Why I Stayed

Untitled Part 1

Our first introduction to him was a dinner at Red Lobster. I have no idea how long they'd been dating at that point because Mom still referred to him as "a friend from work." He didn't acknowledge us at all for most of the uncomfortably quiet meal. Mom and Peter made small conversation in which she tried to include us, but he didn't appear to have any interest in us. It was clear that he was dutifully tolerating us in order to get to Mom. Near the end of the outing, Mom took my older sister Mel to the bathroom, and my younger sister Stacy and I were silently swinging out legs under the table. The first words Peter spoke to us was a stern, "Don't kick under the table," while glaring at us. This would become typical. He didn't want to get to know us, but he wanted immediately authority simply because he was an adult.

Peter is a leech. About eight months after we moved into this house, he felt slighted by his boss for not recognizing his work on a project in which he felt he deserved a promotion. He quit, believing they would beg him to come back. They didn't. He was too proud to ask for his job back, forever afterwards declaring how unfairly they'd treated him. He began asking Mom for money to pay for his apartment with the promise that he would repay her once he landed a better job. He began asking to use our car to go to job interviews, which Mom was reluctant to agree to because it was leased and had limits on the mileage. Still, the house was within walking distance of her workplace, so she was unable to make excuses to satisfy him, and eventually she relented. He ended up having the car more often than we did, and suddenly we had to check his schedule and ask if he could pick us up to go somewhere. When we did have access to the car—MOM's car—he always drove, claiming he knew the area better or that it wasn't the right time to give it back because he'd need it again soon. We no longer had outings with only our mother. He was always with us. Even worse, he had the ability to show up at our house unexpectedly with increasing frequency. I doubt these visits were all by invitation, but he was suddenly always around, hogging our mother's attention. I don't know if Mom ever had a serious discussion with him about giving her car back, but the one time we asked her about it, she said it just "didn't make sense" because he had an interview coming up. It was "just easier" to let him hang on to it so she didn't have to drop it off later.

Peter wouldn't be employed for five more years. Despite the money Mom loaned him, he fell behind on his bills and lost his apartment. Mom called a family meeting to ask how we felt about him moving in. At that point, Mom had hidden their relationship from us for the most part, although even we could see there was more going on than what she was saying. When he visited, he and Mom would sit on the porch for an hour "talking," and if we tried to come out with them, he'd angrily shoo us away like we were unwelcome pests on our own porch. We understood that he was the reason she'd been getting home so late before we moved. We resented him. Mom presented the idea like he'd be a temporary roommate until he could find a job and get back on his feet. None of us liked the idea, but what could we say? None of us truly believed we had the option to say no, and even if we did, would that stop Mom from allowing him to move in or would it just make things awkward? We all quietly and sullenly said okay.

As a parent now, I am angered by this illusion of choice. Children want adults to be pleased by them, so they'll say whatever they think the adult wants to hear. Our body language should've been more of an indication than our words. Even if she didn't pick up on that, asking children to make such an adult decision was unfair. We didn't know how adult relationships were supposed to work, and we had complained about Peter often enough that she must have known this wasn't a fair question. I believe Mom was so excited by the thought of Peter moving in that she ignored any sign of pushback. This meeting was largely performative so she could say we had all agreed.

Peter moved in just before Christmas and became a dark cloud over our lives. He was (is) a hoarder so our spacious home was suddenly crowded with stacks of books and boxes that he will never unpack, even to this day. He was constantly around to scrutinize our every action. We were sensitive little girls that had never been spoken to harshly, but Peter didn't know how to talk to us any other way. We lived in fear of his outbursts, which would be so vicious and unpredictable that they would end with us crying every single time. He seemed to be annoyed when it reached that point, as though we were being irrational, and he'd throw his hands in the air and cry, "Oh, so now I'm the bad guy!"