GLYNN WASHINGTON, HOST:
Welcome back to SNAP JUDGMENT Live! - the finale already in progress. A brief note - our next story does contain references to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. As such, sensitive listeners and those with small children are advised.
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WASHINGTON: Now, our next guest we're so thrilled to welcome...
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WASHINGTON: ...That's right, give her some love - Miss Lina Misitzis.
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LINA MISITZIS: Daddy comes home with a brand-new, silver Volkswagen beetle. And there's a single rose affixed to the steering wheel. It's the summer of my 16th birthday. So I'm thinking OK, I'm going to go back to school with a car.
Dad calls the whole family out to the driveway, turns to my mother. He says this is for you, Maria, for our silver anniversary. It's also the summer of my parents' 25th. It's not my car.
My mother says what? For me? You stupid, I had no idea.
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MISITZIS: My father's always been one for the Hallmark holidays. And so when it comes time to celebrate his wife, he celebrates with a brand-new car. My mother celebrates by going to Greece without him.
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MISITZIS: Mom's always going back to Greece. It's always been the drill. She's homesick for the country she left 25 years ago. She says she's going to Lesbos, a small island off the coast of mainland. She says she's going to visit her family. But when she comes back, something is different.
My father calls me out to the dining room. He's seated across the table from my mother. Obviously, something is serious. He says Lina, your mother has met someone in Greece. We don't know what's going to happen.
What? Like a boyfriend? Yes, like a boyfriend. I start to cry. The boyfriend lives on Lesbos. He called my family once. It was six months ago. Greece had just won the Euro Cup. He asks to speak to my mother.
And amidst all of the shouting and the hugging and the high-fiving, my mother goes into the kitchen so she can hear what he's saying. And I'm thinking who is this guy and why is he calling my family? Doesn't he have his own family?
Suddenly, my mother speaks up. Why are you crying, she says. You don't care about this at all. And it's not a very mom thing to say, but she's also not wrong.
I mean, I'm sad that my dad is sad, but I'm also thinking about all of the stuff I can get away with if my mom goes back to Greece.
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MISITZIS: I mean, forget the carry-out I'm going to have for dinner every night. I can invite boys into my bedroom and no one's going to notice. I can smoke pot out the bedroom window and my dad doesn't even know what it smells like. I stopped crying.
A week later, they call me out to the dining room for a second time. This is the last time. And my father says Lina, your mother is moving to Greece to be with her boyfriend. And finally my mother has something to say. She says when you can drive, you can have the Volkswagen.
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MISITZIS: I am delighted.
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MISITZIS: The move is eerie. My mother goes back and forth between tearful packing and elated phone calls with the boyfriend on the island. She tells me Lina, I know this is hard. But he is very excited for me to come. She says it to me like I'm her friend and we're at a bar and it's a secret.
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MISITZIS: I am so embarrassed for my father. Mom is gone by the time I get my license. It's Halloween. It's a big night of firsts for me. It's my first time driving the silver bug alone. It's my first time driving on a freeway. It's my first time going to Christian's house. He's 27. He's a server at the restaurant where I'm a carry-out girl. And so I am wearing stiletto heels for the occasion.
I park the silver bug. I walk up to his door. I knock. He lets me in. He offers me mushrooms and I take them.
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MISITZIS: And suddenly, I am hallucinating. And the refrigerator is singing to me. And the coffee table is biting me. And there's a Keebler elf blowing kisses at me.
Right before I have sex with Christian for the first time, I say do you know how old I am? No. He's lying. I'm 16. Well, it's OK with me if it's OK with you. At three a.m., I tell Christian that I think I might be in love with him. And at 3:01, my father calls.
Where are you, Lina? Why are you doing this to me right now, Lina? I get into the silver bug to drive home. But I'm still high. And the road is made of butter.
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MISITZIS: And the butter is melting. I pull over the car. I call my dad back. Daddy, I need you to come pick me up. I'm behind the Krispy Kreme on Route One.
He's there 30 minutes later. I'm curled up in the fetal position in the backseat. Neither of us says a whole lot as we drive home. But as I watch the federal office buildings vibrating out the car window, he does say one thing. You have to be home by midnight. That's it. No punishment, no inquiry. Nothing. Just a curfew.
A week later, I'm back in the silver bug. I am driving home from school. I am texting Christian from behind the wheel. I blast right through a stop sign. And I crash the silver VW bug into a fire truck.
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MISITZIS: The fire truck is fine.
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MISITZIS: Me? I'm fine. My parents' car? Smashed to hell. Now, I used to love telling the story about how I went and ruined the symbol of my parents failed marriage.
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MISITZIS: But it doesn't end there. My mother calls back. My father picks up the phone from the bedroom. And I pick up and listening in from the living room. All I hear is I want to come back to America. I want to come home.
My father says that they're going to get marriage counseling. He says it's going to be OK. We're going to get through this. But when she flies back, I don't go to the airport to meet her. And I don't say hi to her when I come home from school. I resist.
I go to work. I kiss Christian in the utility closet at work because turns out he does care that I'm 16. And he doesn't want anyone to know about me. After work, I party with the busboys and the servers. And by now, they're selling me baggies of cocaine on the weekends.
It's my mother who figures out what I'm up to. She finds little razors and cut up straws hidden all around my bedroom. And when she confronts me, I deny it. You lie. I read your diary. I'm going to call the police. You're hurting us. Oh, us? What us? You left us. Suddenly I'm the one damaging our family?
My mother puts me in rehab. I'm 16 and I am the problem, the project and the focus. My parents don't get their marriage counseling because they're using that money instead on my recovery. At my rehab's recommendation, my parents go to anonymous meetings. And they listen to other kids and other kids' parents tell horrifying stories of rock-bottom and worst-case. And my father tells me, you know, Lina, there were prostitutes in those meetings. And my mother says well, Lina, at least you didn't do that.
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MISITZIS: And the VW bug - the anniversary car - it sits totaled in front of my parents' house until I'm out of rehab. And when I get out, they sell it. Now they have a brand-new house. They have two matching Toyota Corolla's. And they're even growing a vegetable garden together in their backyard. And this summer, when my mother asked if she could go to Greece for the first time in 10 years, my father said it's OK. I trust you.
You know, when parents split up, they tell their kids - honey, it is not your fault. We are not doing this because of you. And in my family it wasn't my fault that my parents split up. But it was my fault that they stayed together.
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WASHINGTON: Lina Misitzis.
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WASHINGTON: Rock 'n' roll.
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WASHINGTON: Now then, if you are drinking milk, please finish it right now. Because when SNAP JUDGMENT Live! returns, we can't be held responsible for what goes down which pipe. SNAP JUDGMENT - the amazing conclusion in just a moment. Stay tuned. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.