by Michele Hauf
Vickie paused her cheery rambling for a moment, then spoke sincerely. “Hey, Chuck. How come you just paled when I said his name?” Vickie looked at Ria and saw a similar reaction. “Okay, you two. Do you know Papa Doc?”
“He does, I never met him,” Ria said. “He won’t let me. Papa Doc is his father.”
“Oh…” Vickie said, then giggled as realization hit. “You sign reads C. R. M. Strong. That’s for Chuck Ar-m-strong, am I right?”
“Turn around and let me clean that ear again,” Chuck grumbled, then smiled at her cleverness.
“Oh, my God!” Vickie squealed, bouncing up and down in place.
“Hold still,” Chuck ordered, his hand on her shoulder. “Which epiphany did you just have?”
“Hal is my grandpa! My honest to goodness biological grandpa. And yours, too, Ria!”
“Took you long enough,” Chuck said with a chuckle. “When I’m done, I need to put more topical antibiotics on that. I don’t have any antibiotic pills left, so I want you to go back home and tell Papa Doc that your physician in Woodstock said he had confidence that he’ll know which one to administer.”
“I’m jealous,” Ria said with a pout.
“Of what?” Chuck asked.
“She gets to know my grandpa and I don’t.”
“Both adopted and biological grandpas. And our father and mother…” Vickie said softly.
“Well, meeting them would be cool, too,” Ria said. “I never felt shorted when it came to the parents’ aspect of a relationship, but I knew about Papa Doc. I never had a grandfather. Dad, can we go there for a visit? I want to meet him.”
“We’ll see…”
Ria rolled her eyes at her sister and scowled. That means no. A grin bloomed and she raised an eyebrow. But I have you now. Will you help?
Face pinched in discomfort as the swab cleaned out the wound, Vickie cut her eyes to the side and gave a discreet thumbs-up. I got your back, Sis!
6
Eighteenth Birthday
January 4, 2008
“Hi, Dad. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m sorry I took off with just that lame note. Yes, I did! I wrote it on the whiteboard in the garage. Okay, well, it should still be there. I never thought about you not coming out there to find me. Yeah, well, I also moved the Ghibli. Hey, before you get too wound up, know that I love you and Mom, and the only reason I took off was to see if I could declaw Nanny Elsa. Yeah, well, you might think it’s not my job, but she’s not only declawed, I think I may have crippled her. No. Wait just a second. Are you sitting down? Okay, then sit down and put me on speakerphone so Mom can hear, too.”
Vickie looked over at her audience. Rich had awakened and joined the trio at the table, contentedly gnawing on a piece of bacon between sips of coffee.
“Okay. Here goes. I met my sister. Just one of them, though. Dad? Dad? Is Mom okay? Oh, hi, Mom. Is Dad okay? Yeah, I know that Grace is my bio-Mom and Dusty’s my bio-Dad. It doesn’t change my love for anyone, though. But hey! I have Ria here. Her name’s Rhianna Lynn Armstrong. Say hi, Ria.”
Ria rolled her eyes in embarrassment, feeling like a four-year-old on Santa’s lap being urged to tell him what she wanted for Christmas. “Hi, Vickie’s mom and dad. It’s cool to meet her. I didn’t know about her, either. No, neither one of us fainted, but Dad got an earful. Yeah, well, say hi to my grandpa, Papa Doc, for me. I hope to meet everyone real soon.”
Ria scowled, letting Vickie know she was done talking.
“Yes, Rich is here. He’s tanking up on coffee and bacon, getting ready to hit the road back home. We’re hoping to miss drivetime traffic. Okay, we’ll be careful. Yes, Mom, I always wear my seatbelt. So, don’t let Elsa back in the house. She has a ledger loaded with all the stuff she’s extorted over the years and from whom. There’s a key to her room stuck with tape to the bottom of the drawer in the vase table just outside her room. I don’t know if you can legally take it, but at least take pictures of all the pages. I know you shouldn’t blackmail her, but it would be so sweet to have her on the other end for a change. Why would you buy her a one-way ticket to Costa Rica? Okay, I’ll ask Chuck. Love you! See you by dinner!”
Vickie hit end on the phone. “Wow. That went better than I thought,” she said to the group.
Chuck picked up his cup and looked to see how much coffee was left. “They’ll probably ground you for life when you get home.”
“Only for two years. Or two years less one day. It was worth it! Now, Chuck, tell me about Costa Rica.”
“Short answer – and all you ever need to know – is that’s where Grace’s mother was sent by Hal when he divorced her. You think Nanny Elsa is bad, this woman trumps her. Don’t even bring up her name. Pure evil.”
Ria glanced at Vickie who glanced back. Rich saw the tacit exchange, missed by the musing Chuck, and jumped in. “Do not ever think about messing with evil, either one of you. Think of it this way: no good can come from it. It will only hurt those you love if you disturb it. Someone else went through hell to get her sent away. Are you seriously wanting to hurt your mothers and Hal by connecting with her?”
“When you put it that way…” Vickie said.
“So, Dad,” Ria interjected. “When do we get to meet Tori Lynn? And why do all of us have the same middle name.”
“I have no idea why Lynn got stuck in the middle of all of you. Your name choices were by the parents, and none of us knew the other girls’ names until later. Actually, nobody else knew Rhianna’s middle name until today.”
“That’s question number two answered,” Vickie said. “How about the first one: when do we get to meet Tori Lynn?”
Chuck looked up at Rich. Help! I’m getting double-teamed!
“Hey. They’re your problems. I’m just the driver,” Rich answered, all smiles as he sipped his coffee.
“No, you’re not,” Vickie said, sidling up to him.
Rich spat out his swallow, choking on it.
Chuck handed him a napkin and waited to make sure he could catch his breath before offering assistance.
“What do you mean?” Rich gasped.
Vickie tried to contain her grin, then gave up. “You’re the Sherlock who figured this all out. I just got us headed in the right direction. Sort of.”
“I’ve heard there’s a twin thing that goes on,” Ria said. “I wonder if there’s a triplet thing, too.”
“Yup. Gotta be that,” Chuck said with a tone of finality. “And that’s what you should trust to find Tori. I have to tell you right now, I do not know where she and her parents are.”
Ria looked at Vickie and grinned. Leave it to me. I’ll find out her parents’ names and let you know. We’ll find her yet!
January 3, 2010
18th birthday party
“I’m so nervous,” Grace said, holding onto Dusty’s arm. “Our little girl is eighteen today. She’s going away, I know she is. She hasn’t said anything, but I feel it in my bones. She’s too young! Too naïve and vulnerable…”
“Like we were?” Dusty asked.
“Oh, Lord…”
“Hey! Don’t worry about it. She has four sensible parents now. That’s three more than you had. Plus, she has three grandpas. She would have had four if my dad had lived longer, but at least he got to love her as his great-goddaughter when she was four.”
“Getting a little moist in here?” Chuck asked, surprising Grace with his first visit in eighteen years.
Grace – very emotional about Vickie turning eighteen and leaving – had been holding back her tears, but lost control when she saw him. She smacked him once on the arm. “Chuck? Why did you do that?” she hissed. “Why did you…you.” Then she started blubbering, pounding on him, swinging uncontrollably, an emotional explosion of frustration, rage, and sorrow.
Chuck hadn’t known what to expect after all these years and was prepared for anything. Keeping her at arm’s length to stop more punches, he stared at how beautiful she still was, shaking his head at how her impetuousness had
n’t faded. “I tried to talk you out of it dozens of times but you signed those papers. Twice. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have lost contact with these girls forever.”
Suddenly, she was helpless and remorseful, seeking comfort in his arms, rocking back and forth in his brotherly hug, still full of guilt at her poor decision but grateful that he had found a way to make it work for both of them.
Dusty looked at the handsome man holding his wife. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Dusty Rhodes, husband, father…”
“Counselor, comforter, and probably cook when needed,” Chuck continued, then bent down and kissed Grace on the top of the head. “It’s okay,” he told her. “But I really don’t know where the third one is…”
“Third one?” Grace and Dusty screeched, Grace pulling out of the embrace.
“Oops. You didn’t tell her?” Chuck asked, looking into the hallway at Vickie.
“Nope. Mom and Dad – Gloria and Roger – and I decided not to. For a long time, Grace thought she’d lost twins. And then she found out that they were alive and adopted out and…
Vickie looked into the hallway and gave the hand signal to come in. “Well, surprise, Grace and Dusty!” She wrapped her arm around Ria’s waist. “You’ll have to be happy with just having the two of us around for a while. Even Chuck doesn’t know where Tori is.”
“Hi, I’m Rhianna Lynn Armstrong. I think you know my dad, Chuck, and grandpa, Papa Doc.” She frowned at her father. “At least, the way you two were hugging, I hope you know him.”
“I know Papa Doc,” Dusty said, “but I just met Chuck. I heard about him, how he kept her alive and sane while pregnant.” He took a deep breath. “Thank God she never said anything negative about him or I would have been the one punching him.”
“Hey, girls!” Rich said, coming in with a fistful of gift bags in hand, oblivious of the excitement that had just transpired. “Long time, no see,” he said to Vickie with an eye roll.
Vickie let go of her sister and nudged him, shoulder-to-shoulder, giving him a quick ‘shush.’
“I’ll pretend I didn’t see that,” Grace said, then did her own eye roll.
“Tori?” Dusty asked, trying to bring the conversation back to his being the father of triplets.
“Tori Lynn,” Ria said. “Dad won’t tell us her last name or the name of her parents. He’s the best secret-keeper in the world.” She pointed to herself. “I’m living proof of that. Don’t worry, Dusty. We’ll find Tori and let you and Grace know where she is.”
“Yeah! We’ll let you two know first!” Vickie said, her index finger held up to emphasize the number one priority.
Rich paled, Chuck and Ria gasped, and Grace and Dusty growled.
“What?” Vickie asked, bringing her hand down, looking around the room for the cause of the mixed emotions. When everyone’s eyes followed her hand, she realized she had forgotten to take off her engagement ring.
“Oh, shoot!” she moaned.
“Nope,” Ria said. “That one’s worthy of an ‘oh, shit!’”
“Rich…” Dusty said menacingly, his eyes narrowed as he tried to take his wife’s restraining hand off him, ready to pummel the fiancé.
“Dusty! Don’t hit him!” Vickie blurted out. “I just got it this morning. We haven’t done anything stupid. We were going to announce it tonight. He wanted to give it to me in front of everyone. Come on, you and Grace were practically married when you were eighteen. At least, he’s older and has a college degree, almost his masters.”
Dusty relaxed and Grace started giggling, remembering their first night together, of innocence lost on the couch, the floor, the pool table... Then she remembered being caught by her mother the morning after. Suddenly, she sobered up, recalling the gut punches and threats of false charges that had robbed her of her daughters and precious time with Dusty, of being shot point-blank by the woman who had birthed her, thankfully now exiled to Costa Rica.
She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Are you two ‘practically married’?” she asked, using her daughter’s euphemism for sexually active.
“No,” Vickie said. “I wish we were, but he said no.”
Dusty clapped his hand on Rich’s shoulder, a little harder than a friendship smack, a firm reminder that Vickie was still his little girl and not some floozy. “I guess I can thank you for that,” he said, then whispered, “You have more restraint than I had. Three babies resulted. Remember that. Very fertile women. At least, the first time around.”
“So, do I have your blessing? I mean, I’ve got another set of parents to ask, but it might go easier with Gloria and Roger if you’ve already given the go-ahead.”
“Do you think we could stop them?” Dusty asked Grace.
“Not a chance in hell. Do you think he’s worthy?” she asked him.
“He’s been hanging around her like a dog at a butcher shop, not even stealing scraps, waiting for her to turn eighteen. He’s got a career chosen thanks to Chuck’s influence. Yup. I think the two of them will make a good team. Lord, I hope they don’t have babies too soon.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I’m only thirty-seven! I’m too young to be a grandpa! However, a little IVF procedure and you could have another one.”
Grace squeezed his arm and pulled him close. “Or two or three. I think I’m ready.”
7
Blue Collar Wedding
January 23, 2010
“I have a little information you might be interested in,” Silas said, setting his laptop on the coffee table.
“Anything to distract me from thinking about my little girl getting married next week,” Roger said. “Why is she in such a big hurry?”
Silas looked down his nose. “Well, if she really isn’t saving herself for that young man, he’s sure doing a good job of making it look like she is. That boy has got to have the bluest balls on the east coast. Not that I checked, but he sure looks frustrated to me!”
Roger shook his head, not wanting to think about the testicles of the man his daughter would be marrying. “What kind of info do you have?”
Knock! Knock!
Roger got up and answered the door. “Hal, Grace, Dusty! Come on in. Silas was just going to have a little chit chat with me. We can finish later. What’s going on?”
“Actually,” Silas said, “I wanted them here, too. We’re going to have a little video conference call if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind at all. Should I call Gloria?”
“He already did,” Gloria said, coming in with a tray loaded with canapés. She set them on the counter of the wet bar. “The bar’s always open here, so help yourselves or tell me what you want.”
“I want to know what’s going on,” Roger said, his voice edged in frustration.
Silas opened his laptop and turned it around so everyone could see it. “Does anyone recognize her?”
“That’s the bitch who ditched Grace just hours after she had the babies!” Dusty growled. “Dumped her incoherent and disoriented at that so-called recovery house, left her there to freeze. If Chuck hadn’t told us where she’d be…” He grunted in a feral rage, too angry to continue.
The little inset window at the bottom corner of the computer screen suddenly became active as Chuck came into view. “That’s Ellen, one of the two neo-natal nurses who were there when Grace delivered. I didn’t know until just now that she was the one who moved Grace to recovery. I’m pretty sure she’s the one who gave Dr. Buddy the heads up that the FBI was on its way, giving him the chance to escape. The other nurse came with me and stayed around for a few years, helping me with Ria and getting the mobile clinic started.”
“Okay, Chuck – and only Chuck – do you know who this is?” Silas asked.
“Nope. Never saw her,” he said, then leaned closer to the monitor to look at the angry faces on the gathering of family and friends on the other side. “Should I know her?” he asked.
“That’s Elsa,” Roger hissed. “
Vickie’s nanny. For twelve years, she extorted thousands of dollars both in cash and goods from us. Two years ago, she slipped away from the hospital after she caught wind that she might have been found out.”
“And,” Silas said, keying in another picture on the monitor, “the same person known as Ellen Nyman; neo-natal specialist from Finland.”
“Who are they?” Grace asked, looking at the side-by-side photos.
“One and the same person. These are her before and after pictures from the clinic where she got a nose job and a stomach staple. It seems she had a lot of dirt on quite a few people. She went around the country, working for black market baby doctors and white slavery mommy manipulators like Dr. Buddy. She’d collect information on the clients who adopted the infants, particularly those who claimed the children as their own biological babies, then blackmailed the parents for money to get a new body. Heck of a way to improve oneself,” Silas said. “One blackmail after another; one tummy tuck or nose job, and then it’s onto the next sucker.”
“Until she couldn’t get any skinnier,” Roger said, “so then she started amassing material goods. Well, you’ve solved another one, Sherlock…er…Silas.”
“I only have one dilemma left,” Silas said. “I’ve contacted everyone in that ledger Elsa Ellen Nyman left behind. Some of the folks were happy to get the goods back, a few didn’t want any part of them because they didn’t want to remember that part of their lives, but most of the folks had filed with their insurance companies and already been compensated. They couldn’t take the material goods back, so they said to just donate them to a good charity. That’s where the dilemma comes in.”
“You don’t know which one to give it to?” Roger asked.
“Nope, I do. I was thinking about calling it Thrive,” Silas said. “My dilemma is trying to figure out if I should have Chuck run it or give it to the girls.”