Joanne's Punishment Ch. 03

He hugged her and laughed, "Sweet heart, you did much better than I have, when dealing with your mother. You have done so much better than any of your siblings ever have." He reached over to the sideboard behind him and snagged the box of tissues, presenting them to her. "You did better than adults three times your age. When and where did you get so smart?"

Lucy blew her nose and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I try to listen more than I talk, I try to understand what people are saying and want, and I read more than most people think. I only seem to sleep a few hours every night, before I can't sleep any more. And the only way to not disturb the others is to read quietly."

"Father, I have several more question for you and you need to give me some real answers."

"Go ahead", he answered.

"We live in a very large house, but we only use a few of the rooms. Is there any reason why, now that we are adults, that we all can't have our own bedrooms?"

"I don't see a problem with that," he laughed, "We were waiting for one of you to bring it up, as long as you were happy where you were, there was no reason to open more of the house open."

"Good," said Lucy. "I don't think Tim is going to appreciate laying in bed for several hours every morning and evening listening to all that sucking, slurping and gagging. He already wasn't happy with the noises Henry made as it was."

"Not a problem, each of you can have a completely different room if you like."

"If you don't mind," she asked tentatively, "could I have the other master bedroom? I want Anna to sleep on the floor in a corner for the first couple of months, unless you want her next to you specific nights, and I want to be able to monitor her. Our rooms are crowded enough with all our beds and desks, if we didn't have bunk beds, we wouldn't have the room."

"There are beds in all the rooms that have never been used, all we have to do is move your other furniture. You know we bring in help every month to air out the rooms and make sure they are liveable."

"I don't know why," she said, "but I think Henry and Beatrice will prefer to say in their original rooms. I could be wrong, but I think they should be asked."

"I'll make an announcement about it at dinner," he stated. "I'll make sure everyone thinks it is my idea."

"Thank you daddy," she smiled, before hugging him tightly. "I knew you would understand."

"That Hitler jibe of Henry's?"

"I don't want to be a bad person," She replied.

"I'm here for you sweetheart," he stated, "and while I don't want it to go to your head, I think you may find it impossible to be a real bad person," before standing up and putting her back on her feet. "Lets go upstairs, I'm assuming you don't want one of the downstairs bedrooms."

"No, but I think Tim and Sally will want those, so they can sneak their bed partners in more easily."

"They've been sneaking people into your rooms at night?"

"Oh no, father dear," as they started up the stairs. "But I know they want to, I sometimes hear them complaining."

It took the remaining hours of the afternoon, to open and air out all the unused bedrooms. It was a very large house, on a very large estate. If they had twenty children, each could have had their own rooms, and it would have left enough remaining rooms for family to come and stay, if they ever forgave their children, or brother and sister, for their life style choices. Lucy's new room was at the opposite side of the house to her parents room. The curtains when opened showed the expanse of the gardens behind the house, running up to a small wood at the end of the property.

After opening the windows, setting up some candles in jars with air cleaning properties, Lucy stood looking out at the scenery. When her father came in with her desk on a moving dolly, she asked, "Why did you buy such a large property? I'm not complaining," she added as she then helped her father move the desk to where she wanted it and started setting up her computer and her mother's ex laptop.

"It was cheap, the original owners had died in mysterious circumstances, a rumour suggested it was haunted, and allegedly, several potential buyers were seriously injured in the gardens," was his reply. "Idiots, all of them. I hate to say it but no one with any intelligence walks off the edge of clearly marked a ha-ha. The price came down to a such a point when the sellers got desperate. I got it for about the same cost as a large house in town at the time. The taxes are a bit more than I expected, but it was well within our budget. Then my business took off, and when I sold it, I started another. That was soon after Henry was born, and your mother stopped working. I repeated that several times, starting businesses and selling the. Now I have enough that, well, none of us really needs to work any more, but I keep consulting, as I like to work."

"And every year, you are a bit richer for your efforts?" Lucy asked.

"Of course." he replied. "And it is private. I never worried about your siblings running around naked, no one would have ever seen them. Now with drones, they might, but our anti-drone policy has kept them out. Seriously though, are you enjoying work?"

"It keeps me busy. I don't think I am really cut out to being a lab tech, the hours are good, and the pay is OK, nothing like what Tim gets selling cars or Henry gets for being an accountant, no matter how junior he claims he is, I already have heard from his bosses daughters that he is the one who is running the place. I don't think medicine, unlike Sally's plans to become a doctor, are the best type of job for me. And I certainly don't want to become a lawyer like Beatrice. I mean she has been working there for several years and she makes less than a third of what I bring home."

"So you think she was stealing your money?"

"Dad, I know they all were stealing it. I have them all, at different times, on video. Remember when I asked for the night cameras?"

"And you said you wanted them to film wild animals!"

"I did. I didn't you tell you they were wild house animals."

Robert laughed, and gave her a hug. "Before I forget..." Robert opened the closet and showed her how access the safe installed there, added her prints and cleared her mothers. She insisted he keep his in the safe memory. "Good plan," he told her. "Remind me later to remove your mothers fingerprints in mine, and I'll add you as well as backup. Currently the only backup we have is Eric's in case something happened to both of us. The batteries in these safes are good for a good month if they haven't been charged, and even if they don't the prints are stored in a way that once they are charged again, they work. These are kept charged by those little solar panels on the roof if the electricity fails." As he finished that sentence, Joanne rang the bell for the evening meal.

"Lets go downstairs," he said holding out his hand. She grabbed it, much as she had when she was little and beamed with a child like demeanour. "I think when we get to the dining room, you should sit at your mothers former chair."

"Do you really think I should, I don't want the others angry at me."

"What have I always told you?" he asked and then as he said it she chimed in as well.

"Start as you mean to finish!"