It's been how many days? Since the world spun upside down and locked in position. That's hard to know. In order to say that you have to say how many times it has happened lately. Nevertheless, this is a big one. This time.

I remember my familial home. There used to be a tree. And I think maybe it's not even there anymore. But in my mind I see it so clearly. It's a giant old black walnut tree. It grew tall and straight up to the sky with branches leaning to one side or the other and on one branch that pointed in the direction of the street was fastened a rope. At the end of the rope was a swing. I don't remember ever sitting on that swing, but it seems I must have played there. Probably it is the phenomenon of having something and taking it for granted. You don't play with it, you possess it and that's why you don't really use it.

Around the base of the tree were planted Lily of the Valley. I remember their green leaves growing up from the soil in pairs and the little white blossoms. It all grew inside a ring of bricks. The perfume. That was my sister's favorite smell. "Muget des Bois". It was a perfume you could buy at the local department stores in the town. Wolf and Desauer was the main department store, that is, until LS Ayres moved into the new mall north of the town. Town centers were starting to die out in the late sixties and early seventies. These mega centers were taking over everywhere.

Two of these came to our farming community. What the northern one was called, I can't remember. There was one also to the south called "Southgate". Not far from there was also a strip mall. Strip malls had always been commonplace. And the southern strip mall I remember as being quite large also. But Southgate outstripped the strip mall also. They were huge and modern and new. And they were designed to take over the imagination of every young person. There we went to spend days just going through stores. It was inside, air conditioned with everything one needed to spend a day. We all know the malls now. Back then, it was a new concept. I never bought anything in those stores, hardly ever. I remember two trips there which stand out. But it's not that interesting now.

The thing is, my sister, the one who loved the Muget des Bois scent, she lives there, not far from that mall. And this is odd, I suppose. Well, not that she lives there, but that I should even know where she lives. We never speak. That is not meant in the normal way. People say that of their relatives often. We don't talk. Well, in this case, literally we have never had a conversation. Never. Not one time in my life. Not when I was growing up, except that, I do remember that she is the one who explained the birds and the bees. I said "yuck", if I remember correctly. And there was another time I woke up and she was choking me out. I was seven and I think I had gotten into her makeup and put on some green eye shadow. That is the extent of our conversations that I can remember, until last week.

Up until last week, I had never had a conversation with my sister who is nearest me in age. I was sitting in my car and I felt such an agony of spirit. I didn't know what to do, whom to call. There was such isolation. What the citizens of our great land and those of other countries have experienced recently in these last two years, that has been my life. The isolation, I mean. No one speaks to anyone else. That's how it is. Now, I am the type of person, I always liked to talk. When I was growing up, I mentioned it already, I wanted to entertain my siblings with a little story and was always told to can it. That training had its affect on me, I guess.

There was a feeling that I wanted to talk to my mother. But she is gone now ten years. The next best thing would be a sister. And as luck would have it, "luck", the oldest of us had fallen and broken her upper thigh bone. So, whenever someone dies or some un-lucky thing happens, there is someone who reaches out and normally it is No.1. But this time it was No.1 who was the subject of the missives. So, No.7 reached out to me, No. 8. On FB. That was ten days back, and I kept her warm that time for about 20 minutes or as long as it seemed to be comfortable and she was happy to accommodate. Asking questions, how many cats do you have? (She loves cats.) And then just playing around and making jokes. So, there was a prececent for me to get back to her and I had warned her at some point that I would call on the phone. All this time I am not really conscious of the fact that I have never, ever spoken to this person before. This person who as my next sister in line and with whom I shared a common bedroom, and whom I should somehow know better. But in my family it was like that. We lived in the same house and we didn't know each other. Not at all.

And I used to tell people about this. "My family is weird." I didn't know what to make of it and it was just somehow natural for me. My family is odd. I would tell people about it. Like, I have never held a conversation with my father. Never. Not once. No. Literally never. I told people, (I am like the wolf-child). I grew up like an animal. They gave clothing and food. But they didn't waste words. No. Nothing doing. Words were apparently a very expensive commodity. Except for blaming and making someone miserable. There was enough of that to go around. Other than that, well, there was nothing. It sounds like I am complaining. But I am not really a complainer type. Yeah, I learned this negative stuff. I learned to think negative. I learned to struggle and I learned that nothing made sense. That much.

So, this night, I had driven to the valley from the mountains. I was "off the hill" as we say. And I was sitting in a parking lot in my car tucked in somewhere with the sun shades in the front, where no one could see. I was struggling. I was trying to figure it out. Again, nothing makes any sense. What the heck? And a feeling overcame me, I have to talk to Mother. But what to do? It took a good bit of doing to screw up my courage and dial the number. I was hoping the husband wouldn't answer the phone. He didn't. There was a female voice on the other end. I didn't recognize it, but the sardonic comment that I had the wrong number betrayed the fact that I had gotten through. It was her, No. 7. I said "No, this is No. 8". She said, "Oh, I didn't recognize your voice." Well, how could she? We had seen each other last time at 1983 Golden Wedding anniversary of our parents. And no, we had not had a conversation at that juncture either. In fact, any of us only ever spoke to our mother, and very rarely there would be a kind of liaison between perhaps 2 or 3 of the siblings, which would last a few years and then dissolve over some misunderstanding or other.

This time we talked, just shooting the bull. It went on for some time. I just milked it. I kept milking it. I kept going and going and letting her talk and she got all her stuff out and then we got to talking about the real stuff. I mean, I finally just said, I'm done. I can't go on. I'm stuck. Then she let it slip. Actually it was Joe. In the background I hear him talking, "Tell her about the time..." and she did.

Yeah, before that she was talking about "my mother... (pause) our mother" and she said, "She was a bully." A few days prior in a chat I had taken exception to this statement, saying, "well, you go and have nine kids and let's see how you do," but today, somehow, I don't know how, but I knew better. I just let her talk. I don't know what was bothering her. Still I don't know, because No.7 was part of the first family, the youngest. And I was the oldest of the 2nd family. What did I know? And I was about to get my first lesson about the dynamics of large families, and it was a doozy.

Now, thinking about it, I don't want to really talk about it. Sis and I haven't spoken in over 50 years. We haven't ever spoken technically. You can't say we have ever had a conversation in our entire lives. But the thing that came next you could never have guessed.

"Our Daddy" is not my father. He was not my dad. I'm sitting here, I just applied for and got a pension. And my whole life was a struggle. It never made any sense. I would look at it from this side, from the other side. I would turn it over and over. It never added up. Suddenly, everything added up. It was all clear. And now I am wondering, did they all know? Did they all always know and not a one of them tell me? And it almost seems that they did, to judge from their behavior. They all knew and they were silent.

It's strange, we used to go to the supermarket and I saw the tabloids on the racks in front of the cash register. There were the gossip rags and then there were the really raunchy ones. And now, come to find out, our family life was like something out of one of those really bad ones. I remember reading when I was a little girl about a father who gets his own daughter pregnant. And just in the few minutes while I am standing at the cash register waiting for my mother to pay for the groceries. And I put it right back. Even that young it was clear to me that this was not a good "diet" for a young mind. But our life was apparently like that, and I had no idea.

And much more ironic is how I hung on to my mom; how my whole life I was trying to please her and she was just trying to be rid of me. Most of the time, she was like, you know, trying to extricate herself from spending time with me. I remember so many things, so many, that had never made sense and finally I got it.

It was SO odd. I was beautiful. I got good grades in school. I was a good kid, didn't cause too much trouble, probably didn't cause ANY trouble by comparison. I did mostly what I was told. But there was something there that just stood in the way. I could never figure it out; why doesn't my mom like me? What is it? And I even detected jealousy, and when I was 17 she was SO anxious to have me move out. It was such a puzzle for me. Why did she not like me? Why did I love her so much?

So this is the "True Confessions" part of the story that I never dreamed would have to be told. My Lord, I never thought that the reality of my life was akin to a tabloid article. But it was. Every day since I have found this out, now a little over a week ago, I wake up and think of this situation and ask myself, is this real? Did this really happen? Maybe I am just imagining it? But then I am reminded that it just makes too much sense, since suddenly I have figured out why we were so "low class"; why everything was the way it was. I had always felt a kind of nobility about my parents. I had always felt that they were really "good" people. They went to church. My father was always a deacon in the church. They were respected in our community. But then the pattern didn't match. The pattern of our life was in stark contrast. They acted a certain way, but now, obviously, the facts betray what was really happening.

Yes, you would think, if a person has a child who is intelligent and has potential that the parent(s) would be happy, proud. More than this, you would think that they would care enough to make little corrections now and again, offering advice as to how to climb up higher along the way. In my case, I didn't even really think about this. It was just "that's the way they are." That was the only story I could tell myself. "My family is weird." That was all there was. No other explanation was possible.

What I mean here is that when I say they never talked to me, I really mean NEVER.  I remember having had only ONE conversation with my "father" in my entire life. I grew up in his house. I saw him every day. The same goes for my mother more or less. The only reason there were more conversations with my mother was the fact that I worked at it. I really tried with her. But it was like pulling teeth.

It seems really like too much here. I could write a whole book about my childhood at this point. Really, since I found this out, I went out and just sat by the beach in my car for about a week. I just sat there, kind of numb in a way. And if I ever thought about my family, it would be little memories floating up to the surface that all just confirmed to me that this is a fact of life, and that they probably, very probably, ALL my siblings and perhaps other relatives, knew about it; and not one said a word to me.

Dear Reader, at this point the story is becoming a bit trying for me. And I suspect if I am having trouble writing it, you might be also having trouble reading it. So, I feel like we really need some levity here, some comic relief. But since the notes section isn’t big enough, I’m going to put it at the beginning of the next chapter.