Man of the house chapter one

This is my first attempt at writing. The names and characters in this story are all fake. This story is purely fiction. I hope all that read it enjoy.

Man of the House
Chapter 1

Late August 1986
Jacksonville NC
Growing up in the military was hard on all of us. The constant moving, and missed holidays due to my father either being in the field, or deployed to God knows where, were harder on my brother and I. My mom, Lisa had grown accustomed to the hectic lifestyle. She met my father while living in California, and they hit it off right from the start. She was 17 at the time and just starting college when she found out she was pregnant with me. After 3 months of dating and the new found knowledge that she was pregnant, she and my father, Jack had gotten married and welcomed me into the family 8 months later. My name is Scott; I’m 17 and starting my senior year in high school this coming fall. I have a younger brother Mike, who is 15, and is two years behind me. Enough with the introduction let me tell you how my family’s life had drastically changed that year.

My father was a career Marine. He joined up right out of college, due to the fact that his father and his father before him had been Marines. This year he celebrated his 16th year in the Corps. He loved his job and was always putting the Corps before everything else. This meant he was always on base or in the field on exercises with his platoon. These past few years my mom and dad fought almost constantly when he was ever home. My mom was becoming more and more miserable. She had always been a stay at home mom, and never had any career aspirations. Our neighbor’s wife had talked my mom into pursuing a business degree from the local community college. This gave my mom something to do with her time during the day when my brother and I were at school. She really seemed happier with her new lease on life, and then my father came home and delivered a bombshell that he had volunteered to go on a deployment to Okinawa and would be leaving in a week. My mom lost it; she had had enough of him always being gone. That night she gave him an ultimatum. She said “You have a choice to make, the kids and I or this deployment, because if you go, we will not be here when you get back!” I had never seen my mom that angry before! Dad tried to reason with her but she had finally had enough. I had always thought that they had had their problem, but never would have thought that she would have left him over them. I guess my mom had found some independence in going back to school. My father had chosen to leave and go on the deployment and that pretty much sealed the deal. My mom filed for divorce and everything was finalized while my father was in Okinawa. He didn’t fight for custody or even fight when my mom went after alimony. I guess to him he was free to live his life how he wanted to, free of the burdens of having a family to hold him back and to stall his career.

After the divorce my mom moved us out of base housing and into a small 2 bedroom house out in the surrounding town of Jacksonville.