"I overslept the next day. Mom was in the kitchen mopping the floor around the table. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were wet. For some reason, when I saw that it just made me madder. I felt like she had no right to be upset at me. She was the one who was living a lie all my life, not me. Before she could say a word, I bolted past her, grabbed my coat, and ran out the door. She yelled at me to stop, but I just kept going.
"That day I decided to call the only listing for a Gilbert O'Shea I found in the local phone book. I figured he must live close by since everyone kept thinking I was his son. The phonebook said he lived in Stirling Heights, the next town over from where I lived. I had no idea what I was going to say when he answered, but I dialed the number anyway."
His wife answered the phone, and I asked to speak with Gilbert, like I knew already knew him.
"A few seconds later, he picked up the receiver. I remember every word of our conversation like it happened yesterday."
Shelly began kneading my knotted shoulder muscles with her fingers.
"When he answered the phone, I asked if this was Gilbert O'Shea."
"Yes it is, may ah ask who's callin'?" I mimicked his Irish accent.
"I asked him if he had gone to Quaker Hills High School fifteen or sixteen years ago."
"Yes... who is this?" Again I mimicked his accent.
"I started to ask if he knew Ellen Johnson, but then remembered her last name was Stinson when he would have known her.
"Yeah, I remember Ellen. Why? Who am ah talkin' with?
"The phone went dead silent when I told him that I just found out I was his son.
"What?" He almost shouted. Then he began to whisper in a forceful low voice. "What the hell are ye talkin' about?"
"I started to explain but he cut me off.
"What `ere ya, a moron?" He told me his only son lived right there with him and his wife.
Once more I changed my voice and relived the pain of that convesation, as if Shelly were listening to him rail at me too. "If'n ye thinks yer gonna screw up me life, Scally, ye'r gonna find that ye'r dead wrong.
"He hung up the phone on me after telling me to get a life and let him alone. I knew right I had guessed right, and that he knew he was my dad, too. I don't know, maybe because mom never went after him, he figured he was off the hook.
"Things were starting to make sense now – not that I liked it. But at least I knew why my next brother was eight years younger than me. Mom and Ed weren't even dating when I was born. I suppose that's why my parents never mentioned how many years they were married when they celebrated their anniversaries. They didn't want me to figure it out. I felt like a freakin' baby. I thought everyone in the whole town must've known but me, and I hated them for it. I also hated me more than ever. I don't know why, but I convinced myself right then and there that they never did want me – that they were just somehow stuck with me.
"From then on, I vented on my parents every chance I got. It's so stupid, but for some reason, I just couldn't accept that they had pretended I was Ed's son for all those years when my real dad lived so close.
I turned to look at Michelle again.
"The reason I freaked at the restaurant is because before I committed my life to Christ, I... Oh God.
"Casey had a connection to buy booze, so I started giving him money and sneaking out of the house late at night to meet with him so we could get wasted. As time passed I spent less and less time at home, and more and more time with him.
"We didn't just drink, Shelly. We did stuff together. ...stuff like you asked me about."
"The textbook I was reading, said boys are just more adventurous and daring, so when they get curious, they just do that stuff naturally."
"At first I made myself believe it was just experimenting, but to be completely honest with you, Shelly, for as long as I can remember, I had always wanted to do the things we did together. The alcohol just gave me the courage to do it. I know the real reason I wanted to get drunk every night was so I had an excuse to be with Casey.
Even though the light was dim, I could see that what I had just admitted to her caused alarm.
"I wasn't a Christian then, Shelly. Things are different now."
She relaxed slightly, but still had a confused look in her eyes.
"Mom and Ed found out about me sneaking out of the house, but they couldn't do anything to stop me.
"We got into smoking pot. I started taking money out of my college savings account so we could buy it. We were getting high together almost every day, and by the time warm weather arrived for the summer, I didn't even bother going home most nights. ...I'd just find a place to crash outside, or in someone's garage. I usually went home for supper and breakfast to try and keep my parents from finding out, but mom always sniffed the air when I walked into the room, so I figured she knew. They just didn't know how to stop me.
"Shelly, I... Oh God," I sobbed. "The guy I bought my pot from must have figure out that me and Casey were doin' things, because he told me that I should try crystal meth – that from what he had heard, it made the stuff we were doing feel even more intense. I was so scared, but one day after some married guy offered me fifty bucks to let him into my stall in the public restroom, I bought my first bag of meth.
When I used up all my savings, and my parents started suspecting that I was stealing from them, I got so desperate I went back to the park and sold myself to guys in the restroom just so I could buy drugs."
Shelly tensed noticeably.
"I'd go days at a time without sleep because of the crystals, and I was never hungry. I lost like twenty or thirty pounds in those six months, most of it after I started using. I started getting sick a lot too."
Gazing at Shelly until she looked up at me, I tried to lighten the mood a bit by pulling another photo out of my wallet.
"Is that him?"
"That's me, silly. I wore my hair in dreads so I never had to wash or comb it."
"You had dreadlocks? I can't believe that's you. You're too..."
"Too what?"
"Too... too perfect," she said, looking into my eyes. She looked so confused. "You're like this perfect guy who's all nice and polite. I just can't believe that was ever you."
"Perfect? Nice and polite?"
"Lisa refers to you as Winnie the Pooh because she thinks you're like this lovable stuffed animal."
"No way"
"I'm serious. ...so this is really you?"
"BC"
"BC?"
"Before Christ"
"Anyway, one night in June of that year, Casey and I got busted for breaking and entering. They called my parents. It was like three o'clock in the morning. I was scared of what might happen, but I think I was actually kind of glad we got caught. I was so tired of running and being angry at everyone. The only time during the day I even felt halfway decent was when I was high or drunk. The rest of the days I was either angry at someone, or when I didn't have drug money, so sad I wanted to cry.
"Mom was crying when they got to the police station. They only charged me with a few misdemeanors, but it upset my mom enough to finally force some issues with me.
"At suppertime, about a week after being busted, mom told me she had made an appointment for me to see a counselor the next day. She made it clear I had better show up, too.
"That's when she told me she knew I was doing drugs. She had done some research at the library, and figured it had to be cocaine, speed, or meth.
"When I wouldn't answer her, she screamed `Listen to me, Phillip.' Then she reached across the table and slapped my cheek as hard as she could with her hand. She screamed at me to wake up before it was too late."
"I was mad as a hornet. I think seeing how scared Sammy and Aaron were, is the only thing that kept me from lunging at her. Ed jumped out of his chair right away, but he would have been too late to stop me. For some reason, more than anything else, I hated what I was doing to my brothers, even if they were only my half-brothers.
"I knew deep inside, I wanted someone to help me. I was starting to feel like Casey was just using me to get free drugs and beer. I couldn't get high enough, or stay high long enough, to avoid the pain I felt. I just couldn't bring myself to admit to anyone I needed help. I guess I really just wanted everyone to be as miserable as I was.
"Mom told me the counselor would help me. I just cleared my throat and spit at her. I asked if he was gonna volunteer to be my dad too. ...Told her `Sweet – him and Ed can take turns'."
"She slapped my mouth for the second time that night. ...told me that Ed had always been a dad to me. ...that he adopted me because he loved both of us.
"I knew inside that what she was telling me was true, but I couldn't bring myself to back down. I wanted to punish her, and must have said something that had the desired effect, because she bolted from the table, ran to her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. It's not that it made me feel any better. But I think I was glad she felt as miserable as I did.
"After that, I was forced to take remedial summer classes at school on account of my flunking three subjects. The Guidance counselor personally got me out of my class and escorted me to my counseling sessions just to be sure I got there.
"After just three weeks, my counselor told my parents that maybe the only hope I had of recovering was for them to send me to a youth intervention boot camp. Two weeks later, I had all of my personal belongings packed into one small duffel bag and was on a bus bound for a wilderness program in the Mountains of New York state.
"I remember them stopping to have my dreads cut off on the way to the bus station, and wondering if that's what they would try to do at the camp: cut off everything from my life that they didn't like.
"That's where I met Jesus, Shelly. He's the one that turned my life around."