The Space Between: When He Stayed

For a little while, my dad was around again.

Not all the time.
Not in a way that felt steady.

But enough that we thought maybe he was back for good.

We moved around a lot then.

Different houses.
Different people coming and going.

But we always seemed to find our way back to Peaceful Valley.

Peaceful Valley wasn’t really peaceful.

It just meant we knew where we were.

For a while, it felt like maybe we were going to be a family again.

Both parents in the house.

At least some of the time.

There was noise again.
Voices.
Doors opening and closing.

Even when things were sketchy, the noise felt better than the quiet.

My mom’s voice filled the house.

It could be mean.

Not just loud—mean in a way that made the air feel sharp.
Her words came fast, biting, sometimes cold enough to make your stomach twist before you even knew why.

But we held onto it anyway.

Because it meant someone was there.

Her voice—loud, harsh, cutting through the house—became its own kind of lullaby.

Rough.
Unsettling.
But better than silence.

Silence meant you were alone.

There were other things happening then too.

Things kids don’t know how to explain.

One afternoon I was at a house down the street.

A friend’s dad was there.

His hands were rough and smelled bad—like sweat and cigarettes that had been on his skin too long.

He touched me.

In ways that made my stomach twist and my whole body go hot and cold at the same time.

I ran out of that house as fast as I could.

My feet slapped against the pavement while I ran straight for our front door.

I knew I had to tell my mom.

I got all the way there.

My hand was on the door.

And then I stopped.

Because something in my head told me if I said anything, everything might fall apart again.

My parents might disappear.

The house might go quiet the way it had before.

So I stood there for a second.

Then I gulped hard and swallowed it.

I let it settle somewhere deep inside me.

It felt safer there.

Nothing in our house stayed steady for long.

I remember one night on the porch.

The air was cold and brisk.

My dad said he had to go.

I don’t remember where he said he was going.

I just remember knowing that if he walked away, something inside the house would fall apart again.

My brother and I started crying.

Hard.

The kind of crying where you can’t catch your breath and your chest hurts.

We grabbed onto him.

Please stay.
Please don’t go.

I pressed my hand into the rough brick of the porch, squeezing it so hard it pricked my skin. I planted myself there, trying to block him from coming down the concrete stairs.

My brother stood on the other side.

Our faces were wet.
Our noses running.

We held onto him like we could stop him from leaving if we just didn’t let go.

For a minute he stood there looking down at us.

Like he was deciding.

Then he stayed.

That night, he stayed.

And for a little while longer, we got to pretend we had stopped something from breaking.

We didn’t know how fragile it was.

We didn’t know that sometimes staying is just the pause before leaving.

Years later, I would learn there’s a name for moments like that — The Space Between.

The place where you learn how to swallow things whole, how to carry secrets quietly, how to hold onto people as tight as you can when you feel them slipping away.

At the time, it was just life.