How I Ruined (Y)Our Life

Chapter One ~ How I Ended Up This Way

My mother would never dream of asking more from me than I could handle. So I thought.

She smoked and drank and hated my father, but she loved her children, all four of us. My eldest brother, Anthony, undoubtedly saw more of their hatred than we ever did. He was 10 when the next child rolled around, Marcella, and it was at that point that my parents decided, in my mother's own words to, "Quit fucking around and act like the adults we were." So they did.

When Marcella turned four, I was born, much to Anthony's delight and Marcella's despair. Anthony was 17 when he finally left the family, moved out on his own, and stopped speaking to our parents. The day he left, something clicked inside our father. Losing his eldest child and his first son, at that. He drank more, and yelled more, and blew our money on booze and cigarettes. He would never dream of touching us, nor my mother, but that didn't stop Marcella from crying when he yelled, and it didn't stop me from crawling in bed with her when she cried at night.

When I was 8, our final brother was born, and our father left days after. Marcella was 11 and she loved the baby more than I thought anyone could love anything. Oliver was a premature baby, and in pretty good condition considering that our mother drank and smoked during her pregnancy. He cried a lot, mostly when Marcella wasn't around, and when Marcella was gone, I watched after our little brother.

The night dad left was the first time my mother ever said to me, "Jack, Promise me that you won't do what we did?" Her eyes shone with tears and her already-frazzled-face looked even worse, "Promise me that you won't let your children live the lives you and your siblings have." I could only nod, even though I was young and didn't know what she meant, I could nod and say, "Mommy, I promise. Anything for my mommy."

It wasn't for seven more years that I would understand, and I heard the same thing every night of those seven years, "Jack," my mother would say, "Promise me that you won't do what we did?" Her eyes would shine with tears and her already-frazzled-face would look even worse, "Promise me that you won't let your children live the lives you and your siblings did." I would always nod, even when I was too young to know what she meant, I would nod and say, "Mommy, I promise. Anything for my mommy."

I remember the night as clear as crystal, it was cool outside, strangely cloudy for a mid July night, not a star was in the sky. The neighborhood was silent, until 2am, when suddenly the world seemed to be full of sirens and the terrified cries of a seven-year-old Oliver Ray Williams, a fourteen-year-old Jackson Kyle Williams, and an eighteen-year-old Marcella Marie Williams. We sat on the lawn, Oliver on Marcella's lap and myself huddled up near a bush as we sobbed until we were sick and would vomit into bushes and onto the lawn.

Marcella had gotten up to talk to our mother about something she was anxious about, she never told us, but when she knocked on the bedroom, door and no one answered, she began to worry more. Our mother was always a light sleeper, anything could wake her, she said that was the result of having had four children and a heavy sleeping husband.

When I heard my sisters scream after a door bursting open, I bolted into our mothers room, the only room with a light on and with a crying Marcella in the doorway, and immediately ran away from the room and stopped only to vomit on the hallway carpet. We didn't let Oliver see her, but he cried because he was scared and confused.

After our mother's funeral, Marcie took us in and we stayed in our childhood home, but we never opened our mother's door. I would stay in that home with my siblings until I was 19, Marcella, 23, and Oliver, 12.