It’s no secret that I don’t have the best relationship with my siblings. My brother is a farking idiot and my sister is lacking a most of her common sense genes. As my kids have grown older I’ve moved further away from them emotionally; the final straw was when Erin landed on my front step because she might be pregnant (I admit, my temper slammed the door shut with my sister when I pointed out how old she’d been when she got pregnant with Erin’s brother. Pot, kettle, you know.) Every family has a few odd ones, but I didn’t want my kids to grow up surrounded by their particular kind of crazy.

Char had a fairly close relationship with her sister until she moved across the country to take a job post high school; T’neeka (or Taniqua, tn’nika, or any of a dozen other names; it depended on her mood any given day) was not happy that her big sister was leaving her behind, and she jumped feet first into the pool of teenage you-hate-me angst. When Char married me, T’neeka took it personally; You’re marrying a WHITE boy?

Their mother was/is white, but that didn’t account for much at the time; she was pissed off, and stayed pissed off. She was also trying to “find” herself, and when Brad moved out here to be closer to his grandkids, she took off, thinking she would find what she needed somewhere else. They heard from her here and there, but as weeks and months wore on, her attitude expanded, and she was extremely unforgiving of having been left behind when Char was eighteen and was still angry that Char married “that guy.”

(I am “that guy” to most of Char’s extended family. For most of them, it’s said with amusement.)

Char and Brad never knew where T’neeka was going to be, so keeping track of her became more difficult, and eventually she stopped calling. The last time we can remember hearing from her was when Kevin was just a baby.

Until this morning. Brad called early, before the kids were ready to leave for school. I answered the phone and he asked for Char; this itself is unusual because I usually get one “you bastard” before I hand the phone over, but he didn’t sound upset, so I didn’t press. I just handed the phone to Char. She talked to her dad for a few minutes, her eyes went wide, and then she was squealing.

I left her at home while I took the kids to school, and she spent a couple of hours talking to her little sister. When I got home she told me we were having dinner with T’neeka and Brad, and Theresa would watch the kids. Initially, my stomach rolled; I’d suck it up for my wife and father in law, but having dinner with someone who hates me is not on my to-do list very often. But as morning wore on and Char was still excited, I started to look forward to it, to re-meet the kid (and she was just a kid then) that I think had to force herself to not spit on me before.

I would not have recognized her if she hadn’t walked into the restaurant with Brad. The last time I saw her she was an angry, defiant, bitter person who walked around with her eyebrows practically fused together from the perpetual scowl; the woman who walked in holding her father’s hand was filled with lightness, and when she smiled, I would have recognized it because she has her sister’s smile.

She’s been all over the world since the last time we saw her. She set out to rid the world of white male oppression and instead found herself in third world countries working with the truly oppressed; she’s done everything from teaching basic reading skills to teenagers in South America to helping bring running water to villages in Africa. She’s been out there working her ass off, and working her anger out. Nika (as she’s going by now) grew up.

She’s back in the US, likely for good, and will be living less than three hours away, and she’s getting married next year. She wants to be a part of her family again, and she wants forgiveness for walking away without much of an explanation. Everyone knew why she left in the first place, and now knowing where she’s been and what she’s been doing? Brad missed her and was hurt, but I don’t think he could be prouder of the way she went about finding out who she was outside of the neighborhood where she and Char grew up.

She wants Brad to give her away when she gets married next year.

To a white guy.

I did not laugh.