Chapter 159

"Things will change. I'm putting this house on the market. I don't need a big house like this."

"Mom?"

"I don't want to move. I've been thinking about having a roommate."

"Mom, are you and Nick lovers?"

"When we were in Las Vegas we spent a lot of time together, talking and getting to know each other. When we got back I decided I'd like to give life with Helen a go. I asked her to marry me. Before we discovered our spouses cheating we had never so much as kissed. Now..."

"Now, I am proud to have Nick as my lover and soon to be husband. We hope you can be Ok with all of what you have learned. We love each of you."

The room was quiet for a long time. Finally, Carole stood up and came to me. She knelt and picked up the envelope.

"I don't want to see these pictures, but I must. I don't want to believe the story but if the pictures verify it I must."

She opened the envelope and looked inside. Her hands trembled. She only looked at one picture and didn't pull it out of the envelope.

"That bastard!" She said and closed the envelope. She handed the envelope to me and said, "You should have kicked his ass!"

"I have been tempted."

Helen's son came and took the envelope. "I have to know."

He reached in and pulled out about ten pictures. They were all 8X10 color prints and each showed Mary and Alex having sex. He looked at every picture in his hands. He didn't say anything. They all went back in the envelope.

Later, we threw the pizza and salads away. None of it got eaten. About nine we went to a Chinese place and ate. The kids had all been friends for all their lives. They were getting used to the idea of being in the same family.

Just before the fortune cookies my son, Matt asked, "Can we go camping this summer?"

Helen smiled and said, "Some of my fondest memories of when you were all growing up were the camping trips we took together."

I was quiet for a few moments when Carole, Helen's daughter, looked at me and said, "Can we, Dad? Can we?"

Tears slid down my face. How could she take me into her heart that quick? How could I say no?

Each of them said it. "Can we, Dad? Can we?"

"Sure! Sounds good to me. Get out your calendars lets pick a time!"

When we left the restaurant our first family campout was scheduled. The pain was still there. The disappointment was still there. But, out front was the plan for a good future.

That was four years ago. Mary never came to court, and no one has seen or heard from her. She took a cash advance on her credit card the day after she spoke to the kids on the phone and disappeared. Alex is spending eight and a third to fifteen years in prison. None of his kids have visited. I haven't ever looked in the envelope. It is in the safe in our home. We go camping, as a family, once a year.

Some men are clueless. Alex could have had the house, kept his job and kept fucking Mary. I wonder if he thinks about that.

On the way back to my hotel after the funeral and reception I was feeling the profound loss of my Aunt Mary. She had been a major influence on my growing up and her home was a favorite place to visit when I was young. Of all the relatives of my youth, she was my favorite.

As an adult, I kept in touch and visited Aunt Mary at least once a year. During my visit three months before Aunt Mary had disclosed that she was dying. I had been back to spend time with her every month since. The last week of her life I had been with her. She told me that after her passing the house would be mine. When she died in the hospital I had moved out of the house and into a hotel. The house was too quiet, too sad. without her in it. I stayed at the hotel until after the funeral.

Back at my hotel I was met by a man I had seen at the funeral. He introduced himself as Aunt Mary's lawyer, Mr. Brewer, and he asked if we could talk privately. That conversation changed my life.

He told me that he was bound by an agreement he had with Mary not to tell me what he knew until after her funeral. He told me of the time when I was born and how Aunt Mary was not married and the stigma the surrounded an unmarried woman who got herself pregnant and had the baby. Mr. Brewer told me that Mary's sister took the baby when it was born and raised it as her own. That sister was married and could not bare children. I was that child.

I was shown the birth certificate from the hospital showing Mary Evans as the mother and the space for father's name was blank.

Just hours earlier I had buried my mother, not my aunt!

The lawyer opened his briefcase again and handed me a large envelope. As I withdrew the contents he explained what they were. Papers giving me notice of all my holdings. Aunt Mary, Mom, had transferred title and ownership to everything she owned to me before she died. She and the lawyer had paid all the taxes and fees and I was left with what the papers told me was now mine. I read the cover sheet and went further into shock.