Thicker than Blood

I just shook my head.

"When I have kids, I'm going to love them all equally, like families are supposed to," I said. She just smiled.

"So everything you were worried about just didn't happen," she said. "Even though they don't know that I had anything to do with it, they still left me out in the cold. I'd rather have a friend who cares about me enough to try to protect me, than a family who freezes me out."

"About that," I began. "Someone told me that I should tell you..."

"You mean Jeff thought that you should tell me that you like me," she smiled.

"Yeah, that," I said. "I didn't think that I should bring it up because..."

"When you smile at me it's like warm sunshine all over my body," she said.

On Monday afternoon several things happened. The first was that Jeff and I met with the representative of the group. Ray slid a piece of paper across the table to me.

"It's the best we could come up with," he said. I looked at the paper and there was a number on it. One hundred thousand dollars was the number.

"It's not enough," I said.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Ray, I never wanted money," I said. "I already told you, all I ever wanted was what you guys all have and wasted. I want all of you guys to agree to testify against Sam in his divorce if necessary, which might not be needed. The second thing I want you all to do is to go home and really look at what you have and then love and worship your wives and families the way you should. Because I really do have these tapes and every time I hear about one of you doing anything like this again, I'll put the tapes out. If your sex lives are boring, then you need to add some spice to them some other way. Because, if I hear about any more Mindys or any more affairs, I'll make all of you mother fuckers famous."

"But what about you?" he asked. "What do you get?"

"What I always wanted," I smiled. "I just didn't get it with Mindy."

I smiled as I walked away towards my second meeting of the afternoon. It wasn't far away. I slid a DVD under the Head Librarian's door and looked at a few books while I waited to see a reaction.

Mindy had no idea of what I'd done. She was all the way at the front of the library helping visitors. Her boss stormed out of the office and screamed, "Mindeeeeeee!" just as I walked out of the building.

At the exact same time that Mindy was being fired and threatened with possible legal action, Charlie was being fired and having his ass kicked across town.

That evening, Cindy and I were relaxing in front of my fireplace when someone knocked on my door. I opened the door, but I left the chain attached to it, much as I had the first time Cindy showed up.

"What do you want, Mindy?" I asked.

"I want to come in so we can talk about this," she said. Cindy got off of the sofa and took her glass of wine into my bedroom.

"Let her talk. Get it over with," she whispered.

"I'll give you a half hour," I said. I pointed at my dining room set. I thought that Cindy would be able to hear us better from there.

"Why can't we talk in our bedroom like we usually do?" she asked smiling.

"I'm not sure that would be safe," I said. She smiled broadly and shook her head.

"Yeah you know if we got in bed, it wouldn't take me any time to get you to forgive me," she smirked.

"That's not it Mindy," I said. "What I meant was that my STD screening results aren't back yet. Who knows what you could have given me already."

Her smile dropped. "You aren't going to make this easy are you?"

"Just say what you want to say, Mindy," I said.

"I'm sorry, Tim. I love you. I'd been doing it since before we were together. I should have stopped, but it was like a security system. You know in case you dumped me. I promise I'll never do it again, okay?" she told me.

"Mindy, I'm sorry too. I loved you too. But I never cheated on you. It was a risk for me too. But I had to love you without a security blanket. You could just as easily have broken my heart. But I loved you enough to trust you. And in any case, you won't do it again, at least to me, because we're done. But at least you have the satisfaction of being right. And you're better off than I am. Now that we're broken up, you can just go have another gang bang. All I have to get me over you is my friends."

"You have to forgive me," she screamed. "I came over here and apologized. None of the guys I know will have anything to do with me. I don't know what the fuck you did, but not one of them will take my calls. And I got fired too. Someone sent my dumb assed boss a copy of your tape. After she fired me, I called the other two libraries in town and neither of them will hire me. They won't even take me on as an unpaid volunteer. I have to have something."

"You still have your mom and dad and your sister," I said.

"Fuck them," she screamed. "My parents are old. They don't understand anything. And my sister? That bitch would just laugh at me. For most of my life she's just been trying to show me up. Why else would she get good grades in school when I didn't? Then she went out and became a fucking cheerleader. I hate that bitch."

"Mindy, at least tell your parents what really happened between us. Because if they ask me, I will."

"I don't have to tell them shit. They'll believe what I tell them," she said.

She was still whining as I walked her to the door.

"You liar," laughed Cindy from my bedroom. "You got your STD screening back three days ago. You were clean.

"Are you coming back out here now that she's gone?" I asked.

"Why don't ya come in here, Mr. Liar," she said.

"What else did I lie about?" I asked, as I stepped into my bedroom. I looked across the room and found a naked Cindy lying in my bed.

She sat up and leered at me. "You and I are much more than friends," she giggled.

* * * * * *

Epilogue

Cindy and I settled in and became the couple I always wanted. It was perhaps a month later that things got worse and really drove us together. Things moved far faster between Cindy and I than they had with Mindy. It really did seem like we were made for each other. In fact, after the first time that we made love, she pretty much moved in with me.

So one night, after dinner, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world for her to answer the doorbell when it rang. She opened the door in just a T-shirt and shorts. She was even barefoot. After the door opened and she told me she'd get it, I didn't hear anything else.

I went to the door to see her standing there with her hand over her mouth and her parents in the open doorway.

"Why?" asked her father. "Why would you do this to your own sister?"

"George, we need to sit down and talk about this," I said calmly.

"Talk about what?" he asked. "We loved you like a son, and this is how you repay us? You took my daughter and led her on and then threw her away like garbage over a misunderstanding. Now I know why you dumped poor Mindy. I thought you were better than that. I thought you could look beyond the outside and see the beautiful woman she is on the inside." He turned to Cindy.

"You're no longer our daughter. Anyone who would do this to her own sister doesn't deserve to have a family."

"Okay, Dad," said Cindy. "I'm fine with that."

"George, do you even know why I broke up with Mindy?" I asked.

"I do now," he said, shaking his head.

I grabbed his arm. I pulled him into my office and started playing the video for him while Cindy tried to talk to her mom.

As the video played, George went into shock. "She was probably tricked into doing it," he screamed. He ran out of the house, taking his wife with him.

"Sorry," I said after they left.

"What are you sorry about," said Cindy. "You, your family and our friends are all I need."

Cindy and I got married about a year later. We invited her parents, but they didn't come. When our son was born, they didn't show up for that either.

It was almost five years later when Cindy and I were relaxing in our yard as our four year old son was chasing his new puppy through the grass, that we saw them again.

Joey ran over to the two person hammock where his mom and I were relaxing in each other's arms. "Who are those people?" he asked, pointing at the gate.

"Those are your grandparents," said Cindy, getting up and walking slowly towards the fence.

"No they aren't," said Joey. Like most four year olds he knew everything. "My Nana and Poppa aren't strangers. These people are strangers." He ran off to play with his dog. He had no further curiosity about the people who stared at him.

"George, what can I do for you?" I asked.

"Can we come in and talk?" he asked. I nodded and opened the gate.

"Your house and yard are so...beautiful," said Cindy's mom as she looked around. "Where did Cindy go?"

"Probably inside," I said, shrugging my shoulders.

"Can I look at him...my...my grandson?" she asked. I nodded again. She walked over to where Joey was rolling on the ground with the puppy licking his face. He laughed as he tried to ward off the puppy's darting tongue.

Suddenly, Cindy was out of the house and running to intercept her mother. "Get the fuck away from my baby!" she screamed. There was so much vehemence in her voice that it stunned even me.

Her mother stood there frozen on the spot. Cindy grabbed the keys to my Mustang and grabbed Joey and the puppy. "I'm taking Joey to visit his REAL grandparents," she said, kissing me. And then she was gone, leaving me alone with her parents.

"We came to ask you a favor," said George, finally to break the silence. I looked up at him.

"Mindy is in the hospital," he said. "She wants to talk to you. She wants to talk to both of you." I sighed.

"I can't speak for Cindy," I said. "One of the things that makes our marriage work, is that we love each other but we don't take each other for granted. I can talk to her when she gets back to see what she wants to do. But in my case this was over and done with five years ago. I don't see any reason to talk to Mindy just because she's sick."

"Tim, you were right. I need to apologize to you for the things I said back then. I can't imagine the pain you must've felt back then. I guess we handled the whole thing badly. I'm glad that you and Cindy had each other to hold onto. I guess I just didn't want to believe that my Mindy could do things like that."

"You were just being a father," I said. "Or at least a half father."

"I'm not Mindy's step father," he smiled.

"I didn't mean step father," I said. "I meant half father. You had two beautiful daughters, but you only seemed to pay attention to one of them. Cindy busted her ass for her whole life, just hoping you'd notice her. But you never did. We're happy. We have a great life and we love each other. I can't speak for Cindy, but Mindy being sick is no skin off of my ass."

"She isn't sick," he said slowly. "She's dying Tim."

"Huh?" I gushed.

"After the two of you broke up, she couldn't handle it. She started doing the sex things all over again. We couldn't stop her. We sent her to doctors and everything. She said there was a hole in her heart that she couldn't fill. She had sex with all kinds of men and all colors. It was disgusting. We even caught her in our home a couple of times. But it caught up with her in the end. She started to get sick and was diagnosed about a year ago with HIV. The drugs and drug cocktails helped at first but a few months ago she slipped into full blown AIDS. She doesn't have much longer to live."

"Over the past few weeks, we've been talking a lot," he says. "Her mother and I know all of it. We know how terrible she was to Cindy growing up. Do you know that Mindy tried to steal Cindy's boyfriends starting from her first date? Anytime that Cindy found a boy she liked, Mindy would have sex with him."

"It doesn't matter anymore," said Cindy, from behind us. "When it counted, I got the guy," she said.

"Where's my grandson?" asked Cindy's mom.

"You don't have one," hissed Cindy. "I spent my whole God damned life being ignored by the two of you so Mindy could live life like a fat assed princess. I will not allow you to abuse my son."

"Well, what about Mindy? She wants to apologize," said George.

"It's time Mindy learned that there are some things she can't have," said Cindy. "You two never seemed to be able to teach her that so I'll have to."

"But she's your sister," whined George. "She's family. Blood is thicker than water."

Cindy laughed. "She never acted like much of a sister. We weren't much of a family. I learned about love from Tim. Love is thicker than blood. Tell Mindy we accept her apology but we don't need to see her."

Cindy's mom spoke up then.

"Cindy, I know you're angry, Honey. You have a right to be. Your father and I...We made mistakes. But we're human. We had three beautiful daughters. But your sisters were both...challenged. They needed us more. You were always the strongest one. And look at you. You turned out great. Not because of us; but in spite of us. We have to put the past behind us and come together as a family. Your children are going to be the only grandkids I'll ever have. I want to get to know my grandson and any more that you have." Tear rolled down her cheeks and her husband's. But Cindy had too many years of resentment built up to cave-in so easily. So I spoke for her.

"You're going to have to give this some time," I said gently. "Cindy IS a very strong woman, but to have your parents slight you or ignore you for most of your life is tough to get over. It'll take some time but she'll forgive you eventually. Maybe we could start by having dinner. And if that goes well maybe we could introduce you to Joey and who knows after that. But you're going to have to be patient."

That was when her dad almost fucked the whole thing up. "Well what about Mindy and coming to the hospital?" he asked. "Maybe you could bring your son so he can meet his aunt."

"Get the fuck out of my yard!" screamed Cindy. "And don't come back!"

Her father was shocked. Her mother was pissed at him. They turned ad headed for the gate, looking back at us every few steps.

As her parents walked away, Cindy smiled at me. "Poor stunted people," she muttered.

"They did do some things right," I said.

"Like what?" she spat.

"Like you," I smiled. "Where's Joey?"

"At his grandparents," she smirked. "We have work to do." I just looked at her.

"I don't want him turning into some spoiled assed only child," she said. "He needs a sister, maybe two. You up for it?"

"Race you to the bedroom," I yelled.

The end