The Storm seen from a distance
Maybe I was pissed off. It sure wasn't smart what I did, sending the photos to those guys. Shit. Well, I hope I survive this.
Five minutes later, my email comes alive. The guys are emailing. One after another.
Ron,
Look man. I don't know what to say. Hey good for you if you can afford a place like that and all those damned girls. If they are really there, and if you say they are, then OK, they are, well there is no way I am going to say to my wife, Hey babe I'm going to fly half way around the globe to see Ron and you are not invited.
So best wishes to you.
Bill.
I open up the next.
Ron,
You fucking pedophile! You have better never set foot in my house or I'll cut your nuts off and feed them to the dog.
Well, that one was succinct. I open up the next.
Ron,
I am not sure I know how to say this without seeming creepy. But Jesus H. Christ, if this is on the level you are the luckiest asshole I know and I am the most envious friend you have. How young are they? Damn!
Your very best friend,
Harvey
OK that was better. The last one reads,
OK, I give. You are one lucky bastard.
Good, it could have been far worse. But another email from Sarah has just arrived.
Dad,
Did you see the photo I received? It doesn't match what you are saying. With what I am seeing I am not inclined to pack up the entire family and come visit you. First it would be far too expensive and second I am not sure what I am going to find. Frank can't get away in any case. Steve is tied up and can't just leave mid semester as a college freshman. But Aubrey, Melissa and I are coming. I called the guidance counselor at their high school and explained we have a family emergency on the other side of the world.
I have just booked a flight and we will see you in a couple of days. I gather there is no airport where you are living. I have booked airfare to the nearest island and the lady I spoke with at Philippine Airlines tells me there is a ferry to your island. Here is my itinerary. Please pick us up at the ferry.
Sarah
P.S. I haven't told the rest of the family because I don't know the truth and don't want to cause a problem for everyone if there is no problem. I haven't even told Frank. I am just saying I want to visit you.
P.P.S. I just had a morbid thought. Imagine if Mom had seen the photo instead of me! Damn. We thought the divorce was bad! This would be nuclear bad.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Sarah, at thirty-six is a year older than my oldest girl here. Steven is eighteen. Aubrey is sixteen and Melissa is fourteen. This is so not good. She will be here tomorrow night. OK I think it is time to come clean. Maybe I can get her to come without her daughters.
Sarah,
Come if you must but leave your girls home. I am going to tell you the complete truth now. I ask you to not share this with anyone. I ask due to the matter of my legal position, as well as shielding your daughters.
Here is the truth. All of it.
Every female from the oldest to the youngest in the photo is my lover and has spent time in my bed. If you want their names and cell numbers, I will give them to you. However, four of them are Melissa's age, and one is a year older than Aubrey. Another is twenty, and the rest are all thirty-five.
The one who emailed you is also the head housekeeper. She is the seventeen-year-old and I certainly wish she had not done what she has so obviously done.
The things I said about how I am treated are all true. The fact is they do take care of me and the house. However, it doesn't obscure the fact that they are also my lovers.
They will all be here when you get here. Even the youngest ones, as the older ones are the mothers of the youngest. I simply cannot and will not send them away. I am obligated to them as they are to me. You will meet each and every one of them. But I really don't think your girls should come.
I only ask that you leave your inclination to prejudge at home. Assess my situation only after you meet all of them and understand what is happening here. Life here is not like it is in the States.
Love,
Dad
And I send it.
Only two minutes later I get email back.
Poppop,
Mom is downstairs and I will not show this to her until we are on the plane. Aubrey and I are coming and you can't stop us. We are leaving as soon as I send this. I have Mom's cell phone and will turn it off now.
What you wrote is so weird. You have lovers that are my age and if I read this right, their mothers are your lovers too! Poppop. Like this is so weird!
I have to see this! I want to meet these girls.
Melissa.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!
I want to throw the damned netbook out the window but it will do me no good at this point. I just close it, and walk out the bedroom door. There is some 'splaining to do and getting ready as well.
I guess I should be super angry with Elvie but, for some reason, I am not. She loves me so much and is so proud of me, that she wanted my daughter to know what a great guy I am. In that seventeen-year-old mind, that was all that was going on.
We live with the choices we make. I chose Elvie and so I own this one.
I get downstairs long after the school girls have left. But that still means there are five here. I see Susan first. She gets a kiss and then a request to gather the others up right away. We need to talk.
Problem?
Yeh, you could say that.
Shit. OK I get them.
Five minutes later they are standing and waiting as Elvie is finally able to stop what she was doing, and she joins us. She has a look on her face like... oh-oh maybe I screw up. I look at her and make a face that pretty much says, Yeh, you really screwed up.
I look at these wonderful women and hope that this is not the beginning of the end.
Last night, Elvie sent my daughter, Sarah, a photo of all of us. It was not a thing she should have done but, she did it out of her love for me and her pride in all of you. ... My daughter did not like what she saw. She is coming here right now. She is already traveling and will be here tomorrow afternoon. She will have been traveling for a day and a half to get here. And she is bringing her two daughters, my granddaughters, with her. ... I have no idea what to do. But I told her in an email that when she comes, she will meet each of you and your daughters. ... Everyone stays and no one hides. ... At this point lying will not work. However, we don't have to be bad and make her uncomfortable. I am happy to listen to anything that you think will help. Please talk to your daughters. My granddaughters are aged sixteen and fourteen.
Jenny is staring at Elvie and at the same time asks me, What she going to do when she get here?
I don't know.
Ros is thinking out loud. She know what life like here?
No.
Why she bringing her daughters?
I don't think she wanted to come alone.
Why her husband not come?
She says he can't because of work.
Elvie stands straight. She is angry. With who exactly it is not clear but, she is stamping her foot and exclaiming, We show her this right for us! That all! She not right to come here and change this. And now the tears come. Jenny grabs hold of her and comforts Elvie. The other three approach me. We just hold each other. This sucks. Unfortunately, at this moment I see the painter getting off a motorcycle and walking to the gate.
Ros sees him and says, I go.
There is a bunch of palavering going on outside. The guy is shaking his head. I ask Susan to find out what's happening. Maybe that helps, maybe not, because now it is a three way palaver and it doesn't seem to be getting better, plus I still don't know what's going on.
Finally Susan pulls away and returns with the basics. The guy asks, what colors we want. Ros tells him white. He say, not white, what real final color. Ros tells him white is the final color. The guy is saying who ever decides that must be crazy. White is the primer but not a top coat. Ros is telling him it is white. Then he asks, OK what are the inside wall colors? What are the trim colors? Ros says, everything is white. Now the guy is really angry. He calls Ros stupid, as it is clear she simply does not know. She should go back and ask the owner what he wants. She tells him, my owner may be crazy but, he says it is white. So maybe he is crazy but, he is paying, and I do not care what you think. Paint it all white or leave. He says this to Ros alone and then the same he tells me when I come out. He wants to talk to you. He refuses to paint it white.
I go out the front door. He can hear me and see me but, I am a good 15 yards from him. Go away. I will not hire you.
I turn around and go back inside. Ros follows. He texts Jenny who is holding Elvie. Elvie texts back.
He wants white. You are stupid to argue. Go.
He texts back,
OK White.
Jenny tells me what he is texting. What you want me tell him?
Tell him I don't hire stupid people. I don't hire rude people. Give me one good reason why I should consider him now.
Because you are upset about your daughter and maybe you make a bad decision?
OK, that one is fair. OK get a price but, if I have one more problem with him, he is gone. No further payment.
I get eyebrows. The guy comes in and walks around, taking measurements. There are some questions. Textured ceiling? Flat, semi-gloss or gloss? Those resolved, he will return tomorrow with an estimate.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
Mom, when will we get there?
We arrive Tuesday night I think.
We are going to be traveling for two and a half days? Mom! That's too long! Are we flying the entire time?
Sweety, the flight time with the layover is only 21 hours. But we are crossing the date line. You learned about that, right?
Nah-uh. What's that?
Huh, OK so it is Sunday night here and it is Monday mid-day where we are going right now. So, between here and there, there is a place where tomorrow begins. The date changes. It's an invisible line that runs from north-pole to the south-pole. If you stand on one side of the line it is say Sunday night and if you step across, it is Monday night. When you fly west and cross the date line you lose a day. When you fly back over the date line the other way you gain a day. So if we fly home on a Sunday at say 10AM, we arrive on Sunday at 8PM. The trip may have taken twenty hours but it is still Sunday when we land.
OK, I'm like totally confused. So we land twenty-one hours after we leave Rochester but you said a day and a half. Why?
Your Poppop lives on an island without an airport. We have to travel from the airport and take a ferry to get to the island where he lives. I have asked him to pick us up there.
What if Poppop doesn't want to see me or Aubrey?
Why wouldn't he want that? He loves the two of you. I am sure he wants to see you.
'Cause he said so.
What do you mean?
He emailed when you were packing downstairs.
Melissa hands me my iPhone. I put it immediately in airplane mode. The message is saved in my inbox. I read and then read Melissa's reply.
I am filled with a basket of emotions. I love my dad. The divorce was ugly but it was more a fact of two people who had grown apart. Both Mom and Dad mean a great deal to me. Dad has always been my rock. He was the solid one I could always depend on to stand up and do the right thing, even when it was hard. He didn't care what anyone else thought. If he thought his girl needed something from him, I got it. OK, maybe he wasn't the most socially enlightened guy but, he never told me to stay home and have babies. He paid for my education right through the Master's Degree, even though he barely made it far enough to get a B.A.
Dad never touched me in a way that was wrong. Never went out on Mom. There was no cheating. He had no girlfriends during the marriage. And afterward, though I am sure he dated, I never heard of any problems. But in the letter he is saying he is having sex with four fourteen-year-old girls, a seventeen-year-old and a twenty-year-old, plus three women just a year younger than I am now. What am I to make of that? What has Dad become?
I guess it would be one thing to wrap my head around it if he had one girlfriend my age. But nine? And some of them fourteen-years-old? That is statutory rape times five if you count the seventeen-year-old and you should.
He was right to tell me to leave the girls home but, it is too late now. Too late to turn around.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
I haven't seen Sarah since two Christmases ago. The kids were fifteen and thirteen then. A little more than fourteen months have passed and fourteen months mean a great deal to girls such as Melissa. I am sure she has changed a great deal. The mental development, the body changes... you name it. They transform into women from the girls they were. And just like my Karen, they can be headstrong but brilliant at times, and headstrong and incredibly stupid in other ways. For my girls, if the Moms, or the older sister, were not with them, I would not go near them. It would be like juggling glass flasks filled with strong acid.
I have no idea what Melissa is like now. I have a little better idea what Aubrey is like, though no clue as to how she will react to all this.
There is nothing to do about it now. But there are faucets to install and some electrical outlets. Maybe I just need to keep busy. I decide to call off the lessons for the day and probably until Sarah and the kids leave. I am too distracted to do a good job. I also think we need to delay the painting of the house for now. This is not the time for additional disruptions.
Tonight, however, I need Pearl and Jenny with me. If I don't have them now, it will be a long time before I can again. Better to take care of this.
Everyone is somber, tiptoeing for fear of an explosion that might come from me. I don't think one is coming, at least not now and not from me. But they are scared, and that I understand.
I have installed the faucets and the outlets. I have informed them of the matters involving the lessons. I will leave to pick up the girls in a few minutes. Susan and Jenny will come with me.
We approach the school and find parking. It is always congested with tricycles, motorcycles and autos. We are waiting for our girls to emerge. Someone taps on my side window. It is Judith. I roll the window down.
Good afternoon.
And to you, Sir Ron. Sir, I have a very big favor to ask. I understand that you may say no but, please try to say yes. Sir, you know I am still a virgin, di ba?
Yeh. And?
I am scared of men and what they do. I hope that I not offend you when I say that.
OK, and what is this favor?
Sir, I want you to remove it.
Say again? You want what?
I want you to make me not a virgin any more.
If you don't want sex, use the back of a hairbrush. From the back Jenny says, Use eggplant, Judith. It like a penis.
Evidently I missed something, because the answer is not accepted. No Sir, I want sex with you. I need to know how it feel. I be safe with you.
Well, I guess I should be flattered. But I am not safe, and this is not a good time. My daughter is coming to visit tomorrow and I am busy tonight. So even if I were to be willing to say yes, I can't.
You have time tomorrow morning? I could come out then.
Judith, do you have any idea how crazy this sounds?
Yes, I think I do.
Why don't you just find a nice boy? I am sure there are many who would be happy to assist.
But Sir, then they would want me to be their girlfriend. I not want that.
I see. Why do you think I am safe?
It obvious. All your girls are safe.
I am amazed that Susan and Jenny haven't broken out in fits of laughter. OK, come out at ten in the morning.
Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir.
As I roll up the window all I can say is, Jesus! What the fuck was that about? And now the laughter starts.