Construction 101, Cassidy Shay [unputdownable books TXT] 📗

much he enjoyed spending time with our family. Brian wasn’t there for long, but I still remember many things about him.

When I met Brian for the first time, he was picking my mom up for their date. They were going to the Cardinals and Packers preseason game. But when I first saw him, I didn’t know this. I was walking around the corner, on the way home from the bus stop, and I saw it. A dark blue car (a Charger, I think), parked in my driveway. I ignored it, thinking that maybe my aunt had gotten another car and was over to help my mom with something. I pushed past the doorway, and the TV was on. I looked into the living room and was startled (literally- my feet were off the ground) to see a man on my couch. Even stranger was the fact that I’d never seen this man before.

He has a short beard, silver and black intermixed. Behind the hair I saw tan skin, light eyes, and a small build. A bulky ring was on his finger. He was wearing a light-colored polo, beige shorts, and a baseball cap. As time wore on, I learned that this was his main way of dressing. That same outfit shows up in most of my memories of Brian.

I just waved, and took an immediate left, down the stairs into my mom’s room. “Did you meet Brian?” she asked me. I just nodded, deciding not to tell her that he hadn’t introduced himself or even waved at me. She was standing in front of her giant mirror, doing her hair and make-up.

“Where are you going?” I asked her. She explained about the football game, then laughed as she thought about how jealous Jake would be. “Here I am, the person in the family that likes football the least, and I’m the first to go to an NFL game.”

A couple weeks later, Brian took my mom to a concert. Nickleback. She came home late, so I didn’t get to talk to her until the next morning. And when I asked her how it was, she just looked at me. “Cassie,” she said, “he proposed to me.”

And so began what I like to call the Brian Era. Just like all the other eras (Victorian Era, Napoleonic Era, etc.), the Brian Era made a huge impact on the world. Or, at least, my world. But I couldn’t tell you exactly how it affected me, only that it did.

Brian, after having his marriage proposal rejected, settled for less, choosing to just be my mom’s friend. Their dates morphed into more family-oriented outings (the one that I remember the most was our trip to Uncle Sam’s in Peoria). He became our friend. Then, one day in October (the Brian Era started in September), something happened. I didn’t ever learn the exact details, but the Brian Era skidded to a stop.

It was abrupt. One day, he told my mom that if she didn’t date him, he would kill himself. It was really the first time that I noticed Brian’s depression, because he always seemed so happy. His smile was always present, and he never made any comments that gave us any hints of depression.

So my mom tried to cut him out. She figured that he was getting too attached, and she wanted to put some distance between us and him. So he became a part of the past, a recent memory that we tried to make distant.

Except for the phone calls, text messages, and emails. You see, there was a reason that we tried to cut him out of our lives. He started to become what most people would call a stalker. He would show up at our house unannounced, and he counted the exact number of days since the last time he’d seen each of us kids. He was, for lack of a better word, obsessed. So my mom changed her phone number, blocked his emails, we moved (this wasn’t all because of Brian- our landlords failed to tell us that they hadn’t paid their mortgage and the house was being foreclosed) and he disappeared for real this time.

Soon after Brian was gone, Bo was introduced into our lives. Bo was Catholic, which was good. We’re Catholic, and that’s always been something that my mom has looked for. But with Bo… things were a little different. He used to be

Catholic. Then something happened between the Church and Bo’s family, and they fell away. But it sort of counts, right? Yeah. No.

Bo had dark skin, with black hair that he kept very short. He wasn’t extremely tall, but he wasn’t short. He was big, but he wasn’t fat. He had a daughter who was right in between my age and my little sister’s age. Sometimes she’d go play with Shelsey, and sometimes she’d come talk to me. We didn’t ever become super close, but we did become friends, for the few months that our parents were together.

The thing with Bo is that he drank. A lot. This was a well-known fact that he tried to keep a secret. He wasn’t a mean drunk. Actually, he really was only nice to my mom when he was drunk. When he was sober, he wasn’t mean, just grumpy and he kind of ignored her. So Bo didn’t last long.

He didn’t really have an impact on our lives. Not long term, at least. So why did I include him in this memoir/journal? Because that man made the best pot roast that I’ve ever had.

My birthday in seventh grade brought JimBob. His family and my family had been friends for a long time, but I never got to know JimBob personally until that year. Now, I can tell you all sorts of things about him. I know that he drowns his ice cream in chocolate syrup, even if it’s chocolate ice cream. I know that he always carries a gun with him when he goes for a trail ride. I know that he mooches off everyone, and I know that he gets attached easily. I know that he takes his dogs everywhere with him. I know that he loves God, but isn’t always very interested in following His rules. I know that somehow, he finds a way to be arrogant, but it seems humble at the same time.

It was my thirteenth birthday when he came into my life. I had two friends staying the night. It was his first date with my mom. I was the first to fall asleep, and when I woke up, I regretted ever closing my eyes.Both of my friends told me that they hadn’t been able to sleep because they could hear my mom. With JimBob. In bed.

This broke my heart. First of all, it was their first date. Who does that on their first date? Also, it was my birthday. Just… what the heck? But the part that made it the worst was that my two friends were spending the night. The worst part was that my friends heard my mom. With JimBob. In bed. It was, to say the least, embarrassing.

It took a while for me to be able to trust my mom again. And the trust and respect that I have for JimBob? He had to work hard to earn every bit of it. Now that I think about it, it’s not even a lot of respect and trust. More like acceptance. The beauty of having a single mom in a relationship is that even if you don’t like someone, you have to learn to accept them.

And that’s what I did with JimBob. I didn’t like how fast they moved. Exactly a week after my birthday, my mom came to me and said, “He told me he loves me today. And I love him too.” Two months into the relationship, they were engaged and planning to move into the same house. I didn’t like it. But my mom seemed happy, so I accepted it.

Although I thought they were moving too fast, I had to admit that JimBob was fun, and I did enjoy spending time with him. He taught me how to ride a horse, and after school got out, we went on daily rides for a couple weeks. He’s a judge for Professional Bull Riding, so he was able to get us free tickets to PBR when it came to town. Because of JimBob, I met Flint (PBR’s rodeo clown), along with several bull riders. Because of JimBob, I learned what it’s like to love a horse, and because of JimBob I got my first job (his parents own a restaurant, so Jim and Dixie hired me with no hesitation).

Now, three years after he and my mom broke up (yes, they did break up- my story is far from over), JimBob is still a friend. When we’re at the restaurant, I’ll usually eat my food with him and just talk, catch up. I also know that if I ever need anything, I can always go to JimBob.

If JimBob has taught me anything, it’s that fun doesn’t equal quality. We had fun with JimBob. There’s no way that I could deny that fact. But the relationship between my mom and JimBob had no quality.

After JimBob, my mom stayed single for quite a while. Then in January, things changed. In January of my eighth grade year, I got a purity ring with the girls in my youth group. One of these girls was Taylor, and her single dad was at the ceremony. So was my single mom. It didn’t take long for them to become a thing.

Rick only dated my mom for a couple months. His importance was trivial, almost not there (except that he was one of my best friends’ dads). Because of Rick, I got to experience that feeling that you might get to be sisters with your best friend.

I never really thought that my mom and Rick would get married. But it was fun to play along, pretend that we would be able to combine our five kids and his three at the dinner table. And then Rick slipped out. Another guy who was here and gone in only a couple months.

After Rick, softball season rolled around. And that brings us to the most recent guy. In my eighth grade year, I played on the softball team, and so did Stephanie Amaral. Ken, Stephanie’s dad, met my mom at one of our games. They went out on a couple of dates, and a relationship formed. There was one difference that I noticed in Ken.

He was very reserved. Unlike all the others, he had waited until their third date to even kiss my mom. It wasn’t until a month after that that he would kiss my mom in front of us kids.

We went camping with his family in June, and in July he went with my family to Idaho, where we used to live and we visit every summer. In October, we all moved into a house together.

So that should be it, right? That should be our “happily ever after.” Ha! Will we ever get one of those? Do they even exist?

Ken is… he’s a lot of things. He’s funny, sarcastic, fun. But he doesn’t ever do anything. Actually, he does too much. But that’s the problem. He’s so busy working on the cars and doing stuff outside that he doesn’t have time to spend time with my mom or us. They’re together, but alone.