Black Sheep

 He looked at me over his coffee mug, "what's your sister doing these days?"

"She's working on a new book."

"That's what women do!" He shot back, "they write."

With that statement, he attempted to invalidate any female that had ever put pen to paper. 'They write', was such a pronouncement that I just stopped the conversation right there and cleared his mug from the table. "Thanks for bringing in the mail." He understood that our little meeting was over and gave my dog one more skitch behind the ears as he left. "Have a good day!" I called to him as the door shut. He waved goodbye, never turning back. My dog stood in the doorway looking after him. She liked him a lot, not knowing him like I did. He plays with her and she brings out all her toys to show him when he comes to show them off. I lock the door and pat her on the head then go upstairs to find that letter.

I should have put it someplace safe when I last had it in my hands. I remember that I'd almost thrown it away but thought better of it. My kids need to know who their family is, I remember thinking when I read it last. The hatred and raw emotion contained within were extraordinary. 

To be sure, I am no angel but I was never as bad as I was made out to be. I do believe that there was some small effort to try to keep me from actually knowing how the rest of the family felt about me. For most of my life, I was probably oblivious to their disdain. I've avoided reading those books about what it is like to be a middle kid. I get it now that I have been a mom for a while. The oldest kid(s) resent the newest one(s). It's both simple and predictable. Then there are the babies and they remain 'the baby' forever or so it seems.

 

I was mostly left to my own devices growing up until my mom decided she had to go back to work to help with the family finances. Then it fell to me to be the babysitter of my little brother. My summer still had the same feel to it but at a certain hour, I had to be home to watch him. I want to say it was most likely from about noon to five or six when a parent came home. It also became my task to begin dinner and make milk. Make milk? My mom used powdered milk for us then added about a third more from whole milk. It was much cheaper than just using whole milk for everything. Back then the diary industry hadn't come out with the varied types of milk we have today. Whole or powdered milk was all there was, excluding the canned stuff, of course. There was ironing to do and potatoes to peel, boil, and mash for the evening meal too. The ironing wasn't every day and the milk and potatoes thing only took about a half-hour but the timing was so important. It could mess up an entire evening at home if the milk hadn't chilled enough or the potatoes weren't ready. Even though I had two older siblings these daily tasks fell to me because I had no other life. They had after-school jobs or school clubs and activities. I was constantly assured that when it had been their turn they had the same responsibilities I did. I don't think they realized I had noticed that my mom had been home until I became the primary dinner prep and ironing girl.

Prior to becoming the babysitter of my little brother I'd been free to ride my bike all over town, whenever I wanted. My favorite haunts included the playground, sandpits, and aunt's house. I loved the little brook that ran near the playground. It was ever so tiny, crowded with saplings, cool and shady, so welcome during the hot summer. I imagined waterfalls as I built up the stones to create the possibility of one but the flow was only enough to bubble and trip along the way, just going around and not over the tiny rock towers I'd make. At my aunt's house, I would play with the doorbell. It was such a wondrous thing to me! No one I knew at the time had one and hers was in the door, not on the side. It probably annoyed the heck out of her but she played along every time. She and I would pretend I was some old woman coming to visit for tea and I loved her for it. Then there was a very old lady that lived one street over. She lived alone and I loved to visit her. I don't remember how it started. Maybe it happened the time I fell and cut open my left hand down to the bone. Somebody cleaned up that cut, bandaged me, and sent me home. It may have been her. She had a piano, a huge collection of shells from all over the world, and mounted butterflies. Her world traveler husband, long dead, had been the collector, and she never tired of showing me all of it. The piano was endlessly fascinating to me as well. I would play it for her. I didn't know a thing about playing but she seemed to like the rambling notes I'd go off with. She would tell me over and over that, I had 'piano fingers' and many times offered to give me the piano but my parents never allowed it.

I was a happy kid as I remember. My grandmother lived on the ground floor of the large thirteen-room house and our six-person family lived upstairs. My memory isn't the clearest of these early days but I do believe an uncle lived up with us too until he passed away. My older brother inherited the room the uncle had died in. I don't remember anything being made of that either at the time. The Uncle was a drunk and because of his drunkenness, he'd turned family love into shame and disdain. There had been times he had even stolen goods from the house to sell in town to buy liquor. He was my grandmother's youngest brother. I didn't see her angry very much except when it came to things he had done to support his habit.

I remember being very sad when he died. I can't tell you why but I had a great fondness for him that seems to have been erased by time. It is, perhaps the reason why I have little compassion for people similarly afflicted. I know it's not correct to feel this way. It's an addiction, a disease but it's a disease the whole family gets and needs to deal with. I never liked being around drunken people from a very young age. There were lots of home-based family, and neighborhood gatherings at my house growing up and my father would often have a 'few too many.' My mother would become quietly angry and my dad would glower, his eyes would become very dark and glassy. All of us kids would steer clear of him during those times.

He had fought in WWII. We all loved the stories of his time in the Air Force as a bombardier over Germany. I can't remember exactly what type of aircraft he flew in but it may have been a B-24 or B-17. Anyone I could ask is long gone now. After the war, he found himself stationed in Germany and then the Philippines afterward. Most of us kids were conceived during military leaves. My mom never liked military life and he told me she begged him to leave many times. She told me that after the war, she'd gone with him when he'd been stationed in Sioux City. I remember thinking that was so exotic. My mom was never very social and told me stories of not liking base life because it involved having so much to do with the other wives of the enlisted men. The more I learned about military life as I grew up the more I understood my mother's feelings on the issue. For my dad, the decision to leave the service was a heavy burden on him. It seems to me that when I started asking questions about this he had been about six years from retirement and she wanted him out. By this time, he had what seemed to be a semi-cushy position in a nearby recruitment office, a 9-5 existence, with weekends off, rank, and a respectable uniform. I don't know what was the thing that pushed the button, maybe it was a looming transfer or the Viet Nam conflict but my mom somehow got him to retire. He spoke many times over the years of how badly that move affected him financially.

Other than that, my parents seemed to be a unit, totally in love and on the same page. I felt I was part of a perfect family. When we were all really little I remember games of 'make-believe' that the three of us would create. I recall my older sister would map out the storyline and we would assume the roles her story would suggest, adding and subtracting scenes along the way. There were common themes of the Old Queen, cowboys, and Indians, tales of Robin Hood, Zoro, Roy Rodgers, and Gene Autry being the inspiration for our backyard revels. It helped that there were an old barn and ice house on the property for us to stage our antics. We would rummage through the old clothes and bedlinens for costumes and such. It was a wonderful time. 

Once our little brother entered the family things started to change. I rarely interacted with my older siblings because by this time our age difference meant they were beginning to have lives outside our home. I didn't have that. Too young to drive or hold a job my life was just school and home. They had jobs, school clubs, and activities that I didn't. By then my babysitter life was kicking in and that divide got deeper.  I was just the bratty little sister typecast as getting into my sister's stuff and making trouble. Hailey Mills made movies about the character I was playing in my own family. I fell for thinking I was playing that role well. My sister now had the money to buy things that I envied, perfumes, hats, shoes, cosmetics, Seventeen Magazine too! It was a world I was aching to jump into. She wanted to be there alone.

School was probably my worst experience growing up. I never went to kindergarten, it was too expensive.  There was also the matter of my September birthday causing problems as to when I could start. I think I had only turned six a few days before the first day. During the summer prior to that, I had to take an entrance exam for the Catholic School in the neighborhood. I can't tell you if my siblings had to take the same exam I just know that I had to and I failed. I failed the exam because I didn't know how to read or write. No one had taught me. I don't know how my brother and sister got in but I think they had the benefit of kindergarten. I know I had seen a photo of my brother's kindergarten class back then, maybe not my sister. All I could remember was the stigma of having flunked the entrance exam to first grade. It was the school I was expected to attend. It was the school my father had attended, my sister and brother. Mom had gone to a different Catholic all-girls school in the city. Two of my aunts worked at the rectory that was attached to the school and church. I was the new shame of the family, replacing my drunken uncle. Somewhere in all the uproar, I was labeled stupid and it stuck. 

To make matters worse my older brother, by four years, had to leave the Catholic school to walk me to the public school across town. Someone had to do it. He wasn't happy about leaving all his friends but he was dutiful. His ten-year-old self was held in high esteem for giving up the superior Catholic school education to enter the public school system because his sister wasn't bright enough to get into the Catholic school. I remember feeling bad about 'ruining his life'. I also remember walking home alone in the afternoons here and there. I learned to appreciate many of the beautiful trees on those walks. Once in a while, one of my uncles would be driving by and give me a ride home. He had the most beautiful car and his wife was such a gracious person. The story was that this uncle had risked social shame to marry her as she was a divorce`. He could have easily played god or Lincoln in a movie or a play and was a man of very few words but his actions and obvious, quiet devotion to his wife spoke volumes. The last of my Grandmother's brothers was a police officer in town. He was blessed with a quick wit and ready smile and probably thought to be the most handsome of the three. While the youngest of them took things from the house to sell in town to support his habit, this brother felt that our house and everything in it was really his to rummage through even though it was his sister's house. We would often find him going through the barn or asking to go through things stored away. These buildings had housed the brother's ice business. I can see where his feelings of ownership came from but it truly vexed my mother.

It was decided that I could take the test again but I would have to wait until after third grade. During these first few years, the school raised its' tuition significantly enough to be cause for concern and added the necessity of uniforms. Both of these factors complicated my entry into the Catholic school system. My little brother was coming up as well. I didn't want him to suffer the same fate as I did I taught him every afternoon to read and write, playing school. We did also have that connection of my aunts working in the rectory giving our family an 'in' that few other families possessed.  Somewhere in those first few years, deals were made, and allowances appeared, passing the test, I began the fourth grade in Catholic school. I think my brother remained in public school. My sister had graduated from this same Catholic school and had been such a fantastic student many of her old teachers remarked about her or asked after her. My sister flourished with positive attention. The more her teachers liked her, the better she did in class. Since Catholic High School was much more expensive than Catholic Grade school all of us went on to public high school.

With my older sister graduated, it was left to me and my little brother to wade through the whole Catholic school experience compounded by my being a left-handed girl. The nuns seemed to come after me as I wasn't just a student of the school our house stood next to the convent with our back yard next to the schoolyard. My day would often begin with being asked to stand while Sister Bertram would rail me for having my bangs too long, allowing my cats to play in the nun's laundry basket, or my sister playing her rock 'n' roll music too loud. I was daily tasked with getting my hair cut, keeping my cats away from the laundry yard at the convent, and getting my sister to turn down her record player. Throughout the day my knuckles would often feel the burn from the wooden pointer because I was left-handed. Again, I'd be addressed, standing in front of the class, to have my parents work with me to become right-handed, calling me out as writing with the hand of the devil. I was instructed to eat, write, do everything possible with my right hand so that I could be 'corrected' for proper education. I don't remember any other classmate treated in this manner though they may have been. I found myself missing public school where my handedness didn't matter, no one cared if my hair was too long, and I wasn't constantly measured against my sister's school performance.

I wouldn't say I was a bad student but I know I struggled in school. I would always start with the best intentions but fall hopelessly behind somewhere and spend the rest of the term catching up as best I could. I remember very well that moment where I would feel it all slipping away, knowing that catching up would be very hard if not impossible. I don't remember ever getting a failing grade but I do remember "D's", mostly "C's", though here and there I'd get a "B" and even an occasional "A".

At home the "D's" were unacceptable. If I'd gotten an "F" I might as well commit suicide, but "C's" weren't celebrated either; "B's" were okay. My major problem was that I was a procrastinator and would put things off as long as possible, sometimes even forget altogether, and then at the last minute rally to produce something truly mediocre.

As students, our teachers expected us to spend much of our time at the town library, reading and researching in the reference room. I would rather be riding my bicycle or, more often, stuck being a babysitter, and just didn't make schoolwork a priority. I have a clear memory of one Christmas break where the vacation assignment had been to write a book report from one of the books we'd received as a Christmas gift. Storybooks weren't a normal gift or even part of the household. We had history books, picture books, and art books in the house, even little Golden books but nothing I could have used. I was probably supposed to ask for these books for Christmas presents but didn't. Halfway through the vacation week I went to my parents and tearfully spoke about my predicament. My father came home from work that night with two storybooks I could use. I have them to this day.

I have a couple of birthday cards from my dad. One is from my first year's birthday. It came from Germany. The other came to me eighteen or twenty years later, my father's unmistakable beautiful handwriting carefully spelling out the wish that maybe this would be 'my year'. I can't tell you if it was or wasn't. I've had many turbulent years and after receiving that card from dad the most turbulent ones were still to come.

I'm a Wednesday's child. If you know the rhyme then you know, Wednesday's child is full of woe. I've been retired now for a few years. My days of make-believe, pirate ships, and cowboy dreams have long since melted into the childhoods of my own children. My lovingly flawed parents have departed this corporal plane as have my brothers. As we grew and went out into the world. We grew more apart than together. There were many disagreements and the idea of the family was alive in theory only. 

My older brother's death was the last one we suffered, leaving just my sister and me. She had the unlucky task of taking care of his estate. Those two were especially close, neither had ever married. I know it was hard for her. He left his 401K to her but through some technicality, the life insurance policy was to be equally divided between his heirs and those were just us two. My sister expressed extreme ire at not being able to direct these funds as she desired. She would proclaim having total transparency in her dealings but I was just grateful for the life insurance policy. It allowed me to restructure my life after a very necessary divorce from an emotionally abusive man. I learned for the first time at my brother's funeral that my sister felt the wrong sibling had died. My mind tried to tell me she didn't mean it or that I'd heard wrong. She was stressed out at his funeral. After all, they were as close as a long-married couple might have been. But it happened again during the settling of the estate I questioned some of her numbers and uncorked a beast, the like of which I'd rarely seen. In fact, she was worse than my husband had ever been and she again proclaimed in that letter, that the wrong sibling died. I saw that she was very scared and alone, losing her long-time best friend, she would call me every night to just make sure there was still another family member. It became a burden I accepted, thinking of the monster I'd seen in the letter. She needed to be assured she wasn't alone. So I kept it up for some time and eased it off to once or twice a week after a while.

I believe she felt guilty and when our extended family wanted to call for a trip to Ireland she jumped out to the internet and bought first-class tickets for both of us to Dublin. This was something I could never repay nor afford. The trip was planned, none the less and it was nearly as contentious as I'd felt it would be but in the end sisters we remained. I felt I'd stood my ground there in Dublin and even more so in Belfast. She has never really seen me as an adult and certainly not an intelligent one. She always felt she was so superior to me in every way. I didn't fall for her performances while we were there and didn't treat her as the prima donna she believes herself to be. There was no anger in me, just logic presented in a 'matter-of-fact' way. As a result of that, I'm so much better than I have ever been, though the scars still exist and old triggers remain.

We recently had an event where again, things became contentious. It doesn't matter what happened. The outcome didn't match the event and again that venomous beast emerged in print, once again giving life that proclamation that the wrong sibling died. Well, I can't bring my brothers back but I can exit her life. I do believe I have heard her wishing me dead for the last time. She may yet live for a long time. I've no desire to know anymore. I will, at this point, proclaim myself to be the lone survivor.