitting in the garage. I said Oh, dad's home. My mom chimed in and said he is not and that is why I picked you all up and brought you home. She jumped out of the car, threw her cigarette butt out into the driveway and slammed the car door. We all went inside and met my brother at the kitchen table to discuss why my dad was not home.

Sitting around our big wooden table, I looked at my siblings and they were all focused on my mom. My mom was breathing heavy and started sobbing and quickly regained her composure and started to tell us why she brought us all there for when we were supposed to be in school.

She proceeded to tell us that our father had court today, and after the trial he went to jail. She would not tell us the charges, she would not tell us any info other than they were having to file for bankruptcy and soon we were going to have to move out of our house. She told us that the business that my dad owned was under investigation and she was not working anymore with him. I knew my dad's business was a stock brokerage firm that traded stocks for people and brought companies public so my speculative 15 year old mind was going nuts needing details because this was going to fuck up everything for us, and it did.

It turned out that my dad committed securities fraud and he also took a federal loan out to pay back taxes, but he had lied on the loan documents. He went to jail for 9 months to a white collar prison outside Denver. The drive was more than an hour from the house, but we were told that he was lucky that he did not get sent to another state. When we went to visit him all I could do was cry. I was so sad and embarrassed for him and disgusted how things came this, I cold not bear facing friends, soccer parents who he invested money for or anyone who knew what happed to him and our family.

We left Colorado when he got out, I was a junior in high school at the time. At least my parents let us finish out the school year. When we left, I left all my friends behind since kindergarten, my boyfriend of two years, my team mates...it was hard. We were all going to have to start over.

I kept in touch with some people, not having social media back then you just lost people in your life that you did not see regularly. I went to college, dropped out of college. My parents were still struggling financially and I was not of sound mind to perform in my own headspace.

Things are different and better now, but the one pain, the one thing that could make me feel differently about my dad and maybe less angry towards him, or be a better more attentive daughter to him is if he apologized for what he put us through. He has never done that, in fact he still excepts no responsibility for what he he did. He claims to have been made an example of by the courts and he gets horribly defensive when the subject is brought up. I had to go to his friends to get the truth and there were some things that my mother finally told me, but noting from him. My heart always feels that my dad has been gone since the day he went to prison.