As a young girl I tried desperately to bond with my sisters, but much like mother, they weren’t very interested. My eldest sister was busy competing with mother, not able to see that she was much like her. My other sister made me feel invisible, that is, until she or her children needed something. As much as I believe their trauma impacted their response to every situation, as a younger sister, they provided no visual path for a way out.
I watched my eldest sister manipulate her husband in letting another man live with them, Mike. She said it was a great opportunity for them to give back to the community. The man arrived to California from Alabama (I believe) to play football for city college. He couldn’t read or write and needed a resident sponsor to assist. Well, my sister assisted way more than she should have. While her husband was working, and sometimes while he was at home, she and Mike were having sex. So much, she became pregnant. How did we know the baby wasn’t her husband’s? Her husband couldn't have children. Of course, that didn’t keep her from trying to convince him that a miracle had taken place. Wildly, the only magic in it all was when they finally divorced, the court ordered her husband to pay child support for eighteen years for a child that wasn’t his.
My other sister, to me, was more complex. Her trauma response to men was more like, I’m going to get you before you get me. The only issue was, she had no boundaries; and in some situations, she just didn’t know how to say, no. She eventually married the man she abandoned her son for. They would later have two children. Somehow, her married “pastor” father-in-law snaked his way into the equation, and they began having an affair. While married, she and her husband’s father would have two children. Her children and her husband were all brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts.
I was a stranger to my sisters' behavior, and they themselves would later become strangers to me.
S
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