By modern standards I suppose we were not all that different from the average family. I knew no one who came from a complete, happy, family so our broken home didn't seem all that unusual to me. Mother was the type of woman who had relied on her beauty her entire life to see her through and had never bothered to further her education or seek a career of her own. As a young girl she had been more interested in the praise horny teenaged boys heaped upon her than being responsible. She had teased and flirted and had allowed advances by these boys that most girls her age were not allowing just yet. It was no surprise to anyone when she turned up pregnant at fifteen by an older man who disappeared the moment she announced she was carrying his child. Me.
Forced by strict parents to carry a child she didn't want I was born and for the first five years of my life we lived with my grandparents. They raised me and gave me all the love they could in what should have been their golden years of retirement while my mother struggled to finish high school and make a life for herself, for us. A beautiful woman she didn't care about getting an education, determined that her looks would always provide for her and if they didn't, her parents would. Unfortunately for her my grandparents died a few months before I turned six only a month apart. We had no other family and she was forced to handle the funeral arrangements on her own, funeral arrangements we could barely afford.
Unable to cover the cost on what was left in my grandparents savings, savings that had been eaten up by raising me and my mother, she was forced to sell the house and we moved into a small apartment. Mother found her niche in the world when she went to work for a businessman as his secretary, personifying the image that all secretaries were buxom and easy. It was barely enough to pay the bills but somehow she always had money to spend on her toiletries and clothes and jewelry. Though I was only a child I understood she was her boss's mistress and that all these extra things were from him. Gifts to his kept woman.
I couldn't hate her though. In spite of her selfish nature she did love me, in her own way. Often she would take me in her arms and hold me tightly, her words almost sad as she'd whisper, "My sweet little Marcus. The only man in my life who loves me for nothing." Her moments of sad introspection were few and far between, however, and never enough to inspire her to find a better way.
Her affair with her boss went on for several years and as I grew older I realized he was married though she had often hinted to the possibility that he might propose to her some day. It was a nice fantasy but even I could see that he was stringing her along. I tried to tell her that he wasn't serious but she wouldn't hear anything I had to say, stating I was just a child and didn't know anything about men and women. No matter what she maintained the delusion that he was going to leave his wife for her and she refused to accept any reality but the one she had so carefully crafted in her imagination.
I was ten years old when he got her pregnant. I can remember it as clearly as if it had happened the day before, hearing the muffled sobs coming from the bathroom as I came in from school one afternoon. I knocked on the door but she called out that she was fine and would be out in a minute. That minute turned into several minutes and it was nearly an hour later when she finally emerged only to head straight to her bedroom where she again closed herself in. Curious and a little frightened I listened in at the door as she called her boss and told him her news, that she was expecting his child.
It was obvious from the ensuing one sided conversation that she expected him to finally leave her wife now that she was pregnant. It was also obvious that he was not giving her what she wanted and by the end of the conversation she was in tears all over again, berating him for abandoning her in her condition before eventually hanging up on him entirely. I could hear her sobbing again but I couldn't move, I was frozen thinking about a new sibling, worried over matters that no ten year old should even know about.
I never understood why my mother didn't end her pregnancy, why she kept Cynthia. I always suspected she was holding out hope that her boss would see the light some day and leave his wife for her. He never did of course, but he did provide for his daughter, giving my mother money for her even after her employment at his office was terminated. Though she didn't tell me what happened I had become quite adept at listening in to her conversations and learned that she had been making inappropriate comments in the work place, no doubt hinting to the fact that she had had the boss's baby to people she shouldn't have been talking too in the first place.
She had never been overly maternal with me and she was even less so with Cynthia so much of the responsibilities for caring for her fell to me. Perhaps if Cynthia had been a boy mother wouldn't have minded so much but the older Cynthia got the more apparent it became that she was going to be stunning and it was almost as if Mother was jealous of her. As a result she was overly hard on Cynthia, cutting her down and doing her very best to make Cynthia feel inferior while she spent the money from Cynthia's father on herself rather than her daughter.
Cynthia had more spirit than our mother gave her credit for and she took her comments for what they were, jealousy, but she grew up shy and reserved none the less, especially when our mother was around. I seemed to be the only one she was comfortable around and as a result we were very close in spite of the age difference. I took care of Cynthia and grew to be very protective of my sweet natured little sister who always looked at me as if I were her hero. I became driven by the desire to give her a better life and I was a diligent student and spent most of my time studying. When I wasn't studying I was with Cynthia. The little girl had quickly wormed her way into my heart and became my reason for everything I did.
I graduated from high school with honors and went on to college almost immediately. We lived in Boston and with my grades I was had earned myself a scholarship to BU. I lived at home while I attended college to save money but also to make sure Cynthia was alright. I couldn't trust my mother to care for the little girl as much as that knowledge saddened me. I just couldn't bring myself to leave her behind.
I worked my balls off and graduated in three years instead of four, with honors, and with my business degree I plunged into the workforce. Fiercely competitive and determined I quickly climbed the corporate ladder and soon was the main breadwinner for our little family though Mother had moved on to a string of rich men who showered her gifts and ensured her bills were paid. Though we never spoke on it I knew she was little more than a prostitute. Just because the men kept her around for a period of time didn't mean they weren't paying for her. I learned to ignore it and in time almost forgot our mother lived there with us.
I was 26 when I bought my house in Cambridge. Though part of me wished I could take only Cynthia with me I moved both of them into my home. Mother enjoyed the more upscale living she had been denied in my youth but little changed with her. She still craved the attention, still needed the masculine praise, only now she didn't have to worry about paying the rent based on how good a girl she was and if anything she became even more wild.
Cynthia was 16 when we moved into the new house and had grown into a beautiful young woman. Pale blond hair that curled softly below her shoulders, vibrant blue eyes, peaches and cream skin that I knew was like silk to the touch, rose bud lips, she stood at 5'4 and had a curvy figure any woman would envy. Gentle by nature she was still shy around strangers but had enough spirit not to let our mother's catty remarks get to her. Though Cynthia rarely saw her own beauty she understood our mother felt threatened by her and forgave her her cruelty when few others would. She learned to avoid our mother and to remain quiet when in her presence so as not to draw any unnecessary attention to herself when Mother was around. Unfortunately that shyness extended outside the house as well and she had few friends and even fewer boyfriends. She went on the occasional date, mostly to special occasions like school dances, but for the most part her free time was spent with me, my own social life placed on the back burner for Cynthia's sake.
She had a brilliant mind and our evenings were often spent focused on her schoolwork. I was insistent that she get good marks and have the same education and opportunities that I had had and I made something of a stern task master. I was protective as well, maybe overly so, but Cynthia never questioned my authority, never challenged me, as if my governance of her was to be expected. I was big brother and father figure all rolled into one. I loved her though, dearly, and she knew that. I made sure she never doubted it. We were all we had in the world, really, and I would do anything to keep her safe and provide for her.