A friend of ours has a household full of daughters. When she and her husband married, they each had a daughter from their first marriages. They then had three more together, and are currently raising a niece as well. I made mention not too long ago of the fact that my brother and sister were from my mother's first marriage. "I've been meaning to ask you about that," she said. She told me that she and her husband worried that their girls would have issues with each other. Their niece looks very different from the others, one girl lives part time with her mother, and one girl's father recently died. Add normal sibling squabbles, and you have potential for resentment. They worried that the girls would pick on each other and form alliances against one another based on who their parents were. "What was it like for you growing up?" she wanted to know.
I cannot remember a time when I didn't know that my brother and sister had a different father. They look very much like their Italian dad, for one thing, whereas my father's two daughters look almost Nordic. My brother retained his original last name. It was just another fact of my life, like our address. I thought nothing of it.
I also knew, from the time I was a small child, that their father did not come to visit them and they did not go to visit him. They never even got birthday cards or phone calls. I also knew that my dad preferred it that way – he and Frankie, Lynne and Gary's dad, did not get along. Now I wonder how different the family dynamic would have been if Frankie had been a familiar presence. At the time, I never went any deeper than the explanation that Frankie was an alcoholic, and one of the reasons my mother divorced him was that he ignored his children, or broke promises made to them. She'd told many times the story of the day she first decided she would leave him. He'd promised the kids that they would go to the park after he got off work. She assumed that this would be another empty promise, but the kids were excited to go out with their dad. After work, he went to the bar instead of coming home, and she knew that. She assumed that they didn't. As time went by, they clamored to go to the park, and she put them off by telling them that Dad wasn't home yet. She figured they'd assume he was still at work. When the response was, "Well, why don't we just go pick him up? He'll be at the bar," she realized that the kids were fully aware of where their dad was, and that the bar was more important to him than they were.
I knew my dad thought of Frankie's two kids differently than he did his own two. That knowledge wasn't integral to my being, though. It came gradually over the years. His relationship with Gary was always problematic. I was sure then, and still am, that part of it was because Gary was a boy. More particularly, he was Frankie's son. It bothered Dad that the only other male in the household was not his son. I was, and am, sure that he'd wanted me to be a boy. I was pretty much his last chance, born when he was retiring and the finances were already stretched unbearably – born, I think, to give him one last chance at a boy, and to even the score at 2/2. I always knew he loved me, but I was also sure he'd had his fingers crossed for a boy.
I barely remember when Gary had his own room. When I was young, one room was Lynne's, one was June's and mine. Gary slept on the living room couch and stowed all his belongings behind it. Still, I thought of that as a space issue. The house only had three bedrooms. I remember sleeping in a crib in my parents' room, and I remember the first time I slept anywhere else. When I was three, they moved me in with my sisters. The girls' bedroom had a double bed that Lynne and June shared. They put me in the middle, and I was miserable. I was cramped and hot, and the others kept pulling the covers up over my face. I slept badly and hated it. It was shortly after that that Gary moved onto the couch and Lynne got his room. I assumed it was a move to keep all three of us girls from having to share. It wasn't, but I didn't know that until much later. He'd actually moved out of the house, and then back in. I was sure that keeping me from having to spend my life sleeping in the middle was an obvious goal.
Still, it didn't really sink in how differently Dad saw us until I was fifteen or sixteen. We had a family friend over, and Dad said something to him about "my stepson." I was baffled. I kept turning it over and over in my mind. Dad had never been married before. There were only the four of us kids. He always referred to Lynne as "my daughter," just as he did June and me. I could not for the life of me figure out who he was talking about. It took me probably twenty minutes or more of puzzling before the lightbulb went on in my head. He meant
my brother! That was the only time I ever heard him use that term, although I can't recall him ever saying, "my son." Usually he referred to Gary by name.
I always adored Gary and Lynne. I thought that Lynne was the most wonderful person in the world, and I wanted to be just like her. I was three years old at my brother's high school graduation, and I remember being upset that a bigger fuss wasn't made over him during the ceremony. They just read his name, and he walked across the stage, just like everybody else. I thought he should at least get to speak or they should talk about him or something! After all, HE was the important one, and everybody else was just kind of there, too.
I loved it when either one of them got to babysit. Gary played games, and Lynne once walked with us all the way to 7-11 to get lunch – what an adventure! Plus it was new, exotic food – Spaghettios with sliced hot dogs in it! What a gourmet meal! What an adventure!
When I was in first grade, some of the kids in my class were talking about nationalities. One boy volunteered that he was Italian. "My brother and sister are Italian," I told him. "Well, that means that you're Italian, too," he said. Nope, I told him. I was German, Polish, English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh. "If your brother and sister are Italian, then you are too!" he insisted. No, I told him, I'm not. I was having a bit of fun with this game, but he was becoming more and more agitated, so I decided to reveal my trump card, proving I was right. "They have a different father than I do. Their father is Italian," I told him.
He calmed down once the mystery was explained. "Oh, they're not your real brother and sister, then," he said. Now, I was a mousy, timid child, scared of my own shadow, but I was infuriated. No one had ever said such an insulting thing to me in my life. "YES, they ARE!" I ripped into this poor kid. We had the SAME mother, we lived in the SAME family, and nobody had any right to tell me that my brother and sister WEREN'T my brother and sister! The poor boy stared at me with his eyes getting wider and wider as I ranted, and finally stammered an apology. I don't think anybody in my class had ever seen me stand up to anyone before. I stopped yelling, but inwardly I seethed. I don't think I ever really forgave him.
When I went home full of indignation and told my mom, she told me that some people thought that way. She told me that the technical term for what Lynne and Gary were to me was "half brother" and "half sister," but we'd just never called them that. If I ever got into a nationality argument again, she said, I could explain it that way. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. "Half" brother? "Half" sister? It was absurd. How can you have half a brother or sister?
Gary and Lynne, on the other hand, had every reason to resent June and I. For one thing, they always had chores, and we, the younger two, didn't. People have grown to hate each other over less. But as far as I ever saw, it never affected the way they thought about us. They didn't care who our dad was, or who took out the trash or fed the pets - we were their baby sisters. I asked them, and my mother as well, after we were all grown, if they actually resented us and just did a good job of hiding it. They both had looked rather puzzled that I'd asked, and assured me that no, they never thought of it that way. Mom too was sure that they never thought any such thing. I suppose that could be unusual, but probably not. Children don't usually have the same issues that adults do.
Gary was a scenic and wildlife photographer. I was fascinated by that. His regular job was working in a garage, and I bragged to everyone that he was a mechanic. I thought that was very impressive. He was actually the parts counter guy, a job he'd have off and on all his life, but I was blown away by the fact that he knew what all the parts of an engine were, and how to fix things. Dad didn't, and he was older. That to me said that Gary was very smart (which, actually, he is).
I was so enthralled by his photos, and the trips he took to take them. When a photo would appear in a magazine, he'd give Mom a copy, and I was delighted. Once, his photo was even on the COVER of a magazine. It was great! I was star struck. For Christmas the year I was eight, he bought me my own camera. I had never owned anything so wonderful and grown-up in my whole life! I loved it. It went everywhere with me. I soon learned that I had an "eye" for photography. Everyone else loved my photos, but the praise I craved the most was Gary's. He was a REAL photographer.
After Lynne moved out, I loved it when I could go to her apartment, or shopping, or out to lunch with her. I loved her car, a red VW bug. I wanted one just like it when I grew up. I wanted to be just like her, but she was so pretty. I knew I'd never be as pretty as she was.
When I was ten, I got to be a bridesmaid in Lynne's wedding. It was so glamorous! We shopped for beautiful, floor length dresses. Lynne and Mom finally made them, which was even better. I loved my yellow dress with its lace trim. I loved being important on such a special occasion. I even walked first down the aisle, a prospect that was terrifying but became doable after Lynne assured me that she knew I could do it. We pressed my bouquet of yellow and white carnations, and stored them in the box with my dress, under the bed in Mom's room.
When I was eleven, Lynne made me an aunt. I was so excited! Plus, none of my classmates were aunts. I felt special. I remember clearly going into my fifth grade teacher and telling her about my niece's birth, along with her full name and the fact that she was my sister's daughter. I remember even more clearly the phone call announcing her arrival the night before, after I'd already been put to bed. Mom came in to tell June and I that the eagerly anticipated baby was here.
Actually, my relationship with June has always been the problematic one. For one thing, we were close enough in age to butt heads. Also, she was Dad's first child, born when most of his siblings were grandparents. He'd almost given up on fathering a child. She was adored, and accepted it as her due. Then I came along. While I was not lavished with abject adoration, I took enough of the spotlight to make her forever resentful. Plus, she had informed my parents that she wanted "a boy baby," and was angry when they brought a girl home from the hospital. "Take her back and bring me a boy!" she said.
The closest we got to any - what, discrimination? - based on biology was when any of us girls, Lynne included, would do something Gary thought was stupid. Then he'd grin and say, "Well, that certainly doesn't come from Mom's side of the family." We were never offended by this. I still think it's amusing.
I told my friend, "Truthfully, it never mattered to any of us." None of the four of us had worried about parentage or bloodlines. We were simply siblings.
