All In The Family

My mother met my father in college and she got pregnant. She thought about it but decided not to go through with an abortion. She begged him to marry her and he did (because he was drunk) when she was seven months pregnant. That's the story she tells, and who are we to say it's not true. I was there, but still inside, so I can't be a witness. What my mother did not know at the time is that my father had a wife in his home town, from when he was a teenager and a girl got pregnant there. That marriage was still live and although he was away for college, she was home with the kids.

When my mother found out my father had a wife at home, with two kids, she was already pregnant with my sister inside. It was a shock, but he had cheated on his wife with my mother, not the other way around. To make it short, my mother kept on having kids with my father and his wife kept on having kids with my father. An arms race. Neither one would back down.

My mother lived as his wife, although technically her marriage was not recognized, because he was already married. But that didn't matter, she was his wife and he lived with her most of the time, but went home to check on his wife and came back once she got pregnant again. By the time I was ten I knew the whole story. It's not like it was a secret. My mother said that she was the city wife, and that other wife, was the country wife. The other wife said that she was the 'real' wife, and my mother was the 'concubine' wife. She used the word concubine to describe my mother. Although they didn't socialize together they did meet each other and spent the time complimenting each other as to how pretty or nice or handsome the other wife's kids were. And look, they have green eyes. My paternal grandmother has green eyes, so that's proof.

It was for a Thanksgiving that I got pregnant with my half brother Tom. It wasn't some kind of acting out, or anything like that. My brother Tom, who is older, always chased me around, and I mean he chased me around as kids, he caught me and held me down. In those days he was practicing how to get on a girl, me. I got pregnant because he did what he practiced, but without my pants on. Why my pants weren't on? Well that's another question that doesn't have an answer.

We couldn't get married, not legally or officially. So we have to live outside of the sanctity of marriage. But like my mother and my father, my mother is 'his' wife, I'm Tom's wife. I bake the babies and he keeps his finger in the mix. We left for college all pregnant and baked three babies and he got his degree in Aeronautical Engineering and I got my degree in home cooking, baking babies, and keeping him happy. I'm working on a 'real' degree.

One thing you cannot deny, all 'us' girls know how to be wives.