I Received an 8 Page Letter...

from my dead dad's mistress.

I walk and talk on the phone, and I rarely do that, especially since I have become intentional about spending time with nature and being present. I have gotten exceptionally good at it…

But then I checked the mail.

“Somebody once told me, ‘I wish people could understand that you don’t create drama; it gravitates to you,’ Wait, was it you?” I asked my best friend as I walked the city streets to get ice cream on a scorching Baltimore Monday.

“That was me,” she laughed, aware a crazy but true tale was on the horizon. Even with twenty-seven years of vicariously living through things with me, there was no way what I was about to divulge would be on her bingo card.

“Get Ready! And we don’t even need to talk about the shit; I just need to tell you because in the saga that is my life, this, well…”

I paused; I didn’t know what to say. Too many thoughts at one time, my ADHD getting the best of me-the point was somewhere near, but not quite there.

I gather myself.

“Claire, tell me why I go to the mail, right? And I get a letter and it’s decorated all cute. Like pink, yellow, and orange highlighter colors and little loopty-loops. So I’m like, okay, this is cute, but I don’t recognize the sender's name. Bitch, why I open it, and it’s an eight-page letter from my dad’s mistress!”

Claire bursts into laughter.

I’m not offended. I laugh, too, because wtf!

“I’m not trying to laugh, I just…”

“Bitch laugh, I get it, it’s like a sitcom, my life is a movie, I’m laughing, I have to.”

******************************************************************************************************

When I open the letter, I go in with very few expectations, but the doodles on the envelope give off a positive vibe. The letter doesn’t start with an introduction; instead, it begins by complimenting me, apologizing for all I have been through, encouraging me to stay strong, and letting me know they are happy to see me in a better place.

Who is this kind stranger, I think?

But then, a declaration, “I want you to know my side of the story.” “Nope,” I say out loud. I still don’t know who the letter is from, so I don’t know what story she is talking about. What’s the point of knowing her side if I don’t know the story? I don’t want to keep reading, but I’m intrigued. It felt like an R.L. Stein choose your own adventure moment.

Alright, I think, tell me your story I guess. I continue to read.

STOP! I changed my mind.

Do not tell me your story. It’s not a story for me. Your friend, sure, a sister, of course, a diary, and a therapist—that’s your best bet—but absolutely not me.

She has now revealed herself as the mistress of my dad.

Most would be shocked by this information, but I’m not. I know who my dad was. I am shocked, however, that four years after his death, this woman feels emboldened to write me an eight-page, Lisa Frank-decorated letter.

What’s this got to do with me?

It’s a roller coaster ride; reading the letter. She has a lot to get off her chest.

She was my babysitter. We colored together when I was six.

Let the record note that I am now thirty-nine years old.

She needs to let me know that her son is not my brother. In my media days, she heard me talk on the air about how my dad had slept with babysitters and that we thought one of them had a baby by him.

I had that conversation on the air in 2016/2017 when my dad was alive. It’s 2024; he’s been dead for four years. The record needed to be set straight now?

She isn’t just setting the record straight, though; she wants to ensure that I know that our other babysitter from back then has a child who looks like she could be our sibling.

This is messy.

My dad had a hold on her from the beginning, she writes. Despite him being married, when he pulled up on his motorcycle, she couldn’t resist, “The rest was history.”

Somehow, though, history has slid its ass into my present, and this ain’t it.

I remember that motorcycle. He would sacrifice wearing his helmet for me when he took me for rides on it. At least my philandering dad cared about my skull.

For reasons I will never understand, she believes it is pertinent information to notify me that she has a lisp and took speech lessons in 6th and 7th grade. She follows this announcement with a list of her current ailments but ensures she doesn’t want to be seen as a victim.

Well, that’s a relief.

She makes an unexpected bold move: She starts slandering my mom. “Your mom pretended to be my friend to get information out of me. That’s just crazy as hell to me; I bet she didn’t tell you that!”

First, the audacity.

Second, I thought it was an unspoken rule—like Universal, but maybe not. Don’t we all know that we can speak about our own moms because they are OUR moms, but let someone else say something about our mom,

and,

yeah,

what you say about my momma!?

Not this fifty-something-year-old woman judging the mid-twenty-something version of my mom. Mam, her frontal lobe wasn’t even fully developed, and you were sleeping with her husband and the father of her children; she did what she had to do.

I think about when I was twenty-six, and I had the suspicion my now ex-husband was cheating on me. Once, his phone pocket called me while he was working in a nightclub… I hung out in that man’s jeans and listened to everything he did for three hours. I did what I had to do, just like my momma.

Social media has made catching cheaters a lot easier these days. Back then, you might have had to pretend to be someone’s friend or hang in a pocket for a few hours.

Either way, Keep my momma’s name out your mouth.

Here’s where it gets really weird- as if it hasn’t been weird as hell already…