The more things change...

2 years ago, Brandy was over here visiting and instead of staying home with his daughter Mike went to the bar. He decided at that time but he was going to take custody of his then 14 year old daughter. Mike didn't raise this girl she was bounced from foster home to foster home but in a drunk moment of well... Drunkenness he decided he was going to keep her. He was texting her and texting I and letting us know that she wasn't going home. He would take her back to Yakima to get her clothes and say goodbye to her friends and that was the end of the conversation. When she decided that wasn't kosher on her end, and decided she didn't want to live over here, Mike got angry. He got so angry that I knew he was going to come home and bad things were going to happen. The normal holes in the walls taking of the door yelling, screaming, I can handle that... But this girl is only 13 and she doesn't know her father. She doesn't understand that he is generally a good guy until he gets too much rum in him, and then it's better to just capitulate and deal with the blowbacks the next day. No, this girl is a fighter. She stood up for herself. And as proud of her as I was, I knew I had to get her out of the house. So we went up to my mom's house . I knew Mike would come looking he's not stupid. I also knew that my dad had a gun and that the police were not about to release a 13 year old in to Mike custody. Hopefully if it came to that he would be arrested and spend the night in the drunk tank teaching him a lesson. It almost came to that. We went up to my mom's house and I turned on the TV and got some blankets and pillows for Brandy and made her a nice bed on the couch. I waited until about 2:30 when Mike showed up. He had been texting from the bar and then texting when he got home, accusing me of kidnapping his daughter. I told him we would be back in the morning, just get some sleep. Instead, he showed up. He was banging on the doors and banging on the windows and I told him that if he really wanted me to I would call the police. I didn't want it to come to that because I wasn't 100% sure they would let Brandy stay with me; I'm not technically family. I also didn't really want my family involved in this any more than they absolutely had to be. Mike went back to his truck call me continue to text Brandy to get her to come outside. At some point she shut off her phone. I remember thinking this is the life that this girl grew up with when she was with her parents and being thankful that the Foster system existed. We stayed there for a few more hours and when the sun came up, so did Grandma. I explained that we had come up during the night to get warm and watch TV. Grandma offered us breakfast but we knew that we had to go home. It was about 7 I went out and warmed up my car, and we took off. I told her that I was sorry that this happened on her vacation, and that she was welcome to come anytime and I would do my best that this never happen again. When we got home, I told her to stay in the car so that I could assess the damage first. I wanted to make sure there was nothing broken she would step on or Worse see her father in a position no child should ever see their parent. When I got into the apartment, not only were there no holes in the walls but he had patch the hole in the bedroom. He had put together the tree and vacuum the floor, cleaned off the couch futon, the entire apartment looks like he had spent the night cleaning!  When I walked up the stairs, I could hear Christmas music playing on his karaoke machine, and he was in the kitchen cleaning. This was such a bizarre and sourial seen to see I wasn't quite sure what to think. I motioned to Brandy that she could come up and she brought her backpack and came up the stairs. she was just as surprised as I was! Mike came out of the kitchen, came over and gave us both a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and asked if we liked his Christmas surprise. We both said yes, and he asked if we had been out Christmas shopping because he put the tree up. He had absolutely no memory of the night before.