No one said it to my face.

No, grandma. They said it to my face.

Thirty years of my life is an elaborate, crude lie. The lie wasn’t for my benefit. It was for my mother’s benefit. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket. A bastard. That’s what New York State called me until 1993 when people like me were finally referred to as non-marital children.

My grandmother told everyone that my mother was indeed married but she wasn’t getting along with her husband so they weren’t living together. And you expected people to believe that? No one believed it. No one said it to her face.

They said it to my face.

When I found out the truth, my grandmother blamed the clerk at vital statistics and said he had no business telling me I was adopted. Really? Then how the hell would I ever have gotten a copy of my birth certificate? It wasn’t in Buffalo where it belonged. I was asked if I ever had a birth certificate and was it green. It was. Then my birth certificate is in Albany. What’s it doing there? You’re adopted. I felt as if someone smashed me into a brick wall. Every part of the front of me hurt. I remember thinking that even my toes hurt.

When I talked to The Drunk about being adopted, he said he knew he wasn’t my real father. I tried to tell him he was indeed my real father. He argued with me and insisted he wasn’t my real father. I wasn’t his real daughter. That’s why he gave my siblings an allowance but didn’t give me one until I begged for an allowance. That’s why cousins on The Drunk’s side of that family that I had grown up with wouldn’t invite me to their weddings although my siblings – his real children – were invited. I wasn’t real. That’s why a dress The Drunk’s sister had made for me as a confirmation gift was several sizes too big. I wasn’t real. I was too small. I was so much smaller than my cousin who was the same age although The Drunk’s sister insisted my cousin and I were the same size.

At an uncle’s funeral, one ill-mannered person walked up, announced she was Peggy (never did figure out who she was and where she fit into the over abundant Thumans), and asked if I were Donna’s daughter. By that time, I knew that question wasn’t driven by curiosity. That question really meant was I the bastard. At a funeral. I got asked that a funeral. It was the second funeral in two days and I wasn’t thinking all that fast. I said yes. She walked away. What I wish I had said was I’m someone who is incredibly glad I’m not related to you.

One day, a deputy followed me out of the courthouse and asked if I lived on North Forest Road. That wasn’t curiosity, either. He was asking if I was the bastard.

Another deputy wasn’t as smooth. He said he looked at the list, knew the defendant was represented by a Thuman, but he didn’t know which one. “That would be me.” Ha, ha. Got you. You didn’t get to find out an ugly truth.

Jim was golfing with the son of our bowling partners one day. Is Deb Donna’s daughter? Yes. I thought so. I knew she had a couple kids before she got married. That happened because the jerk’s mother couldn’t get the answer she was looking for when she asked if my father got married late in life.

I moved two time zones away to a place where there were no Thumans. There was no one who knew I was an embarrassing secret. It was a relief. For a while. Then I discovered there was a Thumann in Germany who was a nazi war criminal. The British hunted him down, tried him and hanged him. He’s from the same part of Germany the Thumans in The Drunk’s family are from. He’s distantly related to them. Fortunately, he’s not my relative. The Drunk was stationed in Germany during the occupation. He bragged about using a cow for target practice and for driving a jeep down “Jew Alley” to knock over all the tables and watch the Jews scatter. The Drunk and the nazi war criminal would have been great friends had they known each other.

And so I go through life signing a fake name, the name of a nazi war criminal, to the bottom of checks.

No one called my grandmother a liar. They called me one.