Looking Back

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Epilogue

I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to tie things all up in a nice neat bow. This is the part where everyone gets what they want and we all end up fat and happy.

Unfortunately things don't always work out like that. I went back to Michigan to check on my divorce. I got the same attorney and even though Maddie had lied about the first divorce, there was nothing he could do about it. He told me that I could re-file and since I'd been out of the house for more than a year, I could file under abandonment even though I had been the one who left.

The problem was that the process would take from a year to a year and a half, minimum;especially if Maddie tried to block it. And that was what Maddie did. She got her own attorney and signed an affidavit stating that we had a family get together, only a few days ago. I had to admit that it was true.

I went to see Dylan. My grandson was the same spoiled, selfish, child that he had always been. He was nearly thirty years old and still hadn't taken any responsibility for his own life or action.

You'd think think the first words out of his mouth would have been some sort of apology for his part in ending my marriage and nearly ruining my life, right?

He was sitting in a filthy apartment that Kate was paying for, smoking a cigarette. He looked at me and smiled. "Mom got you to come back and give me the bone marrow, huh?" he asked. "It took her long enough!"

It was all I could do not to punch him in the face. I didn't do it, but I also couldn't risk my life for that little turd.

Kate and Matt had gotten back together. They both urged me to help Dylan. I tried to shock them into realizing how bad things were for me.

"When I look at him, I don't see that little boy I always took fishing," I said. "All I see is Maddie sucking his dick while he thrust his hips forcing it further down her throat. Then I see him cowering and trying to hide after I beat the shit out of Will. He's still that same asshole. He never even apologized."

I could tell that Kate and Matt were disappointed and angry at me, but there wasn't much they could do. They did try to take me to court, but because of my age and my ability to act far more frail than I was, they failed.

The radiation therapy and other treatments weakened Dylan. He lost all of his hair, but not his shitty attitude. Kate appealed to a by then very heavily pregnant Miranda with no avail.

It was the height of irony that Dylan passed away, not from the cancer, but from a virus, on the very same day that my daughter, Danica, was born. Dylan's immune system had been so compromised by all of the treatments that he couldn't fight off the virus.

I can still remember that sad day when we buried him. I felt sad, but again it was for that eager to please little boy that I missed. The man that he had become or was supposed to become, because in my eyes, Dylan at almost thirty years of age had never become a man, wasn't someone I wanted to remember.

Miranda and I mostly attended the funeral for Kate. Maddie of course, tried several times to get me alone. It didn't happen. Miranda never left my side. We even went up to the casket together. Matt had very little to say. The oddest thing was that except for the five of us, almost no one attended the funeral. Dylan hadn't accumulated very many friends.

I could tell that with the exception of Miranda who was dead set against me doing it , and Maddie who didn't seem to care either way, everyone seemed to think that I could have prevented Dylan's passing. I didn't bother reminding them that my brother who took excellent care of himself had eventually passed too. Dylan was still smoking cigarettes and drinking like a fish in the weeks before he died. The funeral was the last time that we were all together.

Kate was so despondent that she went into a severe depression. She cut off all ties with not only Miranda and I, but Matt as well. Apparently their few short months back together had shown her that he hadn't changed.

Because of Maddie's refusal to let the divorce progress, I had a talk with Miranda. I had told her that it didn't matter if we weren't legally married. As long as she was wearing my ring, we were man and wife.

After that I turned my attention to Maddie. I asked her...I begged her to allow the divorce to progress. She refused. She even offered to have sex with me in front of Miranda and our lawyers. That was something that Maddie shouldn't have done because she pissed me off.

I had no choice. I did what I'd always done. I gave her exactly what she wanted. I dropped the divorce. That meant that I didn't have to abide by the terms of our settlement. And since Maddie hadn't worked while we were married, all of the money she had was money that I had earned. I still had access to the accounts. I withdrew all of the money from the accounts and left her penniless. She got one more check before I removed her name from my retirement account as well.

It seemed heartless and cruel, but I enjoyed it. She showed up at my house, screaming at Randa and me, so I had her arrested.

My next move seemed even worse, but it made sense to me. Looking back on the life I'd walked away from had only brought me pain. Miranda and our daughter were my life and my future. Ties to the past no longer had any value.

With that in mind, I sold the house right out from under Maddie and left her homeless as well.

I know that the house has been in my family for all of those generations, but there comes a time when we have to stop looking back and start looking forward. I'm not sure what Maddie does for a living now, or where she's staying, but we have heard rumors about a seventy year old hooker, back in Michigan.

Right now it's about five years since all of that happened and I have problems of my own. As I write this, I'm sitting on my porch watching my daughter, Danica doing laps around the large oval driveway we built in front of the house. At five years old Danica seems to be getting tired of her heavily modified Power Wheels Mustang. She's already started holding her own little races on her driveway track every Sunday. She has never lost a race. She even beats the boys.

I know that Miranda is going to have a fit, but I'm sure Danica is ready for a go-kart. My little girl is as pretty as her mother but she seems to have inherited my mean streak. Those NASCAR boys will have their work cut out for them in about fourteen years. I just hope I'm still around to see it.

The end.