Up until then, family had taken on a completely different definition for me. It was nothing like I’d seen on tv, or what I’d heard others speak about. For me, having a mother who prostituted, aunts and uncles who did drugs, sisters who leveraged and manipulated sex, being raped by strangers, my uncle, and molested by my eldest brother, family was brutally harmful. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yes, the most difficult secret to tell was what my eldest brother had done to me. He was my brother, who had endured his own trauma, but did that mean I had to keep his secret?
Living with the man in college was difficult, but I didn’t tell many people. I was just emancipated and I didn’t want people to know, that shortly after I moved in with him I found out he was flat broke. See, his brother co-signed for the apartment he was living in and he couldn’t risk eviction. My income from Veteran’s Affairs and Social Security would assure his brother that he wouldn’t default. I was able to manage the bills for a while until I could no longer work my part-time job at Wendy’s, because I needed to study. It wasn’t long before the power was shut off. There were many nights, because it was so hot in the apartment, we put the top mattress on the balcony to sleep.
I went from cooking healthy meals to scraping change for Taco Bell because all of my money went to rent. Things got a little better after my friend Terry moved in with us, but that was short lived. So, when he announced that he received a scholarship to Montana State University and we would be able to live in family housing on campus for a fraction of the cost, it just seemed right.
Sixteen, leaving California on a greyhound bus to Montana, and not one family member cared. In fact, one of my aunts took me to the bus station.
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