The Accidental Life.

"I need to tell you something" he would say that one time and likely
never again in my own lifetime.

I said nothing,as I became quickly accustomed to doing, or not doing.
Fearful always that I had done something wrong or something not right
enough. It was as attitude or more so a way of being that would be a
part of my life beyond those seven years I already had.

He cleared his throat, nervously like he had rehearsed the coming
speech many times in his head but had yet to speak the words. "You are
becoming a very pretty girl". He paused, I nodded. This was the moment
I would recount in my head each time that I doubted that he ever cared
for me, which would be always.

"Men, older men, might begin to want things from you, to pay attention
to you. You need to tell me if they do so I can take care of you". I
did not know what to think or if I should even try to think about what
it was he said. Sometimes I wonder if I didn't know exactly what it
was he meant. "Okay?" he questioned. I nodded, like I always do, like
I always did. He walked away, disappearing into a corner of that tiny
house. Right there in that awkward hallway I fell to the ground,
grasping at the fibers of that ugly blue carpet and I cried. For how
long, I do not know.

I had no idea then, but I know it now, the words he said, the ideas he
alluded to hadn't made me upset. It was his odd demonstration of what
I guess is love that was so alarming. It was an emotion I was so
unaccustomed to feeling that it overwhelmed me. I think it was this
acutely early experience that makes me panic at confessions of love
and sigh in relief at demonstrations of hatred and disdain. I am not
equipped to deal with the former, only the latter.

Eight years afterward we stood in a sun-washed kitchen of a new house
in a far away place, he was making coffee as I stood hovering over a
toaster, armed with a butter knife and container of margarine. The
morning light was blinding. I was wearing a nice outfit, a new outfit
for court. I was crying, hoping he would not notice, but he did. He
turned towards me, "You know my cousin Darren, he didn't find out
about his real father until he graduated college". He said it in a
voice he normally reserved for my youngest sister. He said it like it
was supposed to change what it was I was feeling.

Oddly enough, I didn't care so much that he wasn't my real father or
that they had lied about it for those sixteen years. What made me most
angry was that there was now a marked reason for his indifferent, cold
treatment of me. Knowing this, being able to give it a name was far
worse than just believing he hated me. Hours later we sat before a
judge in a county courthouse. She asked me if I would accept the
official change of my last name, a last name I had always thought to
be mine anyway but found that it never was and still really isn't. My
words were choked back by a mysterious fear that overtook me. I had
never felt so terrified without knowing why exactly ever and not ever
again. I was paralyzed, tears frantically running down my cheeks. I
managed to say "yes", forgetting what question was even asked of me.

It was over. We made our way home in silence. As we pulled into the
driveway, my mother turned to me "please don't say anything to your
sisters about this, we don't want to upset them". I nodded, fearful of
talking for whatever reason but in my head thought "half-sisters, not
sisters".