by Carol Paxman

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Half sister

I was nine the first time I heard the phrase, half sister.
" So Angie is not your real sister" Debbie said matter of factly.
"She's real" I said, wondering when Debbie had gotten so dumb, she was usually the neighborhood kid who filled the rest of us in on the ways of the world.
"I mean, not your real, real sister, she's only your half sister"
"Half sister? I asked, picturing my baby sister cut in half. Which half was real? Top or bottom? Left or right?

" Yeah, that means you have the same mom but a different dad. I have a half sister and two half brothers. They live in California with my Dad and his wife. We have the same dad but different moms, I hate them."
"Why do you hate them?' my mind was still trying to wrap itself around the halfness of people.
" I dunno, I just do. They're dumb. Let's go ask if we can go to the pool'"
I don't remember if we went to the pool that afternoon, but I never forgot that conversation.

In my family, I had a mom, a dad, a brother and two sisters. My real father was killed in the war when I was three. My brother John, my sister Terrie and I, all had the same father. My stepfather was Angie's father.

These things never really mattered to me. We were a family. Carole and Clarence's kids, Ethel and Albert's grandchildren. I had always called my stepfather Daddy, I don't remember my real dad.

Angie wasn't my real sister, only my half sister. What did that mean? I new about real dads and step dads. Real dads were dead, step dads were alive. The same couldn't be true about sisters, Debbie said Terrie was my real sister and she was still alive.

What did that make Angie? My half sister? What am I to her? Am I a half sister too? What does that mean? If we are only half sisters, what is the other half? Am I only supposed to love her half as much, or half the time? Would she go away to California to live with someone else like Debbie's half siblings did? I asked my mother about it.

"Angie is your real sister." Mom said.
"But, Debbie said."
" I don't care what Debbie says, Angie is your sister."
"But."
"No buts, Angie is your sister, the two of you have the same mother and that's whats important." When my mom used that tone of voice it meant the subject was closed.

I lay awake at night, thinking about real and half and step people. In my mind, the words half sister were a slimy green color and the letters were all squiggly like on the scary shows on TV. I always had a very vivid imagination and I tried picturing my family to sort out what all

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