As a little girl I thought my dad was some sort of financial wizard. I watched as people sought him out to help with legal and money woes and believed he was a legal genius. In one of my third-grade classrooms, each student had to stand up and say what our dad did for a living. This was my shining moment to brag about him. I wondered if the teacher had created the assignment just to see how it was that my family had a garage of rotating, obscenely expensive cars or how we managed to live in a new home every year.
I sat patiently as each child stood up and told about their dad’s job, eager to tell them all about how special my dad was. I listened with a grin as each one proudly announced that their dad was a lawyer, a doctor, a manager at our local grocery store, or a school bus driver. I saw how excited each classmate was and how proud they were of their dad. I was ready to brag about mine. When it was my turn, I straightened out the crease in my shirt, cleared my throat to make sure everyone in the room could hear me, stood up, and proudly announced that my dad was a bookie. My teacher smiled at me with a slightly furrowed brow while I stood tall with my chin held high. This was my shining moment. This was the moment that I got to brag about my dad to the whole class and they had to listen. I was the only kid in the room whose dad was a bookie, and it made me happy that he was unique. I found myself filled with complete pride.
I had no idea what I had just said, and thankfully, none of the kids did either. I thought a bookie was someone who kept financial records for lawyers and judges. I don’t know why that word stuck in my head as my dad’s profession. I’m sure there had been talk of bookies needing to collect from him or something on that level, but I thought it was all on the up-and-up. Lunch in the teacher’s lounge that day must have been full of giggles and concerns. My mom got a phone call from my teacher after school. I can only imagine her shock as she listened to how her daughter proudly boasted to her class that her dad was basically taking illegal bets.
Badge of Honor
When I was nine years old my dad bought me a new T-shirt. It was blue and read Daddy’s Little Girl in bright white letters. If my parents would have let me, I would have worn it every day for the rest of my life. It was my favorite shirt. Made of 100 percent cotton, it was the softest and most comfortable piece of clothing I had ever worn. But that’s not why I loved it so much. I idolized my dad. He was handsome, smart, and the funniest person I knew. At nine years old, I thought he could do no wrong, and in my eyes he was the best dad a girl could ask for. I wanted everyone to know that I was his little girl, and somehow that shirt had become a badge of honor. I assumed all the other girls in my class were jealous that their dad hadn’t gifted them with a shirt like mine. I wondered if they secretly wished my dad was theirs. I thought he was a giant, the strongest man alive. And not only was he strong, he was also a kind of smart that reached far beyond my understanding. I knew he hadn’t attended college, but I also knew he had a way about him. Everyone knew he was smart; only a few knew how he used his knowledge.
Growing up I knew other dads weren’t like mine. I knew he was different. If there was a prize for funniest dad, he would have been the recipient. He could make us belly laugh on a daily basis, and all my friends wanted to be around him because of the smiles he brought to their faces. He was that dad. He had a magnetic personality that drew everyone in. He was the dad that would honk and yell at us out the window as he pulled up to school to pick us up. When we would get to the door and reach for the handle, he would inch the car forward and we would ultimately end up chasing the car down the pick-up line. Even though my brother and I tired of it quickly, our friends loved every second of it, and that fueled Dad to keep it up. He was quick-witted and had a comeback or a joke that could be inserted into any and every conversation. You couldn’t help but like him and want to be around him. There was something about him that was undeniably irresistible.
If my dad was the funny bone, my mom was the backbone. She worked her fingers to the bone to support us. After staying home with my brother and me until we enrolled in elementary school, she enrolled herself in college. She put us on the bus each morning and then would go to school and submerge herself in studies until it was time to come home, cook dinner, and tuck us into bed. She was the behind-the-scenes hero, and we never realized it. We thought our dad was the champion. The dean’s list boasted my mom’s name when she graduated from nursing school. She took a job working nights in order to bring home more money. She was, after all, the only working parent and the sole breadwinner for our family. She quietly did whatever she had to do to make sure we were taken care of and always let us think our dad was the hero.
Whatever it was that my dad really did to bring in some form of income or provide things, he was good at it. We randomly had big-ticket items that I knew the average home couldn’t afford. There was a new car in the driveway every few months or so, and more than once the emblem on the car was one that only the very rich could acquire. The day he rolled up to my school in a Rolls Royce I thought nothing of it, until the teachers questioned me about it the next day. They were curious as to what my dad did for a living and when we got that fancy new car. I wasn’t allowed to use the word bookie anymore, so I told everyone he was a lawyer. To me it was just a car, and even though we had a rotating inventory of cars, this one was no different from all the others. I vaguely recall my mom’s nervous demeanor with each new car, but I didn’t understand credit and finances and thought she was tired of constantly having to get used to a different car. My brother and I wouldn’t take full advantage of his car-acquiring skills until we got older and were the ones behind the wheel. We took advantage of it but also learned some hard lessons at the same time.
We moved often and randomly had the most amazing vacation homes. One season of life was spent on a thousand-acre ranch stocked with exotic game for us to hunt at will. We had the choice to either stay at the guest house, which was fancier than most homes I had ever lived in, or at the main house. The main house was like something out of a magazine, and each time someone joined us as a guest they would ooh and ahh over all its amazing features. My favorite part of the main house was the maid’s quarters. Since no one else wanted to stay there, my girlfriends and I always made it our own little house for the weekend. It was like a secret hideaway that was conveniently attached to the kitchen and close to my parents’ room—but just far enough away to keep our secrets. Behind the big fence was a huge area filled with untamed horses, each a different color. I dreamed of living like them, free to run in the sun all day long. They were so majestic and strong. No one maintained them, yet their coats glistened as the sun kissed down on them. Their beauty burned a hole in me. I wanted them to be mine. I wanted them to want me. I pictured myself walking up to the strong wooden fence and having each of them run up to me in excitement. It was as if my childhood fantasy of owning a horse ranch was within my grasp.
On one of our adventures, my cousin and I rode saddled horses and, acting like ranchers, gathered the wild horses and cornered them in a small area of the huge corral. It felt amazing to have control over these wild animals, as if they were ours and their obedience was a learned behavior. In reality, they were terrified of us. After we cornered them with no escape, they broke the fence and ran freely into the wooded acres where my brother and dad were hunting. We knew that there was no chance of getting them back on our own, so we raced our horses back to the barn, unsaddled them, and put them in their stalls. With heavy breathing and pounding hearts, we made our way to the maid’s quarters and vowed to keep the entire event to ourselves. Though we heard my dad outside the house cursing up a storm, there was no way we were going to confess what we had done. The entire event was chalked up to a faulty fence, and as many horses as possible were recovered from the hunting acres and put back in the corral. We learned a hard lesson about trying to tame a wild animal. You can’t force something or someone to be what they aren’t and never will be.
From the Outside Looking In
Growing up it looked and felt like we were a typical family. From the outside looking in, it seemed like we had it all. Even from the inside it looked pretty good. We had times of extreme extravagance that as kids we delighted in.
Summers were spent at the lake. Our vacation home for that season was a three-story lake house with all the bells and whistles. In the boat slot hung a vessel that only a few other people on the lake could afford. The deck of the boat was huge and could hold lots of people, but underneath the deck was the real gem. Once you got past the door that required you to duck your head and squat down, there was a bed and toilet. No one on the lake needed a toilet on their boat. There was a marina within miles no matter where you were, and your home was never that far away. The toilet on the boat was for status. The bed was also completely unnecessary, but that didn’t stop my friends and me from hiding under there and creating our own little world. It was a secret clubhouse, and we didn’t feel like we were missing out on anything. In addition to the overpriced boat, there were a few jet skis. It didn’t matter how old you were, you got to drive them as far as you wanted and for as long as you wanted. We had zero boundaries on the lake. We spent so many hours on the water that several layers of our skin were burned to the point of deep pain.
The lake was my favorite place to be. My cousin was only four houses down from us, and we would travel back and forth between the two all summer long. I grew up at her lake house and knew every nook and cranny of it. Both houses and the yards in between gave us the right to just be kids, yet we wandered with a freedom we shouldn’t have yet been granted.
Becoming Tiny Adults Too Soon
I spent many weekends at my best friend’s house and watched her dad closely. He was quiet and calm. His kids called him sir and he garnered respect without demanding it. He went to work before the sun came up and was home in time for dinner. One weekend a month he would leave town to work as a reserve for the Coast Guard. I always thought that was a secret mission he wasn’t allowed to talk about. He was a decorated and respected man who had retired from the FBI and continued to put in hours at the family’s cab company. Every time I walked through the door he would give me a kind smile and greet me with “Well hello, Miss Snell,” and that was the extent of most of our conversations. The home he generously provided for his family was my safe place. I spent as much time in my best friend’s home as I could and made countless comforting memories inside its safety.
My best friend’s dad wasn’t loud like my dad, and he wasn’t constantly in our business the way my dad was. I knew he was what a normal dad looked like. He showed me that normal dads had a routine and consistency in order to provide for their families. My dad was all about having fun and making us laugh, but I secretly wanted a dad like my best friend’s. I wanted to call my dad sir and watch him leave each morning for work and come home every night for dinner. While most of my friends wanted a fun dad like mine, I was hiding my jealousy over what they had. I wasn’t even old enough to date yet, but I promised myself that I would marry a man like the one at my friend’s house and not like the one at mine.
As my mom headed off to work each night, she reluctantly left my brother and me in the care of our dad. We thought we had scored big time, because he never enforced a bedtime and we were free to roam about doing pretty much whatever our hearts desired. It was easier for him to parent this way—and be the cool parent—than it was for him to set any standards for us or enforce any rules. He was the guy who would randomly pull us out of school for a “family emergency” and then head to the lake. While the other kids were stuck behind a desk, we were headed toward the water. It was easier for my dad to let us skip school than it was for him to get up and take us and then make sure he was there to pick us up. At least once a month he wouldn’t be able to get his head off of his pillow in the morning, so he would declare it a “Snell Holiday.” Having our last name attached to the word holiday instantly meant that we were free to stay home with no consequences.
He was either extremely active and bouncing off the walls or could barely get off of the couch. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was a diagnosed sociopath. I don’t remember him ever taking medication for either. On the days he didn’t move, he handed us twenty dollars and a note for the cashier and sent us on our way to buy him cigarettes. We were allowed to keep the change, which took the embarrassment out of buying smokes for our dad.
Most nights, while my mom was at work and other kids were being tucked into bed, my dad let us stay up late watching scary movies. Or he sat with us in the kitchen talking about life. This is how I found out what being gay meant and what drugs were. I was in second grade, and back then those weren’t things parents openly talked about with their kids. They were taboo subjects, and I knew that the other kids in my class weren’t getting these kinds of lessons at home.
On one of those nights when my mom was burning the midnight oil at the hospital, my dad was wide awake and had no bedtime in sight. My dad, my brother, and I sat around the kitchen table talking about anything and everything we wanted. In the middle of the conversation my dad got up and went to the tall wooden cabinet that stood next to our oversized console TV. He reached inside the highest cabinet, the one that would require me to pull a chair up next to it to reach it. After moving a few things around he pulled out a brown lunch sack and set it on our dining room table. The table was long, almost reaching from wall to wall, and was surrounded by eight chairs. We only ate at it on holidays or when we had company; it was reserved for special occasions. With bright eyes, my brother and I sat down and waited for him to pull out whatever treasure the sack held. We watched as he laid out bags of pills, powders, and what I thought was dried grass. Item by item he explained to us what each drug was. He detailed each illegal drug to his second and fourth grader, and then he told us that if we ever wanted to try drugs we needed to come to him first and not take drugs from anyone else.
That was our first “Say No to Drugs” lesson. In second grade, I could identify cocaine, marijuana, and a variety of pills. I don’t think either my brother or I thought anything of it. My dad said a friend left the drugs at our house and that he had insisted his friend come and get them, but he had not shown up. We had no reason to believe otherwise and, to us, our dad was honest and safe. His favorite phrase was, “Don’t tell your mother,” and because we both respected and feared him, we never said a word, not to her or anyone else. Before we even reached middle school he had groomed us to be master secret keepers.
Most of my elementary years were spent with wool pulled over my eyes. I knew we weren’t exactly a normal family, but it was normal to us. My mom explained to me that my dad was not a bookie but that he did financial work for people. My dad explained that he was a bankruptcy consultant, and when his clients couldn’t pay him they would give him things like cars and lake houses. I didn’t know what bankruptcy was or how my dad had acquired the knowledge to help people through it. He had barely made it out of high school and never spent a day in college. Yet he managed to help people through sticky legal situations and convince them to pay him with things. My mom continued to work as many hours as she could to make sure our family had a steady, legal income. She did the job of both parents, working full-time and making sure homework was done and projects completed. Her smiling face cheered us on at every event, and she scrambled daily to make sure all the bills were paid. Somehow, my dad continued to get all the glory.
My brother and I were both far too wise beyond our years. I attribute it to the nights we spent navigating our dad’s insane parenting lessons. Long before we became teenagers, we knew the ins and outs of the world in ways children shouldn’t. Because of our dad, we had seen more than most adults before we were even enrolled in high school. There was an angel and a devil perched on either of my shoulders, and far too many times the screech of the devil pounded in my ears, making it impossible to hear the sweet whispers of my angel.
I don’t remember ever attending church; it simply wasn’t a part of our childhood. I know at some point we joined the church in our neighborhood but not because I remember going. I have the picture our family took the day we became members. Four well-dressed and smiling people look back at me in that picture, and I can only imagine what it took for my mom to force us into taking it. I’m wearing a dress, which literally took an act of God. The picture has several tack holes in it from being moved around on the church bulletin board, but I can’t recall taking the picture or ever being in the church. I wasn’t taught Bible verses or made to sit through a service. We didn’t meet up with other church families for potluck Sunday or have Bible studies in our home.
My mom believed in God—I know that for a fact—but church and religion just weren’t part of our daily lives. She didn’t display crosses in our home, and we rarely if ever prayed before we ate or went to sleep. The extent of our dinner prayer was my dad loudly stating, “Over the teeth, past the gums, watch out tummy, here it comes!” Maybe I believed in God, but I didn’t believe he knew me. Or maybe I just thought he was a God for everyone else, the good people, the people with lives wrapped up in a pretty bow. I don’t know how I sorted it all out when I was a little girl, but as I got older I just figured if there was a God, he hated me.
Eventually, I grew out of that blue and white Daddy’s Little Girl T-shirt and had the wool removed from my eyes.