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The McNeill’s Secret
It was 8 o’clock and Alex was ready to go to school. He was waiting for his dad to open the car. As he was standing next to the car, he felt really nervous; it was his first day of school, he finally felt like a big boy.
“Are you ready?” asked his dad coming out from the house. Alex was too distracted to answer what his dad had just said. “Go say goodbye to your mom” “yesdad” answered Alex. He went inside the house again to his parent’s bedroom and kissed his mom goodbye. She woke up and told him “I’m very proud my little boy, or my big boy should I say?” Alex laughed and when he was on his way out, Dianne, his mother, called him again “Be brave” she said “changes are gonna come, but I know you’ll be strong enough to face them, my boy.” Alex listened carefullywhile his mom talked. There was something in her smile, something on the tone of her voice. But it’s only the first day of school, right? thought Alex.
While he was on the car with his dad, he couldn’t stop thinking about what his mom had said; school couldn’t be that bad, could it? Suddenly his dad broke the silence; that was weird for Alex since his dad didn’t talk much with him; it was probablybecause he was a very strict dad. “We’re going to pick up someone else today OK Alex?” “OK” said Alex wondering why his dad was oddly smiling through the rear-view mirror.
Alex had been to a kindergarten but in a different city. He thought that probably he would be the only new kid and everyone would already have friends. Apart from the fact that that he was still young, it had been difficultfor Alex to establish a “long” friendship. He had moved a lot with his mom and it wasn’t until now, that he had stayed in St. Joseph for a while. Alex’s parents had been a couple from an early age. Michael was older than Dianne, he was a tennis player, and she was a ballet dancer. Dianne’s parents never liked Michael for any apparent reason. Parents definitely have a sixth sense, because Dianne gotpregnant. Michael was an instructor at a tennis club; that was his only income. Dianne had to quit her dream of becoming a professional dancer. It broke her heart. She wanted to open her own ballet academy, but it would be too expensive and she didn’t have the money to start. Her parents wouldn’t support her so she had to give ballet lessons at another academy to earn some money; but the bellyshe was growing didn’t allow her to work for too long. She gave birth to Alex on a June 8th. Dianne had complications during the labor, so from the very first moment she saw Alex she knew he was a survivor. He was her champion.
Things started getting together every day. Though, money was still a big issue and it created a lot of tension between Michael and Dianne, she depended on him, he was theonly of them who worked. Dianne had to endure many of her husband’s crap in order to have something to eat. Michael was mean with her. He cheated on her, treated her like trash and looked down on her. She kept quiet for a long time until one day. When Alex was 3 years old, Dianne decided to go away with her son and leave Michael once and for all. He got really angry. It wasn’t a simple decision,Dianne had thought about it for years but she never had the courage to do it until that day. She started teaching ballet again, but she was willing to do any kind of work in order to feed Alex. Those were hard days for the two of them. Alex had vague memories about those days, but most of them were actually invented memories. It wasn’t a topic his mom liked to talk about and Alex pretended as heremembered, just because he wanted to know what it was like.
They had to move a lot and change cities really quickly. Even though Alex was just a little boy, it affected him inside. After all, a little boy always needs his daddy…
When Alex was about to turn 7, he was getting used to the type of life he and his mom were living alone. Then, all of a sudden, his parents were getting back together....