Divorced Grandparents

Dear Byrd,
It pains me that you came into a family split before I was even in grade school. And the effects trickle down. My step sister is moving here, I got an email from her, and I feel a great ambivalence. I did not respond, yes, come out, we will help you in any way we can. I said I would ask the neighbors if she could stay at their place. When I went to reply I thought of us in high school, when she could drive but I could not yet. I needed to go to work and there was a torrential downpour, it was fall, so it was a cold rain. I worked about a mile and a half away. I asked her for a ride, and she said no. I asked what she was busy with and she said nothing, but she did not feel like driving me. And now we are in our thirties and I am still angry or hurt or not wanting to open or give myself. When we took you to my hometown last week my step-mom's first husband who is a family friend hung out with us almost every night. It was like she had two husbands. Dinner would be my step-mom, her first husband, her two kids (who I grew up with), and my Dad and my family. Basically too big for one table, we were two families. This to comes to me when my step-sister writes. This doesn't make me feel right or good. But it doesnt make me warm and open no matter how I cut it. I feel protective of my Dad. I feel protective of you, I wonder if these people will sometimes seem like full family to you and other times will sit at a different table and make you confused. I think the worst thing is that when Dad and I were getting married my step mom got upset since her kids are not yet married, she made a comment that she had picked your Dad out for her daughter when she first met him, as if I somehow stole him. As if you can say that. Then my step mom encouraged her daughter to move to our city with promises of great men and finding husbands. I get this sick feeling that somehow my stepmom imagines there are a limited set of resources that her daughter and I share, one of them being Dad, and that her daughter should take him away. So when it comes to hosting my step sister, to having her stay in our house, I am ambivalent.
Love,
Mom