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The Other Dibenedetto Girl
Chapter 1: A Letter
‘ “-You should be fucking grateful! I’ve paid for the food on your plate, the clothes on your back and the fucking shelter you live under! You should be fucking kissing my feet for the way I’ve kept you here so long!-“”
WHAM!
“I’m not grateful for anything because you’ve made it such a hell for me, you asshole! I fucking hope you die, you bastard! I hate you! I swear to God I hate you! You’ve been nothing but a dick to me all my life! You’ve treated me like trash!-“
“You are trash, you little bitch!”
SMACK!
“What makes me such a bitch?! Huh?! The fact that I see you for the son of a bitch that you are?! Because I know all your dirty little secrets?! Your drinking habits! Your tendency to gamble too much and lose our rent?! You losing your job weeks before you told mom!? Huh?! Is that why?! ”
SMACK!
SMACK!
SMACK!
“I’m leaving! I’m leaving and I’m never coming back!”
“Good! Go! No one here would be sorry you left! Even your own fucking mother would be glad to get rid of you! I guess Val’s gonna have her own room now, isn’t she? Chellie’s gonna be able to sleep without all these little nightmares you have, won’t she? Who’s in those nightmares anyway? Me? Your daddy?”
WHAM!
SLAM!
“Good luck trying to make it on your own! In a few weeks, you’ll be begging us to let you come back!”
He had been wrong. He had been very wrong. I had kept to my word and I never darkened their doorstep again nor did they darken mine. I assumed that we had all made some kind of distant promise to never see each other again; something to which I did not mind in the least. I had hated my family most of my life (mainly my father) and I knew very well that I would not miss them. My father hated me from the very start for reasons I never knew; my mother merely drank as she watched it all, and my two sisters pretended nothing ever happened in our house. None of them seemed to care about me in general. I hated them for it. Family was supposed to be about unconditional love and care; not hatred and neglect.
After finding a good job as a waitress and found a decent apartment for rent, I began living in New York the way I had wanted. I was free to go out for as long as I liked; paint and read for as long as I liked and spend my money on whatever I wished (within reason). I started going to classes at the local community college where I started my major in English and minored in Art. Now, years later, I’m an art teacher for an after school program and I also teach English during the summer. In the meantime, I’m still a waitress.
Staring out into the New York City streets, I thought about my father and the family I had left behind. I thought about the twin sisters who ignored my existence completely; the mother who drank to pretend the things that happened weren’t real and the father who was too proud to admit when he was wrong. It made my blood boil. All I could remember about that house was all the fights, the arguments, and the heartaches I had endured living in that place. I couldn’t recall a single time where I had been happy to be part of that family. If there was such a time, that is. So, living on my own was like freedom was rushing through my body. I had been so glad that we could forget about each other and move on as if we didn’t know one another. I had been so delighted knowing that I would never see any of them ever again, and that if one of them died, I wouldn’t be around to be at the funeral.
Had. Past Tense. We’re living in the present now, and it sucks…big time.
I looked back to the coffee table in the middle of my living room and stared at the letter with a plane ticket attached to it. I had half a mind to tear it up immediately, but my curiosity poked at me. How did they even get my address? How could they have the nerve to bug me after all these years? Why did they even want to contact me? We were never close to begin with, so trying to make amends with me was pointless. I walked up to it and picked it up. I had already read the entire thing, but skimming down it, I found the last few words:
“I hope you can make it. Mom would have liked that, despite the fact you never liked her.
Sincerely, Your sister,
Valary Sanders.”
Sanders. She had actually managed to get a husband. Well, I guess someone saw her as a nice person I suppose.
I tossed the letter back on the table, and sunk down into my couch. I hadn’t been surprised when I found out that my mother had died of liver failure. She drank all the time; it was bound to happen. Now, I know that I should at least be sad that my mother’s dead, since she was not always so bad to me, but I could not help but feel a twinge of anger towards her. She watched my father and I fight all the time and she had done nothing to stop it. She listened as he beat me with his belt when I was younger; sat still during dinner whenever we had our little spats. Mothers are supposed to defend their children from harm. My mother, Gwen, never did that.
The part that made me love her was the part where she helped me. When she saw me sitting in the bathroom, cleaning up my wounds from my most recent fight, she would walk-stumble, actually-to me and do it for me. My mother would mumble apologies and tell me that she loved me even if I hated her. She made me lunch for school when she was sober; kissed me goodnight if she hadn’t passed out yet, and did her best to take care of me.
So, I will go to this funeral, just on those reasons alone. She was my mother. It’s not like my father will be there, seeing as he died years ago after I had “moved out”. It would only be decent if I go for just that one day. It wouldn’t kill me.
And funnily enough, it’s Christmas time too. The streets are filled with Christmas cheer: the lamp posts are covered in red holly; all the stores have some kind of festive display for their sales; Salvation Army Santas are at every corner and snow covers the ground completely. It was a time for people to spend with their families and remember all the good times they shared together. People exchanged gifts with the ones they loved; kissed under the mistletoe and had sex the day before Christmas.
Thankfully, I wasn’t gonna stay too long.
WHAM!
“I’m not grateful for anything because you’ve made it such a hell for me, you asshole! I fucking hope you die, you bastard! I hate you! I swear to God I hate you! You’ve been nothing but a dick to me all my life! You’ve treated me like trash!-“
“You are trash, you little bitch!”
SMACK!
“What makes me such a bitch?! Huh?! The fact that I see you for the son of a bitch that you are?! Because I know all your dirty little secrets?! Your drinking habits! Your tendency to gamble too much and lose our rent?! You losing your job weeks before you told mom!? Huh?! Is that why?! ”
SMACK!
SMACK!
SMACK!
“I’m leaving! I’m leaving and I’m never coming back!”
“Good! Go! No one here would be sorry you left! Even your own fucking mother would be glad to get rid of you! I guess Val’s gonna have her own room now, isn’t she? Chellie’s gonna be able to sleep without all these little nightmares you have, won’t she? Who’s in those nightmares anyway? Me? Your daddy?”
WHAM!
SLAM!
“Good luck trying to make it on your own! In a few weeks, you’ll be begging us to let you come back!”
He had been wrong. He had been very wrong. I had kept to my word and I never darkened their doorstep again nor did they darken mine. I assumed that we had all made some kind of distant promise to never see each other again; something to which I did not mind in the least. I had hated my family most of my life (mainly my father) and I knew very well that I would not miss them. My father hated me from the very start for reasons I never knew; my mother merely drank as she watched it all, and my two sisters pretended nothing ever happened in our house. None of them seemed to care about me in general. I hated them for it. Family was supposed to be about unconditional love and care; not hatred and neglect.
After finding a good job as a waitress and found a decent apartment for rent, I began living in New York the way I had wanted. I was free to go out for as long as I liked; paint and read for as long as I liked and spend my money on whatever I wished (within reason). I started going to classes at the local community college where I started my major in English and minored in Art. Now, years later, I’m an art teacher for an after school program and I also teach English during the summer. In the meantime, I’m still a waitress.
Staring out into the New York City streets, I thought about my father and the family I had left behind. I thought about the twin sisters who ignored my existence completely; the mother who drank to pretend the things that happened weren’t real and the father who was too proud to admit when he was wrong. It made my blood boil. All I could remember about that house was all the fights, the arguments, and the heartaches I had endured living in that place. I couldn’t recall a single time where I had been happy to be part of that family. If there was such a time, that is. So, living on my own was like freedom was rushing through my body. I had been so glad that we could forget about each other and move on as if we didn’t know one another. I had been so delighted knowing that I would never see any of them ever again, and that if one of them died, I wouldn’t be around to be at the funeral.
Had. Past Tense. We’re living in the present now, and it sucks…big time.
I looked back to the coffee table in the middle of my living room and stared at the letter with a plane ticket attached to it. I had half a mind to tear it up immediately, but my curiosity poked at me. How did they even get my address? How could they have the nerve to bug me after all these years? Why did they even want to contact me? We were never close to begin with, so trying to make amends with me was pointless. I walked up to it and picked it up. I had already read the entire thing, but skimming down it, I found the last few words:
“I hope you can make it. Mom would have liked that, despite the fact you never liked her.
Sincerely, Your sister,
Valary Sanders.”
Sanders. She had actually managed to get a husband. Well, I guess someone saw her as a nice person I suppose.
I tossed the letter back on the table, and sunk down into my couch. I hadn’t been surprised when I found out that my mother had died of liver failure. She drank all the time; it was bound to happen. Now, I know that I should at least be sad that my mother’s dead, since she was not always so bad to me, but I could not help but feel a twinge of anger towards her. She watched my father and I fight all the time and she had done nothing to stop it. She listened as he beat me with his belt when I was younger; sat still during dinner whenever we had our little spats. Mothers are supposed to defend their children from harm. My mother, Gwen, never did that.
The part that made me love her was the part where she helped me. When she saw me sitting in the bathroom, cleaning up my wounds from my most recent fight, she would walk-stumble, actually-to me and do it for me. My mother would mumble apologies and tell me that she loved me even if I hated her. She made me lunch for school when she was sober; kissed me goodnight if she hadn’t passed out yet, and did her best to take care of me.
So, I will go to this funeral, just on those reasons alone. She was my mother. It’s not like my father will be there, seeing as he died years ago after I had “moved out”. It would only be decent if I go for just that one day. It wouldn’t kill me.
And funnily enough, it’s Christmas time too. The streets are filled with Christmas cheer: the lamp posts are covered in red holly; all the stores have some kind of festive display for their sales; Salvation Army Santas are at every corner and snow covers the ground completely. It was a time for people to spend with their families and remember all the good times they shared together. People exchanged gifts with the ones they loved; kissed under the mistletoe and had sex the day before Christmas.
Thankfully, I wasn’t gonna stay too long.