Incomparable

by Brie Bella

  But Brie was not about to go down that easy. After they resuscitated her, they put her in an incubator, and tucked me in there alongside her, to help her heart keep beating. My dad went out to the waiting room to tell my Nana that not only did she finally get her first granddaughter, but she got two. It was a huge shock to everyone, though in looking at photos of my pregnant mother, I’m not sure how anyone was surprised. I guess it was before the days when IVF became so common, and twins were a rarity. As my mom tells it, we attracted attention everywhere we went—particularly because we liked to hold hands, even when we were tiny babies.

  Brie

  We went home from the hospital on Thanksgiving Day, and then my mom drove us straight to our grandparents’ house in Phoenix. My mom had just turned nineteen and she desperately needed the help. The prospect of mothering one kid when she was still a kid herself had seemed overwhelming, but twins were impossible. My grandparents were very hands-on, more like parents than grandparents really. They were incredibly gracious about helping and ensuring that we had the best chance at thriving. Ultimately, our parents ended up getting married a year and a half after we were born.

  We come from a produce farming family. Our grandfather was first generation from Italy and manned a produce store on South Street in Philadelphia. He and his four brothers moved west after World War II, because the land was cheap and it seemed like a great opportunity—they became some of the first farmers in Southern California. They started an operation called the Colace Brothers, which ultimately became Five Crowns, and then Majesty. Throughout our early childhood, our parents were itinerant, moving from Phoenix to Brawley, California, where the crops are located. Then back to Phoenix, rinse and repeat. My dad was going to school to become a sheet metal mechanic so that he could install ductwork for ACs, while my mom went to work when we were three months old, at a women’s clothing boutique in El Centro called Cinderella. None of it was very stable. The way we lived throughout our childhood probably goes a long way toward explaining why both Nicole and I desperately crave having a real home yet cannot stay rooted in any house for long.

  My dad’s childhood was terrible, the stuff of cautionary tales. When he was one, his dad, who was working two jobs to support the family, fell asleep on Highway 5 in California and went off the road and died. They were living on the Tijuana border at the time, and his mom, who was a heroin addict, felt overwhelmed by the responsibility, ditched her kids without telling anyone, and ran away. Our dad’s grandmother found them days later—a one-year-old and a three-year-old—sitting on the table. My dad’s older brother was feeding him.

  When my dad was thirteen, he was in the hospital with a broken arm. He was waiting and waiting for his grandmother, the only woman who had ever really loved or mothered him, to come. A nurse walked into the room to tell him that she had just dropped dead. There was no ceremony, no emotion. Nobody knew where to send the boys until an aunt and uncle agreed to take them in. Despite the open doors, it wasn’t a home filled with love. He was never allowed to mourn his grandmother, there was no tenderness where he landed.

  When he started dating my mom in high school, our grandfather recognized his pain—this poor kid who had only ever known tragedy, hardness, and loss. My Pop Pop could sense how awful it had been for him, but I think he also knew that there were limits to what he, or my mom, could do to really heal those wounds. I’m sure my mom, who is warm and competent and had only ever known the assurance of a loving and stable home, thought she was up for it. She could nurture him to a place of safety and love. I think we all have that hubris when we’re young, that desire to save, and that belief that we can. Obviously, it was beyond my mom’s capacity, particularly at the age of twenty. When we were young, our dad would cry about his grandmother—it was hard to feel sympathy, to soften toward him, to accept any of his apparent pain and grief as an excuse for the fact that he then passed all of his hurt onto us. It felt like one more way that he was trying to share responsibility for his violent behavior, by making his grief something we needed to share. But on the flip side, we knew he was a deeply pained and hurt man.

  Nicole

  I’m not one to ever argue with fate, and I can’t say that I’m mad that I’m here. But our parents were kids who hadn’t worked through their own childhood baggage—and they definitely weren’t ready to shepherd us through ours. It would be putting it nicely to say that they were ill-equipped. My parents were so young when they had us that they named me after their favorite babysitters from childhood—one was named Nicole, the other was Stephanie. They didn’t like how Nicole Stephanie sounded, so they named me Stephanie Nicole, after my dad’s favorite babysitters, and then referred to me as Nicole. Only my soccer team ever called me Stephanie.

  Our childhood was tough, and on the whole, our house was unhappy. This was the eighties and early nineties, when some people still spanked their kids. A lot of what happened to us was borderline acceptable—hotly debated but not officially labeled as abuse; it was certainly not nearly as stigmatized as it is now. As we grew older and started going to friends’ houses for playdates and sleepovers, the difference between our own home and how our friends were raised became starker.

  Our parents fought all the time—they told us that they fought like that because they loved each other. It has taken many, many years, and a ton of expensive therapy, for both of us to begin to separate fighting and love, to realize that they do not coexist to that extent in healthy relationships. We never knew what would cause our dad to fly off the handle—it wouldn’t take much, sometimes just a day that was too hot—but he would get worked up and angry to the point of blacking out. Our dad had a lock on our mom’s heart, and if I were to guess, I’m sure she felt responsible for some of the pain that he had endured as a kid. She didn’t want to pile on with more loss and abandonment. I believe she still thought that she could save him, that we would all be enough to heal his heart. I don’t think she realized that she was letting him sink the whole lifeboat in the process, with the three of us kids in there, too. He had a terrible temper, and was almost constantly angry and scary. There was too much fighting—sometimes physical—and our dad used drugs. It was too much for our house to ever feel stable. It is very clear now, starkly clear, that the only person who could save him was my dad himself, but he operated unconsciously—he never showed remorse afterward, never really cracked enough to create a conversation about whether there was a better way to be.

  There were a lot of hope spots, too. These kept us all clinging to a fantasy that it could get better, that we could be a happy family. My parents would host these parties—they loved having people over to watch boxing, for example—and everything at our house would seem so fun, just for that night, before something would set our dad off again. They also did a lot of stuff for us together, like they would both come to our ballet classes or soccer practices, which always made us feel like we were a little normal or even indulged. Most kids only had one parent present, if that. We had two! They never missed a game! Our father would cook dinner, or pick us up if we needed him to, and he was fiercely but not overly protective, in a way that would make us feel loved, guarded, and cherished. But ultimately, his mood could all change in an instant. There was no rhyme or reason, and we spent our childhood walking on eggshells, hoping we wouldn’t step on a land mine. There were a lot of conversations between me and Brie that went something like this: “Gosh, does Dad love us at all? Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?”

  Brie

  The yelling and fighting and door slamming was a constant soundtrack in our house. I think our soccer coaches knew what was going on, but I often wonder if anyone else was aware of how turbulent our home life was. Nicole and I would put up a front that we were strong, but inside we had imploded. We had no confidence, we were terrified. It sort of felt like we were living a double life. In front of my grandparents, we pretended like our home life was perfect, wholesome, and complete. I think they knew that it was actually broken, that
we were being hurt by our dad, and that it was all very toxic. I think that’s why they insisted on playing such significant roles in our childhood and having such a heavy influence.

  Every summer, all my aunts and uncles and cousins would go and stay with Nana and Pop Pop in Lake Tahoe. It was the best time ever—a profound relief from home. We could be with people we loved without fear of setting them off or facing retribution for some small and invisible infraction. My grandparents had a condo next to the Hyatt, and we would spend a lot of our time there, trying to make a quick buck (always). When we were in fifth grade, we put out a tip bucket in front of the gift shop and danced around modeling sunglasses (our idea, not theirs). We asked the umbrella guys on the beach if they would let us be their umbrella girl assistants for scavenged tips (they obliged). We also pilfered Hyatt lotions and shampoos and tried to sell them on the beach. We made friends with all the tourists who came from Chicago, New York, and Texas, and we learned all about their lives. And I had my first make-out session, with a cute boy from San Jose, there one summer. We went to the arcade and won tickets for stuffed animals; we went out on my uncle’s boat. It was like the best summer camp ever: We were allowed to run free with our cousins within a safe and contained environment. I think that’s why we turned out how we did—being in that environment made us want to be better. We became aware that things could feel safer and healthier and quieter. Our grandparents’ love was profound and stable and everything that we ultimately wanted in our own lives. Summers were always a period of peace that we could look forward to. They taught us to look for sanctuary back home, too, even if it was in walks to church, just the two of us. We joined the choir, because we knew it would be orderly and calm and we would be around good people.

  When you grow up how we did, you equate love and pain. That chased Nicole in particular through most of her early relationships. She didn’t know how to accept love and affection unless it also hurt. My mom was thoroughly under my dad’s spell throughout our childhood. I don’t think she can fathom how she let it happen except the belief that she could pull my dad through, that it would somehow change, that it was better to all be together than apart. I don’t think that she realized that she was actually teaching us that love can feel conditional and unreliable—that she was creating a foundation for us that was unstable and full of cracks rather than the bedrock that we so desperately craved.

  To this day, Nicole and I can transition from full-expletive meltdowns to peaceful dinner invitations. It has been up to people like my husband, Bryan, to show us that it’s not “normal” or maintainable to act like that. And honestly, he has the patience of a saint. It has required a lot of therapy. People have had to bring awareness of our behavior to us, because like our dad, we can almost go unconscious in moments of rage and not even remember what we said. Understanding how to react without feeling overwhelming and immediate rage; practicing emotional containment instead of ramping to an extreme reaction—it is tough stuff.

  It is probably ironic that we fight for a living. But part of the process has been transmuting the pain of our childhood into something productive. We prove to ourselves and others that it’s possible to get up again—that you can defend yourself, you can move through a whole spectrum of emotions while simultaneously supporting those who are in battle with you. Wrestling is not a winner-take-all proposition—it is much more complicated than that. And so, too, is our relationship with our dad. It is possible to not want a lot to do with him, while still loving him from afar. It is possible to wish our childhood had been different, while also being thankful that it turned us into the women we have become.

  I think that when you feel victimized, it is difficult if not impossible not to feel like you should shoulder some of the blame. That you inspired it, that you deserved it, that you participated in some way. Nicole and I have worked really hard to refuse to pick up that mantle, in all ways. We don’t want to be known as victims, ever; and we certainly don’t want to act like victims either. When you accept victimhood, then you are effectively letting the abuse happen again and again in real time. It is a subtle but important thing. You have a responsibility to yourself to process and work through the pain, which is very different from taking on the responsibility of it happening in the first place. We have done a lot of work to let go of the anger and to only use it as motivation, never as an excuse.

  Nicole

  I always wanted to be an entertainer—and have been pursuing it since I was young. I wanted to be a supermodel, like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford—it never occurred to me that I was at an extreme height disadvantage. I never believed that there were any limits, which is pretty great in retrospect. When our parents’ friends came over, we’d arrange them in the living room and dress up as Posh and Sporty Spice and sing “Wannabe,” a big hit at the time (“Tell me what you want, what you really, really want”). In retrospect, this was probably mortifying for our mother, but we didn’t understand the lyrics—we were only in it for the audience.

  At school, I was very active in drama and would always raise my hand for roles in these short films we would make as classroom projects. I always picked the ones where someone got killed, like Jawbreakers. At one point, as I was licking barbecue sauce off a long knife with a lot of enthusiasm, my teacher looked at me and said, “Can we talk after class?” The teachers knew what was going on, and I think my apparent relish for violence made them nervous—it’s easy to understand how they thought that we would be going down a darker path. But I really just enjoyed acting, not because it was evidence of homicidal motives. For what it’s worth, I also aced the monologue from Clueless where Cher debates Amber about the refugee crisis.

  I liked the attention, and I liked to be looked at. Until a couple classmates my freshman year did something terrible. It was lunchtime, and we were all hanging out in the cafeteria. I was wearing a skirt and a thong, and they took a photo up my skirt. I remember walking into school a few days later and everyone was staring at me; by third period, a guy friend pulled me aside. “These two kids took a photo up your skirt and they’re passing copies of it around.”

  It was horrible—the whole idea was invasive and mortifying on its own, but the photo was also distorted, and I had an ingrown hair on the bottom of my butt cheek which looked massive and red because of the angle. I felt so violated, so humiliated. The principal got involved and put the two freshmen into detention; I was close to a bunch of senior guys who tried to beat them up in there. And then my dad showed up—he threatened to kill the boys and their families and had to be restrained by cops, adding to the drama and embarrassment. I locked myself in my room and refused to come out for days.

  That was the first bad sexual thing that had ever happened to me. I remember thinking, “Why did they choose me? Why did they need to humiliate me in particular? Was I asking for it?” There are no good answers to questions like that, and it’s a major problem with our culture that women are always asking them. It was just a fucked-up thing to do. A prank from some dumb boys who hadn’t been taught any better. A few weeks later, I wanted to walk home by myself. I think I was still struggling from the photo episode, and Brie had volleyball practice. I told my friends I was sick so they would leave me alone.

  I was walking on the sidewalk when an old Cadillac came so close it actually grazed my leg. The person who was driving it was moving at a crawling pace, but it still shocked me and I jumped back. I looked over and saw a guy in a trucker hat through the open window, and he was jacking off as he tried to grab me with his other hand. And then he yelled: “Get inside and suck my dick!” I started sprinting for a neighbor’s house, and he floored it. He did the same thing a week later to a fourth-grade boy and was arrested. We found out that he actually lived in our neighborhood.

  Brie

  That wasn’t the last drama of our freshman year. We were also stalked by a guy in a pickup truck. He followed Nicole and me home from school one day, and we jumped some walls to escape him. Later, he parked ne
ar our house—and we could tell that he was touching himself because of the weird faces he was making. It was a sad realization to have to come to when you’re fourteen years old. We told our dad, who must have alerted the neighborhood, because later that week I was standing in the kitchen when the landline rang. It was my dad, and he said: “Brie, the guy is parked down the street—I want you to go and lock the door right now.” It suddenly felt like the front door was five hundred miles away as I raced to latch it, like in a bad horror movie. My dad called the cops and they arrested the guy—it turned out that he lived an hour away. I’m not sure how he found us, or why he picked us as his targets, but these incidents were some of the first times I realized that strangers could be malevolent.

  Bryan always gives me a hard time for being freaked out about being alone at night, but I think most women understand why it is justified to feel scared. Even though I know how to fight and could theoretically protect myself, someone could have a gun. And, like I said, I learned, at a young age, that the world is full of creeps. Nicole and I just decided that we should assume everyone is a serial killer. I remember one night, Nicole and our friend Julia and I were walking home after a shift at Hooters, to the cute apartment that we all shared in San Diego. We were walking up to our building when a man came running out—and our neighbor from upstairs came running after him. It turned out that that guy had been in our apartment, sitting on our couch holding our underwear. And it wasn’t the first time he had been there, because that same upstairs neighbor told us he had seen him coming out of our apartment before. The world is apparently full of weirdos. For that reason, even though Nicole and I have been perfectly capable of getting wild, we’ve always been really careful about going home with strangers or walking alone late at night. You can never be too safe.