From the age of 4- 14 my Dad (who my sister and I lived with full time) had a partner who eventually moved in and became our 'step mother', bringing with her my step brother, same age as me .
She had a very extroverted character and totally wore her heart on her sleeve she was very attractive and fun, she used to take me up to Camden market from a young age and introduced me to the fun side of life.
She kept our home beautiful, cooked gorgeous meals and encouraged us with school work.
But there was another side, she became quite jealous of me when I hit puberty saying really weird things about how she envied my innocence and was jealous of my new breasts, she said once when i came down stairs in a long floaty dresse that i would get raped (I was 10 and deeply disturbed by this comment)
She herself was sexually abused by her father (it later transpired) and when she got to 40 she snapped, having held all the emotion in for so long, my dad was in hospital for 3 months with heart problems and during this time she began an affair with a 22 year old heroin addict.
She, 12 years later is still a heroin addict, living in some squat with her drug partner, she is so addled by drugs and guilt and self pity that it's pointless talking to her, I wouldnt want to meet with her because I don't trust any junkie or the company they keep.
I am training to be a teacher, my dad is very happy my sister is very well rounded and happy too.
We have moved on and dealt with it all but she is so stuck in the past.
I now think of her on her birthday and at christmas and she still regards herself as our step mum but I no longer view her in this way.
I speak to her maybe once a year if that.
Her son was a friend of mine as we were the same age and we were in all the same classes at high school but he was such a perverted quite sick minded teenager,now I look back on what he used to say and do (used to watch me get undressed through the crack in my bedroom door and tell me he had dreams about bending me and my friends over tables naked and used to ask me about my ass hole, so any innocence I managed to keep hold of I have nurtured and I now steer clear of him generally, which I also feel guilty about becaise now his mum is the way she is he has NO ONE in the world to call his family so me, 'his step sister' is all he has and we do get on well (same taste in music, comedy, we have some great reminiscent sessions laughing and revelling in our unusual child hood) adding to the confusion as everything is TAINTED by me now looking at it all from an adult perspective. 
I have travelled the world and moved so far from it all emotionally, but there is always this feeling that from the dry land i now stand on, I should try and help her or bring some light into her life, she gave me so much kindness when I was growing up and fought through her painfull inner life to provide me and my sister with a loving home to the best of her ability and I feel bad for abandoning her.
Any comments/suggestions welcome thanks for reading