How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  “Well, Randall, we’re half-sisters. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She smiled big as she put her hand out to shake mine.

  I thought she might be teasing me, but I shook her hand anyway and smiled right back at her. I stared at her the rest of the day, and the more I did the more I saw how much she looked like Dad—and when she laughed while reading a page from Charlotte’s Web, she sounded just like him.

  When I got home from school that day, I asked Robbie if he knew anything about Dad having other children, “Yeah, I think I heard something about Dad being married before he met Mom and having a kid. I don’t know for sure, though. You should ask Mrs. Benson, ’cause she’s the one who told me,” Robbie said.

  “Why would she know about Dad having another wife?” I asked.

  “I was mowing her lawn one day a couple of years ago when she came home with some lady who she introduced as Mrs. Grange. Then she said something about me meeting my half-sister someday.”

  Mrs. Benson lived right behind us in an old house that Dad called a “fucking dump.” It had lots of overgrown trees and bushes, and the front porch was stacked high with old furniture and appliances, but Mrs. Benson didn’t care. She didn’t like my dad, either, but she did like me and I could always count on her to tell me the truth about things. I headed to her house to speak with her about Tammy, but no one answered the door.

  I couldn’t wait for Mrs. Benson to get home to get more information, so I called my Uncle Hank and Aunt Flo. When Uncle Hank answered I blurted out really quick, “Do you know if my dad had another baby before Robbie, because my substitute teacher says we might be half-sisters.”

  “Oh, my. You’ve met Tammy, have you? I’d better put Flo on the line, honey,” he said.

  I asked Aunt Flo the same thing, and she hesitated for a few seconds before she said, “Yes, she’s your sister. Well, half-sister, but I’d better not say anything else. Your dad wouldn’t appreciate it. You know how he is.”

  She also said I should keep Tammy a secret. “There’s no reason for you to tell anyone about her, especially your dad. He’s probably not in a very good mood after going to jail and I just don’t think he needs to know.” I promised I wouldn’t mention her to Mom or Dad, but it was going to be pretty hard since Tammy was going to be my new teacher until the end of the school year. And I didn’t for a long time, but I did look through a photo album that Dad kept on a shelf in his big garage to see if I could find a photo of Tammy. There weren’t any. The album was full of car photos, plus a few from Vietnam and one of Dad at the beach holding hands with Uncle Bill’s fiancée, Genie.

  After I put Dad’s photo album away, I went to my room and wrote a few things in my poem diary. Nice things about Tammy, because I knew I couldn’t mention her to anyone and I needed to tell someone how happy I was about having a sister.

  I wondered if there were other sisters or brothers of mine somewhere, and I thought about my parents and how they never talked about their parents or siblings. I asked my dad about it once, on the drive home from a car event. “My parents are dead and the rest are pretty useless,” he told me. “If you want to know about Mom’s you’ll have to ask her because I can’t remember their names. Now stop talking.”

  A few weeks after Tammy started as my third grade teacher, I told Mom I’d gotten an A on my math and history test, and while I was at it, I told her about my teacher-sister. I told her everything I knew, including what she looked like and how she had a nose like Dad’s and a little snaggletooth like mine.

  “How do you know for sure that she’s your sister?” Mom asked in a very quiet voice.

  “Aunt Flo said it was true.”

  Mom pinched her lips together. “I wish she’d mind her own business.”

  “I made her tell me, Mom, she didn’t want to,” I replied.

  “Well, I’m happy that the cat’s finally out of the bag on this one, and I’m glad she’s nice to you, but let’s not tell your dad.”

  Mom was much better at keeping secrets than I was. She had lots of them, including things about her family that she rarely told anyone. What I knew about her family I learned from eavesdropping on her phone calls with Olive. Mom often called her at night after a few glasses of Ernest and Julio, and that’s how I knew Mom’s parents lived in San Diego, that her younger sister, Evelyn, was married to a preacher, had four girls, and lived in Utah, and that her brother, Tony, taught high school in Boston and had three boys.

  Mom could talk to Olive for hours, and I often hung out in the kitchen pretending to do my homework so I could hear what she was saying. Sometimes she talked about work or her family, but mostly she complained about Dad and how she hated his car club buddies and the amount of time he spent in his garage building cars. And once I overheard her tell Olive she thought Aunt Flo was a royal bitch. “I just don’t get why he doesn’t talk to anyone in his family except for her. Sure, they’re twins, but have you ever noticed how he’ll argue with me until the cows come home, but not Flo—whatever she says goes.”

  That was the truth. Dad never fought with Aunt Flo, and he just about went crazy when he found out that his other sisters who came to dinner at our house had also gone to the police station with Uncle Bill the next day to make official statements about Dad trying to run him over. Dad spent days on the phone yelling at them.

  Aunt Flo was pretty mad about what had happened too, but she didn’t go to the police to complain. In fact, she helped Dad by sending Uncle Hank down to the jail to bail him out because Mom didn’t have enough money. A few days later, a letter arrived at our house, from Aunt Flo and addressed to Dad. I didn’t read it, but I was in the kitchen when he did, and it must have said something bad about his drinking because after he squished up her letter and threw it in the trash he took all the booze out of the house and his garage and poured it down the laundry room sink. I think he drank more that day than he poured out, though, and Mom and I had to clean up his mess after his tirade was over.

  I was proud of myself for keeping Tammy a secret for so long. For five months I didn’t tell anyone about my sister except for Mom, Uncle Hank, Aunt Flo, Mrs. Benson, and a few people at my Saturday arts and crafts class. I felt like I’d found a big treasure and I didn’t want anyone to take it away.

  Then one day toward the end of school year, for no good reason, I spilled the beans and mistakenly told Dad. I was sitting at the breakfast table reading Mom the list of people I’d invited, or was planning to invite, to my ninth birthday party at the roller rink, and I don’t know why I said her name but I did. Dad stopped reading his newspaper, reached over, grabbed the list out of my hands, and re-read the names. When he got to my teacher’s name he said, “Who the fuck is Tammy Grange?”

  “She’s my teacher, and I think she’s my sister, too,” I said. “I’ve already invited her to my party.”

  I knew before I’d finished talking how Dad was going to respond to this news. I watched him get up and walk to the hall closet. He took out his overcoat and then in a low voice he said, “Absolutely fucking not. She doesn’t exist.”

  This is the same thing Dad said about lots of people he didn’t like, including our mailman, the guy who took care of the lawns at the park down the block, the principal of my school, and our neighbor, Mr. Kendrick, and once he said it about me after I accidently scraped some paint off the back door of his Falcon at a classic car exhibition. Dad’s friend Mike walked over to me when I was climbing into the backseat to get away from Dad and said, “Don’t pay attention. He’s drunk, and drunks say dumb things.” I didn’t tell him that Dad was more or less drunk all the time, and it was hard not to pay attention to him.

  I felt like I’d ruined everything by telling Dad about Tammy, and I didn’t know what to do. On my way into the classroom that day, I stopped at my sister’s desk and told her I’d mistakenly mentioned her to Dad and he wasn’t happy about me inviting her to my party. I couldn’t help but cry when I said it.

  “Oh sweetheart, don’t be upset.
I wouldn’t have been able to come anyway. I’m going to be out town that weekend.”

  I felt so much better after she said that.

  A few days before my party, she gave me a cupcake and a small photo album with about twenty pictures in it, and she marked the one she liked best—a picture of her and Dad at a beach when she was just a baby. Dad was holding her up in one hand and holding a beer in the other, and they were both smiling. There were also a few pictures of her as a little girl, without Dad, and she sure was cute.

  She looked a little more like Robbie than me, except her teeth, which were exactly like mine. In the back of the album, there was a picture of her and her mother swimming at a lake and another photo of them sitting on a dock holding hands and laughing. The last picture in the album was a photo of Dad from a long time ago. He was wearing a military uniform and standing in front of a car kissing a blonde woman. I guessed the woman was Tammy’s mother. He looked so young and happy in the picture, happier than I’d ever seen him. When I finished looking through the photo album, my sister told me our dad got hurt in Vietnam and had to stay in a special hospital for a long time. “I was only eleven and I really didn’t understand what had happened to him, but he never came home and I never saw him again,” Tammy said.

  I felt bad for her, especially because she seemed so sad about it. I wondered why Dad went to a hospital and never went home to Tammy and her mother.

  That night, when Mom and I were at the kitchen table making up gift bags for my party, I told her about the photo album and what my sister had said about Dad being in a hospital after the war. I hadn’t noticed that Dad had come in the back door and could hear us until he said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll mind your own fucking business and keep your trap shut.” The glass of whiskey he threw barely missed my head before it smashed against the wall.

  “You’re gonna cut yourself,” Mom said as I bent down to pick up pieces of broken glass. “I’ll clean it up. Why don’t you take your list and the birthday bags to your room and get ready for bed?” she offered gently.

  I cried all the way to my room. I really wanted to slam my door shut but I didn’t because I could hear Dad in the kitchen arguing with Mom and I knew I’d get in big trouble if I did.

  Mom knocked on my door just as I finished putting the magic trick cards in each of the birthday gift bags. When I didn’t answer she opened the door and stuck her head in. “I really don’t know why your dad acts like that. I do know he’s got a lot going on at work and he’s worried about money. Robbie’s college is going to be expensive and he owes Mr. Kendrick thousands for the damage to his house.”

  I stared at a gift bag.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “I guess,” I said.

  Mom handed me a glass of water and a piece of one of the blue pills she usually took at night. “Here, swallow this. It’ll help you forget everything and sleep. I’m about to do the same thing.” She shook her head up and down slowly and walked backward all the way out to the hallway.

  While I waited for the pill to work I wondered if my sister would still like me even though my dad didn’t want anything to do with her.

  CHAPTER 4

  Olive and my mom’s hairdresser and friend, Ken, came over the night before my birthday party. They brought me a new pair of roller skates and a big chocolate cake. They also brought a few bottles of champagne to celebrate Olive getting a new job.

  After we’d eaten cake and they’d finished the second bottle of champagne, Olive looked at me and said, “Hey, I hear you’ve got a secret sister.”

  I looked over at Mom and frowned. She grinned and said, “Sorry.”

  “I guess she’s not a secret anymore, and she’s only my half-sister and my teacher for another week. But she can’t come to my birthday party tomorrow because Dad hates her,” I said.

  “Oh honey, try to remember that your dad hates almost everyone, not just your sister. He can be awful sometimes. Absolutely awful!” she shrieked.

  Ken rolled his eyes and nodded in agreement.

  Mom smiled at me in a way that told me she agreed with Olive, all the while doing her best to pull the cork off the top of the third champagne bottle. “Ya know, he wasn’t always awful, and he never used to drink much,” Mom said.

  “In your dreams.” Olive laughed.

  “He used to be such a gentleman, and I don’t think he drank at all when I first met him,” Mom said.

  “Ya know, I’ve been doing your hair for years, and I’ve heard about your house, your kids, and your boss, but you’ve never told me the story of how you two met,” Ken said.

  Mom sat down at the kitchen table, filled her glass to the rim, and told a story I’d never heard before: “I was a senior in high school and working part-time as a waitress at the officers’ club in San Diego. He arrived with his wife and little girl one day for the brunch buffet. He was so charming and handsome, and he looked at me like I was the only person on earth. I had an instant crush on him. One Sunday I served him a stack of pancakes and dropped a bottle of syrup right in his lap, and when I reached to get it he grabbed my arm and didn’t let go until I looked him straight in the eye. Then he slid his hand away so slowly I got goose bumps all the way up my arms and my legs went weak. It was a good thing his wife and daughter had gone to the bathroom and didn’t see us, because I would have died of embarrassment.

  “He showed up most Sundays for brunch from then on, always with his wife and little girl, who must have been about eight or nine. But one Sunday, he arrived alone and asked me to his house for dinner. I thought he was offering dinner with him, his wife, and daughter, so I said sure. But they weren’t at his house when I got there, and I told him I couldn’t stay but then he kissed me and I couldn’t make myself do anything but kiss him back. By the end of the night I was in love,” she said.

  “My god, girl, what did your parents think?” Ken laughed as he threw his head back and finished off his glass of bubbly.

  Mom said her parents were angry with her for getting involved with a married man, but she didn’t care and would sneak out to meet him whenever he called. “It took a lot of careful planning to avoid his wife and her friends, but we managed. I found out I was pregnant a few weeks after I turned nineteen, and a week after he’d left for his second tour of Vietnam. I didn’t write to tell him until I was eight months along because my parents didn’t want me to. They begged me to forget about him, but I couldn’t.”

  “When my baby died, a few hours after she was born, I sent a telegram to him to let him know and thought he’d call or write, but I didn’t hear from him again for more than two years. He showed up at my house one day with a bunch of flowers and a story about getting shot and getting a divorce.”

  Even though I had to go to the bathroom, I didn’t move an inch. I felt glued to my chair as I listened to my mother talk about another sister that I never knew of.

  “We eloped a few months later and moved here to Huntington Beach because he was raised out here and had enrolled in a college to get a business degree. We were happy but we didn’t have much money, so I worked at a department store and he worked part-time as a mechanic. That’s where he met his car club friends and got interested in classic cars. He also spent time with his mother, who didn’t live far from our apartment. He drove her to church every Sunday, and we often had dinner with her on Sunday nights. She liked me, told me she was glad her son married me and hoped we’d have a happy life together. I think we did—for a while, anyway, especially when Robbie came along. He was a different man then, a nice guy,” Mom said.

  “I don’t remember him ever being a nice guy, and I’ve known him almost as long as you have,” Olive said.

  Mom looked up at Olive, shrugged her shoulders, and started to cry. Olive apologized for what she’d said about Dad, but that didn’t stop Mom’s tears.

  I’d never heard the story of my parents meeting before, and I had a feeling Mom wouldn’t have told it if she hadn’t drunk s
o much champagne. I didn’t know what to say to her because it sounded unbelievable, like the story of someone else’s parents, not mine. “What was the baby’s name?” I asked.

  “Her name was Casey, and she was a beautiful baby—just like you, sweetheart,” Mom said, and she smiled at me in a way that let me know everything she’d said was true.

  When I went to bed that night I tried to think of what Dad was like way back then, the way she described him, but I just couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t know much about a dad who brought flowers to Mom or drove people to church. I only knew the dad who sold engine supplies to airlines, liked cars as much as he liked whiskey, said there was no God, and was mean to almost everyone.

  As mean as Dad was, he didn’t look mean. He had a nice, friendly face and really blue eyes. He wasn’t fat or thin, but he was tall—a lot taller than most of his friends and my mom, at least. He had a little bit of hair, mostly in the back of his head, and his skin was tanned all year round. I would say he was just about perfect- looking, and when he slept he even looked peaceful.

  There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of my dad. I used to follow him everywhere, even to the bathroom. I was five or six then, and would often sneak into my parents’ bedroom late at night when they were asleep because I liked to listen to him snore. His snore had a whistle sound to it, like a train in the distance. What I liked to do even more was to touch the little hollow space at the front of his neck. I liked to put my finger on it and feel it move up and down. I knew from experience I had to be careful and not press too hard or keep it there too long because if I did he would wake up and yell at me or tell Mom I was being creepy, and she would tell me to get back to my room. I really just wanted to crawl into bed with him and snuggle up, and I thought one day he would wake up and tell me to, but he never did.

  My mom was a lot younger than Dad and almost his total opposite. She was just five foot two and had long dark hair, pale skin, skinny legs, and tiny feet but with big toes and nails that she painted a shade of orange she called coral. She looked pretty all the time and she was rarely in a bad mood, and except for when she was arguing with Dad, she was pretty quiet. She could sit in a chair for hours reading without moving or saying a word, and she loved romance novels. She had a whole bookshelf filled with them. Dad said she was sick in the head for reading that shit, but he always brought a couple home with him if he’d been out of town.