Valentine’s Day Disaster

"Thank you for all you've done, Jenny. I'm afraid I have to ask you for more. Ordinarily I would take some time off work, but tomorrow is the day I am set to meet my new team and meetings have been scheduled for the whole day. I don't really feel like I can call off. Can you stay with your mother? At least until she settles down"

"Of course. I don't have any showings scheduled for tomorrow so I'll just call in and let them know there's been a family emergency and I won't be in."

"I'm not ready to talk to your mother. I'm not sure when I will be, or even if I will be. But I want, and I think I deserve, to know the whole story of what has gone on between her and George. Was this a one-off? Have they been screwing behind my back for years? Did they ever really stop after the last time? Are you," (and here I choked) "really my daughter?"

Jennifer thought for a minute. "Alright, Dad. Tomorrow if it looks like she is composed enough to have the conversation I will ask her, and explain that you need to know. She will understand that. I will be as gentle with her as I can, but I will insist on full disclosure. I want to know the answers too. If she really has been sneaking around with Uncle George for all these years, how can I possible trust her again? And I want to know what kind of man Uncle George really was."

Meanwhile, I had come up with a story I thought I could sell that would protect the reputations of all the affected parties.

Before sending Jennifer back to stay with her mother, I had her help me to carry my recliner downstairs from the living room to my new residence in the basement. With Lauri using the guest room and Jennifer still using her bedroom, I figured I'd be sleeping down there for the foreseeable future.

With the help of the booze I'd had, I managed to fall asleep. I didn't sleep well, but I had been unsure I'd be able to sleep at all, and I wanted to have at least half my wits for my big day at work.

There was no sign of activity in the guest bedroom when I rose next morning - I got up early both to avoid Lauri and to get in at the office in time to do some prep work for my meetings. I was able to take care of my morning business and shower in the master bath, then dress and slip out quietly.

Of course the first thing I did when I got into the office was to call George's employer and give his boss the bad news. Needless to say he was shocked, as George had not shown any signs of cardiac disease, or any other illness. I explained that George had stopped by the house to drop off a gift for our 25th anniversary. When he got there Lauri had been wrestling to bring a step ladder in from the garage and carry it upstairs to hang some new curtains in our bedroom. George had offered to help, and had carried the heavy ladder up the stairs, As he neared the top he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Lauri helped him into our room and he laid down on our bed - and the massive heart attack took him almost at once. His boss thanked me for calling, expressed sympathy, and asked to be informed of funeral plans when they were ready.

Damn! Was I going to have to plan a funeral for the sonofabitch?

I then called George's younger brother Robert in Seattle, and told him the same story. He was shocked, but there were some years between them in age and they had not been especially close. He said he would plan to fly in for the funeral, and asked for details.

I really had no desire to have anything to do with a funeral, but I was his best friend and executor of his estate, and he had plenty of insurance to pay for it, so I contacted a funeral home and asked them to take care of making arrangements.

That call finished, I moved on to my actual business for the day. My meetings went well, as I introduced myself to my new team and we discussed priorities and expectations. I have inherited a good group of professionals, so we should be able to accomplish good things for the company.

With that behind me, I headed for home. I had no desire to sit and eat dinner with Lauri, so I picked up some take-out chicken on the way home and headed back to my basement lair. I didn't see the women in the house, but as I passed through the kitchen I saw them sitting together on the bench in the garden. Lauri appeared to have regained her composure, and they looked like they were deep in conversation. Needless to say, I left them alone. My suit jacket and necktie draped over the back of a chair would have signaled to them that I was home.

A little while later I heard them come in and get started on dinner. Jenny came halfway down the stairs to say hello and invite me to come up to eat. I let her know I had taken care of myself and would be staying downstairs.

"Okay, I'll be down after dinner to tell you what Mom and I talked about today. I don't think she's suicidal, but as a precaution I have hidden all the sharp knives and meds that she could OD on. You don't have to be afraid to come up, she won't bother you. She knows you want space and knows she owes it to you."

"Thank you for that, Kid, but I think I'd rather not be around her right now," I replied.

An hour later Jennifer came down the stairs. "I set Mom up in the living room with her seed catalogs and garden magazines. She doesn't know if a garden will happen this year, but she needs to have something positive to look forward to."

She asked me how things had gone at work, and I told her all was fine. She went over to my cabinet and poured herself a little of my good Scotch - I had already served myself. She pulled the desk chair over close to the couch where I was sitting, took a sip, and started in.

"Mom and I had a long talk today, and she told me everything. At least she said it was everything, and I believe her. She was very hard on herself - she feels very guilty and ashamed - and she made no lame excuses for her behavior.

"That said, she and Uncle George have been getting together ever since Aunt Cindy was sick. Not often - it sounds like it was just three times each year. She says George seduced her, but as she put it, she let herself be seduced, so it's as much her fault as his.

"As you know they were good friends in college, but George was with Cindy and she was with another guy, so they double dated a lot and hung out a lot. She and George were attracted to each other, but didn't do anything but flirt a bit.

"After college she looked around for jobs in various places but wasn't making any progress. Then she heard that George and Cindy had settled here and found work, so she decided to give this town a try. Once she was here she looked up Cindy and they got together for lunch, and then she was invited to their house, and their friendship was reignited. George thought you two would be a good match so he arranged that cookout where you and Mom met."

"We'll, that answers one of my questions. I had begun to wonder if she had come hear hoping to snag George for herself. It doesn't sound like that."

"She swears that there was nothing between them but platonic friendship before that fling that you already know about. And she swears that she and George told you everything truthfully and fully at that time. They were genuinely shocked at their behavior and sincerely remorseful, and they never did anything inappropriate again, until Cindy got sick and was unable to give George the intimacy he needed."

"So she blames George's dead wife for forcing them together? That's low."

"No, she doesn't blame Cindy for anything. She feels like she betrayed her friend's memory just like she did your trust. She was just explaining how things came about.

"Anyway, she said that about a year into Cindy's illness she was over one day helping out. George took her aside and, acting a little embarrassed, explained that since Cindy hadn't been able to have intimate relations with him for several months, he was feeling very needy. He wondered if she would be willing to help him just once, just to get him some relief. She says she almost slapped him, but didn't. She did shoot him down in no uncertain terms and reminded him that their last fling had almost cost her her marriage, and she would under no circumstances take a chance of that happening again.

"Looking back she now thinks that she handled that wrong, because she never actually said she didn't want to sleep with him - she just said she didn't want to risk her marriage. He evidently took that as an opening, and over the next few weeks kept working on her, promising that they could be discrete and nobody would ever know. She continued to resist.

"Then his birthday was coming around. He begged her to give herself to him one time as a birthday present. She finally gave in, and on his birthday she met him at a motel and they had sex. She said she was looking over her shoulder the whole time, feeling guilty and certain that you would find out and that would be the end for her. But you didn't find out. And the next year, after Cindy was gone, when his birthday came around again, he talked her into a repeat 'present.'

"She said George was a thoughtful and sensitive lover, and although she felt guilty about doing it, in reality he had made it a very enjoyable experience. And you know it's human nature that once you get away with something a few times you start to think you can get away with it all the time. So when the next Valentine's Day came around, he persuaded her to 'be his Valentine.'"

"Did she say he was better in the sack than I am?"

"She said no such thing. She loves you to death, Dad. And without going into detail, she told me she has a very satisfying sex life with you. She just said sex with George was enjoyable. Well, duh, sex is supposed to be enjoyable. We're built that way."

"She reminded him that Valentine's Day was also your wedding anniversary, and that she couldn't possibly disrespect your marriage in such a blatant way. George was ready for that, and came back with 'it has nothing to do with Brian. He will never know and it won't hurt him. We've been friends for so long, this will just be a special gift to each other.'

"She fell for his line, and they did it at his house for the first time, now that Cindy was out of the picture. And then her birthday came around, and he convinced her that sex with him would be the best present he could give her."

"Jesus, what a dog!" I exclaimed. "How could he lay on such a line of bullshit? And how could she have fallen for it?"

"I don't know, Dad. It's unbelievable, but that's what happened. And then that became a regular thing. Three times a year - his birthday, her birthday, and Valentine's Day. Somehow she was able to rationalize away the anniversary conflict. Sometimes they did it at his house, sometimes here. When the special days fell on weekends and you would be around, she would invent some excuse to be away for a while and go to his house."

"Did she love him?"

"That's a hard one. On one level, she looked upon it as simply consoling a lonely friend. On another level, it was good sex and she enjoyed it. It certainly created a level of intimacy that doesn't usually exist between platonic friends. But was he ever a threat to you? Did she ever love him as a woman loves her husband? No, I don't think so. Somehow she was able to separate her illicit acts with him from her loving relationship with you. Mom laughed kind of bitterly when she told me George kept reminding her it was only three times a year, like that somehow made it okay. She knew damn good and well it wasn't okay. But she let herself do it anyway.

"And that, Daddy dear, is the whole sad story."

"How about your paternity? Did she talk about that?"

"Yes, Daddy, and she says there is absolutely no way that I am anybody's daughter but yours. There is no question about it." She stopped and took a slug from her drink. "But ... there was one thing she never told you - never told anybody, not even George - back when they had their first fling." She took another swallow of whiskey. "She got pregnant. And she was unsure who the father was, because she had been sleeping with both of you. She felt like she could not take a chance of having you raise George's baby. So she had an abortion. She never did know if the baby was George's or yours, and she was too ashamed to tell anybody. As it happened, conception occurred at their last session - the time Aunt Cindy caught on - so she would have been ending the affair anyway, out of fear, shame and embarrassment."

"Sweet Jesus, you might have had a big brother or sister, and she took that away from us too," I mourned. "This just keeps getting sicker and sicker."

We both sat silently for a minute, lost in our thoughts. Then I leaned across the space between us and hugged my daughter. My smart, compassionate, loving daughter.

"Thank you, Jenny. I know this was very hard for you, and hard for your mother, and God knows it's hard for me to hear. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know if I can forgive her or not. Right now, I'm not feeling very forgiving. I can't wait for George to be buried so I can go piss on his grave. I may make it a ritual to stop on my way to work every day and water the grass over his head." Jenny laughed for the first time in two days.

"For right now, I'm going to call Lauri's sister and see if she can come here to stay with her for a while. As executor of George's estate I think I will have to conduct an exhaustive inventory of all the possessions in his house, and to facilitate that I think I will have to move over there for a couple of weeks, at least. You have a job and a life, and I can't ask you to continue to be your mother's keeper. What you have done for her, and for me, has been marvelous, but there's a limit to what we can ask of you."

So I called Lauri's sister Janice and asked her if she could come and help out. I was vague on the circumstances, just told her that Lauri was in a crisis and needed some support. She promised to catch a a flight and would arrive in the morning.

That done, I went upstairs to the room we had shared for so long and packed a suitcase. Lauri was in the guest room, I suppose, I didn't see her. Jenny was busying herself with housekeeping chores in the kitchen. She looked at me sadly as I passed on my way upstairs. Once packed I came down with my bag and left it by the front door. I went into the kitchen and told Jenny that Janice was coming and wondered if she could stick around until she arrived. She said she would, gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek, and I headed out to George's house. He had been kind enough to leave his keys on the nightstand when he went to bed my wife, so I took them and his wallet and went out to drive his car to his house.

It felt strange to walk into the house Lauri and Jenny and I had visited so many times before over the years. It had felt strange five years before when Cindy was no longer there, and now it was almost creepy to be there. But it would be my temporary refuge, and although it was a convenient excuse, it really was true that I needed to inventory George's belongings, because there would have to be an estate sale before selling the house - all proceeds to go to my daughter.

After pouring myself a drink - I took some satisfaction from drinking George's booze - I looked around a little. I decided I had best look at his desk and see if there were any pending business matters that needed to be attended to. I didn't want the lights turned off of the water shut down. I didn't find anything of concern, but glancing at a side table I did notice a photo album.

Out of curiosity I paged through the album. As expected there were pictures of George and Cindy when they were young marrieds, birthdays, vacations, special dinners. There were many pictures of the four of us together over the years, and then I was a little surprised to start seeing pictures of George and Lauri without the rest of us. Those must have dated to when they had their brief affair early on. It stung once again to be reminded of that painful episode, but we had long since moved past it, so I didn't linger on those pages.

As I looked further I came to the bittersweet photos taken during Cindy's illness, as they tried to race through her bucket list and pack a lifetime of memories into a few short months. I got a little teary looking at those photos. They had been very much in love and we had had great times with them.

My heart almost stopped when I came to a special section of the album that recorded George and Lauri's trysts after Cindy's illness. The first showed them standing and kissing next to a bed in a motel. George must have set his camera with a timer to get these photos. There was a date written under the photo, and it agreed with what Lauri had told Jenny about when they had started. The next picture was dated with George's birthday the next year, and showed them sitting up in a bed, apparently naked, but with a sheet pulled up modestly over Lauri's front.

It got worse and worse. The next photo, from Lauri's birthday that year, showed them posed in bed the same way, but this time Lauri had not pulled the sheet up over herself, so her breasts were on display. The Valentine's Day photo showed them sitting on top of the sheets, so they both were on full display. As time went on they got bolder and bolder in their poses. Thank goodness none showed them in the act, but they were shown lying together and kissing. In one Lauri had her hand on George's erect penis and he appeared to be fingering her. Each was marked with the date taken, and I must say that there was nothing to show that Lauri's account of when they had met had been incomplete.

As I closed the book I was sick to my stomach, and had to walk away. George must have convinced Lauri to take those private photos to be used to get him off when he was alone. I went to the bathroom, had a drink of water, and collected myself.

Just then I heard a knock on the front door. As I went to answer it I passed the table where I had left the photo album. Not wanting any curious eyes seeing what I had just seen, I slid the book out of sight under the skirt of a chair, and went to see who was outside. It was Jenny. She came in and said that when Lauri had learned that I would be coming here she panicked, and asked Jenny to come look for something she didn't want me to see. "There's a photo album, Mom said, and she says some of the photos in there might be upsetting for you to see. She asked me to get it and bring it to her."

"I haven't seen it," I lied. "But feel free to look around and see if you can find it. I'm going to go make myself a sandwich."

I left her poking around George's study looking for the album. I was pretty sure she wouldn't look under furniture, and she didn't. As I was finishing up my ham and cheese dinner, she came out and said she hadn't been able to find it, so she figured George must have disposed of it for some reason. "Why don't you check up in his bedroom?" I suggested, helpfully. She went up and looked there, but of course came back down empty handed. "Tell her to forget about the album," I said. "And tell her that even if I find it, I'm sure there will be nothing in there that could upset me any more than I am already."

No sooner had Jenny left for home than George's brother pulled up in a rented car. His flight had been fine, but he was tired. I explained what I was doing there, and showed him to George's bedroom - l took the guest room. Before retiring I told him what I had done toward planning the funeral and delegated to him the duty of completing the arrangements.

Another distracted day at work, another night at George's, with the actual work of inventorying begun while visiting with Robert. I filled him in on what had been going on in his brother's life recently, omitting his misconduct with my wife. He filled me in on funeral plans. It was to take place the following afternoon.