Dad had brought his mail order bride over from the Ukraine less the three months before. I’d met her once for a visit that lasted about two days. She liked to shop, my baby sister did not like her and the feeling was mutual. In fact, this woman hated my sister. She was already saying things about her that you shouldn’t say about an adult much less your fiancé’s teenage daughter. I lived 6 hours away but I was hearing to much that was distressing. The pressure of the fiancé’s visa should have been a good excuse for my father to get this woman away from him but it was working the opposite way.

He would call me and tell me about the problems. My rageaholic father, who had terrorized my childhood was now afraid of a woman he was going to marry. He let her call my teenage sister whore and words that were so much worse. She was a horror. She was abusive- verbally, physically, and emotionally. She didn’t like how my sister dressed. She took a teenager who dressed in what some would call Goth- my sister hated that label so I never use it but that will give you a picture – and said she was evil. She wanted my dad to make her dress and act differently because my sister did not match the behavior of a Ukrainian girl.  She wanted respect and for us to somehow fit into her culture. That was all part of the web she was weaving. She was putting herself between us and my dad.

Given all of the problems she was causing, how miserable my dad was, the abuse to him and to my sister I was surprised when I got the call. It was Monday morning I was hurrying on my way to work and was stunned when my dad invited me to his wedding – on Wednesday. I asked him why, how, when things were going that badly already. His answer haunts me to this day “well things aren’t going well so far but we might as well get married and see how it goes.” I tried everything to talk him out of it, asking about the pre-nup he had wanted. He did not want to give money to another ex. He had all the reasons that he didn’t need one. Nothing I said made a difference.

It was to fast, I couldn’t get off work and make that trip, and to couldn’t support the marriage. As with all of this I second guess myself whenever I think of it. If I had gone,  could I have talked him out of it. Perhaps, I was still afraid of the man who had dominated my life. I didn’t know the man who could be dominated. We had developed a fragile relationship. he had always depended on me and he would listen to me but I didn’t think I could do anything to change his mind in person. I tell myself that it wouldn’t  have mattered. Even if I had gone I would have been with my sister. My 14 year old sister was dropped at the shopping mall with $20 for some 8 hours. May be I could have made a difference. My brother who I have had little communication with was them.  He endorsed the wedding. Years later he said that he didn’t know Alex was even there and if he did he and if he knew she was not welcome at the wedding he would have left.

Could I have made a difference? Unfortunately I will never know.

She picked a man for paid sex on the honeymoon so you know it didn’t go well.