@PhoenixSerenity @Quasit

Indeed, my maternal grandfather was likely also an aphant.

Once asked him about our ancestry, he went into an extended lecture about how three of his clients (he was an attorney), three brothers, came through different gates at Ellis Island and so had three different last names. The past, he explained, was all lies and half-truths, and so not worth putting any faith in. This was in lieu of answering my question about our ancestry.

That was pretty much the entire family, so far as myself knew it. At least until my sister quite literally tripped over a half-sibling neither of us ever knew, one day in a shopping mall.

Subsequently learned from the uncle we never knew that my grandfather did the exact sort of things my mother did. He'd tell my yet-to-be-father and his brother, employees of his, to paint a wall a certain color. Then as they were finishing the job, come through and yell at them demanding to know why they'd painted the wall that color. Just like my mother would demand to know why myself did a load of laundry using the settings she insisted be used a week prior, punishing me for daring to say it was on her instruction.

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