Kirsten; like any wicked step mother you’d read about in children’s story books.
Her presented facade dissolved quickly with days passing since we arrived to reside in her home.
Ample kindness mixed with my first real impression of what narcissistic personality looked like.
Classically she had no children of her own at the time she was exactly the age I am now as I pen this unpleasant memory.
Oddly enough our body types are nearly identical though she was taller with short curly hair often chemically relaxed and dyed a darkened shade of red.
She was the only example of a plus size woman I’d ever interacted with; with a large chest I wished to resemble  when I grew up.
I was eleven at the time and extremely flat chested though I’d developed rosebuds when I was five being the overweight child.
Kirsten loved us- or she pretended detrimentally.
We bonded over the two plump tabby cats she owned though I detested doing the litter- being guilted into it because she had multiple sclerosis although argumentatively she’d have done the litter herself long before I came along.
Adult excuses though whereas her illness was real she didn’t really do much of anything after we came along.
Normalcy was just that at first- family sit down dinners around this white table with cylindrical chairs specked grey and white cushions.
I’d always be yelled at for crossing my one leg under my rear as I’d sit.
“You’ll break the chair that way, stop it” they said on the regular as I’d never remember.
Truthfully that position was comfortable and the chairs never broke.
One resided in my fathers empty home till a week ago- as strong as back in 2001.
Dad and Kirsten were heavy smokers at that point, chain smoking regularly in the front room of Dudley street though the smell would seep through the crevasse and deposit itself remarkably amongst the house.
She’d buy me identical clothes to her- one pink and white fuzzy sweater in particular then berate me for copying her. After all, a very narcissistic thing to do with me being  ******* eleven.
I loved that woman more than I’d care to admit.
She was my first motherly figure after being removed from the home of my severely mentally ill birth mother- she was still a form of normalcy though our relationship deteriorated unrealistically quick.
Before the family split up; we had a sit down dinner though Kirsten wasn’t present.
Having an MS flare I asked how she was when she trapped past the kitchen table toward the washroom.
Innocently enough, I was not prepared for the extremely violent outburst directed toward me- 12 at the time.
For the life of me I don’t recall the words though something like how much she did for our ungrateful family and I ran off to my bedroom without dinner crying from this unwarranted attack.
Everything changed after that point.
That was one of the only times my father emotionally soothed me; their life deteriorated into nightly fights and our fairytale life traversed into a puff of dust.
Kirsten was a dangerous reoccurrence for years after though the veil of particular wonderment was long forgotten.
I needed a protective female presence though I received a covert narcissistic *******.
C’est la vie.