Incomparable

by Brie Bella

  The Christmas of our sophomore year, our dad had told us that he was going on some sort of spiritual soul journey—a trip to find himself. My mom bought him presents for this soul journey, and wrapped them, and put them under the tree. After we opened gifts on Christmas morning, he bounced. We later found out that this Christmas soul journey took place on a cruise with another woman.

  Nicole

  My mom couldn’t keep it from us—she dropped to her knees on the kitchen floor, crying and crying. What was worse, the woman he was having an affair with was the team mom from my brother’s Little League team. This made it more embarrassing, more hurtful, and more problematic for all of us. Her parents called my mom, I think, because they didn’t want JJ and their grandson to be affected, for it to become the talk of the neighborhood. Ultimately, it did anyway.

  My dad was never faithful, and from what I recall, my parents separated a couple of times over the years. We visited him in some sort of apartment where he was living while he waited for my mom to take him back. And she always did, even though he cheated constantly and she usually heard about it. My mom is a great woman, and she was beloved throughout our community. When people knew that my dad was up to something, they always told her. They just cared about her too much. And I’m sure they thought that she would finally be ready to leave. But she was really, really taken with him—addicted in some ways. And I think she was terrified by the possibility of creating a broken home. For whatever reason, I think she believed that an unhappy home was a better alternative for the five of us than divorce. She thought that my dad had been the victim of that sort of drift and she would be subjecting us to a similar fate. On that point, she was wrong.

  Brie

  After the Christmas cruise, my dad stayed away from the family for a while. Then he popped back up again and wanted to come home and pretend like everything was normal. I’m not sure how he persuaded my mom, but she let him back in. Nicole and I were furious and would have nothing to do with him, much less continue with the charade that we were a normal family. Our refusal to talk to him only enraged him more because he felt like we were disrespecting his authority. Right before Spring Break we got into a massive fight. Nicole was grounded and decided to put the time to good use and get some sun by the pool. She went to lay out in her pink bikini, which was when my parents, already upset that she wasn’t in her room, noticed that she had gotten a tattoo. We actually both had, in a rebellious fit, a few weeks before. The fight quickly escalated and both of my parents followed Nicole into her room. From what I recall, my mom got in Nicole’s face and Nicole pushed her back; my dad hit Nicole in the face and she fell into the curtains, while I jumped on his back to stop him. He picked us both up and threw us out of the house. Both of my parents were responsible for that. I was in pajamas. I don’t think either of us was wearing shoes. We went to our friend Tammy’s house and crashed with her for a few days, until her parents got suspicious and called my mom.

  She told us they were coming to get us and we called our friend Arielle, the only sixteen-year-old girl we knew who could drive, and then Nicole and I tried to run. Tammy’s stepdad grabbed us as we made for the door, and Nicole karate chopped his arm and booked it through the rain into the darkness—he just yelled after her in French. Nicole jumped in Arielle’s pickup and took off into the night. But ever the runt, I couldn’t get free.

  My dad was convinced that we were on drugs. As I told him that day, I wasn’t dumb, and I had no intention of being like him in any way. Save for a little bit of pot, I’ve never really touched the stuff. They took me to get drug tested anyway because my dad wouldn’t let it go—I think he was eager to project his own stuff onto us, to find someone else to blame for his scary behavior.

  Then my parents put me under their version of house arrest, minus the electric anklet. I was a smart kid, and I stashed a phone under my bed so I could call and check in on Nicole and leave money out for her.

  Nicole

  Ironically, that week that I spent as a runaway was actually the first time I saw hard drugs. It was Spring Break, and so there were parties at parent-vacated homes every night. After most kids would head home for curfew, I’d stay behind and crash out. Late into the night, kids were doing crack, really hard drugs. It was terrifying to see and really sad, but I had nowhere else to go.

  The cops kept calling my phone and leaving me messages that if I didn’t come in, they’d arrest me. So I finally showed up at the station. My parents had told them that I ran away because I was on drugs, so they drug tested me. I told them my story, and asked them to call the school, to have them vouch for my dad’s history of getting physical with us. And I had taken a photo of my face after he had hit me. Teachers and security guards at the school had seen things over the years—once, my dad and I got into it when he was dropping me off, and he threw a box of Kleenex at my head. A security guard came up to the truck and got in my dad’s face about it. I told the cops I would rather go to juvi than go home to live with my dad again, and they believed me.

  My mom realized it was over. She needed to kick my dad out of the house so I could come home, though she was still upset that I had made the decision for her. I came home and immediately started throwing all of my dad’s shit into the driveway. It’s really hard for my mom to talk about; I think when you are abused, you lose your head a little bit—it happens to strong and smart women all the time. They stay because they think maybe it will get better, or they’re too scared to walk away because they fear the retribution will be worse. The pervasive theme is that they don’t feel like they can tell anyone, because maybe they won’t be believed. Police intervention was the wake-up call that my mom needed to choose our health and safety over my dad. My mom was devastated. I don’t think she was truly upset with us, but I do think she was blown away that it had escalated to that point—that she had let it unfold for so many years without doing anything to make it stop. As our family secret blew open, she almost couldn’t believe it herself, as much as she knew it was all true.

  The four of us have recovered from those hard years, though, and have an incredibly strong bond. We know our mom would move mountains for us, and we have endless respect for her business acumen and insight (even though it’s the only thing she wants to talk about).

  Brie

  We were really close to my Nana and Pop Pop, and it was always tempting to go to them and tell them what was happening inside our family. It would have been so comforting to be able to confide in them, and to have their protection. At the same time, we couldn’t bear the idea of how painful the full story would be to them. I think they were always concerned that things might not be okay behind closed doors, but we all always managed to put on brave faces. We reassured them that we were, in fact, just great. That’s just how Nicole and I are. We don’t want sympathy, we don’t want people to worry or feel sorry for us. We want our connections with other people to be real, and not based on them feeling bad. Plus, we have always been inclined to put the needs of others before our own. If our grandparents had known, they wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night.

  After my dad finally left, we tried to establish a new normal—and my mom started going out a lot with her friends. I think it was her first chance to be young. She had been forced to skip that phase because she had us when she was just a teenager. She also seemed happy and relieved, like an unburdened version of herself. She started to date a guy who was the opposite of my dad—he drove a motorcycle, but that was the extent of his edge. He was sweet and quiet and very sensitive. He owned his own company and had his life together. It was really nice for us to see her with a guy who deserved her.

  We were struggling financially, so we ultimately had to move into a smaller house. It was really cute, maybe sixteen hundred square feet or so. It only had three bedrooms, so Nicole and I shared a room again, and I shared the master bath with my mom. The backyard had a mini pool that consumed the entire space (a necessity during Arizona summers), and the living room was r
eally cozy. My dad had always insisted on having this heavy, Western furniture. My mom’s first go at decorating on her own was so much softer and more feminine. It really felt like a home. When Nicole and I moved to Tampa for FCW, we ended up taking all that furniture with us, because my mom married her boyfriend and moved in with him.

  My dad really struggled—he wasn’t always pleasant, he wasn’t always nice, and he made it really hard. There definitely were good times—but there were more hard times. When you’re a kid, the bad outweighs the good. It’s so traumatizing when you’re little—those memories are really tough to shake. As an adult, you’re much more equipped to be able to brush off the tough stuff. When you’re a kid, it sticks.

  I don’t think my dad ever even went to rehab—he just gave up drugs on his own. Throughout our life, I never really knew if he was controlled by an addiction or just had a strong preference for drugs. He clearly really enjoyed them, but he also seemed capable of cutting them out and going cold turkey. I didn’t really know. That assessment might not be giving addiction the power and credit it deserves. It could have been more of a struggle, but to me, it always felt like it was a choice. Drugs offered a path that was easier than being responsible for his family, and so he just chose drugs instead. As a kid, I had no concept of what he was up to. He didn’t seem enslaved, just angry and hurt. From what Bryan tells me, my husband’s childhood seems different. His dad was ruled by alcohol. He would have done anything to liberate himself from addiction, but he couldn’t stay sober.

  I spent a lot of my life being really angry at my dad. In some ways, I was enslaved by the pain of my childhood. I told myself I didn’t want to engage with him or go there. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with all that he brings. I think the real reason, though, was that he never owned his part. He never took accountability for what he did to our family or acknowledged that he created a lot of pain. When you’re the one who felt that pain, that is incredibly frustrating. It feels victimizing and disempowering. I just didn’t want to go to the mat with him to try to make him own his behavior.

  When Birdie was about one, my dad reached out. He drove to San Diego to meet her, and we had an incredibly moving conversation. My dad is fifty-two now and has other kids—a daughter who is older than Nicole and me, and also two young ones—a six-year-old and a two-year-old. When I saw my dad again, it was clear that he has changed profoundly. His new kids are having a far different childhood than we did.

  When we sat down to talk, my dad was beyond the denial phase—he owned everything. He acknowledged how ill-equipped he had been. He had been doing the best he could with what little he had, and he admitted that he had offloaded his pain on us in a way that was unfair and unforgivable. I was able to release all the anger and hate I felt for him and to grieve our relationship so I could forgive him. I realized that the pain had been a horrible burden to carry. Even though I’d pretended like I hadn’t really cared, the anger and hate had been binding me to the trauma. It was revictimizing me. It wasn’t healthy. I also knew that if I want to model good relationships for Birdie, I have to learn how to have these hard conversations. I have to process what comes up for me without just shutting down. If someday Birdie and Bryan were to fight, I wouldn’t want her to think it was okay to shut the door on him because I shut the door on my own dad. My dad and I are in a process of deep recovery. We’re letting all the negativity go and finding a path to having a real relationship. I’m finding a way to celebrate all of his good qualities, like the fact that he is an incredibly hard worker—he works at a solar farm, and every week he drives six hours to spend time with his family. He has always been like that, always worked tirelessly.

  Now that I’m a mom, I understand the concept of unconditional love—how deep and basic and profound it is. I know my dad loves me, and I know he always loved me. I didn’t always feel it as a kid, but there’s no version of life where loving someone means that you’ll never screw up. I just don’t think he could help it. He wasn’t prepared to be a good dad, he’d never had a model of how it can be done. I’m gratified that he is doing so much better, that he is now at peace, and that despite it all, Nicole and I have turned out well. For better or for worse, he taught us how to fight—and he certainly knew how.

  CHAPTER 3 BEAR

  2001–2002

  Scottsdale, Arizona

  Brie

  It was toward the end of summer up in Bear’s attic. It was late at night, a testament to the fact that neither of us had school the next day. Bear sat on a stool in front of me, all six-foot-one of him, and held a canvas, swirling paint and dabbing it here and there. He had shaggy blond hair, full lips. He was painting my portrait, and for the first time ever, it felt like I was actually being seen. His real name was Edward, but everyone who knew him called him Bear. Everyone who knew him loved him. He was just one of those people—wise beyond his years, kind, calm, prophetic. He was beautiful.

  Nicole and I went to Chapparal High, a big public school in Scottsdale, Arizona. We were both good soccer players—Nicole was particularly talented, which I’ll let her tell you about—though I hated the game and had been forced by my parents to play it since I was a kid. It held no joy for me, but my parents believed that good kids played sports, and so doing something else was not an option.

  I was a reasonably popular girl in high school though I didn’t really care either way, and I didn’t associate with any specific group. My best friend Katie and I floated around, hanging out with the skater boys one day, the drama kids the next—honestly, Chili Cheese Fritos and Dr Peppers were the only constants. I never really felt a strong urge to “belong,” I think probably because I always had my sister to turn to, a constant reminder of myself. She hung out with the cool kids at the ramada, one of those buildings without walls where we’d all take shelter from the hot Arizona sun. I spent plenty of time with Nicole at home, so at school I primarily hung out with my sidekick, Katie.

  My sister and I were part of a church youth group, where I became close to two people in a pretty unlikely way. We were on our way to a retreat and were packed into a school bus. It was a rowdy crowd of high school juniors, even though we were all supposed to be devout Catholics. Nicole went to the bathroom and didn’t return for a while, so I walked to the back to investigate. She was screaming through the door that someone had locked her inside. Nicole and I have really aggressive and quick tempers—and so I rounded on the two people sitting across from the door accusing them of pranking my sister. They looked at me like I was nuts while I continued to yell at them for being messed-up assholes. And then my sister figured out how to work the door and stepped out like nothing had happened. Typical Nicole.

  Despite our aggressive introduction, Jason and Elizabeth became close friends. They went to a private school, St. Mary’s. Katie and I started hanging out with them so much it would have been easy to assume we went to St. Mary’s, too. (Katie even ended up dating Jason, who became her high school sweetheart.)

  A few months later, Jason and Elizabeth took us to a party. I was nervous when I walked in because it was a sea of people I didn’t know. Nicole is far more extroverted than I am, and really easy in a crowd—she’s kind of my social beard in strange situations. When she’s not around, I tend to keep to myself and find the nearest corner. Katie and I walked outside and I saw a guy at the end of the table. He was wearing a baseball T-shirt with yellow sleeves and he was clearly a skater (my weakness), and a really handsome one at that. The light hit him in a certain way, though he was one of those guys who would shine in the dark—just a star, able to draw attention in a low-key way. It was hard not to stare.

  Bear was a smart-ass, and he teased me all night in a way that would be easy to mistake for flirting. We didn’t exchange numbers. I left that night so bummed that he didn’t ask. But by that point, everything had become about St. Mary’s—I totally skipped out on the Chapparal High crew—and we started running into each other all the time at parties. There was a big kegger one ni
ght, and kids from across town were going to be there. I knew Bear would be there, too. I was really excited to see him, but a fight broke out between the two high school boy groups over something stupid, and the whole crowd dispersed. We ended up back at Katie’s, and somehow Bear found his way there.

  Our parents got divorced when we were fifteen, though they had been on and off for years. When they decided to make it official, everything went sideways, and they kicked us out of the house. Nicole was considered a runaway for a week and wouldn’t go back home until my mom agreed to fully kick my dad out. One of the things that had precipitated running away was the fact that Nicole and I had decided to get our first tattoos—I got a fairy on my ass because I thought of myself as a free spirit, and Nicole got a heart on fire. They were regrettable, but in that moment they felt like the only way to rebel.

  I showed Bear my ass tattoo that night and then his friends dragged him away. As he was getting in the car, he finally asked for my number—he didn’t have a pen but promised he had a good memory. He told me later that the guys in the car kept trying to mess him up as he repeated my number again and again.

  He called me the next day and we spoke for four hours, in that way that you do when you’re seventeen and you want to know absolutely everything about someone. We talked until we fell asleep on the phone. He told me his favorite color was purple, which I thought was unexpected for a dude. I told him my life story. We talked about our siblings. He had lost his oldest brother, a family tragedy that hadn’t seemed to derail his sense of peace and justice. Bear was the baby, the youngest of six kids.