Just before my mother, sister and I left for Europe, B. had stolen our little brother’s wallet. I noticed it when she came to pick me up from my foster home on the farm, and I thought it was curious that she would carry such a masculine style billfold, of thick leather.
Just a few weeks after that, my brother burst into tears exclaiming that his wallet had gone missing. I immediately put the pieces of the puzzle together and exposed her crime of such cruel proportions. Already Johnny was coming home every day and collapsing into tears after another day of being bullied at school for being a special ed student. In those days, special ed classes were completely separate from the regular classes. The last thing he needed was to be treated like that by a big sister, but this was nothing new, it was just sad to return home to witness again.
So, you’d think I would not have been surprised when shortly after our trip to Europe, B. mauled our mother when she needed a fresh supply of cash.
Mom was sick with the flu, sleeping in her bedroom at the top of the stairs and B. was standing at the bottom of the stairs yelling obscene things up the stairwell, about a man that Mom had been dating. I’d been gone for years and didn’t know the man or the history behind any of it. “All you want is his d&ck!” my big sister began to yell repeatedly, to my horror and disbelief. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about as she shrieked in rage, “You just want his d%ck! You just want his d%ck!”
After not too very long our mother came to the door of her bedroom, dressed in a robe, curlers in her hair, crouching over, holding the frame of the door, weak and moaning and begging B. to stop her screaming, at which point, B. flew up the stairs, grabbed hold of the curlers in Mom’s hair and pulled our sick mother down to her knees, dragging her down a couple of steps, pulling half the curlers out of her head.
Then B. darted around her and into her room and back out in a flash with Mom’s purse in her hands. While flying down the stairs she grabbed a big wad of money and tossed the emptied out purse on the floor as she flew out the front door, leaving my mother sobbing on her knees, disappearing into the night in her little blue convertible.
I’m ashamed to say I didn’t do anything but stand there in horror with my mouth gaping open. By the next day, or soon after, B. was back home and everything went back to normal as if it had just been another day in the life of the family.
I was home again. After three years of foster homes and institutions I’d never seen this level of insanity or any violence whatsoever. This was life with this big sister. Every year of my life that I lived under the same roof with B. I had to stuff a significant amount of unexpressed terror. For the most part I did whatever she told me to do, being far more afraid of her than I could ever have been of my parents, as she never suffered a single consequence for her endless violence against others.
There were times when I begged for protection from her but I never got that. So I learned to get along and go along with whatever her shenanigans happened to be, when I was forced to be around her, but I also stayed away from her as much as possible, whenever I could get free of her. And she would often cling to me like a jealous boyfriend and that was almost worse than her violence it felt so creepy.
I learned my lesson well, laid low and kept my mouth shut. I hated myself by the time I grew up and realized I’d become nothing more than my anti-sister … whatever she was, I did not want to be. I realized I had little to no identity of my own, except to be certain that I was not her … I dedicated my time to making sure to be the opposite of everything that she stood for.
So, I became a coward. “You want what I have? Here, take it all. I’ll give you double what you wanted. I’ll give you everything. Are you satisfied now? Will you leave me to live in peace now?”
My sister’s choices in life always seemed alien to me, and returning home to an environment that revolved around her rage, after having had a break and been around kinder people for a few years, was utterly miserable. I couldn’t wait to get back out of the house again and I accomplished exactly that, eventually, ironically, with the help of my sister in her little blue convertible.
Onward to Chicago, onward to Hollywood, onward
** That strategy did not turn out so well and now I’m a little bit angry, but I’ll get over it. Three of her victims never got to see her get any justice. In honor of my three siblings who never saw that justice, and in honor of our caretakers, Clarice, Estella and Lottie, also her victims, I will celebrate the day that I hear that B. has received her justice. But it will be bittersweet. I’d much rather be comforting my siblings who left life never getting the love and support they deserved.
Oikos 