Before I go any farther, I forgot one of my aunts. Her name was Dan and she was also dead by the time I was born.

So the family in which insanity runs rampant is not necessarily a source of reliable information. I never knew many of my aunts and uncles (even those who were alive as I was growing up). The following is the bare outline of my grandmother's life, gleaned from tales by my father and some of my aunts. I decided that, if there was a general consensus, it was probably more likely than not to be true.

My grandmother, Blanche, lived with us off and on several times. She made me feel safe, because up until the butcher knife episode, my father was never violent around her. She was completely lacking in social graces, a tough and stoic woman. I admired her stoicism and I tried to develop it in myself. I was ungodly successful.

Blanche always liked boys more than girls. I was a special grandchild, because she liked me anyway, even though I was born without the proper equipment. Her sons were alternately coddled and neglected. How could they not have been neglected when there were so many children and such economic deprivation? The coddling is another thing altogether. I think it brought out the worst in all of her male children. None of them ever seemed to truly grow up and, at the slightest sign of trouble (which they generally created themselves) in their lives, every last one of them went running home to mommy.

The first three or four children were already grown by the time my father and the second set of spawn arrived. My grandmother already knew the consequences of breeding with my grandfather, but she did it, anyway. After the second group, he predictably left and sent no money for their care. I always wondered how such a forceful, fierce, tough woman would allow that to happen twice. They supported themselves by picking cotton. Picking cotton stories were staples of my early life. My father used them to make me feel guilty for not having to do it myself. He wasn't only being manipulative; they all tended to feel incredibly sorry for themselves. It was the basis of my dad's entire life. He was happily pitiable in most every aspect of his life.

My dad reported to me that he once saw Blanche in bed with a man other than my grandfather. I have no idea whether that's true. If it is, it's not surprising in the least. Knowing my grandmother, she might have done it just to spite my grandfather. He also told me that he once heard my grandmother and Sis concocting a plan to murder his dad. My dad seemed to be angry about that, but frankly, after the first round of kids, I would probably have hunted his sorry ass down and killed him myself. Or maybe I'd have made him wish I'd killed him.

Blanche (according to relatively independent sources) hated her youngest daughter, Ruby. My grandmother knew that her husband was sexually using the child and, of course, held it against her, not my monstrous grandfather. I learned this after my grandmother was dead, so I didn't have a chance to hold it against her.

My grandfather was the first in a family populated by male sadists. He never let my grandmother have any shoes and, on one occasion, when one of my aunts gave grandma a pair of hers, my grandfather beat her for her generosity. My grandmother and grandfather eventually divorced. My grandfather remarried and treated his second wife with much more respect than his first. I don't think they ever had any children and I know absolutely nothing about my step-grandmother.

Other than that, I know very little about Blanche. I know she consistently cut the sleeves out of every single dress she ever owned, no matter how much they cost or how weird they looked without sleeves. She really loved fig newtons. My grandmother developed two addictions (other than the one she had to my grandfather) as she grew older. Along with virtually everyone else in the country, she never missed an episode of "Dallas." She was addicted to soaps generally and, for the longest time, thought that Detective Mike Carr on the Guiding Light was a real guy. We had long conversations about him when I was a little girl. Blanche was devastated when Mike left the show and she wondered about his whereabouts for years.

She also developed a deep and abiding love of chihuahuas. After I was around 12, I never knew my grandmother to be without one. I believe they were all males. Blanche really liked guinea hens and kept some tied up in the backyard whenever that was possible under city code. They never held a candle to chihuahuas, though. Luckily, for years we had about a hundred of them running around our backyard and she could always take the pick of the numberless litters.

After I grew up, I tried to get her to tell me about her life. I was not successful, so I can only count on the stories I heard from her various children. Of course, I had personal knowledge of the chihuahuas and the soaps, the sleeveless dresses and the Newtons.

I'll go through what I know about the siblings next week.

You Ask About My Father's Childhood

You asked about my father's childhood. I can give an incomplete and not necessarily thoroughly accurate account. The truth is, there's no one from whom those facts can be obtained. No one in my father's family was completely trustworthy. Only one of his siblings is still living, the uncle who sexually assaulted me numerous times. I'm not certain he's still alive, but as of ten years ago, he was the only one left. I would never ask anything of him.

I'm going to try to remember the names of his brothers and sisters, though the names I knew them by were nicknames or terms of endearment my grandmother used. The sisters: Jewel, Sis (I never knew her name), Eddie, Ruby, Audrey. The brothers: Frank, Melvin, and Jack. Eddie and Frank died before I was born.

When I say that the family wasn't trustworthy, I don't mean that they were all liars (though they might have been). I mean that mental illness touched all of them, that their singular and shared histories were heavily colored by that illness.

My grandmother was orphaned when she was a girl, along with a brother with whom she was very close. I'm not sure how she lost her parents, but I believe there was a fire. I think she had other siblings who also died. Blanche, my grandmother, and her brother Ernest were sent off to an orphanage and ultimately farmed out to various families where they functioned essentially as indentured servants. I can't imagine the treatment they must have endured.

My grandmother married the son of one of those families. I think his family was well-to-do. Or maybe they only thought they were. My grandfather was ultimately disowned, but I don't know why. I don't know how old my grandmother was when she married. I don't even know my grandfather's first name.

Jack, Sis and Eddie were the first set of children born. There was a significant amount of time between the first children and the second group. My grandfather fulfilled his responsibilities to both sets in exactly the same way: he left. He always found a need to work elsewhere, leaving his wife and children to sharecrop in order to survive. Though my grandfather was working, he never sent money to his family. It was a harsh survival. Many times they had nothing to eat, they had very little clothing and it was probably not in the best condition. My dad said that he and his family were ridiculed at school because of their financial circumstances. I have no way of knowing whether that's true. I think it's just as likely that they were ostracized and made fun of because they were crazy. Who knows.

Both of my grandparents were brutal disciplinarians. One of my father's ears was permanently injured from my grandmother's penchant for twisting the kids' ears as punishment. According to several of my aunts and uncles, my grandmother would throw or strike with anything that was handy: a frying pan, a piece of wood for the stove. She had a savage temper.

I don't have any specific tales about my grandfather's disciplinary techniques other than that my father couldn't bear to bring himself to discuss it. I believe that he sexually abused all of his children. My father had a dark secret that he wished to share only with me after I became an adult. I heard him once speak to my (abusive) uncle about him, saying, "You don't know what he did to me."

What I know is that sexual and physical abuse ran rampant in my family. Perhaps my grandmother was sexually abusive, too. I think that's a distinct possibility.

I can't continue at the moment. Sometimes when I think about my father's family, I'm emotionally overwhelmed. I was very, very close to my grandmother. I can't tell you how it pains me to believe her capable of that behavior. So on that note, I have to stop. With any luck, I'll be able to continue the tale tomorrow.