Crystal Clear Ch. 09

Summer said, "Probably not, since to our knowledge none of them did the mix of relationships to have a baby."

George said, "Do we just throw ourselves on the doorstep of public opinion and accept what happens?"

I ventured, "It won't all be against us. It'll be like Crystal'sPlayboy spread, part of the country was vehemently condemning and the rest loved it; I suppose there was the silent majority that didn't care one way or the other. Here, most won't care, a few will condemn like the radical right, and others may spring to our defense just to take the other side. It'll raise a whole bunch of social issues about adoption programs, cost, and bureaucracy, and the rights of polyamorous and legitimate parents."

Summer said, "You know when we filed the birth certificate, we couldn't lie; we had to say that you were the father." She looked at me hoping I wouldn't be mad.

I thought for a moment. "What you did was fine. To the best of my knowledge, there's no reason I can't let the mother raise the child with anyone she sees fit to be with. You live fine lives, and except for this situation are pillars of your community. Plus, you are a wounded vet who gave up part of a leg for your country."

Crystal said, "Wait ... wait! Is that how this all got in the news. Someone saw that birth record and figured out what had happened?"

I slapped my forehead, and so did George and Summer. Several "Oh shits" could be heard around the room.

I added to what Crystal had figured out, "Someone chanced on the certificate, and knew about me and my new career in music – maybe even about my connection with you two. Who might that have been?"

We all pondered that situation.

Crystal said, "I'm going to talk to Terry. He seemed to know the woman who asked the question. We never heard anything further about her."

Crystal came onto the back porch from the back yard. She'd walked down to the edge of the lake, almost nude, with only a revealing t-shirt that kept riding up over her shapely butt. About halfway back to us she'd ended her cell phone call.

"I talked to Terry. He says the woman's name is Edie Gerst – Edith, and she works for the ... are you ready for this ... theDayton Daily News. He'd only met her the day before. He said she approached him outside his office and asked to be especially called upon in that press conference. She told him she had a special question to ask but didn't hint at its content. He's kicking himself around his office for not pursuing the matter further. He said he'd brushed her off with a promise to call on her when she raised her hand."

The three of us gasped. This had to be the link. Greenville is only forty miles northwest of Dayton, and it's a small world.

I spoke, "In our options, we envisioned the press as one amorphous blob, but what if we think of them as one person – say Edith – and allowed her to put the spin on whatever we tell her – the whole story from soup to nuts, and even our philosophy of life and relationships."

"I like that idea."

"Me too."

George said, "Let me see if I can call the paper. Would we want her to come up here - today?"

Sensing consensus from the group, I said, "Sure. This is a story worth gold to the paper that breaks the story."

George went inside and a few minutes later we heard the tones of his voice on the phone. When he came back outside, he had a smile on his face. "Miss Edie Gerst will join us this afternoon. She's about four hours away from Jackson and has to stop for lunch. Even as I talked to her, she told me she was packing up her desk and preparing to leave. She asked whether she could record our interviews; I told her she could. I hope that's all right."

We nodded in the affirmative. We'd thought of facing the entire press corps in front of an array of microphones; facing one reporter with a single recording device didn't seem as daunting.

Crystal said, "Maybe we should get dressed?"

Summer said, "But we have over three hours, and Little James is about to go down for his morning nap ... can't we play? I think I'll be all right." She shot me a lusty glance.

As mid-afternoon came, the five of us again sat on the back patio. The four adults looked a little spent from a late-morning frolic – George with Crystal, and Summer and me. We also spent a little time with all four of us in one bed, and found the experience extremely erotic. Summer looked so content and loving.

The doorbell rang at two-thirty. George went and opened the door. Seconds later, he escorted a shapely young woman, Edie Gerst, onto the patio where we all greeted her and made introductions.

She saw the baby playing and immediately asked, "Is that James Mellon Ellis?"

Summer proudly said, "He is. He just turned one."

I jumped in, "Edie, before we start – and we plan to be very open with you – could you tell us how you discovered this situation?" I gestured to the four adults as we all sat down.

Edie said in a steady voice, "I grew up in North Star – about fifteen miles from Greenville. My relatives were German pioneers and back to the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, and I'm in the process of doing my family's genealogy when I have the time. Many records I'm interested in are in Greenville – the county seat."

I could see where she was headed.

She went on, "About two weeks ago I was going through some of the more recent birth records looking for a couple of births last year in my cousins' families. I wanted copies for my genealogy files. So, as I'm scanning the list, I see this name pop up – James Mellon Ellis. Now, normally, I would just gloss over that, but Mr. Mellon you and Crystal are my favorite singers of all-time ever. I stared at the name, and the whole thing came to me. I mean I am a reporter and get paid for my critical thinking."

"But how'd you tie it together?" I asked.

"In some of the interviews, you did over a year ago you gave details about your road trip across the country after your wife had died. I remembered the birth record one day, and so I looked up your trip. In one interview I found, you specifically mentioned stopping to see a friend in Greenville, Ohio. I looked up the name Ellis, and there are only six in the town with that surname – it had to be one of them you visited because that was the other name on the birth certificate. I sensed a story, saw on the Internet that you and Crystal were going to hold a press conference the day she got back from Europe, so I went down to Nashville, found your agent – that's not hard, and pleaded with him to call on me for one question."

Crystal muttered, "And all hell broke loose."

Edie said in a repentant tone, "I'm really sorry about it now. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I guess for all my critical thinking I didn't think of the impact it would on you two." She turned to George and Summer.

George stood and walked over to her, "Apology accepted." He held his arms up. Summer joined him, Edie stood, and the three of them hugged. They all sat down again, but something had softened in the tenseness we each felt.

After a silence where we studied our newcomer, I said, "So, Edie, do you want a good story – one that will put you on the map?"

She broke into a smile, "You bet." She turned to George, "You said it was OK to record, does that still hold?"

Several of us said, "Yes."

Edie rummaged around in an oversize purse and pulled out a small digital recorder. She started it, and set it on the coffee table in front of me.

I said, "This story started twenty-five years ago when I was fifteen years old." Edie looked surprised. "I lived and went to school in Dillon, Massachusetts. At the start of tenth grade, this gangly guy moved into town, and we became best buddies from that time on." I gestured to George.

George picked up the thread from there: "We were practically inseparable. Of course, we were both geeks or dorks or whatever they were called back then. As we came up to graduation we decided the only way to not be a dork for life was to join the Army, so we went in together. Later, we got into Special Forces together. It was on one of those Special Forces missions that I lost part of my left leg." George leaned down and rapped on his lower leg with his knuckles; a hollow knock could be heard from his prosthesis. "Something else happened in that explosion that I didn't know until years later; I became sterile. The shrapnel from a mine had ripped into my leg and lower body. If it hadn't been for Jim's quick thinking I would have died."

Edie had also started taking notes.

Summer picked up at that point, I'd been married before and it hadn't worked out so I'd stayed out of circulation for a while. In my late twenties, I started to date again and I ran into this guy who was so unbelievably nice and lovable I just had to jump in again when he asked me to be his bride. That was seven years ago."

Summer let Edie catch up in her note taking before going on, "By then, my biological clock had started ticking rather loudly, and so had George's. We both wanted children. So we immediately dispensed with birth control ... and, nothing happened. After a couple of years, we started to see doctors – it was a slow process. Eventually, we learned I am healthy in that regard but George was shooting blanks as he calls it."

Edie said, "How long ago was that?"

Summer said, "Four years or so. We started to look into adoptions, even going overseas. The adoption process is a nightmare; I feel so much sympathy for anyone who runs that gauntlet, particularly in this state. Just look on the internet; there are many bad experiences with the way the laws are stated here."

Edie speculated, "So you decided on another course of action?"

George said, "Well, not then. We kept our options open about adopting, even thinking of moving to Indiana – but that's worse, or moving elsewhere. Our families are not too far away, and we have deep roots here. And then, I heard that Jim's wife had died – I'd been at their wedding, and that he was headed our way for a visit."

Edie asked, "How'd the discussion with your wife go after that?"

Summer said, "It wasn't as awkward as it might seem. I'd met Jim over the Internet – on Skype. We'd talked a lot, catching up and getting into each other's lives. We'd talked about visiting, but with Jim and Karen in Massachusetts and working full-time with not much vacation time, and George and I in the same situation in Ohio, it just never happened."

Summer paused, "George just said one day, 'What if Jim Mellon became a surrogate for me – a donor?' We thought through the mechanical approach and neither of us liked that idea; I'd already given more blood and had more doctors probing around my inerds that I care to think about. The logical thing was for us to copulate – to make love – to make a baby."

"Do you love one another?" Edie looked between Summer and me.

I nodded. Summer said, "More than I can tell you, and, please don't miss this point, I love my husband just as much – even more, because he's the one that delivered James Mellon Ellis to me, albeit in a nonstandard way, but we got our first child."

Edie picked up on that right away; "First?"

Summer blushed, "Yes, I'm probably pregnant again – by Jim. Last night."

Edie dropped her pen.

To be continued