They just didn’t appreciate how hard he worked, or how lucky they were to be living in a place like Newberry, rather than in Cleveland, particularly with how it was those days. Nor did they realize the skill it took to maneuver a forklift truck along the factory floor, moving hubcaps from one warehouse to the other, making sure they were lifted to the right location, without dropping them or otherwise screwing up. And they certainly didn’t understand what it felt like if you happened to have had a little too much to drink the day before, but had to haul your butt out of bed, toss your cookies and then show up for work, putting up with an idiot of a boss all day. These kids just had it too easy, and, if he didn’t keep them in line, they would wind up going bad.

He’d often remind them that he hadn’t planned on signing up for this deal.

“Where the hell would you all be,” he would ask, “if I hadn’t done the right thing by your mother when she got pregnant when she was nothin’ but a kid? Where would you be without me? Nowhere! Who would put food on the table? No one!”

This was the usual sort of dinnertime conversation around the McKenna table. Of course, no one dared mention that Dad had had a hand in getting their mom pregnant, and that, in actuality, Ted had planned to leave town the night before the wedding, but got too drunk and found himself pretty much propped up at the altar by his brother.

It was during moments like these that Rachel felt the shame radiate from her mother, and she would wonder why she didn’t just pick up and go far, far away. But shame that deep has a way of rubbing off on children, until everyone silently agrees that it’s best just to pretend everything is fine and, most of all, to protect the family secrets from the outside world. This was a lesson Rachel never forgot.

Rachel’s mom would try to placate Ted, bringing him a beer and encouraging him to relax and let the kids be kids. Sometimes, much to her relief, that would work, and he would be the “old” Ted—the guy she fell in love with, who could tell a joke with the best of them, dance up a storm, and fix just about any gas engine ever invented.

One of the lies Rachel’s mom told the kids, in order to justify why she ever had anything to do with their dad in the first place, was that she’d never seen him drunk until after they were engaged. And by then it was too late. She said it so many times, she started to believe it.