A Sister Story

[rps]

 

 

 

It Ain’t All Mary Poppins

I want to tell you a story. I will tell my version of the truth. You decide what to believe.

For generations, women on my mother’s side of my family have been a bit “t’ched” in the head. Different generations have acted this out differently, but at least one of each generation showed it. Some more, some less.

My sister Amanda followed the family trait early and strongly. A childhood baton became a sword. The neighborhood angered her at their peril.

In her early teens, we spent eighteen months subject to her obsessive-compulsive behavior. When she entered or exited a room she had to touch and slap the door frame several times. In those days, parents put on brave faces and carried on. Then, one day, the behavior disappeared as quickly as it manifested.

No one, not even my father who loved her, understood her, or knew what she was or would be.

In her later teens she joined a group of devout Christian teens. We withstood withering pronouncements on why coffee and coke were our escorts to hell. As an adult, Bertie Roberts, another of the group, became my friend and a respected colleague. My sister renounced her.

At the same time, Amanda grew to become a beautiful young woman. She turned heads.

Amanda persuaded my father to let her go to Oral Roberts University. He paid the first year’s tuition. Before Christmas she brought her smitten boyfriend to meet father and announced they would be married. My father asked them how they would survive. My sister assured him the Lord would provide. Not many months later, my father began to introduce himself as the Lord.

The marriage and her quick pregnancy were the start for her “career.” Jim, her husband, dropped out of school and became a tradesman. Amanda set about becoming a member of Junior League, but with no money.

Heaven on earth went to hell instead.

In her lifetime, my dear sister killed 22 cars. Some died in crashes, others died in repossession. My father and I each had to have one towed. We also bought tires and gas.

The first car died when Amanda drove it into the Arkansas River while trying to run over her husband. They divorced not long after that.

Another died in a crash with a fire engine while deciding who had right of way. My friend, my groomsman, Joe Clark offered to represent her on that wreck and managed to arrange a settlement that supported her for several months. He created a monster. Thereafter, every wreck, and there were several, was grounds for a new lawsuit.

One crash caused my mother to call me. Enraged, my sister had aimed her car at mother and father’s house in the country and put the pedal to the metal. Thankfully for them, an oak intervened. I went out to their house and found my sister with a well busted face. I asked my mother why she had not taken my sister to the emergency room. She told me she just could not. I found out why when I took her. After they took her behind the curtains, sometime later an important looking staff member came out and asked me what role I had in her injuries. I had to tell the story twice before I was allowed to leave.

My sister married a second time. Harold had played football at Tulsa University. He did not start but was very large and very genial. He, too, became smitten. About six months after they married, he called me from the Broken Arrow jail. He was on hold for the Tulsa Police on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. When I arrived, he was heavily bandaged on his left thigh. I asked and found out he had been shot. When I asked him to tell me what had happened, I found out they had quarreled, and Amanda had taken his pistol from the drawer and shot at him. When the police arrived, she told them Harold had tried to kill her and she merely defended herself.

The Tulsa County assistant district attorney and I agreed the charge should not go to trial. Harold filed for divorce the next week.

Some years later, Harold delivered a Mazzio’s pizza to the house and would not let my daughters tip him. When I got home, I had to explain why.

It was about then when Joe Clark and I talked about what to do about her. He opined she was like a really good looking, used car you would not recommend to a friend.

One day, Steve, a high school classmate of Joe and me called. Steve had an interesting, but checkered, past. When young, Steve’s father had challenged him. If Steve reached 18 without drinking or sex, his father promised him a princely sum, provided he could pass a lie detector test. You cannot make this stuff up. Steve passed, but from that point after, no person in a skirt was safe.

When Steve called, his first words were, “Randy you have to do something!” I asked him what he was talking about. “It’s your sister!” Confused I asked him if Danni, my other sister, had had a falling out with Mary Roma, his sister. He said, “No. It’s your other sister!”  I asked him what had happened.

He told me he had met Amanda at a local night spot. I asked, “And?” He admitted he had taken her home. I said, “No. Tell me you didn’t.” Defensively, he said, “She wanted to.” “Steve, if you had asked, I would have warned you away. What’s happening?” “She slashed my tires and keyed my car! I had to file charges and a restraining order.”

I told him I forgave him and felt sorry for him, hung up, and called the same assistant DA. We agreed these charges also did not need prosecution.

With her first husband, Amanda had a daughter. Early on, my mother became the grandmother refuge. She and father fed her, clothed her, and taught her manners. My sister began to quarrel with mother over the way mother was raising “her” child. One morning we discovered Amanda had moved to San Antonio with her daughter without telling anyone.

Amanda was there nearly a year. She would call several times a month and ask Father or me for food money. Mother finally convinced us to stop sending money. She was right. Within a month Amanda was back in town.

Amanda’s jobs lasted no longer than her marriages. One boss wanted her to commit a crime. The next tried to get sex. On and on it went.

She never made it to the end of a lease. After served with a notice, she packed in black plastic trash bags and moved. She dragged her daughter from one school to the next. And, every time, the landlord called me to try to collect the money from me. Amanda always listed me as responsible for the rent.

My other sister, Danni, and I finally developed a strategy for Genny’s benefit. For 8^th grade, we enrolled her at Monte Cassino and paid the tuition, bought the uniforms, and paid for lunches. The school appealed to Amanda’s sense of upper class. My mother arranged for the girl to eat breakfast with the nuns as well. To us, it meant she went to school the same place all year long, every year, regardless of evictions, and she got fed at least twice a day.

Shortly after that, Amanda was caught with a forged prescription. I went to see the district attorney and asked him to please prosecute. He declined. He said it would kill my father.

When Amanda’s daughter, Genny, married Woodley, the wedding was set in a small West Texas church. My wife and my daughters drove down to attend. My other sister and her husband did as well. It was a small, humble, strongly evangelical, and strait-laced church and congregation. As the ceremony began, Genny’s father, the assassination survivor, began to walk her down the aisle. Amanda erupted, stormed from the pews, and attacked him, claws and all. Dan and I intervened. We managed to lock her in a room in the back. However, after nearly every line in the ceremony, the congregation listened to my sister’s “blessings” in full detail.

In the late 90’s, a distant relative with many oil and gas interests died without heirs. My siblings and cousins all inherited small interests in his oil holdings. My sister, Amanda, sold hers immediately.

Three days later, her daughter found her in her apartment. The dog was frantic, hungry, and needing to go out. The apartment was full of newly purchased clothes. Amanda was dead and cold. The Benadryl she drank had combined with meds she had taken. Her heart stopped beating.

My daughters are neither ordinary nor within the middle range of normal. However, the family inheritance missed them.

Thank God.

[Terrierman]

I read 22 cats.  Which would have also been a good part of the story.