Heidi´s entries
I never knew my parents but in a way, I feel like my whole life has been controlled by their expectations of me enforced by my brothers. Perhaps it´s more precise to say that I don´t remember them rather than not knowing them because technically, I did know them for a short time before they died, but I don´t remember them. Neither does my twin brother, Guthrie. We were only 2 when our parents were killed in a car accident effectively leaving my seven brothers and I orphaned. Brothers 1 and 2, otherwise known as Adam and Brian became the guardians to the rest of us and raised us, even though they were so young. Adam was just 18 and Brian was 16. When I think about how young they were at the time, I don´t know how they managed because Brian was only 2 years older than I am now and I couldn´t imagine having to raise a family at my age. Maybe that´s because I´ve been a bit spoilt by my brothers, being the only girl and the youngest.
My name is Heidi and along with my twin brother, Guthrie, we´re the youngest siblings of the McFadden crew. My eldest brothers, Adam, Brian and Crane along with Hannah who is Adam´s wife run the ranch and the rest of us help out when we´re not in school or on the road. Guthrie and I are in the 9th grade in high school and our brother Ford is a senior. Daniel graduated two years ago and he´s away on the road a lot playing with his band-he´s big into music. Evan graduated last year and he´s saving money to go on the rodeo circuit- which if you ask me sounds pretty dangerous. The family is supportive of him because it´s his passion and probably because they know that wild horses wouldn´t keep him away but I don´t see the fun in being repeatedly tossed to the ground. Evan is also really good at breaking in horses- he seems to have more patience with them than people. He certainly has more patient with them than he has with me but maybe that´s because I´ve been a bit of a handful lately. Even though he´s so young, other ranches brings their horses to our ranch so Evan can work with them. We live on a cattle ranch in what is sometimes referred to as the mother lode of California. It´s really beautiful out here but something inside me aches for the bright lights of a big city. I already have a pretty strong feeling that´s where I´ll end up in the future. Somewhere like New York or London or even Paris if Hannah continues to teach me and Guthrie French.
I guess these pangs inside me brings to me to why I´m writing these entries. It´s something my therapist is making me do. Yes, I know, you read therapist and automatically think I´m crazy. Believe me, it was not my idea to go to therapy and I tried to resist in every which way possible but I wasn´t given a choice. Adam and Brian told me I had to go and hand delivered me there, even sitting in the waiting room on my first session, probably to make sure that I wouldn´t bolt. I´ve been in a lot of trouble recently and rebelling against the rules and expectations placed on me by my family. The climax came when I got into trouble one too many times at school and before one of my brothers got to school to pick me up, I took off and disappeared for 24 hours before I was found by the sheriff department and brought home. My whole family were utterly furious with me, even Guthrie who is normally on my side and Crane who is the voice of calm and reason. I guess I scared them all something awful by taking off and my family doesn´t do scared too well because of our history. Adam and Brian don´t spank that often; they threaten to sometimes and normally a threat is enough to keep us in line, especially Guthrie and me because they´re the only parents we can remember. But when either one of them is pushed too far, there´s hell to pay and you better believe you won´t sit down comfortably for a good few days after they´re done dealing with you. Evan jokes that´s what prepared him for rodeo school with Coop Johnson. Anyway, I was convinced that after the stunt I had pulled, I´d be spending time over one of their laps but Hannah saved me. She swept me up into a hug and held me for a long time, not saying anything. She said that I just have felt pretty bad to take off like that and that the best thing for me would be to talk to someone about my feelings outside the family. Adam normally listens to her now and so even though Brian wasn´t convinced, Adam has the final say in our family. And actually, I´m really glad that I went to therapy because Julia- that´s my therapist- has helped me figure some stuff out, deal with my feelings and such.
I love Hannah a whole lot and not just because of that. She´s super smart and strong and sensitive and she goes head to head with Adam when she thinks he´s wrong and normally wins, something which the rest of us really rely on her for. At first I didn´t know what to think when Adam brought her home one day out of the blue and announced to us that he had gotten married. She looked just about as shell-shocked as we did, probably because Adam failed to tell her that she would be living with his 7 siblings. I get why he did it; no one wants a person with kids- you bury these things, but I´m still surprised she stuck around. I kept my distance until the third day when she toppled Crane, Brian and Evan to the ground during one lunchtime when she couldn´t get a word in edgewise. Up until then, I guess I had always taken my brothers´ word as law because it´s all I had ever known, but when I saw her silence them in a matter of seconds, I was mesmerized and Guthrie and I became her number one champions in the family, after Adam of course.
Julia wants me to make a map of the significant moments I can remember in my life because she says writing will help me make sense of it all. So I´ll start with a memory I have when I was 7: the first time Guthrie and I really understood the state and others saw us as orphans…
** This is just something I´ve been playing around with. Would love honest reviews: are people interested in the story continuing?