Sister or Aunt? Part One.
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I grew up in Seattle and went to church at St. Anne's on Queen Anne Hill and then Holy Name's Academy on Capitol Hill which was five blocks away from where Grandma Hazel lived with her third, or fourth husband. There were also stories about a lawyer and a banker. She was a baker and my biological grandfather was a mechanic for Greyhound.
I spent high school, my name is Leslie Benedict by the way, living with Hazel due to problems between mom and dad. I'm the youngest of two sisters. Mom and dad and Hazel all have dark hair and well I have red hair and freckles and I'm taller than anyone in my family and I have quite large titties and a bubble butt. Mom is pretty, but she's about five foot three. Dad is five foot six and Dana is five feet tall. I'm six foot one. Dana was born when Mom was fifteen. Dad was Slavic, Czech or something.
When I was fifteen Dad joined Ancestry.com and well we all did. It turns out my biological dad was not part of Ancestry.com. Dad hated me, even though I loved him. He was the glue to our family. Mom, well she was the one that fucked my biological dad. Not me. Why didn't he throw her cheating, skank ass out?
One of life's mysteries I guess. Holy Names was a good school and fun. There WERE nuns there, but none of them tried any weird stuff with me. I did talk to Sister Mary Anne about my mom, ruining my family and my life mostly. I expressed my hate for her.
She said it was important for me to forgive my mom. That caused me to chuckle and I said, "God has to forgive her, not me. If I had the opportunity, Sister, I'd kick her ass.
She gets away with murder and laughs behind my dad's back. I'm pretty sure Mr. Big tall red head is not the first man to screw her behind my dad's back. Do you think she's even called me once in three years I've been living with my grandmother eating cabbage and potatoes in her tiny apartment, God Bless her.
Dad doesn't even call me. I'm a virgin and don't lust after others and I work hard at school and my sports, I have a scholarship to Seattle University. Whatever did I do to deserve being ostracized by them? I was crying now with my head down.
She put her arm around me and hugged me. She said, "Child, I can only guess at your heart ache. You're always in my prayers. The only thing I might offer you is that find a way to give this away and get it off your heart. You should not bear this, it's God's burden give it to him, find a center point in your prayer away from them, when I struggle I use music and breathing to center myself.
I was running track, the 1600 meters race in a three team race at Blanchette high school, Holy names and Ballard. I was our second best behind this little girl who cold fly as a freshman, my goodness. It was a four lap race, mostly a sprint these days and I was four inches taller than anyone else in the race. As we lined up to start the race, I had been assigned the very inside lane.
I was off running as hard as I could. All I felt was my breathing and I had this old monster disco voice in my head and heart. It was Gloria by Laura Branigan who's singing to some cheating slut, in my head was the image of my mom. I lead from start to finish, running away from the field, tying the state record held by Allie Janke from Spokane six years ago at 4.43. Mine was handheld so it didn't count, but in my heart I knew I could do it again.
School in the morning was a total rush. Mrs. Alben my first period English teacher started off, by showing a Seattle Times (our online morning paper) picture of me crossing the finish line with the headline Holy Names Runner Ties Record and they said who I was under the picture. Then she said, "Hey that's our Leslie girl," everybody was hugging me telling me they loved me. ME!
I started to thank them, then I saw Sister Mary Anne in the doorway and I ran to her and broke down and was weeping. Then there were tears everywhere.
I turned and said to the class, "Thank you so much, I love all of you so much. Your love means the world to me. Been kind of lonely for a while, " I shrugged and I was crying again. Sister Mary Anne led me from the room to her office.
"Leslie what just happened?"
"Well that felt so wonderful and I don't have any friends. Everyone's got a phone and stuff and Grandma Hazel can't afford one for me and my parents don't give her any money to help, so the cheers and the hugs, kind a broke the dam inside of me and I lost control."
"Tell me."
"I ran so fast because I got a lucky lane assignment and what you taught me about centering myself and focusing through breathing and music. I found this song from the eighties a disco song called Gloria and the singer has an operatic powerhouse voice and she's talking about this whore of a friend sleeping around and that's Gloria in the song.
Literally, Gloria is my mom. I used my anger and pain to fuel my run. Then now, the love where there's been none and now it was from everyone and it felt so wonderful.
"I knew love was my answer. I will never ever love my parents and if I could I would change my name and emancipate myself from them, what's the word, metanoia, a turning away from sin and evil."
"Who have you been talking with?"
"Nobody, I eat my sandwich in the library and read and one thing I read was that to forgive, I had to understand really wasn't like an I'm okay you're okay, thing that I had to change directions and move away. Because forgiveness really means that I have to accept that I accept that whatever happened in the past will never change in all of its horror. I do accept that, but scripture says to have an eye of an eagle. So if I do forgive, I need to be as far away as I can from the people who wronged me, a literal change of direction."
"Tell me Leslie, what did you have for dinner last night?"
I felt like this was a trick question, "Roasted cabbage and sweet potatoes)."
"How about breakfast?"
"Oatmeal, raisons and evaporated milk."
"Evaporated Milk?"
"It's sweet."
"How about lunch?"
