The incident that finally made me move out was an ugly one. I had walked in on my brother and his friend's wife messing around in our living room once before, so I was not surprised when he brought her back to the house to engage in a little 'one on one'. He took this woman into our mom's bedroom, which is right across the hall from mine. "Turn up your stereo" he said as he started to close the door. "You won't want to hear this." I cranked up my stereo, but I still heard everything.
When it was finally quiet, I opened my door. The woman disappeared down the hallway and left. My brother stood in the doorway, a smug look on his face. "Nice" I said. "Your friend's wife. This is not a whorehouse. The next time you want to get together with her, you can go to her house or go to a motel." He was looking down at his hands, but not in guilt. "Well, we can't go to her house because she's married, and I don't have enough money for a motel." He looked me over and raised his eyes to mine. "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" he said.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The look in his eyes was revolting. My stomach turned over in utter disgust. "You're sick!" I spat. "There's something wrong with your head!" I crossed my arms over my chest and headed down the hallway. I needed to put as much distance between him and me as possible. Later on, I told our mom what he had said. "You have got to kick him out!" I told her. "He's getting much too dangerous for me!" To my shock, Mom remained silent. "Mom, he threatened me with rape! Please! You have two children, not just one...stop protecting him at my expense!" "He doesn't have anywhere to go" was all she said. "Then you leave me no choice" I told her. "It's either him or me, and you've just made your choice."
A friend of mine was going to be moving out of an apartment that I was very interested in, but not right away. She promised that she would mention me to her landlord. I always made sure that I locked my bedroom door at night, but the flimsy little flip lock would not offer any true protection if my brother was determined to do me harm. It had already been damaged by our dad, so it wasn't near as secure as it once had been. Everything was fine until I woke up one morning and discovered that I was nude. My nightgown lay on the floor beside my bed. I had never taken my pajamas off in my sleep in my entire life. I had to get out of there.
I wound up getting the apartment and I lived there between 1999 and 2002. It was a month to month lease. One day, my landlord informs me that a relative of his was moving to the area and needed a place to live, so he wasn't going to renew my lease. He gave me two weeks to move out. I panicked. I was only paying about $450 a month there. I knew it was going to be difficult to find another one in that price range, especially in two weeks. Mom kept begging me to move back home. "Your brother is a different person now...he's changed." At the end of the two weeks, most of my stuff was in a storage unit and I was back inside my nightmare.
To my shock, Mom's finances were in a complete shambles. Every bill she had was in arrears. Delinquency notices kept coming. Bill collectors kept calling. Her entire $50,000 retirement fund was gone. Her property taxes were three years behind. She was on the verge of losing the house. Her checking account had been closed. Her car was repossessed. "What in the hell has been going on around here?!" I cried. "You were always so good about paying your bills!" She finally admitted that my brother had a lot to do with what was happening.
He was not working, so she was supporting him. He went with her to the bank when she got her check and made her give him the money. When it ran out, he had her write checks against her balance until her account was closed. He called up the bill collectors and promised them partial payments then never followed through. "Nobody pays the full amount of their bills!" he snapped. "Everyone sends in partial payments!" "They're telling me they never got any payments!" I shot back. "The bills have to come first! Mom's about to lose the house for gods sakes!" I tried talking to the companies that were demanding payment in full to see if we could work something out, but it was too late. They had been given too many empty promises and were fresh out of patience.
The first thing I did was have Mom take me to the Credit Union. We added up what the bills would come to each month. That amount was automatically deposited into my checking account, and I took over paying the bills. When my brother found out what we had done...he backed me up against a wall, fist cocked. "You bitch!" he screamed. "This is your doing!" "Yes it is" I admitted coolly. "The bills have to get paid, and from now on, they will be." He trashed the house, screaming and yelling that we were going to go back and undo what we had done or else. With my encouragement, Mom stood her ground. The arrangement would stand.
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