We had a big dining table in Ashland. It easily seated our whole family of six with room for a couple more. We didn't eat dinner there much. Mostly these tables were used for 'family meetings'. Family meetings was Steve's nice way of saying someone is getting their ass beat. He'd sit us all down and talk about what had gone wrong, and ask us who had committed the crime or maybe why we had committed the crime. He would dismiss Lindsey because she always told, and give the rest of us a spanking.
I'm sure you are thinking this seems fair, but it wasn't. Steve spanked for everything. He would bend you over and smack the back of your bare legs with his belt. My mom didn't believe in spanking so when we told on him he would laugh and say 'I just swatted them' or something like that. Spankings weren't so bad though. What was really bad was the corner. We would have to stand in the corner for hours. I knew it was hours. I would sit there and listen to his stupid football games or he would say that I had to stand there until my mom got home from work. In cases like these I would listen to him and whatever kid wasn't in trouble eating dinner while I starved. My feet would hurt, my stomach would grumble and I would be sent to bed just in time for mom to get home. Then the next day he would tell me it was 10 minutes that I was there.
One day Steve held a family meeting about a window that had been broken by a baseball. He told us his usual line that we would all be spanked if we didn't tell. Then he added a 'starting with the youngest' in a tone that told me he thought I was responsible. I don't get why he would suspect a 5 year-old who had never owned a baseball in her life, but he did. So I confessed. 'It was me' I admitted. He didn't ask details. He didn't even ask which window it was. I didn't know which window it was. He just spanked me and let the other kids go. The next time around another kid confessed, and that is how it went for a long time. We sacrificed ourselves to save the other kids. Years later I learned it was Andy who broke the window, and it was a window in the den, but it didn't matter then. He'd taken a few blows for me too.
Ashland was a happy house though. It's where I learned to love Lindsey and Aaron. We played spies in the back yard. We played toy shop in the basement, we recorded radio shows, we played dodge ball in the streets. We did anything we could to stay out of the house, but mostly we did anything we could to help each other.
We began a tradition of holding family meetings ourselves where we would talk about what games we were going to play that day or what our parents were up to. Our family meetings were happy ones. They included the real family, the four of us. One day Lindsey called a meeting. This one wasn't a happy one. She informed us that while she was using our parent's bathroom she'd discovered something that would change our lives at Ashland forever.
"Mom is pregnant" she said.
Dear Ashland,
I suppose I should hate you for all the bad things you taught me. You taught me about pain, and evil. You taught me to be jealous of that little baby and to be meek around that large man. You taught me that not everything is what it seems and that you can't always rely on everyone. For those reasons I should hate you, but I don't.
It was those days I spent with you that made me who I am. You taught me about a lot of awful things ,but you also taught me about love. Real love, not the generic love we give away every day. You taught me about sacrificing for others. You taught me that family isn't made by birth or by a marriage certificate. Family is those who chose to love you unconditionally and who chose to sacrifice for you as well. There were a lot of tears spilled on your shiny wood floor, but there was also a lot of laughter that echoed off of your walls.
Love,
Robin 20 years later
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