#606 How I Ruined My Sister's Wedding

Background: I was born in 1944. My brother "Duke" was born in 1949, sister Sheryl in 1950, Janice in 1952, and David in early spring of 1960 I believe, during a difficult delivery that kept my mother in the hospital for months, and too weak to pick him up ever. Her strength gain was always behind his weight gain. So at the age of 15, in the 10th grade, I was the surrogate mother for the household - cooking, cleaning, shopping, changing and laundering diapers, sterilizing bottles, getting up for night feedings, and dealing with my violent father. David was pretty much my baby. I left him with a neighbor while I was in school, and picked him up after.

It was during this period that I first made plans to kill my father if he ever hit David. We lived on an Air Force base (my father was the commander), and it would have been easy to shoot him after a trip to the rifle range with the airmen (I was a darn good shot with a handgun). But I left for college in September of 1962, before David was old enough to be in danger, and I rarely went back for visits after that.

In about 1970, sister Janice got married. The reception was at my parents' home. My mother was a volunteer ride-along with the Orlando police, and the manager of a restaurant popular with the policemen, so she knew them all, and they all adored her. During the reception, there were always two or three patrol cars parked in front of the house. As another car arrived, they'd tweak the siren, and whoever had been there the longest would leave, and the next patrol car would pull in. So the living room was full of on-duty but on-break uniforms.

I walked into the kitchen just in time to see my father slap David so hard he spun. The bride had offered David a sip of champagne from her glass, and my father had walked in just as David tasted it.

I totally freaked.

My father was about 5'5", so in my high heels I was at nose-to-chin level with him. I pushed my face into his and shouted, "If you ever touch him (pointing to David) or her (pointing to my mother) again, I will kill you. I will get a gun, and I'll be on the next plane down here, and you won't know I'm coming. You'll be walking out of the house, or out of the dry cleaners, and I'll be there, and I'll blow your head off. Right between the eyes. Point blank. I will kill you. And there isn't a jury in the world that'll convict me when they hear what you've done to us. And don't think I won't find out. If you touch them someone will tell me. (All three other siblings nodded.) I WILL kill you!"

Then Duke stepped closer and said "And if she doesn't, I will."

Then Sheryl stepped in and said "And if they both miss, I won't."

I turned around to walk out, and saw at least six policemen crowded into the doorway, all looking very shocked, and studying the floor or the ceiling, like they were pretending they hadn't heard anything.

I was shaking so hard Ex#2 had to walk me around the block several times before he thought it was safe to go back to the house. When we got back, the reception was pretty much (prematurely) over.

My father died of a heart attack about 6 years later. I think my mother blamed me - he never did beat anyone again after my threat, and when he died, my mother said "His anger had nowhere to go but his heart."

Incidentally, nobody notified me that he had died until like two weeks after the funeral, so I didn't get to see him dead, to really know that he was dead, and for years afterward I had dreams that he was alive but that people were hiding him from me, and that he was stalking David to beat him. For years after, I rescued David in nightmares.