A Broken Tree Read online

  It all started when my brother Neil was sixteen years old and left home to spend the summer working on a friend’s farm in Indiana. Things had gotten rough for Neil, living at home. He was not getting along with my parents. Neil was a typical teenager, and my parents weren’t handling it well. He was having an especially hard time with Mom; those two butted heads often, rarely getting along with each other. Because of that, Neil and my parents thought it might be good for him to spend a summer away from everything that had been happening at home. It would also be a good way for Neil to learn how to work hard and take on some adult responsibilities. My dad had grown up on a farm, so he knew what Neil was in for. He believed that working on a farm was just what a young man needed to grow up and find himself; plus, all agreed it would be an added benefit for everyone if Neil had some time away from Mom.

  One evening, about a month after Neil had left home, Mom and Dad got the kind of call that every parent dreads. They were told that Neil had been involved in a terrible accident. He had been driving a tractor on some steep terrain when it tipped over, crushing him beneath it. He was rushed to the hospital in hopes they could save his life, but things didn’t look good. My parents were told to drive the two and a half hours to the hospital to see Neil for what could be the last time, to say their good-byes before he died. It was a long and painful drive that gave my parents time to ponder the possible death of their son.

  When Mom and Dad arrived at the hospital, they found that the hospital had sent out a call throughout the small farming community, asking for blood donors. Of course, Dad was right at the head of the line, prepared to donate all that they needed. A few hours later, Dad was told that they couldn’t give his blood to Neil because his blood was not compatible; they knew that his body would reject it. Hospital staff said they were willing to trade out Dad’s blood for other blood they had available, and they would give Dad credit for the donation. The fact that Neil’s blood was not compatible with Dad’s blood was not conclusive evidence that he was not Mark’s son, but Mom didn’t know that. I learned later that when Mom thought the secret was out, she admitted to Dad that Neil was not his biological son.

  With a single blood donation, the dynamics of our family had changed forever. That night, in a small town far away from home, faced with the very real prospect of losing one of his sons, Dad learned that Neil was not his biological son.

  After Dad’s death, I spoke with one of his war buddies. He told me that even before Dad found out who Neil’s real father was, he had suspected that something might not be right. Neil looked so much like his biological father—who was a part of our lives—that Dad had suspected it was more than just a coincidence. This man showed so much interest in Neil that it wasn’t entirely surprising Dad would be suspicious. Now, he knew for sure. Whether Neil had lived or died that night, it appeared that Dad had already lost a son.

  It is fascinating to think about what stories are bound up within our blood. For as long as people have lived on this Earth, they have had painful and unsavory secrets to hide. It used to be that there was little or no evidence of illicit actions that took place, but in recent years, science has been able to reveal the truth. The evidence we try to hide is recorded within the very blood that keeps us alive. This was only the first of several times that blood betrayed one of our family members, revealing secrets that some tried to hide, and others never knew existed. We would learn repeatedly that with today’s technology, family secrets are not as easily hidden as they used

  to be.

  I don’t remember anyone talking about what happened after Mom and Dad came home from visiting Neil in the hospital. It was simply understood that no one would bring the matter up for discussion. I was young enough that the details weren’t of much interest to me, but I have no doubt that Mom and Dad discussed it at great length in private. It was shortly after this event that Dad moved to an upstairs bedroom, while Mom kept the bedroom downstairs. I’m sure this was not a coincidence.

  I didn’t think anything of this new discovery. I was more concerned that Neil was hurt so badly that he could possibly die. The thought scared me. We had never lost a close family member, especially someone as close as a brother. I couldn’t imagine what our family would be like without Neil. It was that simple.

  When I was told what it really meant—that Neil was not Mark Anderson’s son—I didn’t fully appreciate the consequences of that announcement. I just thought that maybe Neil had been adopted, and that Mom and Dad didn’t want us younger kids to know about it. I did think it was kind of cool that my older brother might have been adopted. Thinking back to that time, I don’t understand why I didn’t ask more questions about it.

  Neil’s biological father was a family friend named Dennis, who lived with his wife just a couple blocks from our house. I had been to Dennis’s house with Mom and Dad many times. Dennis was one of Dad’s card-playing buddies, a fellow World War II vet. I think Dennis knew all along that Neil was his son. When Neil was only about thirteen years old, Dennis hired him to work with him during the summer months, delivering baked goods throughout the Chicago area. I always thought this would be the perfect job for a kid like me. I was so jealous of Neil; not only did he get paid a decent wage, but he also got all the goodies he ever wanted. Dennis was more than happy to indulge him.

  The two of them spent the summers together, traveling the roads in the delivery truck, talking and enjoying each other’s company. Dennis bought Neil a brand-new bicycle for his sixteenth birthday. It wasn’t some cheap bike, either; it was a high-flying, top-of-the-line Schwinn, bought from the show window of the local Coast to Coast hardware store. This man never did anything special for me or for Tim. I must say that I was more than a bit jealous of all the attention and kindness Neil received from Dennis. I couldn’t figure out why he was being treated so special. Now it all made sense. He knew Neil was his son, and he was trying his best to be a father figure without letting Neil know that he was his real father. Looking back, I think it’s great that Dennis could spend so much time with Neil. I know Neil enjoyed the attention, and I’m sure Dennis enjoyed getting to know his son, and watching him grow up.

  Once I discovered this secret, something else made sense. One Easter, when Neil was twelve and I was ten, Mom made it a point to buy us both matching suits. She cut our hair in the same style and had us pose side by side in the same stance for Easter pictures. Then she took the photos and showed everyone she knew, commenting on how much Neil and I looked like twins. With only fifteen months between us, we were close in size. Personally, I never understood why she tried so hard to make it seem that we looked alike; in fact, no one could understand it. We didn’t look anything alike. No one in their right mind would have thought we looked remotely like brothers, let alone twins. Where was she coming from with such a silly claim? Given what we had learned after Neil’s tractor accident, I’m sure her intention was to try and convince people that we were brothers in the fullest sense of the word.

  I am not sure when Neil finally found out that Dennis was his dad. Every family has their own channel of information distribution. In our case, news of Neil’s biological father probably went from Mom to some of her sisters. From there, I’m sure our aunts shared it with their husbands. One or more of their kids probably overheard everything. They, in turn, told Neil that they knew a secret about him.

  I eventually asked Neil when he had found out about Dennis, and he simply said that he didn’t remember. To this day, Neil has no interest in talking about Mom, or what she and Dennis did. Mom’s relationship with Dennis isn’t the only reason Neil harbors hard feelings toward our mother, but I don’t doubt that discovering this secret played a huge part in what took place in the years following the accident. I know how important it is to the person who has been offended to let go of the offense, but some events take a lifetime to let go of. I don’t believe that Neil has reached the point where he can forgive Mom yet. Knowing Neil, it may not happen in this lifetime, but for his own pe
ace of mind, I hope he can let go of it soon and not carry that pain with him into the next life.

  More than forty years after this event took place, I was talking with Mom. She told me that Neil had never forgiven her for what she did with Dennis. She couldn’t understand why he was holding on to this. I could only tell her that time would take care of these things. I’m not sure it was any comfort to her, but to be honest, I don’t think there was anything I could have said that might have given her any degree of comfort. I know she carried this pain with her to the day she died.

  I’m So Mad at Dad

  A second puzzle piece fell into place when I was about thirty-five years old. It had to do with my sister Holly. As I’ve mentioned, Holly was the oldest of our family’s nine children, and was always considered the matriarch of the family. Mom seldom embraced the responsibilities of that role with much zeal. At a time when women typically stayed home and raised their families, Mom always had a job that allowed her to get out of the house and have some extra money. Since Dad was a traveling salesman, he was gone a lot, too. This was a time in Dad’s life when he was drinking heavily, so it wasn’t like he stepped up and took over the responsibilities of raising us.

  So, in the absence of a healthy, nurturing mom or dad, the three older girls stepped in and made sure the family was cared for and didn’t disintegrate into total chaos. Mom never completely gave up her responsibility of raising her children, nor did the oldest three girls ever take over complete control of our care. I have many memories of Mom doing the things moms do, but I also remember many times when she would run off with Dad for a night out, or when she would go and do something with her sisters. Then, she would leave us in the care of the oldest three girls. Occasionally, Mom would be gone for two or three days at a time, leaving my older sisters in charge.

  There were many times when Holly’s actions ran into direct conflict with what Dad thought she should be doing. Holly was a very strong-willed teenager. She was not one who could be easily pushed around, even by our parents. I remember many times when Holly and Dad got into some serious fights. Dad never appreciated it when Holly tried to boss him around or go against his will. He wasn’t about to have his daughter usurp his role as head of the household, even though he was away from home most of the time. Family roles didn’t mean much to Holly, probably because she felt that Mom and Dad so obviously neglected those roles themselves.

  One day, after Holly had had an especially rough run-in with Dad, she came into Mom’s bedroom and voiced her frustrations. “Ohhhh, I hate Dad,” she told Mom. “I wish he wasn’t my father!” According to Holly, this was the moment Mom chose to tell Holly that Mark Anderson wasn’t her biological dad.

  I have no clue why Mom chose this time to tell her. Holly never shared any more details than that about the conversation. I don’t know if Mom told Holly who her biological father was at this time, or if she provided those details years later, but Holly eventually discovered who her biological father was: a man we all knew very well, named Sam, who, we would soon discover, had played a much bigger role in our family than any of us realized.

  Learning that Mark was not her real father only made matters worse between Holly and Dad. She had never been close to him in the first place, but afterward, she was even more distant. Finding out that she was not Mark’s daughter removed any real obligation on her part to try and develop a relationship between the two of them. She didn’t share any of Mark’s genes, so it seemed she never felt a need to make things work between them. There was no longer any real sense of being bound by familial duty, or blood.

  Holly told me that she was Sam’s daughter when I was about forty-five years old. She and I were talking about our family history, and she thought I might be interested. It didn’t really come as a surprise to me. I remember Mom sharing a story with me that helped me see how this could have come about. Before Mom married, she was dating two men: one was Holly’s biological father, Sam, and the second man was our dad, Mark Anderson. She loved them both and was seeing both men. Mom eventually became engaged to Sam, and the two of them planned on getting married not long after Sam proposed.

  Mom said that she and Sam were at a dance in a neighboring town when she told him she wanted to dance with Mark. Sam made it very clear that he was against this and demanded that Mom never dance with Mark again. They were engaged to be married, and it would not look proper for her to be out on the dance floor with her old boyfriend. It would be an embarrassment to him and his family, and he demanded she never even consider doing such a stupid thing again.

  My mom was one of those people you could never say no to; nor would she tolerate anyone telling her that she was doing something stupid. To do so was to put your own well-being in jeopardy. She never took orders from a man, not even her own fiancé. If you asked her to do something, she was fine with that . . . most of the time. But if you ordered her to do something, there would be hell to pay. She never allowed a man to tell her what she could and could not do, plain and simple.

  Mom and Sam got into a big fight right there on the dance floor. Mom told Sam that he was never to order her to do anything. Of course, Sam would have none of that. He was raised with the old-school idea that a woman was a man’s property, and that she was obligated to follow her husband’s orders with unquestioning obedience. Mom was incensed. She told Sam that the engagement was off and that he could go to hell. Not only that, but she was going to marry Mark Anderson. She would never give Sam the satisfaction of claiming her as his “property.”

  Soon afterward, Mom married Mark; however, with time, Mom’s feelings changed toward Sam. She eventually got over her anger and wanted to keep the relationship alive. I wonder if she regretted marrying Mark, or if she was simply still in love with Sam. Whatever her feelings toward Sam, she knew she could never live under his old-fashioned belief that women should be subject to their husbands’ rule.

  Shortly after Mom and Dad were married, he enlisted in the army. He was shipped off to serve in Texas, eventually making his way to Europe. Throughout his four years in the military, several months could pass between his visits home, which meant that Mom was on her own for much of those years. It was during this time that Holly was conceived.

  The Sisters Talk

  A third puzzle piece came to light several decades after my sister Carlee was born. Carlee was the ninth and last child in our family. She was fifty-three when she found out she was not Mark Anderson’s daughter. She overheard the three oldest sisters talking about her, saying that her real father was not Mark Anderson, but rather some young man who had worked for Grandpa at the family business. When Carlee asked the sisters about it, wanting to know if it was true, they simply told her to ask Mom. They were sure that Carlee wouldn’t try to approach Mom about something this sensitive, but as it would turn out, they were wrong.

  It appears there was a handsome young man from Germany who was working at the family shop back then. The older girls really liked him because, according to them, he was handsome, a lot of fun to be around, and he had a car. In our small suburb we didn’t have a lot of people moving in, and it was a rare thing indeed to have a young, single man come to town—one who was good-looking and foreign, no less. His name was Gerhardt, although no one called him that; he preferred to go by “Peter.”

  My older sisters were quite taken with Peter’s good looks. He knew my father very well because he worked with him in the same division of the family company. He would often come over to our house and talk with my older sisters, one of whom enjoyed flirting with Peter, which suited him just fine. He loved all the attention that came his way. Peter would take some of the girls for rides in his car to the east side of town, where there was a lake perfect for

  swimming.

  After hearing these stories, including the possibility that Peter was her father, Carlee finally came right out and asked Mom if it was true. What amazed everyone is that Mom confirmed it without batting an eye. She didn’t ask how Carlee knew about Mar
k not being her father; she just told her all the facts and left it at that. No apology, no explanation—just what Carlee believed to be the truth.

  Of course, when the sisters found out that Carlee had asked Mom about this, they were mortified. It was one thing to talk to Carlee about this guy and share their stories with her, but for Mom to know that they all knew about Peter—and that they had even gone so far as to tell Carlee about him—was crossing the line. They waited for Mom to come after them for telling Carlee this secret, but it never happened. Mom never said a word about it to the older girls.

  This surprised us all when we heard about it years later, as this was not how Mom typically operated. We never did learn why Mom didn’t say anything to anyone once she knew the secret was out. Maybe she was simply relieved to know the truth had finally been revealed and she didn’t have to hide it anymore. It’s hard to say why things turned out the way they did, especially with Mom.

  When Carlee confronted Mom about Peter, she didn’t seem at all upset that Carlee knew the secret. In fact, she told her the whole story, explaining that it had happened after she had been out drinking with Dad on a Friday night. Dad was playing cards and Mom knew he would be at it until late into the night. After waiting as long as she could, and having a few too many drinks herself, she decided to ask Peter for a ride home. Peter was happy to oblige. No one knows any of the details about how things got started from there, but apparently, this was not a direct trip home. It included an unplanned diversion and came with some unexpected surprises.

  Apparently, Peter took advantage of his good looks on more than one occasion, because we found out a few years later that Carlee was not the only memento of Peter’s stay in town. We discovered that Peter had also been dating my aunt Ruth, Mom’s sister. Nine months after that date, our cousin David was born. (So not only did Carlee find out that Mark Anderson was not her real father, but she also found out our cousin David was also her half-brother.)