Before I begin, I want to point out that the events of this story were a long time ago. I’m now firmly established in middle-age, whereas I had only just turned 18 when this happened. But as you might expect, these memories have stayed in my mind!
I’ll start by saying I don’t hate my dad. We had a good relationship and if he was still alive I wouldn’t have shared this story with anyone, even anonymously. My mom and dad had me in their early 30s, and my twin siblings in their mid 30s. However, when he hit 40, he had his own mid-life crisis, left my mom, up stakes to a sunnier part of the country, and found himself a 22 year old Spanish model. He had money. This was when I was 7 years old.
We didn’t see much of my dad or my “stepmom”, Ana. They never married, although they were together for over 10 years. They lived on the West Coast, we lived on the East. But occasionally my siblings and I would spend a week during summer at their summer house. This happened a few times but the relevant one was when I was 18 years old.