There is No Hardball Like Family Hardball

When three sisters who really don't like one another very much come together to bury a grandmother, the potential for "ugly" is never far away. It hovers so close it can be felt, palpably. "Family" knows the things that we didn't bother to tell our adult friends, and they will not hesitate to use any of it to make you bleed. It is indeed a thin line between love and hate...

So after Grandma Vi's funeral, we decided to go to the lounge of the hotel I am staying in until I fly home tomorrow. It has been over 10 years since we gathered like this. I remember why. We had not even taken the first sip of our respective drinks when Mary, the middle sister, began with the left-handed compliments. Before the Bud Light in front of me was half gone, I had ordered a shot of Wild Turkey and was plotting my escape.

Mary and I are the healthcare types, she is a Respiratory therapist--who smokes menthols--and Vi, the baby and named after Grandma Vi, is a second-grade teacher. Mom wisely declined the invite to join us. "What? You think I want to end up a human shield? Really! Thank you, but no...not just no...Never. I was relieved when you were all moved out and I do not want to take a trip down sibling-rivalry memory lane." My mom is a pretty sharp cookie, no two ways about that.

In two hours, before I mercifully got a call on my cell...It was a solicitation from the Kansas City Star, but it was vitally important medical business, if you get my drift, and I had to excuse myself. But in that short two hours, Mary made sure to tell me that she had seen "Wesley's mother recently. She doesn't look to well, she has just never been the same." (Wesley was my high-school boyfriend when I was 15, and we were in an accident on a rainy friday night after a football game. I was the only survivor in the car, three of my schoolmates died. Wesley was driving, I was not. I got my seat-belt clicked about a second - maybe two - before impact.)

Vi had to tell me that Daniel, the guy who broke my heart after Wesley was killed had a "new" trophy wife and a seven year old who was in her class. (He also has children older than my kids with my replacement.) Guess he just committed to Beth until she turned 40, but I'm pretty sure the vows said "till death do us part." She went on. "He was at the PTO meeting last week. He asked me about you. I told him you were a scientist and living in Kansas City. I didn't tell him the part about you not finishing school." (I haven't completed a doctorate! Yet! I didn't drop out of high-school!)

I got some shots in too, but mostly I restricted my arsenal to only firing warning shots. I'm the oldest, I know where all their gravest, most rookie-move errors are located in their little psyches. I didn't bring up Mary's shoplifting bust as a teen, or the stolen liquor that I ended up taking the fall with our stepdad for. Vi's indiscressions as a teenager that only an oldest sister could smooth-over and avoid parental involvement, were given a pass, but she got it from the look I gave her. I left the big guns in the holster, and prayed that I could avoid drawing them.

Then a random subscription call, and I already subscribe. I made my escape. I called the bar 20 minutes later and told them to tell my sisters that I would not be able to rejoin them, and would instead have to stay in my room, on my laptop, doing time-edits for payroll. (Becky, my supervisor is doing time-edits right now, that isn't even my job, I just needed to get the fuck away from my sisters before I started World War III.) I swear the bartender let out an audible sigh of relief. And so I hid out and blogged instead. I may call back down and make sure they are gone, then go have a beer. I could use one.