Chapter 11: Run
At this point, I understood that my mom planned to remain in the house and expected my dad to move out.
As much as my dad and I clashed—and despite everything that had just happened—I could not accept that
arrangement.
I remained deeply concerned about my mom.
She had not yet received the kind of professional help I believed she needed, and I had no way of knowing
what she was telling her psychiatrist or ensuring that her doctor understood everything that had been
happening.
I had no control over any of it.
I was also concerned about her ability to manage her finances. She was already talking about refinancing the
house again, and her belief in the scammers had not disappeared.
Eventually, I had to have an extremely uncomfortable conversation with her.
I told my mom that, between my parents, she was the person I did not believe my family could continue living
with at that time.
Her treatment of my children had become a serious concern for me. I was worried about her financial
decisions, and she still believed the people behind the scam were who they claimed to be.
Whatever happened next, I believed she desperately needed professional help.
My dad returned home a few days later.
In the days leading up to his return, I found myself acting as a middleman between my parents.
My mom had obtained an order of protection against my dad, which meant he could no longer contact her or
be around her.
That left me relaying information between them.
My dad told me to inform my mom that she needed to leave town or he would go to the sheriff’s office about
what had happened with the gun.
I was confused.
Hadn’t he been the one who retrieved the gun?
What was he talking about?
Then he told me something about the confrontation that I had not known.
My dad claimed that during their struggle over the gun, my mom had tried to pull the trigger on him.
I had not seen this happen.
At the time, I struggled to believe that my mom could have tried to shoot my dad.
But my dad told me that if she did not leave, he intended to report what he said had happened to the sheriff’s
office when he returned home.
When I confronted my mom with what he had told me, she seemed surprised.
“So he wants to play it this way, huh?” she said.
She did not directly deny his accusation to me.
Over the following days, she made phone calls and packed her belongings.
The same morning my dad returned home from the mental-health facility, my mom left.
She drove to Nevada to stay with a friend.
I didn’t know exactly what had happened between my parents during those moments with the gun.
I knew what my dad had told me.
I knew what I had personally witnessed.
And I knew my mom had left.