The first one to finally grow a pair was my organic father’s firstborn—a kid who got passed around like a bad penny, from house to house, school to school, neighborhood to neighborhood, getting kicked, drugged, and emotionally bled dry by a mother’s quiet passive personality working behine the scenes.
Her philosophy was simple: beat him into submission mentally, guilty until proven innocent, medicate the rest. If he had feelings, drown them in pills. If he fought back, beat him harder with more pills. His life was a controlled experiment in suppression—wake up, take the pills, eat your 500-calorie dinner, pretend you’re fine, take more pills for sleep, repeat.
Then one day, it clicked. Maybe it was the Arizona sun frying his brain, or maybe, just maybe, he saw the scam for what it was. He started to enjoy himself, settling in, making friends, actually believing for a second that stability might exist.
That’s when our father, in true narcissistic form, pulled the rug out from under him.
“We’re moving to Colorado. I’m Gonna build myself a house. me me and me”
Of course, it was about him. Always was. Always would be.
And that’s when my brother finally snapped.
“Fuck you. I’m staying.”
And that was it. No fight, no begging. Just a simple refusal. He planted his feet, shook off the chemicals, and let them walk away without him.
For the first time, someone told my father to fuck off and meant it.
Now, my brother was never what you’d call a lady’s man. He was scrawny, awkward, underdeveloped thanks to the years of pharmaceutical suppression. Bone structure had potential, but muscle? Not so much. His aesthetic appeal was still under construction.
But what he lacked in charm, he made up for in opportunity.
Somewhere along the line, he found himself a woman. Was she a stripper? A homeless woman with a pulse? No one really knows. But she was there, and that was enough. She had a kid from another guy, and my brother—ever the enigma—stepped into the role of father like he was born for it.
Turns out, the guy had instincts. Maybe it was all the bad parents that made him a good one. He wasn’t just a dad. He was the mom, too. Feeding, nurturing, handling the emotional labor while still getting laid regularly. A win-win.
They lived in a trailer park. He worked in a pawn shop, selling guns, making more money than he ever had before. Life, for the first time, made sense.
And then, the inevitable happened—one rogue sperm, a little too ambitious, fought past the defenses. She was pregnant.
At first, it was a novelty, a surprise. But soon, it became the thing that tied them together.
The kid grew up calling him “Dad.” Both kids did. His stepson, his own, no distinctions. He had built something real. An actual family.
And when you have kids, things shift. You start thinking about roots, about missing people, about connections.
So, they moved. Back to Colorado.
Here’s where things got interesting.
My organic father and his cold-as-a-corpse wife—the two least maternal people on the planet—somehow got convinced to watch the grandkids while my brother’s wife supposedly battled Stage 4 cancer.
Oh, it was a whole production. Daily updates.
“She’s in treatment.”
“She’s throwing up.”
“She’s losing her hair.”
“She’s getting a spinal tap.”
“She’s in the hospital again.”
They strung them along for months. The grandparents from hell forced into hands-on childcare, something they despised more than taxes.
And then the truth came out:
There was no cancer. No chemo. No hospital visits.
It was all bullshit.
To this day, I don’t know what my brother got out of it. Maybe just the satisfaction of watching them squirm. Maybe they owed him that much.
But that was it. The final fracture.
The old man and his wife labeled her as “just like my mother”—manipulative, deceitful, calculated. They painted themselves as the victims, conveniently forgetting the decades of damage they had done.
I watched from my beautiful, bitter, perfect life in Bend, Oregon, sipping coffee and laughing my ass off.
And then, out of nowhere, right before Christmas—a knock on my door.
I opened it, and there was my brother.
Reeking of cigarettes, wearing a goddamn Members Only jacket. His wife stood beside him—thick glasses, nicotine-stained teeth, a little heavy, but ready to talk.
Their kids, adorable and strange.
They had moved to LaPine.
Now, let me tell you something about LaPine, Oregon. It’s the last stop before full-blown hillbilly territory. You go there to disappear, to hunt deer, or to die in obscurity. It’s gas stations and regret.
We sat, catching up. I learned fast—his wife was the talker. She had an agenda. She was selling something, though I couldn’t tell what. My brother? He barely spoke. Just nodded along.
But when I watched them with their kids, I saw something I didn’t expect.
He was the mother.
Not in a weak way. Not in a sad way. But in a way that made me respect the hell out of him.
His wife barely noticed the kids. But my brother? He was there. He was present. He cared.
And then, Christmas dinner.
I had cooked a perfect, $200 prime rib. Horseradish, all the fixings, a goddamn feast.
I served the plates.
And then—the moment.
His wife looked at her plate and said, “Oh, I don’t eat meat.”
I almost told her to fuck herself right then and there.
Then their kid—the stepson—tried to grab food before the prayer.
I grabbed his hand, squeezed it tight, looked him dead in the eyes.
Set some boundaries.
The stench of smoke, the awkward silence, the misalignment of worlds—it was never going to last.
I sent updates to our father—that spineless motherfucker. He probably regurgitated them to his wife.
And I knew, just knew, this wasn’t the last chapter.
Not by a long shot.
