Then I Met My Sister by Christine Hurley Deriso Page B

“I’m sorry.”
    “Shannon walked in on them. He was having some fling with the church secretary—God, how tacky is that?—and Shannon caught them kissing in the rectory.”
    “Bummer,” Gibs says softly. “But … you sound okay. Are you okay?”
    My eyes unexpectedly fill with tears, but I blink them back. “Yeah. Whatever.”
    “That must have really done a number on Shannon,” Gibs says.
    I nod. “I think it messed with her mind. I know everybody thought she had it all together, Gibs, but she was really naïve. You can read it in her words. It’s like she lived in a bubble, and when Dad popped it, she went from one extreme to the other—Miss Priss to Bad Ass in one fell swoop. But it was just an act. She was so sad and confused.” I want to kill myself …
    “It makes me so mad at Mom,” I add.
    “At your mom?” Gibs says. “Why your mom?”
    “I don’t know … At first, with the affair, I sympathized with her, especially after Aunt Nic told me how she went all ninja on the other woman when she saw her in the grocery store.”
    “What?”
    “Something about shoving an orange up her ass. Anyway, she was like this total mother bear, you know, ready to practically claw somebody’s eyes out to protect her family. So that was kinda cool. But …”
    “But what?”
    I shrug. “She treats Dad like dryer lint. She’s totally bossy and bitchy. She never pays any attention to him.”
    “Maybe she paid him plenty of attention until he cheated on her,” Gibs observes.
    I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.
    “So do your parents know you know?” Gibs asks.
    I crinkle my nose. “ What ?”
    “Your parents. Do they know you know about your dad’s affair?”
    I laugh out loud. “God, no!”
    “Why would it be so weird for them to know? I mean, they know Shannon knew, right?”
    “That doesn’t mean anybody ever talked about it,” I say. “Shannon said it herself in the journal—my parents never talk about anything that matters.”
    “But you’re the one not talking about it,” Gibs says.
    I cluck my tongue impatiently. “Could you talk to your parents about something like this?”
    “I don’t know,” Gibs muses. “I know my dad got a girl pregnant in medical school. We talk about that.”
    I gasp. “Really? What happened to the girl?”
    Gibs laughs. “She became my mother. I was the baby.”
    I smile in spite of myself. I’ve only met Gibs’ parents in passing, but who would have guessed. “Still,” I say, “that turned out okay.”
    “But your dad’s affair turned out okay, too. I mean, your folks are still married.”
    Which makes sense, right? They are still married.
    Only that doesn’t strike me as a success.

Eighteen
Monday, June 14, 1993
When I met with Dr. Deadhead last Monday, I gave him an earful about how Mom’s a control freak and Dad’s a hypocrite, but he didn’t want to talk about those things today. (And I have so much more to say!)
He asked me about my friends. I told him how Eve and I have drifted apart and how Jamie and I have gotten so close. He did that sneaky shrink thing of getting information without asking many questions, and the next thing I knew, I was telling him things that made him take lots of notes.
I know he’s thinking the same thing Mom thinks: Eve is Miss Perfect, Jamie is Trouble, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I HATE the way adults put people in tiny boxes: good, bad, smart, stupid, right, wrong. I spent most of my life believing them. Then I gave Miss Wrong a chance and found out she’s really fun. And Miss Right started to seem pretty judgmental.
So, Dr. Deadhead, why am I wrong for giving people the benefit of the doubt?
He said he didn’t think I was wrong, just maybe a little naïve.
But naïve is what I USED to be. I was naïve when I thought Mom could never be wrong, that Dad could never make a mistake. Dr. Deadhead asked if I could say these things to Mom; he wanted to call her in from the waiting room. I said