Thread by @SaoirseMajella

So, I just found out that my stepmother is doing really poorly, through my sister.

For background : my mother died in 2000, when I was 15. My father, an old, (b1938) eccentric, sharp, independent and tough lawyer and lover of philosophy was bought to his knees with grief.

I was a late addition to the family. My eldest sister was born in 1964,and the fifth in 1973. I was a freak birth in 1984.
As such, my siblings could comfort each other, but I was out of their world.
It was just me and dad.

Bereft, Dad turned to online chats, looking for people of his home country, Ireland. He became obsessed with Ireland. He asked me, off hand 🙄 how I’d feel if he met someone he “wanted to get beter acquainted with”. I told him to go for it.

Im not sure if its 2000 or 2001 here, but dad vanished to Ireland, sending one of my older sisters to babysit me. I decided to check his emails, and guessed his password in one go. “Ulster”. Nice work dad. So found the love letters.

A huge phone bill then arrived to our house, and by now it was pretty obvious what was up. I called the international number that had rung up the huge bills, asked to speak to my father, and there he was. Somehow shocked that I found him.

I just asked him to please, let us know what was going on, and to tell my sister to stop being so fucking bossy. And that I missed him.

He came home, eventually. I remember we were in the kitchen when he took some deep breaths and said “Clairey. I have something to tell you.”
“Yeah?” “I’m getting married.”
“Oh, cool! “
“.....”is that all you have to say?”
“...uh...yeah?”
And then he stormed off like

I did something wrong. I was very confused. Afterward, I eavesdropped on all his phonecalls with my siblings, who bar one, passionately hated the idea of him getting married again, especially so soon. To me, it made sense. My dad was hurting so bad. If marrying this woman

Helped him be happy again, even a little bit, that was great.

Some sort of whirl wind went by, dad started disappearing more and more often, usually just leaving me a note to find when I’d come home from school. “Away for a few days pet, money is in the usual place”.

I honestly don’t know what was going on during this period, but I suspect he was trying to get Margaret used to Australia.
I just took it as it came.

Then he fucked off to Fiji and got married! and I had a stepmother moving in. They would arrive back at my house sometime after midnight,.

I figured she would probably be more scared of me than I of her (I was 16, a recognised bratty age) so I left

Some goodwill, two cups with teabags, and saucers on the counter, the sugar bowl out, and a plate of biscuits, and a welcome note.

It was an auspicious start, and Margaret had a very big heart.
However, emotionally and mentally, she was extremely fragile. I overheard her having a complete mental breakdown, sobbing, hyperventilating, over the fact that I had let my towel fall from the bath rack to the floor.

“THE LITTLE BITCH. SHE DID THIS ON PURPOSE.”. She sobbed to dad.
This was probably my first experience seeing what mental illness did to a person.... because I know Margaret loved me.
After a while, she bought the house next door to us

So she didn’t have to live with me.
I would come over, knock on the door and visit if she were up for it. When she was, she would hug me and say “you know it’s not your fault I have live here, right pet?”
And it was kind of hard for me to understand, but I kind of did.

When I moved away, from what I can gather, Margaret got worse. When I temporarily moved back in, in my late twenties, it was obvious how much worse she was. She could barely leave the bedroom. She was fucking miserable. And then

And then I found a book. It had dads handwriting. Things had deteriorated so badly that Margaret was even turning on DAD. She had gotten delusional. I didn’t know what to do.
Months later, she moved back to Ireland, without them divorcing, apparently on good terms.

She perked right up. Sending me stupid memes, cute photos of her nephews and grandsons, cat pictures.

She always took a deep interest in my love life. When she found I was engaged, she was delighted. She followed my posts, and told me to send her the photo of the dress I wanted, where it was from, and all that.

She knew I didn’t have much money.
She paid for the dress.
She said all she wanted were some photos of me marrying my man.

This is the message I got from my sister

Not “when she can go home again”

But “whether she can go home again”

It’s not fair. Margaret deserves better.