on a balmy summer morning in 1972, a knock on the door began to weave yet another strand into this expanding fabrication. Mom remembered standing face-to-face with an officer of the court. Maybe my father would never leave Marcia, but Marcia had decided yet again to leave him—and this time she was determined to follow through. She had filed for divorce and had listed the Walnut Avenue address as the location for Walt to be served. As Mom looked through the petition of complaint, she came to the section where dependents were listed: Sam, Stacy, Shawna, Shelly, Shannon . . . and Quinn McCandless. Quinn’s name was a surprise. Billie knew the others, of course, and had had the older ones over to her home on numerous occasions. But surely there couldn’t have been another baby with Marcia, one Billie didn’t know about. She would have known. Walt would have told her. Mom immediately loaded three-year-old Chris and me into the car and drove by Marcia’s house. There she saw Marcia out in her yard, watching five of her children play and holding a sixth—a toddler—on her hip. According to the court petition, Quinn had been born just before Christmas, 1969.
The evidence of our father’s continual dishonesty was too large to ignore, and my mother was infuriated. She even packed Chris and me up and sent us away, to her parents in Michigan. But in a pattern that would become all too familiar, she soon forgave Dad and retrieved us. Quinn wasn’t his, Dad insisted.
Mom chose to believe him.
Shortly before Marcia had filed for divorce, Walt had beaten her so badly that Sam—who was thirteen years old—called the police. When they got to the house, they’d simply asked Dad to leave and not come back. But Marcia was no longer concerned about the lack of protection from police or Walt’s next menacing act. It didn’t matter, because she was leaving. She sold the house, packed up their six kids, and moved back home to Colorado. Then Dad got a job that moved Mom, Chris, and me to Virginia. Distance now separated the two families, but we were intertwined and always would be.
THEN AND FOR THE YEARS TO COME, I knew my half siblings only as fun, cool playmates who would pick me up, play with me and Chris, and then leave until next time. As a little girl sitting on Mom’s bed, my hands playing in my sun-bleached curls, I knew none of this puzzling history.
Instead, I knew sometimes we had a large family, and sometimes we didn’t. When we didn’t, it was Chris and me, partners against the evil forces of the world. When our family was larger, it felt like the Brady Bunch, but with a lot more yelling. There were group outings with Dad and Mom; there were visits with family and friends. On one occasion, my mom had made all the girls identical green dresses to match her own for a party we attended, and we all wore our hair in matching fancy updos. Shawna recalls feeling special, finally included by way of these thoughtful gifts from Billie, and beautiful. To partygoers, we were the darling and closely blended family. But what Shawna remembers most about the day is the way her stepmom required the dresses back when the party was over and the pictures had been taken.
When friends asked what grade Shannon was in, Mom would tell them he’d been held back as a way of explaining why he and Chris were in the same grade. Sometimes our parents would claim that one or more of us did not biologically belong to the family—usually that was to explain Quinn. As the child born between Chris and me, he was incriminating evidence. The level of pain and confusion for me and my siblings was determined by our ages and ability to understand.
Somewhere along the line, Mom had become Dad’s accomplice. “Your father is so good to provide for Quinn,” she would say to me. “Since he doesn’t have to.” Anyone could see, she elaborated, how much like Marcia’s “good friend” Quinn looked. In truth, it was obvious Quinn had Dad’s jawline, laugh, and gift for working a room.
The summer I turned seven, Dad rented a house from his friend and colleague, Ted Pounder, in Altadena, California. He was working as project manager on the Seasat 1 launch program—the first satellite designed for remote sensing of the earth’s oceans with synthetic aperture radar—and the house allowed all the kids to spend time together while he did so.
It was a wondrous experience for me to have all my brothers and sisters in the same place at the same time. On my parents’ bad days, Sam, the oldest at nineteen, analytical and responsible, substituted as something of a father figure, leading us all outside to the pool; Stacy, eighteen, creative and nurturing, became the mother. Shawna, fifteen, was sweet, accommodating, and unashamedly girlie—always more content painting her fingernails than getting dirt beneath them with the rest of us. Brash Shelly, fourteen and gorgeous, was Walt’s daughter in so many ways and yet always able to channel her intensity toward loving and protecting those who mattered most to her. Shannon, ten, was strong and fun, but then quick to become withdrawn and angry, and also highly sensitive. Chris, also ten, was always leading the gang in one adventurous endeavor after another. Quinn, eight, was easygoing and gentle, boyish to his core, and incredibly cute.
At seven years old, and befuddled by the number of times I had heard that Quinn was not really my brother, I had a misplaced crush on him—one that was easily noticed by the oldest children. One night we had a dance party in the house, and Shelly teased me relentlessly every time I blushed when Quinn grabbed my hands to swing me around.
We swam almost every day that summer in the large pool in the backyard. We took sailing trips to Catalina Island on Mr. Pounder’s boat. We went to Disneyland, where we reveled in the freedom of our parents’ distraction, and on days we didn’t have anything planned, we set off on long treks around the neighborhood. Sam and Stacy had jobs and were only able to spend a couple of weeks at the summer home. Shawna’s visit was also shortened, because she developed mono and was sent back to Marcia. So, it was Shelly we looked up to for the rest of the summer. She had a tough interior underneath her long red hair and perfectly freckled cheeks. Having inherited Dad’s green eyes and his forceful disposition, she was not one to accept the poor behavior of our father and her stepmother without commenting within earshot of them both. “I guess I’ll take everyone outside . . . again,” she’d say pointedly when things heated up. When we went out for dinner and Dad told everyone what they would order, Shelly spoke up. “No, I don’t want a Greek salad. I’m having a Caesar salad.” Dad wouldn’t argue with her.
Of all his children, Shelly seemed to revere our father the most—though that reverence could quickly turn to fury. Outside, near the Pounders’ flower garden, I overheard her telling Chris about how she used to sit in an open window at their Colorado home for hours on end, looking out at a flower bed of marigolds and waiting for Dad to visit on a day he’d promised he would. Dad wouldn’t show up, so she came to hate the sight of marigolds. She demonstrated her dislike of the flowers by picking one from the soil, plucking off its head, and grinding it into the patio, the orange and red petals staining the concrete in a fiery display. Chris made his own pattern with another bloom, for good measure.
The casting was complete. Everyone knew their place; everyone had been given their lines. Eight children were extras in the show, with limited access to the script. We would all have to unravel the mystery in our own time. The foundation was set for a lengthy spectacle that sharply contradicted the truth.
CHAPTER 2
SAINT MATTHEW’S United Methodist Church was just three miles from Willet Drive. A quick drive on a rushed Sunday morning, but a long walk for a nine-year-old and a twelve-year-old.
“Look at this, Carine!” Chris exclaimed with outstretched arms. “If we were in the car, we’d pass by all these colorful leaves too fast, and all we’d smell would be Dad’s cigarettes!”
I was well aware that the change of season made Chris’s allergies unbearable, and I appreciated him putting a positive spin on the situation for me. Though
