Wednesday, August 27, 2008

My screwed up Trashy family

My parents never married and my dad really wasn't around that much. I usually saw him at Christmas and my birthday. He was one of those that tried to buy my love by spending a lot of money on me as a child. I was fine with this, but never had a "real" relationship with him. He is not interested in spending all that money on me anymore- fine I don't care. He's seen rowan a handful of times and Eli once. I personally don't care if they ever see him, but I won't keep him from seeing them, I'm just not going out of my way for him to see the boys. So to sum it all up we are not close and never will be.

This past winter my dad called me, one of the few timew I can ever remember him calling me. He chats for a few minutes about my pregnancy and my gestational diabetes (my mom talks to him occasionally), then just casually mentions that he just found out I have a half-brother! WHAT! He was on his way to missouri to meet him, he's coming up here in a few weeks and would I like to meet him? Two seconds ago his guy doesn't exist to me and now I can meet him in 2 weeks! Yeah that's a little much for me. I actually had a lot of questions, but since we are not close I really didn't want to ask. Of course he never called me when the brother came for a visit, not that I would have gone anyway, but still.

Well my mom is a lot braver than me, and she calls him up to find out about this kid. Apparently when I was a few years old he lived in Chicago with a women we'll call her "K". They broke up, she moved away, and got married. Twenty-some years later this guy ("J") finds my dad and blah, blah, blah..or something. My dad tells my mom he "kind of always suspected" he had a kid with her. WHAT- who "suspects" they have a child for 20years but doesn't do anything about it?! When we see him at Christmas he talks about how close he is getting to J and that J might move up here, apparently he has a child that lives in the area (a 4 year old).

So months pass, I have a baby and a life so I have pretty much forgotten about the half-brother. Yesterday I went with my mom to Decatur, she was closing on her house over there, so I took the boys to see my grandma( my dad's mom). Now my dad happens to live with my grandma, but I try to only visit her during the day when he's at work- yeah I'm a bitch! When we get to the house Rowan is eating culver's ice cream, so we sit in the car so he can finish. My grandma lives in a split-level house and she doesn't get around to well, so we go around to the back door(which is upstairs) cause she can unlock the door. My mom gets out to smoke her nasty cigs and yells up to the window that we are here and will be in in a minute.

Then the front door opens, I'm thinking great my dad is here. It was some women I figure she is there cleaning. My first thought was actually that she may be someone from the type of houses I use to work at(I now realize that would insult THEM, so I'll just say she was Mega Trashy looking)! My mom is by the door and asks her who she is, I can't really hear them, but hear my grandma say " remember B(my dad)'s friend K". Mom says no, and we give each other wierd looks wondering what's going on. K goes down stairs and we go up. Mom asks about her, grandma acts like we should know her. I don't have a clue. My mom then says- something about her being the boy's mom. Then I start to put it all together- remember I had forgotten that he even existed!

Apparently K- who lives in another state- was in Chicago for something and called my dad to come pick her up and take her back home or something. She starts talking to me about J and if I want to meet him... Of course she sits down rightnexttome, as I am just starting to nurse Eli and is kind of staring too much.

My mom asks her if J is moving up here, cause my dad said he might. She says, very casually, "No, B(my dad) and I will probably move to Missouri or Chicago." We both kid of just wonder if we heard her right. She leaves, but I thought she was just down stairs so didn't mention her to my grandma. The second we get in the car to leave we both start talking about it. So we are guessing that her and my dad are together and are moving somewhere. They don't talk (and she hides a child from him) for 20 years and now they are "together"? It is all so very confusing. My grandma acted like it was completely normal that she was there, and couldn't believe my mom didn't remember her. How very very strange!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is so weird!!!! your dad actually getting a girlfriend...esp w/ that woman now that is strange. so did mom like meet this woman or somethin is that why grandma asked her if she remembered her?

Quigs78 said...

Holy cow! That's like a Lifetime movie!

My sister and I found out a few years ago that we have 3-4 half siblings (we're still not sure of the number) in Vietnam and CA. Don't you think it's weird that you could be walking down the street next to someone who could be your brother and not even know it? (I had no desire to meet mine, either.)

It's so bizarre. Good luck figuring out that family tree! :)

~rachel~ said...

Wow 3-4 that's a lot!! Yes it's quite strange, and I'm pretty sure we grew up pretty close to each other, so we totally could have done that.

SunnyD said...

I'm thinking that's material for a damn good country song.

Sigh. High maintenance family drama is always so frustrating.

Anonymous said...

what a story, Rachel! Very strange indeed.
P.S. Loved the pics of the boys. Miss them a lot.

Amy said...

Yeah, my dad wasn't around much when I was little either and tried to make up for it with gifts too. It did make our relationship strange for a while, I can't even imagine throwing a half-sibling into the mix. Hope it all works out in the best way possible =)