Things My Mother Told Her

I walked away and left her there looking at me through the glass and thinking about what I'd said. Finally my spirits were lifted and I felt good again. I stopped by my dad's house to wish him well and we talked for a while on the porch.

"I still can't believe you pulled that shit off, son," he said laughing. My mom came to the door and looked at me. "Hi Bri..." she began, but then thought better of it and went back into the house.

"You know son, you're going to have to forgive her someday," said my dad. "And I guess someday I'm going to have to let her off her leash and start trusting her too. We can't carry a grudge forever." I nodded.

I realized for the first time then that I had a lot of life ahead of me too. It was time for me to start thinking about what I wanted to do in the future instead of dwelling on Kathy and the past. Kathy had fucked up her own life. True, the mistakes she made had been started by lies my mother told her, but she'd always had a choice. I had a choice now too. And my choice was to spend the rest of my life finding someone I could trust.

The end?

Epilogue

(I tried, I really did try, but fuck it, this, IS one of those internet stories after all.)

I stepped off the porch and headed for my car for the long drive home. Just as I got to the car, Pearl stepped out from my dad's living room with a box in her hands and asked me where she should put it. I was puzzled. "Okay this can go in the trunk," she said. The box wouldn't fit in my trunk so we had to empty all of the stuff out of it and put the items in the trunk separately. Pearl looked really good in her cutoff shorts and halter top. Her long blond hair was tied up in a ponytail.

"Am I dropping you off somewhere, Pearl?" I asked. She just smiled at me and went back inside the house. When she came back out she had her son in her arms. He was asleep. She strapped him into my backseat and laid him down with a blanket over him.

"Okay, we're ready," she said. "We can always come back for the rest of our stuff." She got into my front passenger seat and stretched her long sculptured legs out in front of her. My dad was giving either her or me the thumbs up sign from the porch. "I like your dad," she said waving at him. I noticed mom coming out onto the porch as I started the motor. She didn't wave.

"I'm sorry Honey, but I don't really like your mom, much. I think she's crazy," said Pearl. That was good enough for me.

"So what's going on here Pearl?" I asked.

"Growing up, I always had this dream of a nice house, a husband and three kids," she said. "I had the nice house but you messed that up. I had a husband, but he wasn't a very good husband, and you messed that up too. I'm also short two kids. You messed that up too." She looked at me and smiled. I got weak in the knees.

"You messed up Josh when you uhm...caught him with your wife. He's changed a lot since then. But he changed too much. With no testosterone in him he's so placid he doesn't even register any more. He has no sexual desire of any kind. We went from me hating him because he was constantly cheating on me to me hating him because he became totally anti sexual. He started his own religion and turned our home into his church. All kinds of people gather there who hate sex. I couldn't stay there and raise my son in that kind of environment. I don't want him to turn crazy. Plus, okay, Dammit Brian, I do have needs. I'm not a whore or anything, but I am a grown woman..."

"I've noticed," I said interrupting her. She blushed when she saw me looking down her top.

"Thank you for the compliment, but keep your eyes on the road," she said shyly. "Besides you'll get to see a lot more of that as soon as we get home. Anyway, you also took the chance of him giving me my other two kids from me and that's a dream I'm not ready to give up on. I just need to find the right guy and all of this will take care of itself." I gulped so loudly you could hear it over the motor.

"Your father said that he raised you to honor your debts," she said. "So I figure you owe me a house, a husband and two more kids. Either that or you'll have to fill in until I get them. So I'm moving in with you. If things work out with us, I'll be expecting us to get married and for you to get me pregnant at least twice."

She put her hand on top of mine on the gear shift lever. She looked deeply into my eyes and batted those huge eyes of hers. "Do you think you could handle that?" she asked. I nodded my head woodenly and thanked the Lord above that it wasn't reality and I was trapped in one of those internet stories where the average Joe can get rid of his cheating wife and end up with the hottest woman in town.

The real end.