It was September 2003, and Sienna and her Mom, Janice, were sitting in Carlstown traffic in their car. It was stuffed to the roof with all of their belongings. Sienna had Christina Aguilera’s ‘Beautiful’ CD on repeat and she and her Mom had already belted out the lyrics to the song six times. Sienna was used to moving around. Her Mom and Dad had split up when she was young. Her Mom was a landscaper and had to follow the weather in order to keep working year-round.
“Are you excited to have a brother?” her Mom asked.
Sienna just shrugged her shoulders and stared at her reflection in the window. She hummed along with Christina’s words, but she certainly didn’t feel beautiful. All that she could see in the window were her braces and the line of persistent acne that ran along her jawbone.
She fidgeted with her fingers in her lap. She didn’t want to tell her Mom that she was nervous about meeting her new brother. Well, new step-brother that is. He was away at college for computer science and she had heard from her friends at school that knew him, that he was a giant nerd.
Their lights shone on the small bungalow as they pulled into the driveway. Peter, Janice’s new boyfriend, ran out of the house and grabbed her into a giant hug. He then turned and pulled Sienna into the bear hug as well. Maybe this won’t be so bad, Sienna thought. She had met Peter a few times and he always asked her questions about her school and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know her.
They wheeled the first few suitcases into the house and Peter put the kettle on to make them some tea. He had insisted that they sit down and relax before unloading the rest of the car. Sienna glanced around the living room. It was clean, but hadn’t really been updated since the 80s. She sat down on the green leather recliner and eased in, trying to relax. Her Mom had gone into the kitchen and she could hear Janice and Peter canoodling over the whistle of the teapot.
“Don’t get too comfy.” a voice whispered in her ear.
Sienna screamed and nearly jumped out of her skin.
“You’re sitting in my chair.” the voice hissed again.
Sienna turned to look into the coldest, meanest, and most gorgeous blue eyes that she had ever seen. She dug her fingers into the arm of the chair and began to slide out when Peter and her mom came back into the room.
“I see you two have met!” Peter quipped enthusiastically.
“Yeah, I was just making sure she was comfortable here” the young man, whom Sienna deduced was Jonathan, responded. He smiled at his Dad and then turned and smirked at Sienna.
Sienna got a horrible feeling deep in the pit of her stomach.
“I’m just going to go and lie down for a bit, is that ok Mom?”
“Sure honey, the bedroom at the end of the hallway is all made up and ready for you.
“Dad?” Jonathan looked at his father questioningly. “Isn’t that my computer room?”
“We’ve moved all of your tech stuff to the basement. We have to make some room for our new family members. You have a bedroom and all of your new computer gear at college. You don’t need two rooms here. Why don’t you go show Sienna her new room, and the trick for opening that sticky closet door.”
“Sure Dad, no problem.”
Sienna was puzzled by the Jekyll and Hyde game Jonathan was playing, but she followed him to the end of the hallway.
“Listen you little shit. You and your slutty Mom are going to be out of here as soon as my Dad realizes what pieces of trash he’s invited to live in our house. So, what I’m trying to say is, don’t get too comfortable.”
He tossed her suitcase onto the bed with attitude and turned and walked away. Sienna stood in the middle of the room, dumbstruck, her eyes welling up with tears.
And it didn’t get any better than that. Whenever he was home, her step-brother would smirk and snarl at her, yet be such an angel when others were around. There was no way that Sienna could tell her mom about the verbal abuse; the horrible names he called her, like pus-face. Nobody would believe her.
So, she suffered in silence, growing to hate every moment that Jonathan was home from school. And she always breathed a huge sigh of relief every time he picked up his giant duffel bag and headed out the door.
The Tuesday after thanksgiving, Sienna sat at school with her best friend Lindsay complaining about him.
“Why don’t you just tell him to fuck off?”
“I’m scared of him. He slams the doors in my face. He calls me names like ‘brace-faced little whore’.”
“That’s not cool, Sienna. You have to tell your Mom”
Sienna sighed and bit into her bagel. She knew that something had to change, but her mom was so happy, she didn’t want to screw things up for her.
After school Sienna walked home, thinking about what Lindsey had said and contemplating whether or not she should say something to her mom. When Jonathan was gone to school everything was so good. Maybe she should just suck it up and keep quiet when he was home?
She opened the door and her heart sank as she saw his duffel bag in the hallway. Why was he home? Her shoulders rounded forward and she kept her eyes low hoping to avoid him and get to the safety of her room.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she reached her room and closed the door. There was no sign of him. She sat down on the bed and grabbed her cookies from her backpack.
“No wonder you’re so fucking fat.”
The voice no longer shocked her.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to tell me why it was so important for me to come home today.”
“I dunno.”
“Of course you don’t know. You’re a total waste of space.” He said as he flicked a cracker at her. “Here, have this, you have to keep that penguin-like figure somehow.”
That was the last straw. She decided she had to tell her Mom what was going on. She tossed the cracker onto the floor and she marched out into the living room. Her determined march was halted when she saw the serious look on both her Mom and Peter’s faces. They were sitting on the couch together holding hands.
Johnny glanced at the two of them and then looked over to Sienna. Both of them knew that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t a cozy, let’s talk about a happy event, like an engagement.
“Sit down kids.” Janice said quietly.
Johnny slunk into the recliner and Sienna sat cross-legged on the floor behind the coffee table.
“I’m sick.”
There were more words that followed that two-word sentence, but Sienna couldn’t hear them. There was a whooshing sound in her head and she felt herself get dizzy.
Her Mom passed away about two months after that conversation on the couch. Johnny hadn’t come home from school, not even for Janice’s funeral. So, Sienna had some peace and quiet to spend with her mother during her last days.
Peter wanted her to stay at the house, but she knew that without her Mom there, things might get really bad. So, she packed up her things and went to live with her Dad. That cracker flick was the last time she saw Jonathan: until today, thirteen years later.