Thicker than Blood

"Okay?" I said.

"Davey, she knew you were still in a blue funk about it all. She knew it might not even be possible for you to overcome it. But, she laid it on me that the responsibility to fix things, if such were indeed possible, was mine. Not your brother's, not Jenna's and James' but mine.

"David, I told her I would do what I could, and I will. I need you to give me the chance to do what she asked of me, I mean to succeed in the doing of it. Okay?" she said, and she said it quietly, softly, pleadingly.

"What do you want from me, Stacey? I just don't know what it is you expect me to do, believe, what all," I said.

"I guess what we have to do, well what I think we should do, is to sit down together the four of us, and talk things out, maybe even sit down together many times, however many times it takes," she said. "Would that be a doable thing for you?"

"I don't know, but I could ask Roz what she thinks," I said.

******

"Honey, things are settled. Will you ever be able to forget it all? Of course not. There is just too much bad back there in the past to be forgotten completely," said my wife.

"Yes, you're right of course. It's not that I want to cause any waves, I don't. Roz, I don't hate them anymore, I really don't. I just don't feel comfortable around them. I know they say that they say that they love and respect me now, I mean now that they know all, or almost all. But . . ." I said.

"But, you don't trust them," she said.

"Well, not exactly. I mean what if I hadn't taken the rap for Jenna. What if all I was able to do was offer my sympathy and give whatever moral support I could to her and them; and, what if I hadn't had the same exact blood type as Ronald? Would there have been any respect for me then? I don't think so. I mean do you think so?" I said.

"You're asking if they had any respect for you before all of that happened," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"The answer to that is that it's unknowable. They would not have had any pressure to respect you, but the guilt the two of them carried would have eventually caused them to react in negative ways toward you, maybe blamed you for your being so angry and bitter rather than themselves. That said . . .

"They're in a place now where they can't find a way out," she said.

"Huh?"

"Before, they were in the driver's seat. They could offer you all kinds of material goods and privileges and blame you for being unwilling to compromise. But no more. Now, you're in the driver's seat," she said.

"How do you figure?" I said. "I mean they've given me, us, the means to be rich; I mean the businesses, and it does indeed look as though we are going to be."

"More material stuff. But it will always be a fact, as you yourself have pointed out in so many words, that they can never equal in material gifts what you have done for them. And again, that said . . .

"I believe her. I believe her when she says she respects and loves you. I also believe her when she says she loves her husband more than anything. And, I believe that that fact rubs you the wrong way because she's essentially saying, the way you see it, that you never measured up. It's your pride that's getting in the way of you getting by all of this.

"Your Aunt Delia told you as much in the past. She sugar coated it so as to not make you feel worse than you already did, but that was her meaning," said my wife.

"I guess you're right, honey; it certainly makes sense, what you say," I said.

"And, one more thing, young man," she said.

"And that is," I said.

"That you lucked out and got an even better woman for a wife and one who will never betray you and one you can never really hope to deserve. So, many sit downs with them? Not necessary. Not necessary because we are going to go there and have them here often. And we are going to be kind and generous to them. And, if that makes them ever so ashamed of themselves in retrospect, well, life is hard as they say and then we die. Got it, mister!" she said.

And, I did get it, finally! And, she was right on every point. I think I married a genius. Yes, indeed, and if not a genius at least a woman a whole lot smarter than me!

And we did visit the Carters on the hill. And the Carters on the hill did visit us in the burbs. And all was indeed well that ended well.

"And Jenna and James? Well, they are a fixture at our place as well as at Ronald's and Stacey's.

******