Seeing him there in his mid-40s, perfectly healthy and in good physical shape, made everything suddenly seem so real to me, and in turn, it steeled my resolve.
’I won’t let things turn out like last time, no matter how many people I need to kill, how much money I need to earn, nor how many I need to torture, I will never let things turn out the way they had before.
Closing my eyes, I allowed Amanda to carry me over toward my Father, who smiled back at me when he heard us coming.
"Good morning darling, and my little TT. Come to Dad!" placing down his coffee and the newspaper, my Father extended his arms toward Amanda, and without hesitation, I reached my arms out as if demanding I be removed from the grasp of the b***h who birthed me.
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"Dada," once I was firmly out of Amanda’s grasp, I beamed brightly at my Father and spoke, using the name he always said I called him as a baby. It was never Papa or Daddy, no, until I was about five or so, he was Dada, and then just Dad.
Of course, I would playfully call him Father or Pops, but that was primarily a joke since I knew it would get a rise out of him; regardless, he was always just Dad to me.
In the years to come, his life, along with that of Brenden and me, would be flipped on its head. He would go from being on top of the world, a highly respected police officer and potential politician with a decent amount of money stored in the bank to being penniless, homeless, and having to raise two young children, ages Five and Seven, alone, as a single father.
And the source of all our troubles…was the b***h standing behind me, wearing an endearing smile as she watched her husband and baby enjoying a normal morning together.
Watching her out of the corner of my eye, I had to admit that she was a good, maybe even great, actor, but I refused to be fooled; this woman was as petty and selfish as they came.
"Dada…sing…sing Dada!" I don’t know what suddenly came over me; call it nostalgia or genuine relief for seeing my Dad alive once again. It could also have been hearing him call me the silly nickname he coined, TT, which stood for Tiny Taylor, but I suddenly had the urge to listen to the dumb song he would bring up from time to time throughout my life.
"Oh? Do you want me to sing your song? Hmm…I don’t know, are you going to be a big boy and take your all-better juice without trouble or crying this time?" My Father asked, wearing a goofy smile that made his ears appear three sizes too large for his head.
’There it is again, the all-better juice…’ fighting the urge to narrow my eyes since it was unbecoming of my physical age, I rapidly nodded my head like a bobble doll, making my Dad smile.
"Hahaha, that’s my boy," Laughing loudly, My father sat me atop the kitchen table and began humming to himself.
"Mmmmmm," poking my tummy, which made me giggle, he began singing in his tone-deaf usual manner; however, it didn’t bother me one bit.
"Muh, muh, muh muh TT, some will call you TayTay," Singing the first line of the song, my father reached up and pinched my cheeks.
"Some will call you Taylor; some will call you Tay." this time, he poked my tummy again, making me erupt in giggles for a second time.
"But to me, you’ll always be my Muh muh muh muh TT, my little TT." Leaning forward, he kissed the top of my head and ruffled my hair before repeating the short song two more times.
SLAM
"Ugh, seriously, Dad, why do you keep singing that stupid song all the time." With a loud slam, my older sister…currently 14, with super curly hair, a long-to-her-knees t-shirt, and braces, stormed out of her room with a sleepy and disgusted expression on her face.
’Oh yeah, I forgot she lived here for a little while,’ although I was caught off guard by Annie’s sudden appearance and age, I rolled with it while my Dad snorted and went to scold her.
Sensing that things would quickly spin out of control because of the fiery temper my sister had at this age, I was quick to act; after all, how could I lose an opportunity to earn brownie points with Amanda’s NUMBER ONE ENEMY in the 1990s?
As the story goes, from the beginning, Annie HATED the woman who birthed me. In fact, she was the sole person who saw through her act.
Now, that wasn’t to say that Amanda didn’t have people against her; it was quite the opposite, as nearly every member of my father’s side of the family was venomously against him marrying the 20-year-old younger woman.
However, there was a deeper underlying reason behind why my grandparents, aunt, and uncle were against the marriage, and that was the fact that they had known Amanda since she was born.
To make matters worse, Amanda’s father, some decades earlier, had actually WORKED for my Grandpa. When he left the canning company where they worked together, my Grandpa Jörgensen started a new company and offered my Grandfather Van Arsdale *Amanda’s maiden name*, who graciously accepted.
Needless to say, the Jörgensen family had been close to the Van Arsdale family to the point that they would go on vacations together every year.
So when my father divorced Annie and Riley’s mother, he ended up reconnecting with the then 20-year-old Amanda and he became infatuated with her.
Mind you, this all occurred in the late 1980s, but after getting married in 1990, it would only be a couple of years before I came along, and since I was the 2nd Jörgensen boy born to the family, my grandparents, aunt, and uncle, all decided to put up with Amanda.
However, there was ONE person who didn’t like Amanda from the moment she met her, and that was Annie.
Keeping all these thoughts in mind, when I saw the teenage Annie make her way to the kitchen, I quickly turned on the baby charm, reaching out my arms.
"Sissy, Sissy, pick up!" As degrading as it was for someone who was almost 50 years old mentally, I did what I had to, and upon hearing me, Annie melted.
"Aww, little TT, come here!" Scooping me up, Annie nuzzled my cheek, earning multiple cute sounds from me.
"Whose the cutest little brother in the world," Annie said happily while spinning me around and dancing around the kitchen.
"Meeee!" I cheerfully replied, while internally, I was screaming at my idiotic display.
’This is so f**king degrading,’ I cried mentally while Annie continued hyping me up until Dad finally stepped in.
"Alright, that’s enough, Annie; Taylor needs to take his M-E-D-I-C-I-N-E." Taking care to spell out the word since he was afraid that I would react with a tantrum as per usual whenever he said the word Medicine, Dad retrieved me from Annie and sat me back on the square, eight-person oak kitchen table.
"Taylor, it’s time to drink your all-better juice," He said softly while patting my head, causing me to frown, more so out of concern than actual fear.
My eyes flicked away from my Dad to a worried Annie and then, lastly, Amanda, who appeared busily going from the refrigerator to the microwave and back on the opposite side of the kitchen.
It was then that I caught sight of not one but three different prescription bottles, and when I read their labels, my brain shook in confusion and anger.
Written on the first bottle, in small print, was the medication named Methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin; of the three medications, this name was one I was VERY familiar with, and that’s because, in the early 2000s, it would become a hot topic, as parents were overtreating their hyper or unattentive children with one of two ADHD medications, this one, and another named Adderall.
The fact that I was being given it as a one-year-old child astounded me, especially since although I, FOR SURE, had ADHD, I had never once been officially diagnosed with it and, thus, never given medication.
The second prescription bottle was labeled Temazepam, known as Restoril. Closing my eyes, I thought back to the list of dangerous medications I had memorized.
It was pretty well-known knowledge that before 2000, it was a wild west for pharmaceutical companies, so dozens of meds slipped through the cracks and were extremely harmful to the human body.
Now, it wasn’t like I had a hobby for knowing banned substances; no, I had memorized a list of meds that would be taken off the market with thoughts of capitalizing on them financially before they were gone.