If I had a bit more talent and discipline, and I took a year off and worked hard, I could write the stories of how two of my client families intertwine. It would be a good story, and no one would believe it of course.
On family is rich, one is poor, and they live on opposite ends of the same street. One in a big house with lots of land that their family has owned for three generations. They ride their horses on the trails in the back. The other lives on less than a half an acre in a ranch house with crumbling steps, holes punched in the walls and a shaggy lawn.
I have been seeing the poorer family for years, as they have always been struggling with mental, financial, educational and legal troubles.
The more prosperous family came to be recently because they have passed the point of exploding. They could no longer keep matters internal to the tight-lipped inner circle.
Each family has three children of roughly the same ages. One has two boys and a girl, the other two girls and a boy. The oldest son on the poorer family drank too much, but managed to get away. He joined the army and is in Iraq. Now his mother sits outside and drinks.
The middle children of each family are sixteen, and they are having sex with each other.
Both fathers have been gone for eight years. The poorer father ran off with a man. The richer father ran off after his daughter accused him of coming into her bed at night. Two years later he "drowned" while fishing in Florida.
Alcoholism, sex, violence, incest, shoplifting, robbery, embezzlement, lies, deceit, betrayal; along with love, devotion, parental advocacy, determination and guile.
Put it all together and write your own story. It's all there.
Sure beats staying home and watching Dr. Phil.
3 comments:
That's a book I would like to read. Take lots of notes, and when you retire, write it!
Life makes the best stories.
You had me hooked with the first line, "One family is rich, one is poor, and they live on opposite ends of the same street."
Maybe we could take up a collection so you could take the time off to tell the story, or at least cut back to seeing only the two families so you continue to have fresh material for the book.
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