The quick version : A friend introduced me to a man . We were just friends , then became more . We lived together , were supposed to marry and built two homes together . He was brilliant , funny and everything that comes with the dark side of brilliant . I 'm tenacious and wouldn 't give up , but after nearly eight years together finally chose survival . Back in the late 80 's , a virus attacked me and there was no cure for my immune system . I was weak and could only adapt . I was new to the area and isolated , so a friend introduced me to a man who was funny , smart and accomplished . He picked me up for lunch the day after we had some witty banter on the phone . He was a terrible driver gunning then pulling back off the gas . He whistled , I guessed out of nervousness . I was not from the area so he gave me a tour of downtown , driving the wrong way on one - way streets . I sat across from him at lunch and I knew I would not have a relationship with him . He said it had been a long time since he broke up with his ex . It was safe because he wasn 't looking for anything but friendship . So he 'd drop by either before or just after his therapy sessions . That was kind of sweet . I served him countless cups of herbal tea , which I 'm pretty sure he hated . He had also just joined AA . That to me was in his favor because he was trying to get life right . We were pals . He said he joined AA because of me . Okay he was working it . When I got sick I could no longer tolerate wine so I didn 't drink . This was convenient . He was a talented writer and admired the play I had just finished . Someone 's admiration is damned attractive . One night he took me to dinner and when the restaurant didn 't have any herbal tea ( they never did ) he opened his jacket and took out several tea selections for me . That was one of those little moments . I agreed to go away for a weekend so we weren 't going to be just pals any more . I still had never seen his house . So other weekends were spent at an expensive hotel . Finally he explained that he had been through a long depression after his breakup and the house was a disaster . It really was . When he got that cleaned up we spent time there . That breakup was fresher than he had told me when we met . He was older and I thought striking , but was never athletic . Because my illness cut out skiing and tennis for me , we went to movies , concerts and galleries . It wasn 't long before we were spending most of our time together . But I believe that if I hadn 't been sick , we 'd never have even had that first lunch . Suddenly he 'd disappear and then return . He called it his push pull . When you spend a lot of time with someone you get used to them so the disappearance was unpleasant . This happened a few times . By then I was getting to know some of his many children and his friends . I heard some stories about his past behaviors , but always with a touch of how special he was : and occasionally a bit about his scary mother . A lapsed Catholic , he went away on retreat . When he returned he announced to all of us that he was going to leave the area and become a monk or something like that . Okay , we all adjusted . Wished him well . But he didn 't go . This may sound lighthearted on my part because I cared deeply about him by then . I just had nothing to say in the matter . He was pondering deep things ? Once he picked me up and we went to a nearby park . It was a hot day so he took off his shirt , and tucked it into a back pocket . He left me on a bench and began walking on the grass as if he was mowing a lawn . He meticulously walked a line , then returned next to that line , again and again and again . I assumed he was working his way up to tell me something . But he just walked back and forth . What 's coming back as I write this is the constant state of uncertainty with him . When my first play was in rehearsal he disappeared again . It was upsetting but I resolved that it was the end . He reappeared and gave me a big surprise birthday party on opening night . He gave me my favorite flowers and a trip to Maine after the close of the play . Only he was repeating a trip , stop for stop , he had taken with his ex - girlfriend . There were long periods when he didn 't speak . Once when he threw the map at me , I got out of the car to walk back to Pennsylvania if necessary . When we returned he disappeared , re - appeared . I can 't count how many times he said good - bye and then would do anything to have me back in his life . Okay , eight . He was impressed with a friend of mine who was both a chaplain and a therapist and decided to see her for therapy . This was not my idea . He had admitted by then that he 'd been to many therapists but he just performed for them . As soon as they were on to him , he 'd disappear . It meant ethically that she and I couldn 't communicate during that time which was at least six months . Maybe more . Since it looked as though he wasn 't going to run away to become a monk , he and I began looking at condos . Because that 's what you do when a man is completely undependable . He didn 't want to keep his house . He had expected to live there with his ex girlfriend . ( I was 44 and he was 55 . Girlfriend sounds so silly . ) Since I was writing on my own , I had no particular schedule and more and more time went to him , less to my writing . We looked at a new condo with a beautiful view . We attended his friend 's annual New Years Eve party at a restaurant . People came from all over the east for that party , in part to see him . He wasn 't drinking then and was silent that night . He just played with the candle in front of him . I looked around and most of the other men who had been trying to get his attention started playing with the candles too . I got to know more and more of his large family . I 'd had so little family of my own it was warm at times to be on the outskirts of his . They were all smart and funny and there were so very many of them . A friend still shared her house with me , but I spent more time with him . When it was time for him to move into the condo , I did a practice run and typed the directions for delivery people . One day at a store , he started to tell them how to get there . I did the unthinkable . I interrupted him . He didn 't speak to me for four days . But before his silence began , he told me that it was , " obvious that I had no breeding . " And there it was again , that ancient numbness , in the center of me : that childhood feel , not feeling . If there was anything to say , I couldn 't say it . I went for a drive to nowhere to get away from the meanness . He pushed me away . And he pulled me back about a week later . He had taken yet another sullen trip into his wilderness , or whatever he did during those departures . In spite of his behavior he had me convinced that he loved me . I believed that I loved him . Then he asked me to meet him at the condo to talk . At least it would be final . But instead , he asked me to be " betrothed . " Was he on one knee ? No he just slid lower on the couch . But I heard myself saying yes . It seemed I had passed some sort of test . Soon I was moving into the condo we had designed together . Of course the fact that he had appeared and disappeared many times would never happen again . But that 's about when he started drinking and I attended Alanon . Our Saturday night dates were Chapter Nine meetings . In recovery programs those are meetings for families . He took me to AA meetings with him , perhaps to prove he was trying ? He wasn 't seeing much of his family so I spent more time with them , as a substitute and for their company . He did a lot of freelance writing and had one big client . His background was publishing , politics , government and PR . He had accomplished a great deal . Considering the many phobias that kept surfacing I had respect for what he had overcome . We took another trip to Massachusetts and Maine . One day in Boston I waited in the car when he went to see a client . I looked up as he exited , literally clinging to the side of the building . His phobias for tall buildings and open spaces paralyzed him . I rushed to help him back to the car . I had always thought he was so affectionate taking my hand in public . But he needed my hand to get across any street . His ups and down were so frequent , that roller coaster doesn 't picture enough of a peak . One son described it as , " the walls would suddenly turn black . " I had a vision of myself on the deck of an old schooner , holding on for dear life to the mast in the middle of a perfect storm . Oddly in this vision I wore a 19th century dress . My writing was sporadic . But still I thought it must be so difficult to be him . Hell Elizabeth it wasn 't easy being me . The drinking escalated . I 'd be in bed at night listening to his slippers slap on the tile of the kitchen floor , the glass hit the counter , the refrigerator door opened , and then the closing of the door again , his slippers slapping on the tile back to the den . He spent nearly all night drinking in the den . Even though I knew I shouldn 't , I counted the drinks . His ex - wife and I became friends , if for no other reason than we were the only two people on earth who knew what it was like to live with him . She 's a kind woman and maybe it made her feel better to see that it could happen to someone else . And we planned family gatherings . Through her and the children I got some of the ancient history . He never helped any of his children with an education , but did with rehabs . They didn 't get proper dental care , but he 'd buy himself 60 shirts at a time . But this was old behavior . All the things a man says he loves about you , independence intelligence , even beauty and competence , were becoming impediments . He told me I was the most sentient person he 'd ever met . But he didn 't love that anymore . He was a foodie . I 'm not . I asked if he ever just ate franks and beans . We planned dinner parties together but I did all the chopping , shopping and cleaning . He 's a wonderful if not theatrical chef . One evening with friends at our table the conversation turned to Russia where I had traveled twice and about which I had written a screenplay . But he gave all the opinions . Not once did he refer to my experiences . That was the balance in our relationship . We usually dined out on Friday nights . One evening he spotted his best friend with a woman , not his wife . I was uncomfortable , but they wanted us to join them for coffee . From the minute we sat down , his friend , a highly respected and principled attorney , kept telling me how much he wanted to " fuck " me . Excuse the term but it 's what he kept saying . I was annoyed that the man I was with didn 't speak up . Then I thought of the woman , the mistress actually . Then there was the wife at home . Mostly I was really pissed at the guy for talking to me that way . I got a call and an apology the next day . But it was an accepted tone of the way things had been done for decades in a political town . The next summer he wanted to take a trip west . I suggested Seattle and my home Port Angeles . I spent much of each week with his family , yet he laughed out loud at the notion of seeing my home . Breathe that in . He wanted to go to the Southwest and I was to plan it . It was probably a concession about not going to Washington State . Within days of our departure I went out onto our balcony and locked myself out . Traffic below made it impossible to be heard . I was up too high to climb down into the parking garage . I could do nothing but wait in the sun . I heard the phone ringing inside again and again . At last he showed up and opened the door . I burst into tears from relief and went to hug him , but annoyed , he turned and left . We flew to Albuquerque and rented a car . I had nabbed the best room at the best hotel at the Grand Canyon . I didn 't appreciate the strength of his phobias . Our room had a house - sized porch on the canyon . He had to sit at the back clinging to the wall . We drove through Monument Valley . Brilliant . A man terrified of open spaces . There was more : Santa Fe and Taos : the open sky of New Mexico . For nearly three weeks he was in phobia hell and got altitude sickness . He was also on a spending spree in galleries . At home with little discussion I was in charge of making everything run . I also wrote checks for him to sign . I found a second hotel room on a bill for one of his business trips , and a restaurant bill that could feed 12 people . He said it was a mistake and he 'd deal with it . The drinking escalated , and then stopped . He decided that we needed a bigger space . There was no talk of marriage , and now it wasn 't something I was about to bring up . Life was too uncertain . I spent many nights getting in my car to get away from his drinking . He 'd stop again , then start . There was talk in the family of intervention . A few sons did go out to find him one time , and ended up visiting in a bar together . I nearly called the police to find him because I didn 't want him killing an innocent person . But I never did . He surprised me one Christmas with an electric piano . But couldn 't stand my playing it . The drinking started again . It stopped . When he was in the middle of a work project all life stopped for everyone , as if no one else in the world had ever had a deadline . We looked at larger condos , but we found a ranch house in a 60 's neighborhood . He bought it without negotiation , hired an architect to gut it and add on to it . I didn 't even know if he could afford it and was not consulted . A contractor was hired . When the contractor came to sign his deal suddenly the man I 'm not naming reduced the poor guy 's percentage . I wanted to evaporate . It was horrible . The contractor had no choice but to sign . He rightfully hated him for the entire project and substituted inferior materials . Six months of my life were spent picking everything there is to pick when you build a house . They say there 's something like 30 , 000 decisions . Every day I laid out samples of carpet , tile , paint . And the job was running more than a month late so the friend who had introduced us , loaned her unoccupied house . I went to the construction sight every day . And once a week I took lunch to everyone trying to keep peace . The man I 'm not naming would stop by , scream at the crew , especially if anyone dared smoke . One time he threw the construction phone pulling the cord out of the wall . Somehow though we created a beautiful home . It was envisioned in part as a gallery to hang paintings we had collected on trips . It was open and light and I 've never felt more at home in a house in my life . Except a little voice in my head kept saying , " I want to go home , I want to go home . " When we were staying at the friend 's house he barely spoke to me and we ended up in different bedrooms . He was panicking over the money he was spending so he spent more . And blamed me , or the architect , anyone . We bought a chair for me , he took it over . I bought a leather knapsack to carry my scripts . It became his . When I parked my car in the garage , he wanted that spot even though he always parked outside . One of his sons came over and hooked up his computer in his office showing him how to get on the Internet . He immediately found chat rooms where in front of us he pretended to be a 22 - year - old woman , attracting men . It was so explicit we left the room . We gave many dinner parties for his friends . Never mine . The house was perfection but his behavior was more erratic . And he was spending day and night online with men , women , anyone . I found a cruel scrawled note from him in my office to get out . I did . A friend found a house for me . I took only my clothes . So , on top of a cardboard box , I wrote a screenplay titled Chat about a man who destroys his marriage by online relationships . I should read that again . I didn 't know what I was going to do . Find work back in New York ? I kept writing because that 's who I am . I 'd hear from him from time to time . Neither of us was ready to let go . One night I ridiculously poked myself in the eye and it was bloody . I was having trouble seeing so whom did I call ? He came to take me to the emergency room where he developed urgent stomach cramps and they nearly admitted him . One evening I agreed to go get a bite to eat with him . Some of you might recognize that absurd hope that someone will itemize their bad behavior and say magical things . Nothing magical was said . He was sullen and drove me home in the rain . I couldn 't get out of the car fast enough . I opened the door and he put his foot on the gas so I fell on the blacktop scrapping my leg . He kept going . He talked to mutual friends about how much he missed me , how wonderful and how beautiful I was and how much he wanted me back . Naturally they thought he was wonderful , with limitations . To me he was rude and abusive . After about nine months he coaxed me back to the house we had built together . For a while he was attentive . I was enjoying the many gardens we had installed . When I 'd get angry with the man I 'm not naming , I pulled weeds . My gardens were weed free . He found yet another therapist . A man . I was gently invited in for a session . Yippee , progress . He 'll explain just what I 'm living with . Only it was an ambush . They were telling me how all of the drinking was my fault . There it was again . That numbness . I heard , but could not speak . Someone who had known my work in New York approached me about different jobs at her company . So I learned how to be a publisher . I put in long hours and often came home late to a man watching television in his bathrobe who wouldn 't even look up to acknowledge my presence . In fact the night after my first day on the job he made me a special dinner . But he left me there to eat it alone . By then he seemed to be actually meeting up with the people he met online . I was in a terrible place . I was just beginning to earn a good living again and he took the first check I was paid . He started smoking too ; the man who wouldn 't let contractors smoke during construction . He was smoking , drinking and I could see the phone light up at 2 , 3 , 4am . He was talking to women all over the country . I was in the guest room much of the time . One time I dialed one of the numbers he was calling , I think it was Las Vegas , and asked the woman who answered if she knew he wasn 't single . That 's as gutsy as it got for me . I was shutting down . I didn 't exist at home . I existed at the office and worked long hours . He had been fired from his only big client for losing his temper . So he was living in sweat pants or his bathrobe . One day I was in our neighborhood on business and stopped by the house . I usually pulled into the garage so when he 'd hear the garage door open he 'd turn up the TV or he 'd leave the room . I was just running in to get a bite so parked outside . When I came in he was literally running into the bedroom , in his robe . He had his decent times too . One Christmas , he must have given me 60 presents . It was overwhelming . To keep me around he 'd get nice just long enough to go back to the bad behavior . One night he was having dinner with a son . When I came home I was going through our bedroom to the dressing room . But the bed I had made that morning was a mess , and on my nightstand were used condoms and a blank envelope . I didn 't know what to do . I considered packing , but giving up my ground was unthinkable . I waited in the living room . When he came home I took him into the bedroom where he saw the evidence . He immediately picked it up and took it into the bathroom . It was a while before he came back and this is all he said . " That 's not mine . " We sat in the living room where without eye contact he told an interesting tale . He said he had a friend who was having an affair and he let them come to our house . I sarcastically asked why they couldn 't use the guest room . He stuck by his story and bought new sheets and a comforter . He was terrified that I would tell people what had happened . But that 's the kind of story that 's too humiliating to tell . He gave me a huge 50th birthday party also celebrating a promotion at work . Except it was my 51st birthday . He ignored the 50th . I decided to let him give the party and to see my friends . I came home one night after working late and he was incoherent , not from drinking but from a fever . I called his doctor because there were signs I knew to watch for from a botched surgery a decade earlier . I had to get him to the emergency room right away . A son showed up quickly . The emergency room doctor assured me that if had I come home just minutes later , he would not have lived . Since we were not married , I had no rights at the hospital : both good and bad by then . The hospital here kept him stable for about ten days , but I had to get him to Baltimore for serious surgery . I had many trips back and forth . I was bitter because I was ready to leave him . Now how could I leave a man with a tube and a bag in his side ? At last he was able to come home . For a guy with so many phobias he was very competent at dealing with these surgeries . And with a tube and a bag on his side , he was still chasing women . One day he asked me to come into the living room . He stood there nervously and said that he had instructed his lawyer to leave me the house in his will . I said , " You can change a will . " He stormed out of the room . I finally understood how careful he was a few years earlier when he asked me to be " betrothed . " I had thought it was sweet and old fashioned . Once in a while in our travels we looked at wedding bands . But look up the word " betrothed . " He was never going to marry . I had a closer relationship with my 17 - year - old Peugeot . But it wasn 't going to pass inspection either . I didn 't have the energy to store it so I could have it restored one day . I bought a solid safe new car and moved out . Safety mattered then more than anything . We were civilized enough that he helped me move a few things . But I took nothing but the piano , a chair , and my clothes . He didn 't believe I 'd stay away . It was stupid that I didn 't take more . I just wanted out . Years earlier I had organized a playwright group and we had committed new one act plays that summer for a festival . I owed my very first one act play in two weeks . I 'd come back to my new apartment after a long day , and at night wrote my first one act play on a rented desk . I wrote about the end of a relationship , backwards . The first scene is the day she leaves . The last scene is the lunch of their first date . All the signs were there at that lunch . The challenge of writing that play saved me in those first weeks . I was without skills navigating some political shenanigans at the company . And at just that moment I got the exciting invitation to my nephew 's wedding . But if I left my office for even one day the CFO messed with my division 's budget . Suddenly the man I 'm not naming pounced on this , wanting to take me to the wedding . He was pressuring me as if he were going to make everything up to me . His scheme finally was too much and tragically I did not go out for the wedding . It became clear to him , the man I 'm not naming , that I wasn 't going back . But I still had things in the attic at the house . He went from wanting to escort me to the wedding to refusing me my belongings . A detective helped me hire an official to oversee getting my few things . That 's about the time a friend who 's mighty experienced around the edges told me what I didn 't want to hear . He said , " It takes two to be in a crazy relationship . " I was furious at how right he was . There 's so much more I could write about those years : Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve for 40 . But in the end I was not their family . That was the deepest pain and loss . And then whatever do we do with Elizabeth ? Second , for day trips he showed me what a difference it makes to bring a change of shoes for the trip home . It 's instant energy . That was good advice . Nearly eight years and that was it . I hadn 't run into the man I 'm not naming for years . I drove way out of my way to different grocery stores . Then a few summers ago a friend was here visiting . We were shopping and there he was . It was the first sighting I 'd had in years . So I went up to him and gave him a little sort of a hug . Well , eight years . I introduced him to my friend . Afterwards she was shocked that I was nice . A year or so later , I was with another friend and ran into him . I was pleasant enough to him that she was shocked . Married and divorced three times , she said she 'd cross a street rather than be polite to any one of them . And she 's the kindest person I know . Back in 1971 when I first moved to New York I spent time with my brother and his wife who were stationed at Fort Dix , N . J . I was included in their wedding but she and I got closer in New York . My brother even occasionally verged on being almost , sort of brother - like back then . By that I mean that once after a few drinks in Greenwich Village , he referred to me as " sis " where no one knew him . In New York I got bitter reports from my bitter mother . When we talked , the only subject was about how difficult and ugly the divorce was . It was a small town and my sister - in - law 's father was the only judge to hear their case . At least that 's the way it was described to me . As always , I knew there was little point in reporting anything to her about me . The man in my life then , ( # 7 The Air Vent Conversation ) and I went out west to meet my nephew . He took hundreds of photos of the toddler while my mother was still bellowing of one and only one subject , the divorce and all it 's permutations and how miserably my brother was treated . My brother was silent . My mother 's husband was silent . My nephew was adorable , an especially young victim of divorce . My brother remarried . We all went to the same high school but I didn 't know her . He immediately adopted her two children , very close in age to my nephew . On another trip west , the new sister - in - law asked me the oddest question . She asked if I had lost a lot of weight . I didn 't know why she would ask that . Was she fascinated by weight ? But much later I realized ( because all my realizing comes later ) that my brother must have described me as fat , the only way he had been trained to think of me . On the 1985 reunion trip ( # 50 High School Reunion Stalker ) I stopped one evening to visit my ex - sister - in - law . I had not seen her since our days in New York . Because of " The " divorce , we hadn 't been in touch much , to put it mildly . She described some difficult years , but by that time she had a decent job and a nice little house . Over a bottle of wine at her kitchen table she filled me in . I write this as it was described to me . She wanted to stay in the east when my brother got out of the Army . She pleaded with him not to go back home . Somehow she knew . But my mother made him an offer . This was the first time I was learning about the deal , though had suspected it . If he agreed to go back home she would set him up in his practice . The pitch included that my father 's reputation would benefit him in his hometown . She offered anything he needed , and she kept her word . She had paid his way through school . Now she bought him into a partnership . She paid for his equipment . She helped them buy their first house and a lake house . We were probably well into that bottle of wine when my ex - sister - in - law described how after they returned home , Alice , my mother , regularly barged into their house to wake her in the mornings . She 'd pull her out of bed while lecturing her about my brother 's standing in the community and how she needed to be a better wife . Standing in the community ? He 's an optometrist , not a Supreme Court Judge . Changing the lock was no option if my mother essentially owned the house . Going back home to live turned out to be more of a nightmare for my sister - in - law than she could have imagined . The lighter nature my brother displayed in the east disappeared . After my nephew was born , while she was taking care of their baby , she pleaded with my brother for couples counseling . She said depression became her companion . My brother answered only to Alice . He had a lonely wife but pulled further and further away . She finally gave up and in tears , bundled up her child and went home to her parent 's house . On the first night she left , she was in her old bedroom sobbing on her bed . She believed the marriage with the love of her life was over . Someone pounded at the front door of the house . Had my brother come for her ? Her tall solid judge of a father opened the door . But it was short Alice who somehow got by him , and stormed into the bedroom to screech at her daughter - in - law . And I mean screech . My sister - in - law was a statuesque beauty who stood at least 7 or 8 " taller than my mother . But little Alice got her into a corner , a position I knew so well . While pleading to be left alone , Alice paid no attention to the sobbing woman or her pain . To my mother , that didn 't exist . She was there to get what she wanted . First , she demanded the diamond back , the one she gave my brother for the engagement ring . Yes , she demanded the diamond and practically tried to pull the ring from the sobbing woman 's hand . Then she demanded to know when they 'd pay her the money she 'd given them for the house . She blasted on and on about what a terrible wife and mother this young woman was . She listed more and more of what money she was owed . Thankfully the Judge somehow got my mother out . The story I was being told was hideously familiar . We were the only two who experienced what she was capable of . Although I 'm sure I did not , could not speak then of my own experiences . I listened . It wasn 't a time for me to speak , and I was yet incapable of digging down to retrieve my own stories . I took it in for I had only heard a very different version for nearly a decade . She told me much more about Alice harassing her and interfering with their marriage . On that trip I spent time with my nephew . He was old enough that we could get acquainted . But both my mother and his stepmother did all they could to discourage that . One night I was invited to my brother 's lake house . I drove . My brother 's two adopted children went . My new sister - in - law went . My nephew was not included . My brother 's son was never included the entire time I was there . I had to seek him out . The following summer my nephew came to visit me in Pennsylvania for a grand tour . This was not easy to arrange considering what was going on out west . I knew I needed to give him time to feel comfortable with me . I was on what could have been considered the enemy 's side . He was brave to travel all alone to the other side of the country . When I picked him up at the airport in Baltimore , I asked about his father . He said , " I haven 't seen him in six months . " I had tears in my throat . They lived within ten minutes of one another . My nephew and I had so much in common . He wanted to see the Army base where his father was stationed a dozen years earlier . It was sad and sweet . The less he saw his father the more he wanted to know him . As I drove him around the base , I remember bluntly telling that little boy , that if he ever wanted time with his father , it would be up to him . The only thing I could do was let him know I loved him . Then in the early 2000 's I was out west and stopped to see my nephew 's mother on my way back to Seattle . To me she 's always my sister - in - law . We met for lunch and she had one thing she was sorry she had never told me . She apologized about a nagging story . She had my attention . She went all the way back in the late 60 's when she and my brother were dating . She 'd ask him when they were going to spend time with me , the sister . He replied , " You don 't want to know her , she 's crazy . " That 's what my brother said and believed . She said she knew me from school and couldn 't understand , but she never felt right about telling me . It took her almost 40 years to share that . She died more than a year later . It was always clear how much she loved her son . We miss her , and for just a little while a long time ago , I had a sister , Carol Ann . And I don 't think she 'd mind my adding here that some of her final words were , " Love is sacred . " Just months ago three women were found having been missing for years . Cleveland was the center of the type of pouncing news coverage / chaos that was almost as shocking as the crime of kidnapping and years of confinement . I avoided most of that coverage . There was an exception . I found a brief online Washington Post article . It dealt primarily with the child , a little girl born in that horrific confinement . She is the child of one of the kidnapped women . The piece dealt in moderate detail about which woman was chosen to give birth and the horror of what happened to another . The brilliant monster knew that a child might slip mentioning any of the women 's names while outdoors ; a name that someone might recognize and lead to their rescue . It was all she knew . She was clueless . The only family photos more adorable than my brother as a toddler are of my nephew , the then blond version of his dimpled father . But now I 'm speaking of my brother who was a chubby little angel with the smile of smiles . There are no pictures without that eager dimpled smile . " What ? Who the hell is this in my room ? My room . When is it going away ? " Still he smiled . " What do you mean you want me to kiss it ? It 's a lump . Does nothing . Oh no , now Dad 's holding it . Look over here ; I 'm smiling over here , big smile . Where 's the camera thing ? I have a cowboy hat here . Oh no it makes noise . It can 't do a thing . What 's the deal , the dog , my dog keeps looking at it . What in the name of Hopalong Cassidy is going on here ? It better stay away from my stuff . " " Oh , now we 're talking . The camera that moves , it 's whirring . I can wave ; I 'm waving here , smiling here . This is more like it . No ! That 's my wagon , my wagon . They 're putting it / her in my wagon . All the lump ever does is fall over . What ? I can 't believe this . Yes , I 'm smiling . I can 't believe it . The camera 's rolling and you want me to what ? You want me to pull her / it in the wagon ? Yeah , fine . This is my wagon , and I 'll pull that thing , but don 't blame me if it falls out , falls over , or whatever . I 'm waving . Grinning . But she 's nothing . It 's not fair . Why do you have me pulling it ? I could pull my buddy Skipper down the street . He 's cool to pull in the wagon . Or he can pull me . But this lump ? I 'll do it , I won 't like it , and I 'm smiling . " " Oh no , now she / it 's trying to stand . Dad 's got the camera , here I am . Here I am with my little hunting suit . I could walk with my air gun like I 'm going hunting . Mommy no , what are you doing ? You 're helping her ? Ha ha ha . Mommy 's just dragging the lump on the ground . Oh this is just awful , now she can walk better . " " Today Mommy wants me to take it / her outside . Oh , I 've got it . Stairs , I 'll take her up stairs . My buddies and I got stairs down solid . Oh this makes me mad . I 'm not sure what a week is , but that 's what it 's going to take to get her up this flight of steps up to my buddy 's apartment . Do I push ? I know . I can go up and pull it . " " It 's getting really hot . One step , she / it stops . Another step , she / it stops . Why am I stuck with her / it ? Oh now it keeps twisting her arm . Ooops ! " And backwards I went , down a flight of outside stairs . There was a gash in the back of my apparently hard head . I was put on the linoleum floor under our kitchen table . I remember the black and white pattern and looking up at the underside of the table . A doctor came . There were stitches . The important thing , no blood got on any furniture . Ours is the first generation raised on television . Our parents had their dinner together in peace while we stared up at Roy Rogers and old Hoppie . The brother , who wouldn 't be seen with me outside , sat at the same table our dad made and stared at the same screen . Ever hear of Kate Smith ? She was that rotund singer , mostly of God Bless America . Kate Smith had a television show and one day someone demonstrated cutting hair . So I cut my hair , a rather avant - garde look . And , another reason for big brother to hate the funny looking lump , now wearing a bonnet . I adored my brother . When he took tap lessons , I wanted tap lessons . But no , it was ballet for me . When he had to wear glasses , I wanted glasses . It wasn 't long before I got them too . When he went to school , I wanted to go to school . Eventually I too got to board the bus . There are movies of us getting off the bus , with our huge leather brief cases looking like miniature accountants . He was always smiling . I always looked slightly confused , several feet behind him . I wrote about the one violent time my father beat my brother . Immediately after the beating we posed for a picture with Dad on my brother 's bike . As always my brother is grinning . There was one neighborhood punk who started a fire in the bird sanctuary across the street . Then he threw gallons of paint all over the house of an elderly couple . All boys in the neighborhood were sent by their parents to clean up the mess . I sat on the top of the tall slide my father built , because I could watch over the fences . I cried because my brother was being punished for something he didn 't do . One time we all went to a beach , probably Jones Beach . Somewhere we did some clamming , and my brother brought one home . A pet clam . Only I think my dad explained it might be a pretty lonely life in that bucket of water and sand in the garage . So we all piled into the car and scrammed back to the beach . My memory is of my brother tossing back his pet clam . But it hit a rock ! My mother had migraines all her life . I remember once going to her room to comfort her . She pushed me to the floor . During the time when we lived in New York a helicopter took her to a hospital . My brother had migraines too . When we returned to North Carolina my brother was a member of The Boy 's Club . This must have been the greatest torture for him up to that point . We were named king and queen of some festival , actually wearing formal clothes , crowns on our heads , and riding in the back of a convertible car in a parade . It was no fun for me either by the way . He was downright handsome and he smiled . But when the cameras were gone , I returned to standing several feet behind him . Some summers we went to join Dad in Cape May while he trained for the Coast Guard rifle team . He rented the top floor of a house for us . One afternoon , they told my brother to take me out for a while , which had resulted in stiches for me another time . But I was about seven now . We were to go to a comic book store and the ice cream parlor . But my brother couldn 't tolerate being seen with me and dragged me back to the house . We went up the stairs and into the apartment . If my brother and I had gotten along better , we wouldn 't have walked in on our parents having sex . My brother learned at a very young age how to behave as though he cared about his sister in front of Dad , or in front of a camera . But when neither camera nor father was there , I was scum . My brother consistently made it clear that I was stupid , awkward , embarrassing , dull , oh and fat . My father never heard these words , therefore when he 'd tell me how pretty I was , I couldn 't believe him . Back then we were still sharing a room . Some fights were so physical ; I have scars on my face from my brother 's fingernails . Yet I adored him . Also we were raised in the south in a military family . There 's no more polite combination . But when Dad was gone , polite brother disappeared . Dad was gone a lot . Soon after our move west Dad was gone an entire year so my brother had nothing to stop him from saying or doing whatever he wanted to me . Once doing chores in the kitchen , we fought . I could never stop the hatred he spewed at me so I picked up a sharp knife . Or maybe he picked up the knife . Our mother never had kind things to say about Dad , and the language got meaner when he was away . In our family of four , when one person was absent , she complained about them . Didn 't matter who it was . And yet as volatile as they seemed to be , Dad was devoted to her . By Jr . High I wasn 't even to acknowledge my brother in the hallways because I was stupid ugly fat slime . Even though we got out of school at the same time , I was to go another direction . There was only one direction home , up . So I took a sort of zig zag route . My brother studied hard . He was not only athletic and a good student , he was brilliant about how to behave at home . I was too stubborn or stupid to learn from him . No matter how late he 'd been out , he 'd stop at our parents room , stand in the hall and chat for just a bit before going upstairs . Once he brought some high school friends home . He didn 't know I was upstairs so I heard them talking through the heating vent , a wonderful tool of youthful education . They were just as afraid of girls as girls were of them . A few of my friends would come to the house just to be around my handsome brother . But he ignored them with the same chill he did his sister . I was allowed to start wearing a little lipstick . One evening my brother , mother and I were going out the front door . He said to her , " Are you going to let her go out looking like that ? " She said nothing . I just walked behind them , as nothing . My brother didn 't create his opinion of me out of nowhere . He isn 't that creative . When I was about seven she was already calling me crazy . Many times he was there when she 'd screech , " what ever did I do that was so bad to deserve you ? " And there was the most common spew , " You wouldn 't be so ugly if you 'd smile . " He learned as a very little boy that it made her feel better to make me feel bad . When I got to High School my brother was a senior and my father was a teacher . Awkward ? What was even scarier , my mother threatened to work there that year . I dreaded the possibility . It was a serious threat but only an effective threat . I 've described my mother 's violence toward me . But until he got taller and strong , she hit him too with wooden paddles . Dad never saw that . On some level it must have made me feel almost equal to my brother . In high school I barely dated . And my brother wasn 't a busy dater either . He was handsome , smart , athletic but aloof . He had one girlfriend who asked me what made him so cool to her ? I shrugged my shoulders and said , " Hey , I had to grow up with him . " One of my classes assigned an essay about someone we respected . I wrote about my father . But teachers and counselors recognized that I wrote it as fear rather than respect . He controlled his temper after that . I do not remember one time when Dad said a bad thing about my mother . They fought . He 'd storm out . But never did he try to influence us to feel anything but love toward her . Through High School , most days I was home first . I 'd get things ready for dinner , but had a couple of hours to myself . That 's when I learned to treasure alone time , or safe time . I 'd play piano or put on music and pretend to conduct . But the best was turning on an afternoon movie . We got mostly Canadian stations and I loved the English movies . If I heard someone at the front door , I 'd shut off the set , and rush up to my room . When my brother chose Washington State University , he turned down an alternate appointment to the Air Force Academy , disappointing Dad . I remember no discussion about what he wanted to study . It was assumed that he would be a doctor , lawyer , something to live out the life our Dad never had . There was no assumption about me , but not unusual for a girl in the 60 's . Father and son also had a strain over hunting . They were both expert marksmen , but my brother didn 't want to hunt . These were pressures I never had to carry . My brother was given a new car for his High School Graduation . A Dodge Dart was no Mustang but it was new and all his . So that fall he drove across the state to join a fraternity . As much as he tortured me , being left at home with our parents was no dream come true either . As a female and the second child , rules were lighter . What the heck trouble would the polite and perfect daughter get into ? I have the only letter I ever received from my brother from college , or any other time in our lives . The outside of the envelope just said " secret admirer . " He knew my father would get a kick out of that . The letter was a secret all right , asking me to get him out of going on the family vacation that summer . Of course I did . So my parents , another couple from Minnesota and I , went across Canada . Oh joy . In High School my friends and I were stuck with the title of virgins . We were the brainy ones . I 've already said in the introduction to these essays that I didn 't know how to learn , and I didn 't know how to learn to learn . I didn 't know to ask for help . I was smart enough to get grades acceptable for most any college . I 'm learning the reason why there was information I simply could not let in . Because my father was a teacher , he had our IQ records . In one of my mother 's angry spurts she told me my number , and said how much smarter I was than my brother . That should be encouragement , right ? No . She screamed that I should have beaten his grades . That was the entire sum of any discussion about my grades in that household , ever . I was never asked about homework . I was never asked how I was doing . When both parents had to go in to meet with my Chemistry teacher about my less than scientific leanings , her response was how I had embarrassed her . This is as good a place as any to state that I learned about how families were supposed to be in books and movies . I feel sad now when I see a parent going to a child 's room to say good - night , or reading to a child , or helping with homework . In the last house we lived in , not one family member , not my mother , not my father and certainly not my brother ever entered my room . In ten years . I had wonderful friends but we were all going different directions to college . I had no choice : my brother 's school . My father expected that my brother would watch out for me . He was so dear and he just didn 't know . In all of my growing up with my brother and mother I was mute . So how could he know ? When I graduated from High School , unlike the car my brother got , I was given a set of Samsonite luggage , sea foam blue . The clear message from my mother was the leaving part . She was not subtle . And not for one instant did I question why I didn 't get a car too . My brother made me sit in the back seat when he drove us to school that fall . He never said one word , for over eight hours . He left me at a motel the night before I checked in at the Rush Week dorm . He just dumped me . Not even good - bye or good luck . So the next day I had to get a cab to wrangle the trunk , and luggage to my new life . He wasn 't about to let his fraternity brothers know he had a sister or even worse that he might be kind to her . I did not join a sorority . My alphabetically assigned roommate during Rush Week and I both were rebellious . I would have probably benefited by finding a modest sorority with some structure . But that was not what I chose . About two or three weeks into the start of my college career , I woke in the hospital . A surgeon stood over me explaining that he had removed my appendix in an emergency , and that he left a horizontal scar for a bikini . Was he kidding ? I was just barely allowed to cast off the Coast Guard safety yellow bathing suits we all had worn for about 16 years . My brother visited once , when I was unconscious . My parents called to tell me that the doctor assured them they didn 't need to make the drive . Hey , I spent two weeks alone in a hospital at nine . This was nothing . One day in the hospital , I was studying , hopelessly behind in my classes , when my brother appeared in the doorway with a plant and a fraternity brother . Holy Crap . Fortunately I had on a bathrobe and slippers . They were there about 37 seconds never actually entering the room . It was a nice plant . Later I worked in the dorm 's dining room , as many of my friends did that first semester for spending money . One day when I was working in the kitchen I had word that my brother was there to see me . Something had to be wrong ! I rushed downstairs still wearing the fashionable hairnet . There was my brother and a fraternity brother , the cute one . They were there to ask for my student ID so the friend could get a ticket for his date for the Father 's weekend football game . As soon as they scored the ID , they disappeared . One problem . My father was coming to see me that weekend . I had to buy our football tickets . At least my ID had a date . I heard from my brother only one other time . He took me to the buffet on Sunday night at the Union building . Finally he was going to talk to me , be seen in public with me . After 18 years he was going to be brotherly . At last he 'd see what a great sister I was . He didn 't completely ignore me , until he asked to borrow money . I gave him everything I had , $ 91 . He never paid it back . I 'm pretty sure I had to walk back to my dorm . He went to school in Oregon the next year . I don 't remember how I got to school that semester . My father wanted me to have a car . My mother disagreed . Which is to say I didn 't get a car . My second year was an even greater disaster . There were many shocking things about that day . But one of the greatest was my brother 's grief . My mother 's grief over the man she seemed to barely tolerate was baffling and theatrical . But my brother , who also had nothing nice to say about Dad , ever , was genuinely gut wrenchingly grieving . My father 's friends were up in his room , consoling him . I tiptoed in and sat on my brother 's couch . I 'm sure he never knew I was there . I watched him sob and he said there was no reason to go on in school . He was only doing it for Dad . It was the first and last time I ever saw him express emotion . There were many shocks . My mother telling me her mother committed suicide when her father died , my mother threatening to do the same , and my brother sobbing from his deepest pore . My mother informing me she would never help me with a life . Still , I didn 't cry . I 've described that I stayed home with my hysterical mother when my brother went back to school in Oregon . After many months , maybe even a year of daily dismal dreary mother complaints about my brother never coming home or ever calling her I had to do something . I had saved as much change as possible . I got into the VW and drove to another side of town to find a phone booth . I called my brother 's place in Oregon begging him to come home or to write her . Her suicide threats were daily . I sobbed on the phone with my brother asking him to help me with her . He uttered something about doing something . I drove back to the house for more merriment with my mother . He never so much as sent a post card to her . I used to think he had a stronger survival instinct . But it was something else . A couple of years ago my nephew met a man who had been a student of my father 's all those decades ago . He was kind in describing Dad because he knew my nephew had never met his grandfather . He told my nephew a story I never knew . The day of my father 's death , this man , then a boy , bravely came to our house to see if there was anything at all he could do . He was sad and he just wanted to help . It was my mother who opened the door to him . I never knew he was there or who he was . For decades he remembered what my mother did and said that awful day . There it was again . Shame ? Yes , some . Responsibility for her behavior ? Maybe . For my nephew that man 's story gave him a teeny clue into what she was capable of . But for me , here was one time when someone else , someone I 've never met , experienced it . Someone else saw the " self " she so expertly hid from the outside . That lovely boy had no idea what he had walked into , and it 's taken over 60 years for me to begin to grasp what I was born into . I thought she simply hated me . Oh if it were only that simple . One summer when our family was traveling across country , Dad took us to his father 's grave near St . Louis . Maybe it was Minnesota . We had never met the man who died in his early 40 's . Like most men of his generation Dad rarely spoke about his childhood . But near the end of her life my aunt described how dreary their early years were . We couldn 't appreciate what that cemetery visit meant to Dad . We stood before the grave , which was visible only by its flat brass plate . It noted simply his name and birth and death dates . Thomas Lawrence Hainstock . I was a child and knew nothing of my father 's father . I knew nothing of death and dying . But even then it seemed a barren way to mark a man 's life . Just a few years later Dad died , and except for the day of his burial I was unable to force myself to go to his grave . I was unable to go to his grave for a couple of years and then moved 3 , 000 miles away . I never saw him dead . And I could not bear the thought of that vibrant life force locked in the ground . The blur of memory of those early death days is sitting somberly with my mother and brother in front of the flag - draped casket . It was a military funeral so I flinched at the report of the rifles . It always seemed in my memory that we were on the side of a shady hill , so I knew I 'd be able to find the spot some day . Many years later I finally returned to that cemetery . I was confident in my navigational ability to find that shaded hilly spot so I didn 't check the register . I drove and then walked . No hills . It was as flat as Kansas . I gave up and consulted the office . Finally walking around the various sections I found my father 's grave almost by accident . It was in a dry , lonely spot , and all that noted his grave was a flat brass marker , like the one at his father 's grave . It was a military marker noting years served and rank achieved . The thing is , I have a crystal clear memory of the day my parents went out to buy their burial plots . That was the day I scorched the Pot Roast ( The Pot Roast Story posted 3 / 26 / 12 ) . But here he was , alone with no room for his wife . But like most things for me , that didn 't sink in , then . A couple of years ago I returned and sat on the ground by that marker . I looked around because I knew my nephew and his wife occasionally visited Dad as well as my mother 's second husband 's grave . And there it was ; a stone marker for her second husband with Alice 's name for one future day . Dull detective that I am , I flashed back to that day of death . Dad was clearing land for their new house . And they were building a cabin at the lake . Yet she buried him alone , knowing then that they would never be together . As a little girl on North Carolina beaches no matter how many bonnets I wore , no matter how much I was covered up , I burned . I could hide in the shade under a house . I burned . At the inn where we stayed , the most familiar fragrance at night was vinegar . That was the cure for the sting of sunburn so the whole place smelled like a giant salad bar . My brother tanned , my mother tanned . My father and I burn , burn , burned . Then in the west , our Washington beaches were not surfing or swimming beaches . They were beaches for walking and sunsets . They were for thinking or dating . Even smelting . But they were not for suntans . Our lakes were for suntans . And my friends and I regularly used the standard elixir to achieve that special tan . I don 't know how we knew about it . Who started it ? The simple baking recipe was a bottle of baby oil with iodine dripped in and shaken for a pinkish shade . That combination expedited the burn / tan process . There are plenty in our generation paying a dangerous price of aging and even deadly diseases in part because of that elixir . We didn 't know better . We believed a tan made you prettier , or more popular or a better water skier or tennis player or just increased the possibility of maybe , maybe being cool . One summer a few of us spent a lucky sunny weekend at the lake , and out came bottles of baby oil with the droppers of iodine . We 'd spend the day on the dock talking , listening to music , rotating for even color and occasionally cooling off briefly in the lake . Then back to the dock to load up on more of the baking recipe . " You 're getting awfully red , " they said . I just turned over for more . We each got plenty of color that day but I was on fire . Anyone who has had that all over burn recognizes the feeling at night of still baking in the sun . And probably with the baby oil I was still broiling , like butter on a burn . My friends kept applying cool compresses all night to my painful swelling limbs . The object was to correct my mistake . But I was so swollen the next day I went to a doctor . The burns were serious enough to send me to the hospital where I was coated and injected with cortisone . That went on for a couple of weeks . In spite of my disastrous appearance , I said nothing to my parents . They said nothing to me . The real punishment was my summer job at a hamburger joint over a hot fryer . It was just as much a trip to get distance and perspective about my business partnership in Pennsylvania . It was a kaka meme partnership , a gigantic blunder . ( Decision posted 7 / 7 / 12 ) But I didn 't have the stomach to shut it down and accept considerable losses . I was going to take a magnificent tour of the west coast for eight weeks , as if that was going to make anything better . At least I would have that memory to hold in case I lost everything in that business . I drove from Pennsylvania to Seattle in 5 days with a couple of 15 - hour stints . One night a hotel clerk in Montana had to pry my fingers from the steering wheel . Then I stayed with a friend and mentor in Seattle before my drive the next day to Port Angeles . This was the summer after the Christmas I spent with my mother in Arizona . I wrote about that in Holiday Whack posted 12 / 29 / 12 . I would never again stay under her roof after she got her husband to hit me with his cane . That would show her , right ? It takes over two hours to drive from Seattle . I stopped at my brother 's office before checking in at my motel . I was always eager to see him in an idiot little sister way . His receptionist didn 't even know he had a sister . When he was finished with a patient he came out to the waiting area . I had just driven 3 , 000 miles and we hadn 't seen one another in years . He didn 't even cross the room to say hello . I went to him to try an a - frame hug . He was so uncomfortable I backed away . I now understand some of the reasons for that perpetual cool . Friends were beginning to check in with me to see who was attending the parties . Since I 'd lived so far away all my adult life , it was wonderful to get together with friends for lunches and chats at the beach before the actual festivities . I was also going to get to see my then , little nephew . Friday night was a casual party . One pal stuck right by me with a copy of our annual to help me recognize former classmates . We only had one high school so it was a big class . It was both an exhilarating and exhausting experience , trying to remember how I knew some people . If we didn 't have class together it might be a club or church or some organization . But people didn 't know what to ask me . I wasn 't married , had no children or pets . One woman asked the usual questions and finally said , " Well do you have any plants ? " Saturday night was a big party at my father 's old Elks Club . His ghost was present along with his portrait on the wall . The reunion was held in the main lodge room with a stage . It was historically the place for award banquets , father / son dinners , father / daughter lunches or New Years Eve parties with plenty of eggnog . On this night it was a place of loud music , drinking , and old football stories for some . For the rest of us , memories of shyness , debate club , chemistry experiments gone wrong or which parents let us have parties in their basement . One friend left early because no one asked her to dance that night . She was in the same pain she had felt at 16 . Nobody asked me to dance either but I never expected that to change . Yelling was the only way to talk so I heard every fourth word . And there was the spouse question . Besides the job of a stepmother , the spouse at a reunion stands up there on the awkward scale . Since this was my first reunion I adopted the role of observer . At one point a friend and I decided to go into the quieter clubroom across the hall to talk . We found an unoccupied table in a corner . She and I had shared an apartment for summer school at UW in Seattle . That was the summer my father died so I was pretty absent . I had a small crush on her older brother in medical school . But I was unbearably shy and home every weekend . My friend married the boy she was dating that summer . As we talked I looked up and was startled to see my mother and her husband at the next table . What the hell was my mother doing at my high school reunion staring at me ? My friend and I returned to the party after agreeing to join her family for breakfast in the morning . I 'm sure I politely stopped to greet my mother 's friends . The party continued to be big and loud . As great as it was to learn what people had been doing for the past twenty years , I was tired . So I walked back to the motel where many of us stayed . Sunday morning I met my friend and her family at the motel restaurant . I hadn 't seen her husband since that summer school adventure . She was shocked that I had no children . Apparently my stint as stepmother didn 't count . She asked , " Then who will take care of you when you 're old ? " I wanted to ask if that was the reason to have children but thought it a bit rugged in front of her kids . I saw other classmates in the restaurant . Then I looked at the next table and who was there ? My mother ! My mother was at my reunion breakfast at the table next to mine . The night before she shows up at my reunion , and now here she was at the breakfast . I got up to politely say hello to the nice people at her table . I was the dutiful daughter going into perfect robotic mode . There was no thinking , just a lifetime of autopilot . I kneeled down and graciously spoke of how these people had taught me to waterski as a little girl . She had brought them there just to see me . How did she know I was there ? I performed perfectly for the mother who hadn 't given me one moment of affection or nurturing in my life . I returned to my table with that old robotic absence of feeling in my core . On that trip I also politely / stupidly went to Alice 's house to see an old family friend , Hilda , a jolly woman who sadly is no longer on this earth . This was billed as an opportunity for Hilda to catch up with me . Of course I could have gone to Hilda 's house , but was outsmarted . My mother had another agenda . She made two strange statements . Out of nowhere , she angrily stated , " Elizabeth never let me help her with anything . " Which was a breathtaking lie . She informed me when my father died that she would never help me , and she never did . But I knew the look on her face . The look I had seen since I was an infant . I said nothing . Then , just as odd she said , " Elizabeth was always healthy , never had anything wrong with her . The only thing she ever had was granulated eyelids . " Did she really say that ? The old gut feeling hit me . What was she doing ? What about the chicken pox I gave my brother , or my cracked skull , or appendix out in college , or the time she slammed my little fingers in the car door : all the usual childhood maladies . Or what about how I got bronchitis or strep throat every time I knew I 'd see her ? What was this about ? When Hilda left , I left too and followed her to her house . At least I was going to correct the one statement . I told her a little about the bargain Alice had made the night my father died and how she had refused to help me get a start in life . Hilda was always fond of me , but at that moment I knew the impossibility of explaining the history to that nice woman . I did not say anything about the health comment Alice made . I was still too numb , too robotic to even understand the health comment about eyelids . Alice had protected her lie about leaving me in a hospital alone at the age of nine by then , for 28 years . It was a complicated lie covering her friends , doctors , my brother , my father even teachers . She probably told people I was at camp or visiting a friend . She was still protecting the lie with Hilda that day . She had brainwashed me so from birth , she could change the truth . At 96 she is still protecting the choice she made between her children with lies about me . Protecting her lies is the same as protecting her life . Or , her " self . "