Family Affair

Where we had been, I don't remember, but my mom, my brothers and I returned home very late one night. I was about 8 years old. Climbing sleepily up the dark enclosed stairway to the second floor of our house, I undressed on my way. I stepped into the dimly lit hallway and pulled open the dresser drawer where my favorite nightgown was always kept. It wasn't there. Rifling through all of my drawers, I still couldn't find it. Mom came upstairs and told me to wear something else. She helped me slide my legs into a pair of my brother's Spiderman pajamas, then slipped one of his pajama shirts over my head. After tucking me and my brother in, she gave us both a goodnight kiss. I plopped my thumb in my mouth and was asleep before her creaking footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs.

The next morning, sounds from downstairs woke me and my brother. Yep, there were definitely kids down there. Excited and expecting to find our Aunt Chris and our six cousins had come to visit, we jumped from our beds and raced downstairs.

My brother reached the bottom of the stairs first and wriggled the door handle back and forth a few times until finally swinging it open. Jumping off the last step onto the dining room floor, Floyd and I stopped short when we realized that the voices we had heard belonged to strangers. A woman with pitch black thick curly hair sat at the table next to my dad. Seated around the table were three kids. Everyone had turned their eyes toward us and were staring. I shyly stepped behind my brother and quietly stared back. There was a little girl about 4 years old with blond pigtails and a round face, a little boy no more than 6 with eyes magnified by the thick glasses perched on his nose, and a girl with long dark hair who looked like she was our age. And she was wearing...my nightgown!

That was our introduction to our new family. My father had moved his current girlfriend, Helen, and her three kids (Jackie, Bobby, and Tina) into our home sometime before we had arrived home. Of course, we weren't told that Helen was my father's girlfriend (I would figure that out on my own soon enough). We were just told that Helen and her kids needed a place to stay because her husband had kicked them out. For several years, we lived as sisters and brothers. I loathed Helen. I had to hand it to her, though. She was as mean to me and my brothers as she was to her own kids, showing no favoritism.

I don't recall any good times, but I do remember loving Jackie, Bobby, and Tina like they were truly my siblings. Then, one morning we woke up and they were gone just as they had appeared. We weren't given any explanation except that they had gone back home. I cried for days.

The entire situation was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.