It Runs In The Family, Part 1

A teenage girl mourns her brother by taking revenge on her insensitive mother.

Photo & Text all rights reserved © Saint-Lazare, 2025.

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I keep pressing my face against the misty glass wall to prevent the supermarket’s customers from seeing my tears. Next door, the funeral home is so ruthlessly small that they put the coffin in the parking lot. A small crowd faces it under the light December rain, and an old housewife eyeballs the scene while driving her full shopping cart back to her car. Inside the coffin is the dead body of my 21 year old half-brother Adrian. I was not invited to the civil ceremony before his cremation. My tears are not from grief but from disgust. Everything about this is dishonorable. Yet, at 16, I seem to be the only one in my family who knows the meaning of this word. Dishonorable.

You know, people laughed at that journalist who asked Bret Easton Ellis if his wife was alright with his novel Lunar Park, in which he describes his fictional family. But actually, no one ever had to mock an interviewer for having asked if his son was okay with his novel because nobody ever wonders if children agree with the stories their parents tell. Do you know why adults without kids of their own are still ashamed in our society? Not because they are lacking a living proof of their happiness, normality, healthy sexuality or whatever. No, it is because at the end of the day, they are still the insignificant others in their genitor’s narrative and others resent it. I am a sixteen years old girl and everyone already asks me about the babies I would bear. Except that they will not exist. I am not going to do what my selfish whore of a mother did to Adrian and I. Do not think that I am victimizing myself because my brother is dead and nobody asked me if I was okay – or just to give me a better role in this tale. Nay, I want someone to ask ME if Victoria, my mother, is alright with what I am going to tell you. Guess what? She is fucking not. And I could not care less. She can get all the compassion she wants; I won’t be the forgotten, vacuum packed child in just another dysfunctional family story.

I am aware of a shop assistant stocking shelves nearby, glancing at me. He is either thinking I am into morbid voyeurism or contemplating the purchase of a 6-sheet cross shredder – only $29.88! – as he certainly could not suspect that hiding in the special offers section is the only way for me to say goodbye to my sibling. Victoria, however, does not have this problem, she is where everyone can see and admire her, dramatically bowing under grief next to the coffin, strategically protected by the umbrella of Stepfather n°4. Well, I think he is only n°4 as I do not know him. I guess the last one had to go after the little drama in the garage that led to my blacklisting.

"What are you doing here?"

I had stumbled upon Vic’s then-boyfriend Brian – Stepfather n°3 – inside our garage, bent over the hood of his second-hand BMW. Our mother brought a lot of men into our life. Adrian’s father ran away before his birth because Vic and he were only 17. Calvin, her generous next boyfriend, accepted to recognize her son as his own, probably to make her an honest woman. Spoiler alert: she is not. They divorced after she slept with his bestie at Adrian’s fourth birthday party. And nine months later… yup, it was me. But this time the guy decided to assume his paternity, at least for a while. That the people sharing the wrongdoing of a cheater do not see their fate coming is beyond my understanding. I know my upbringing gave me trust issues, but, I mean, he banged Vic in the bathroom while Calvin was taking pictures of the son she had from a fling, blowing his 4 candles. What did he expect? Apparently not to find her in bed with one of her coworkers. It was not Brian; he came into our lives long after that. And I watched him sniffing a line of coke in our garage as if it was a perfectly casual scene for a teenage girl to see.

"Do you want some?" He asked, handing me the rolled twenty he used.

I was not against the opportunity, but as I bent over, I noticed his lustful glance on my rack. As he moved toward me, I stepped back.

"Wait. Are you crazy enough to prey on your underage stepdaughter? You disgusting pervert."

"Stop playing the prudish feminist." He said. "Not with the clothes you keep wearing."

This was the moment my genetrix entered the room too and decided to see a very different scene. The one where Brian had caught me busting a line. The one where I was sexually arousing him. The first part was serving the role she had given me in her scenario, i.e. the troubled teen driving her poor mama crazy. But the second part, on the other hand, became a genuine problem for her, and therefore, for me.

Read part 2 here:

It Runs In The Family, Part 2