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I thought she was a step-monster until I became a mom myself
When I was six, my dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday. “A house of our own,” I told him.
Even though I loved living with my grandfather and my single-father dad needed the help, I dreamed of living in a two-story house with a gabled roof and big porch. My mom wasn’t fully in the picture anymore, as my dad had full-custody of me and my younger sister, and I think somewhere in my six-year-old brain, I believed having a home of our own meant we could all move on from my parent’s contentious and awful divorce.
I don’t know how long it was after, but my dad surprised me with a two-story townhouse. My younger sister and I each had our own bedrooms, and I loved sitting in the kitchen watching him cook after long shifts after the steel mill.
It was our home.
Until she showed up. Again, my child-brain is foggy on the details of timing, but sometime shortly after, my dad introduced me to his friend Gail who had a daughter a year younger than me. This woman was suddenly at our house all the time, cooking in our kitchen and bringing her daughter with her.
I was not amused.
