Read Walking on Eggshells: Discovering Strength and Courage Amid Chaos for Free Online Page B

eventually left with the police, and Dad went into the bathroom to take several deep, long drags on his crack pipe.
    Several days later I was downstairs with the other kids while Dad and Ginny were upstairs in their room, as they usually were. We were all surprised when, BAM, Tawny and Pastor Jeremiah walked through our door with Bibles in hand. Tawny had also brought her daughter, Nikki, with her and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen any of them. We hadn’t been going to church recently, and Tawny and Nikki had left our family a long time ago. Now they were here like crusaders of God, as Tawny hoped Pastor Jeremiah could perform an exorcism on my dad. I think Tawny thought an exorcism would stop Dad from taking drugs, but I never knew why she chose that particular day to show up. Maybe she and Dad had been seeing each other and I didn’t know about it. If that were the case, the hair-pulling fistfight that Tawny and Ginny got into would make more sense. I also didn’t realize it then, but Dad and Tawny were still legally married. Their divorce would not be finalized until 2003.
    The entire incident scared me to death. Because we hadn’t seen Tawny in a long time, her just being in our home was a shock to me. As soon as she arrived Tawny began telling Dad and Ginny where to sit for the exorcism. Barbara and Tucker laughed at this, because they thought it was hysterical that Tawny would try to tellDad what to do. I’m not sure what happened next, because I was swept away into a room by one of my siblings and told not to come out until someone came to get me.
    After that, Dad probably sensed that officials would be back with legal documents that would force us to be taken away from him. But my dad is a smart man; he turned proactive and beat them to it. First, he purchased tickets for Barbara and Tucker to go to Alaska. Our mother was getting married again, and it was a great reason to send these two children to help her celebrate her big day. Dad then flew to Colorado and spent two weeks in his father’s tiny travel trailer getting sober.
    To ensure that no one was in residence when Child Protective Services returned, if indeed they did return, I was sent to live for several weeks with Dad’s friend (and exorcist) Pastor Jeremiah. Dad has since told me that he doesn’t remember my going to stay with the pastor, but I remember it very well because it was here that I first remember no longer wanting to be the “good girl.” Until this point in my life I had always been the cooperative daughter, the kid who wanted only to please. But this family was much stricter than I was used to. I also missed my brothers and sister terribly.
    Sadly, the incident with Child Protective Services had changed me. After all, I reasoned, what had being a good girl gotten me? A dysfunctional family and no friends. Running away after I had been taken was the first big defiant thing I had ever done, and I now felt a strong need to rebel, to act like my sister and brother—even my dad, for that matter.
    One day I went to the grocery store with Pastor Jeremiah’s family and I had an urge to act out. Back then cigarettes were not kept inside locked shelves, and I quickly grabbed a pack of Benson & Hedges and hid it in my pant pocket until we got back to the preacher’s house. I was so excited to run down the hill near their house and smoke. This was not the first time I had smoked a cigarette—they had been introduced to me at about the same time as the pot smoking.
    When I came back up the hill for dinner I was confronted about the smell of tobacco on my clothes, but I lied and said I had not smoked anything. I knew they knew I was lying, but by this time I was convinced these people were total squares. However, I was way cool, and they were just trying to stop me from having fun.
    Lying is something every child tries at least once. When I discovered that no one challenged my lies to any extent, it opened a door to a new world.