"You're a hard man to find, you know?" I heard behind me, turning around to see her there.
My little sister, Stephanie. The only part of my growing up that I remembered fondly. The only person growing up, including our parents, who didn't treat me like dog shit. Suffice it to say that my overall first impression of the much vaunted traditional, nuclear family was that it was Hell on Earth. My parents never divorced. They never separated. I often wished that they had. They were the poster child for toxic marriage. The only things that they seemed to really have in common were a love for Jesus, a belief that the Sun rose and shone out of Stephanie's ass, and a complete, inexplicable hatred for me.
Ironically, Stephanie herself was so nice to me that I could never resent her for it. She saw what Mom and Dad refused to see in me and simply couldn't make sense of how much they loathed me. She got double my allowance, so she shared some of it with me or spent it on me at times.
She got me one or two extra Christmas presents that she never told Mom and Dad about, for fear that they would confiscate them. She was allowed a TV in her room, whereas I wasn't, so she let me watch hers at times. Things like that made my adolescence and childhood much more bearable until I left.
Steph was there for me when I was forcibly circumcised. She even called child services on them, only to have the case worker reject the notion that such practices were abuse. My parents' warmth for her cooled a bit for a while after that. She lost some of her golden child status for at least a month or two.
Steph was certainly grounded for that long. That must have been as much of a shock to her as it was to me, but she never backed down or apologized for what she did. Mom and Dad ended up just having to lump it. She drew a line in the sand, even at the risk of losing her favorite child status, when it came to a medically unnecessary and highly risky operation like that.
"Steph!" my first response was to pull her into my arms and hug her very tight.
"Cain!" Steph exclaimed as she held onto me for dear life.
Yes, Mom and Dad were that cruel. For whatever reason, they named me after the mythical first murderer, that Cain who slew his brother Abel (I still think that it was at worst manslaughter). Steph's way of handling that was with irreverent humor that sometimes tested Mom and Dad's great affection and partiality for her. They were very aware, and frustrated by her, her fondness for her big brother. Even so, they were loath on most occasions to risk their bond with her (as they saw it) just to punish her for it (with the said notable exception regarding the authorities).
"So, what brings you here to Boston, of all places? Even in summer, it's not always the most pleasant place to be," I teasingly scolded my kid sister in the way of an elder brother.
"You, of course. And I don't know, I like the Old World, colonial charm. Imagine how busy these streets were back when the Sons of Liberty openly defied King George III and the first stirrings of the American Revolution began? I kinda understand them better myself than I used to, having had to live under the thumb of our tyrants, Mom and Dad. I'd send them a postcard from Boston, but I don't have a forwarding address for Hell," Steph, in her quest for wickedly funny jokes, suddenly realized what bombshell she dropped so casually on me.
"They're..dead? Both of them? I thought that they might be vampires and live forever. They certainly sucked everything good out of other people's lives, leaving them with nothing but misery and gin, with apologies to Merle Haggard," I scoffed, getting a somewhat sadder and more tense look from Steph.
"Yeah, well, thank Dad's late-night driving for that. He fell asleep at the wheel and they crashed into a propane truck. There were no survivors, including the truck driver. I was lucky enough to have the flu, or so I told them, and beg out of the missionary conference, revival thing. This time, it saved my life, even though part of me feared that they might catch onto my waning fervor for Christ. My lukewarmness as a Christian seems to have paid dividends. Did you know that Mom and Dad were worth three-quarters of a million dollars? Guess who inherited it all in the will?" Steph pointed to herself with a grin.
"Congratulations, sis. Now you can pay off your student loans early, am I right, and switch colleges more easily. Bible College has to be a fucking drag! Or hell, you could even drop out of school altogether, and move closer to me. If you can handle the New England winters, that is. It's not nice and hot like Shreveport, Louisiana, is it? Hell, you could live on Nantucket, catch the ferry, and visit me now and then," I half-teased, half-invited Steph to live closer to me, not wishing to mooch off her newfound wealth.
"Oh, I'm definitely moving, bro, and not just near you. I want you..to live with me. I've already purchased a very fine townhouse not far from here and I would be so damn lonely without my loving brother around. I've missed you so damn much, thanks to Mom and Dad driving you away. You know, as soon as you left, Dad turned to Mom and told her, 'good, now he can go on back to Hell and leave us alone.'
"The 'back to Hell' part rankled with me and even confused me, as did that knowing look of full accord on Mom's face. I did some digging and found their private journals and such, Mom's diary, that kind of thing. They...thought that you were the Antichrist, all because you had a birthmark that they thought was the mark of Cain. They named you that to remind themselves not to go easy on you.
"After all, you were destined for the Lake of Fire for eternity, anyway, according to their beliefs. That's why they never tried to 'save your soul' as they did with me. They wrote you off and even wrote down their fears that you would murder them or me in our sleep. They honestly thought that there was a demon inside you or in control of you. Crazy bitches!" Steph rolled her eyes at our parents' silly superstitious piety.
"I guess that they forgot Proverbs 11:29, didn't they, sis?" I smirked at the cognitive dissonance and ignorance of many evangelical Christians like Mom and Dad about their own Bible.
"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart," Steph acknowledged..she had been on the Bible quiz team at Shreveport First Assembly of God.
"That would be the one. Ironically, for the Antichrist, I seem to know Scripture better than Mom and Dad did. So..you want me to move in with you? Good timing, actually. I might be proud and tempted to decline out of that pride, but with Nancy leaving me, I can't make rent on my place, anyway. I wasn't sure what I would do about that. Move into a studio or a motel room, I guess.
"I swear that's the last time that I'm even gonna try to be monogamous! It's nothing but grief, frustration, and worse! And then she has the gall to admit that while she's leaving me for cheating on her, she's been cheating on me for months! Months! Fuck dating! Fuck monogamy! Fuck relationships! Fucking cunt hypocrites!" I groused now, causing Steph to giggle at first and then pull me closer for a very not so sisterly kiss.
