Divorce Runs in My Family
The cigarettes had taken effect on her face. It took thousands of times of seeing her face to see how we were related. Mom's smooth facial features always reflected her discomfort when she was near this woman. I would know her to be my fathers ex-wife.
I started to feel very close to my step-sister and her mother inspired feelings of awkwardness and wonder in me. Some people might say that having parents eighteen years apart might be inappropriate, but it never seemed like that to me while I was growing up. She appeared old and unsuitable, this lady, this ex-wife.
I also learned that I had other step-siblings, ones I've never met and might never meet.
They had taken my father's surename. Unlike my mother's other children, they shared my last name. They all had kids. I had been born an aunt to nieces and nephews considerably older than I was.
There were fourteen years in between my mother's youngest child from her first marriage and me. She would become a surrogate caregiver as my mother grew mentally ill. My mother and my sister walked around with a mask on, pretending that tax evasion had sent my mother's ex-husband to jail. My mother pretended that he had been my older brother's father, while my brother could never quite hold the mask as firmly in place.
She was not only wed three times my half-sister but she was also divorced once. Her first marriage ended when she discovered that it had never really began. Her first husband had never been divorced. When we brought her home from two states away, she was heartbroken, abandoned, and pregnant. Yet, if she had never suffered through that awful time, she'd have never held my nephew. I think she's happy now, but I have no way of knowing the future.
I noticed a repeating pattern. My older brother married three times. His own children are the ones that took the worst. The kids he's brought home to my parents who did what grandparents should. Once they are divorced, they go away. This last time he has decided to not bother with the marriage portion. It's easier that way, and they're his kids to fight for.
I'm hoping that watching enough failed marriages I could make my own last. I struggle sometimes to keep myself from drifting into the wind and letting myself find what new adventures await. I have already completed six years.
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