Cursed by It

My brother married a witch. I don't know if that's politically correct to say in these times and I definitely don't like to offend people. Okay, she's a bitch. Anyway. I was stuck in Texas with my Mom a few years ago and desperate to get away. Get anywhere, I guess, to the point that I asked my brother to come rescue me. He drove his work van all the way from Jacksonville, Florida to Houston, Texas to get me. My brother is a very good person. He got to spend some quality time with my Mom while he was there so they both enjoyed that. The morning of, we left early to try and get the trip finished in one day and still be able to sight see. We stopped in Alabama to see the ship that was at port and turned into a museum. We had a really good time. Except.... My brother talked incessantly the entire trip. Very loudly and very erratically. An hour after us hitting the road, I had to get him to pull over to get me a case of beer. His frenzied behavior was giving me a lot of anxiety. I was thinking maybe he was happy to see me. He was. But a couple of years later I started realizing it was something else entirely. Something that I would never imagine. Could never imagine. Something to make your skin crawl, lose your hair in clumps, and see blood come out of your body. Literally.

I have to figure out a name to call his wife while I tell this story. Like I said. I don't like offending people. Heck there are dozens of names I could, and have been, called. Most didn't bother me but some did hurt and anger me. I think I'll choose something appropriate yet catchy. Mud. So the story begins. My brother installs cabinets into kitchens and bathrooms. He's a subcontractor and has made this his career. He's very good at it. Doesn't finish until it is to his meticulous satisfaction. He turns cheap made cabinets into something that makes the room look expensive. He's an artist. Twenty years prior I had worked for him for a few months. It was fun. He was fun. Sometimes we could do two houses a day. But then 9/11 struck three months after working for him and I chose to join the Marines to help protect my country. A whole other story in itself. Anyway, I was gone from him for about fifteen years. Only visiting him occasionally. Now the first time I was staying with him for those few months, he had a cat. Bandit. Bandit passed away while I was in boot camp. My brother thought about me enough to not tell me until I had finished training. He adopted two cats later that I met while on my occasional visits. Fifteen years later he has twenty cats that he has rescued and I fell in love with every single one while staying there. A few passed of old age and a few got taken by other creatures such as moccasins. Stick with me here. The cats are lovely to talk about but they come in to play where Mud is concerned. Yes, it gets kind of bad.

So Mud has been my brother's wife for decades. She was with him at family gatherings when I was a teenager. She was always nice and very quiet. Looking back now, way too fucking quiet. When you're young you really don't pay attention to anything that doesn't concern you. Looking back as an adult, she said and did some very creepy things to me that I just tried to rationalize. Like the time I walked in my room and she was in there holding my dirty underwear. Yea. Her and my brother were visiting. I was that teenager. Had my own bedroom that I didn't want anyone to come in except my friends. They had slept on an inflatable mattress in the living room for the few days that they were there. So there was absolutely no reason for her to be in my room. I don't know what she was doing with them before I caught her and I don't want to know. I said, "That's my dirty clothes." She said, "Oh I thought they were some of our clothes." At the time I believed that excuse. Now?? She knew whose clothes they were. I had never said anything to anyone until recently. I told my Mom. Then there were occasions where they went with us to the beach. I was young so I had the body for a bikini. She would always make quiet comments to me about my body. It was awkward to me that she was paying that much attention to me barely clothed so I would either grab a towel or just go out into the water away from her. Looking back now? She's a pervert.

Before I graduated high school, my parents tried to move us to another city from my hometown. It was actually Jacksonville, Florida. My Dad's hometown. I was upset to leave my friends and that whole thing. For some reason Mud had to stay in my hometown, Sebring, before she moved to Jacksonville with my brother and the rest of my family. So she said she would stay with me in the house we owned until I finished the school year. Still to this day I don't know why she had to stay. I remember being really, really sick all of the time while staying with her. I mean vomiting a lot. I would have to get her to pull the car over so I could throw up. It didn't make sense. I was super healthy. Well into the stay, a call came in the middle of the night that my brother shot himself in the head on my bed, in my bedroom that was waiting for me in Jacksonville for when I finished the school year and permanently moved up there. Me and Mud got into her car and drove straight to Jacksonville and never spoke one word the entire ride. I've never spoken to my brother about it so I don't know why he did it. I can tell you this. I know my brother is NOT suicidal. Needless to say, of course, he survived it without any physical affects. We all suffered emotional one's though. I had to sleep on the blood stained mattress until my parents could afford to get me another one. They were strapped a little because of the move.

To be continued..