Chapter 14 - Michaela's Story
September 18, 1998 - Tulsa, Oklahoma
'Every time that I stare into the sun, angel dust and my dress just comes undone.'
I couldn't believe that I was letting my brother sit so close to me. He was actually sitting less than a metre away from me. Who knew what he might do? Sure, I had made myself look totally unattractive, but I could feel him eyeing me constantly. Still he could help me find out about the family secret, whatever it was. I knew there must be one, otherwise my parents would behave like normal parents and put up with me, no matter how much they hated me. Tweedle-Tay said something and interrupted my thoughts. "Huh?" I said, absent mindedly.
Tweedle-Tay was holding up a wedding photo. "Our grandparents' wedding photo," he said.
I looked at the photo. The woman looked really familiar. "Fucking hell!" I said, grabbing the photo off Tweedle-Tay for a closer look. It was just as I suspected. The woman in the photo bore a startling resemblence to my adopted grandmother Annabelle Morgan. I flipped the photo over. 'Roger marries Annabelle Morgan', it said. "Oh my god," I said softly.
"What is it?" Tweedle-Tay asked.
'Be a model or just look like one......'
"That woman," I said. "Is my adopted grandmother. Except she isn't really my adopted grandmother, she's really our paternal grandmother........" I looked at Tweedle-Tay. He obviously didn't understand the significance.
Finally he said, "Oh my god. You were onto something when you decided to read this pile. You now know the family secret."
I looked at him blankly. "No I don't," I said. "All I know is that there definitely is family secret. Why else would Annabelle and myself leave the family and move to LA? And why didn't Annabelle leave you guys any of her money?"
Tweedle-Tay looked confused. "I don't know," he shrugged.
"Exactly," I said. "That's why we have to keep looking through this stuff."
For the next twenty minutes Tweedle-Tay and I continued to look through the old papers. I skimmed through Annabelle's diaries. Although our grandfather Roger Manson was a puritan, he seemed to be a kind man and I just couldn't bring myself to believe that our grandmother was cruel. Not when she'd been so kind to me in those fourteen and a half years I'd spent living with her. I read all about her pregnancy. It seemed to be a difficult one and Annabelle complained extensively about her exploding weight. Finally I came to the entry written on the day after my father's birth. My grandmother had given birth to not one baby, but two. A boy and a girl.......
"Oh my lord!" Tweedle-Tay cursed. He held up a picture of our grandmother holding the two babies. "It's our parents!"
Tweedle-Tay had seen the photographic evidence of what I had just read. Fergie and Skipper Manson were not only husband and wife, but also brother and sister. Fraternal twins, like Tweedle-Tay and myself. "Shit!" I screamed, "That's disgusting!"
Tweedle-Tay and I did not even bother discussing the revelation, we were both too wrapped up in discovering the real reason that everything in our family was so twisted. Rather than searching separately, we sat together for around three hours going through absolutely everything, so carefully, reading every word that our grandmother and our mother had written (our mother also kept a detailed diary).
Our grandfather had died when our parents were around three years old and Annabelle, sorry, Grandmother Morgan, was left to raise the children alone. As her parents had been business people in New York, they kept her with enough money and she never had to get a job. When our parents were twelve, our great-grandparents died, leaving my grandmother with a twenty million dollar inheritance. She decided to go on living life as usual rather than buy mansions and go on expensive holidays. Everything seemed to be going fine until our parents were sixteen and my father developed a crush on my mother. Our grandmother was aware of this but pretended to be ignorant, hoping it would just go away. She thought it was the epitome of hypocrisy as our father was a bible basher and what he felt was against everything the bible preached. It was at this time that she dropped Christianity. Our parents married the weekend after they turned eighteen in small ceremony is Las Vegas. When they were twenty-six Neuton was born and finally, when they were twenty-eight, Tweedle-Tay and I were born.
Tweedle-Tay and I braced ourselves.
Although our parents were very much in love, they were aware that what they were doing was wrong and so felt that it was a sign of God when they gave birth to suspiciously similar looking fraternal twins. Our father was terrified that history would repeat itself and, because it was always the female who seduced the male, wanted to adopt me out of the family. Our grandmother was shocked at my father's evil nature and said that no such thing would happen, and that she would take me away to the West Coast. When we arrived there, our grandmother began to spend her fortune, which had now tripled due to inflation, and bought shares and apartment blocks as well as a mansion in Beverly Hills. She decided that I was the only Manson that had not been corrupted by my father and left her entire fortune to me.
I sighed and lay back down into the papers. What was wrong with me? Was there no one I could trust? I couldn't trust my parents, they were the ones who locked me up here in the first place. I couldn't trust Tweedle- Tay, he just wanted to use me as a release for his sexual tension. I couldn't trust my friends in LA, they had dumped me when Manson became popular. And now I couldn't trust my dead Grandmother who actually had the nerve to lie to me in her will, saying we weren't related when in fact we were. She had totally lied to me. After looking at photos of my mother when she was young I realised that I did in fact bare a strong resemblance to her. Annabelle Morgan was just as bad as the rest of them. I started to cry. I couldn't wait until I got out of the attic and went back to LA to live by myself with none of these evil people around. I looked at Tweedle-Tay. "Why don't you just tell our parents that you'll let me go on the streets? Then we can both get out of the attic and everyone will be happy again. You can restart the band, I can make new friends........ everyone will be happy again. I promise I won't give away the Manson secret, just let me out of here!!!!" I screamed.
"No, I won't do that," Tweedle-Tay said.
"Why not?" I asked, puzzled.
"Because, I love you Michaela, and I want to be with you. You're my best friend," he explained.
"Tweedle-Tay! We've been over this before. You don't love me. You just think -" I protested.
"I don't love my parents anymore. How could they do this to us? Anyway, they're sinners. They disobeyed the bible," Tweedle-Tay went on.
'Wild eye rot gut do me in. Do you think you can make me do it again?'
Even through my tears I managed to raise my eyebrows. "Don't you think that's a little hypocritical? If they are sinners, you are a sinner in the same way. Perhaps, I'm a sinner too.......... subconsciously," I argued.
Tweedle-Tay was devastated. "Michaela! Don't say that! You're not a sinner. Nothing that has happened in the past year has been your fault," he said urgently.
"If I hadn't -" I began to half-heartedly take the blame, but I was interrupted by Tweedle-Tay's kiss.
'If you live through this with me I swear that I will die for you....'
My heart skipped a beat. What on earth was happening? I had to stop this, but I didn't know how to do it. The shock grew a few seconds later when I realised that I was actually kissing him back. The entire thing was ridiculous. We lay back into the papers continuing to kiss. It was as though my mind and my body were two separate entities. My mind was saying, 'How dare you condemn Tweedle-Tay and your parents when you are just the same Miss Michaela Louise Morgan?' But my body was saying 'You know what? This is actually kind of nice......'
Evidently I was just as sexually frustrated as Tweedle-Tay. As my body continued to do its thing my guilt deepened. I was doing everything I had ever condemned. I had wanted to chuck a Lorena Bobbit the last time this disaster had happened. But this time it was different. This time I knew that somebody loved me, although everyone else had lied to me, although it was all my fault that this had happened, my brother, who was in the same predicament as I was, still loved me. And that was all that mattered.
September 18, 1998 - Tulsa, Oklahoma
'Every time that I stare into the sun, angel dust and my dress just comes undone.'
I couldn't believe that I was letting my brother sit so close to me. He was actually sitting less than a metre away from me. Who knew what he might do? Sure, I had made myself look totally unattractive, but I could feel him eyeing me constantly. Still he could help me find out about the family secret, whatever it was. I knew there must be one, otherwise my parents would behave like normal parents and put up with me, no matter how much they hated me. Tweedle-Tay said something and interrupted my thoughts. "Huh?" I said, absent mindedly.
Tweedle-Tay was holding up a wedding photo. "Our grandparents' wedding photo," he said.
I looked at the photo. The woman looked really familiar. "Fucking hell!" I said, grabbing the photo off Tweedle-Tay for a closer look. It was just as I suspected. The woman in the photo bore a startling resemblence to my adopted grandmother Annabelle Morgan. I flipped the photo over. 'Roger marries Annabelle Morgan', it said. "Oh my god," I said softly.
"What is it?" Tweedle-Tay asked.
'Be a model or just look like one......'
"That woman," I said. "Is my adopted grandmother. Except she isn't really my adopted grandmother, she's really our paternal grandmother........" I looked at Tweedle-Tay. He obviously didn't understand the significance.
Finally he said, "Oh my god. You were onto something when you decided to read this pile. You now know the family secret."
I looked at him blankly. "No I don't," I said. "All I know is that there definitely is family secret. Why else would Annabelle and myself leave the family and move to LA? And why didn't Annabelle leave you guys any of her money?"
Tweedle-Tay looked confused. "I don't know," he shrugged.
"Exactly," I said. "That's why we have to keep looking through this stuff."
For the next twenty minutes Tweedle-Tay and I continued to look through the old papers. I skimmed through Annabelle's diaries. Although our grandfather Roger Manson was a puritan, he seemed to be a kind man and I just couldn't bring myself to believe that our grandmother was cruel. Not when she'd been so kind to me in those fourteen and a half years I'd spent living with her. I read all about her pregnancy. It seemed to be a difficult one and Annabelle complained extensively about her exploding weight. Finally I came to the entry written on the day after my father's birth. My grandmother had given birth to not one baby, but two. A boy and a girl.......
"Oh my lord!" Tweedle-Tay cursed. He held up a picture of our grandmother holding the two babies. "It's our parents!"
Tweedle-Tay had seen the photographic evidence of what I had just read. Fergie and Skipper Manson were not only husband and wife, but also brother and sister. Fraternal twins, like Tweedle-Tay and myself. "Shit!" I screamed, "That's disgusting!"
Tweedle-Tay and I did not even bother discussing the revelation, we were both too wrapped up in discovering the real reason that everything in our family was so twisted. Rather than searching separately, we sat together for around three hours going through absolutely everything, so carefully, reading every word that our grandmother and our mother had written (our mother also kept a detailed diary).
Our grandfather had died when our parents were around three years old and Annabelle, sorry, Grandmother Morgan, was left to raise the children alone. As her parents had been business people in New York, they kept her with enough money and she never had to get a job. When our parents were twelve, our great-grandparents died, leaving my grandmother with a twenty million dollar inheritance. She decided to go on living life as usual rather than buy mansions and go on expensive holidays. Everything seemed to be going fine until our parents were sixteen and my father developed a crush on my mother. Our grandmother was aware of this but pretended to be ignorant, hoping it would just go away. She thought it was the epitome of hypocrisy as our father was a bible basher and what he felt was against everything the bible preached. It was at this time that she dropped Christianity. Our parents married the weekend after they turned eighteen in small ceremony is Las Vegas. When they were twenty-six Neuton was born and finally, when they were twenty-eight, Tweedle-Tay and I were born.
Tweedle-Tay and I braced ourselves.
Although our parents were very much in love, they were aware that what they were doing was wrong and so felt that it was a sign of God when they gave birth to suspiciously similar looking fraternal twins. Our father was terrified that history would repeat itself and, because it was always the female who seduced the male, wanted to adopt me out of the family. Our grandmother was shocked at my father's evil nature and said that no such thing would happen, and that she would take me away to the West Coast. When we arrived there, our grandmother began to spend her fortune, which had now tripled due to inflation, and bought shares and apartment blocks as well as a mansion in Beverly Hills. She decided that I was the only Manson that had not been corrupted by my father and left her entire fortune to me.
I sighed and lay back down into the papers. What was wrong with me? Was there no one I could trust? I couldn't trust my parents, they were the ones who locked me up here in the first place. I couldn't trust Tweedle- Tay, he just wanted to use me as a release for his sexual tension. I couldn't trust my friends in LA, they had dumped me when Manson became popular. And now I couldn't trust my dead Grandmother who actually had the nerve to lie to me in her will, saying we weren't related when in fact we were. She had totally lied to me. After looking at photos of my mother when she was young I realised that I did in fact bare a strong resemblance to her. Annabelle Morgan was just as bad as the rest of them. I started to cry. I couldn't wait until I got out of the attic and went back to LA to live by myself with none of these evil people around. I looked at Tweedle-Tay. "Why don't you just tell our parents that you'll let me go on the streets? Then we can both get out of the attic and everyone will be happy again. You can restart the band, I can make new friends........ everyone will be happy again. I promise I won't give away the Manson secret, just let me out of here!!!!" I screamed.
"No, I won't do that," Tweedle-Tay said.
"Why not?" I asked, puzzled.
"Because, I love you Michaela, and I want to be with you. You're my best friend," he explained.
"Tweedle-Tay! We've been over this before. You don't love me. You just think -" I protested.
"I don't love my parents anymore. How could they do this to us? Anyway, they're sinners. They disobeyed the bible," Tweedle-Tay went on.
'Wild eye rot gut do me in. Do you think you can make me do it again?'
Even through my tears I managed to raise my eyebrows. "Don't you think that's a little hypocritical? If they are sinners, you are a sinner in the same way. Perhaps, I'm a sinner too.......... subconsciously," I argued.
Tweedle-Tay was devastated. "Michaela! Don't say that! You're not a sinner. Nothing that has happened in the past year has been your fault," he said urgently.
"If I hadn't -" I began to half-heartedly take the blame, but I was interrupted by Tweedle-Tay's kiss.
'If you live through this with me I swear that I will die for you....'
My heart skipped a beat. What on earth was happening? I had to stop this, but I didn't know how to do it. The shock grew a few seconds later when I realised that I was actually kissing him back. The entire thing was ridiculous. We lay back into the papers continuing to kiss. It was as though my mind and my body were two separate entities. My mind was saying, 'How dare you condemn Tweedle-Tay and your parents when you are just the same Miss Michaela Louise Morgan?' But my body was saying 'You know what? This is actually kind of nice......'
Evidently I was just as sexually frustrated as Tweedle-Tay. As my body continued to do its thing my guilt deepened. I was doing everything I had ever condemned. I had wanted to chuck a Lorena Bobbit the last time this disaster had happened. But this time it was different. This time I knew that somebody loved me, although everyone else had lied to me, although it was all my fault that this had happened, my brother, who was in the same predicament as I was, still loved me. And that was all that mattered.
