There was a brown leather suitcase by the door. I had seen my father carry it into the house a thousand times after his business trips. He would walk in and my mother would fling her arms around him and smile. She wore an apron then, and baked, and drove my little sister to her sports.

She didn’t wear an apron anymore. She didn’t bake. She hardly looked at my father. Something was desperately wrong with my perfect upper middle class life. When I was home at Thanksgiving I could feel the tension. Maybe that was why I didn’t go straight there. Maybe I thought I could hide at Levi’s forever. Getting lost in his arms, ignoring the dangers of the world around me.

I dropped my bags at the door next to the lonely suitcase. It was telling me something, I knew it. But I didn’t know how devastating the news was about to be.

“Mom why is Dad’s suitcase by the door? Is he going somewhere? I mean, I just got home,” I asked as I rounded the corner into the kitchen. My mom was sitting at the table holding a handkerchief. She had tears in her dark green eyes when she looked at me. I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Honey, you should sit down.”

“Why? Mom, what’s going on?”

My dad came from behind the counter. “Because there’s something we need to tell you.”

My eyes darted back and forth between them. I could feel the sinking brick in my stomach.

My dad called for my little sister, “Mackenzie, can you come down here please?”

“In a minute!” She shouted back.

“Now, Kenz,” my dad’s voice sounded stern. Had someone died?

I heard her sigh, “Fine.”

She stomped down the stairs and looked annoyed until she saw me. “Lila! Why didn’t they tell me you were home? I missed you!”

She wrapped her delicate arms around me in a hug. She was so thin yet fiercely strong. Ten years of cheerleading and running would do that to you.

I quickly whispered in her ear, “What the hell is going on? I leave you guys for three weeks and suddenly Mom is crying and Dad’s yelling at you? Things seemed pretty normal at Thanksgiving.”

She pulled away slowly, “Stuff’s been weird around here.”

I looked over my shoulder at my dad, still standing stoically in the kitchen. His arms were crossed over his broad chest and he narrowed his eyes at me. “You two should have a seat.”

I nodded and took Mackenzie's hand as I pulled her to the kitchen table. I knew whatever was coming was going to be horrific, and I felt the need to protect my little sister.

“What's this all about? And Mom, why are you crying?”

Dad came to stand behind my mom, but he didn't put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. Her slightly teary eyes had now become sobs shaking out of her body like secrets escaping her perfect form. She didn't speak, just cried with her head in her hands, unable to make eye contact with my sister or myself.

Instead my father said in a quiet, gravelly voice, “Girls, your mother and I have decided to go our separate ways. This has nothing to do with either of you, and we won't love you any less just because we aren't together anymore, but this is what's best for our family.”

He said it with no emotion. Like a Public Service Announcement or something.

I felt my sister's hand slip out of mine and I turned to watch her mouth open as she gasped for air. I felt like it was too hot in the kitchen, as if my skin was on fire.

I pushed back my chair and shook my head, we had been such a happy family such a short time ago. What had changed so suddenly? Why was my family falling apart?

“What happened? Things were fine at Thanksgiving!”

I kicked my chair back from under me and stood up, giving my father a condemning glare. Somehow I knew that this was his fault, but he didn't respond to my accusation. Instead my mother did.

“Things weren’t fine at Thanksgiving! Things haven’t been fine in months. Your father and I… your father and I just don't love each other anymore.” She tried to slow her breathing as her sobs overtook her words but I knew when I heard her last sentence that I had been right to believe my father was to blame. “Your father doesn't love me anymore,” was what she meant.

My body was shaking with anger. How could he do this to us? How could he split up our perfectly happy family?

“Kenz go upstairs.” She didn’t move. It was like her body was frozen in time. I wasn't even sure if she was breathing. “Mackenzie, I said go upstairs, now.”

My forceful tone got her moving. She nodded as she moved gracefully away from the table. She looked only down at the floor; it was like she was a skeleton of my former vibrant, beautiful, younger sister.

I shook my head at them, like I was going to have to parent these two insolent young children. “Why the hell did you have to break the news to us like this? And what did you do?” I said turning on my father. “Why does Mom think you don’t love her anymore?”

My father turned away from me, refusing to react to my assault.

“What the fuck is her name? Mom deserves to know, and I deserve to know!”

His head popped up at the curse word, but he still didn’t respond.

I waited, my chest rising and falling with the pain of anger coursing through my veins. Everything was so hot: my breath, my skin, there was even a heat spreading in my belly. He turned away from us and leaned on the kitchen island. For a moment I wished my father was dead. Before anyone could stop me I lunged at his back and wrapped my arm around his throat. My mother stood up and quickly pulled me off of him but I kept clawing my way back to him, screaming. “How could you do this? Who is she? Why? Why us?”

My mother wrapped her arms around me and we slowly sunk down to the floor. She held me as I sobbed against her chest. I had lost something so precious and I didn't even know why. My whole life was falling apart.

My father began to leave the room but he turned around to look at me just once and said, “Charity. Her name is Charity.”

“Get out,” my mother growled. “And don’t you dare come back.”

But it wasn't my father who didn't come back, it was us. My mother packed us up and moved to Florida only a week later. We bought a townhome and lived near the beach. It was everything she had ever wanted. After some time had passed, I realized that it probably wasn't just my father’s fault that they had gotten divorced. For a long time it was easier to blame him then the wonderful woman that had been my rock my whole life. But deep down I knew she hadn't been happy in a long time. It had been one of the reasons that I had chosen a college so far from home. I didn't want to come home very often, even though I should have for Kenz. But she had her friends and I knew she'd be okay without me. I had Levi to consider as well, but he would come visit me at school sometimes. He loved getting away from our little New England town and visiting me in the big city. But it was never really his scene. When we left my father in Fayette, I left Levi too. And his brother Eli. I let them both go with the heart ache and pain of the divorce, but maybe I also did that to protect my own heart.

There was a secret between the three of us. A secret no one knew but me.