2350. Family secrets

Even though Stacy had been told all her life that she was adopted she suspected in fact that her mother was her real mother and her father was her real father. Stacy was number six in a family of six children. In fact, four of her brothers and sisters were her full brothers and sisters, and even though she was ten years younger than they were there was nothing unusual in that. One of her brothers, the fifth sibling, had the same mother but the father was different; “Swedish” the DNA tests were to reveal.

To prove her point, Stacy had had secret DNA tests done of the family and the results proved her point: her mother was her real mother and her father was her real father. So why the adoption story?

Just as Stacy was about to confront her parents to learn the truth they were both killed in a traffic accident. Perhaps one of her brothers and sisters might know the story. Her oldest sister might know; mothers often divulged family secrets to daughters. But Yolanda, the oldest sister, knew nothing. Perhaps the Portuguese family living next door might know something; they had been great friends of the family. Possibly Stacy’s mother had divulged something, woman to woman, over a nice cup of tea. Nothing. Jorginho, the Portuguese husband, said that even if he knew something he was staying out of other families’ personal affairs. He didn’t know anything of course.

That was when Stacy’s “half Swedish” brother, Björn, stepped forward with an explanation. Their mother had had a torrid affair with a passing Swedish tennis player. The marriage broke up. The parents got divorced. Several years later the parents reconciled and Stacy was born “out of wedlock”.  After the re-marriage Stacy was formally adopted by her father.

All this doesn’t help to explain what the DNA tests missed: that all the brothers and sisters except for Stacy and Björn, were half Portuguese.

2132. Rainy days

It had rained all week. Sometimes the showers were quite heavy and accompanied by thunder. Trixie was trapped inside for four days with her five school age children. It was the “summer” break. Her husband was somewhere up in Alaska on some business with oil. He wouldn’t be back for another week.

What does one do with five children aged five to twelve (including the twins) stuck inside for a week? The colouring-in books were finished; the computer games had run their course (at least the time Trixie allotted for computer games had run their course); jigsaws were done; cards were played… Even the guitar sat abandoned and untuned in the corner of a now fairly messy living room.

The rain had caused havoc. Surface water covered backyard lawns. The roads weren’t dangerous rivers but still required much care. The local park was a lake!

“Come on children,” declared Trixie. “Leave your raincoats behind. We’re going to the park.”

Off they went in the rain complete with soccer ball. Never was such muddy fun had! They were a family of drowned rats – including Trixie. Soon they were joined by a few other families, maybe twenty people in all. By now the playing field was in a fairly muddy condition, but Nature sorts out such things, and it is what parks are for.

Back home they couldn’t stop talking about it! All were showered, dried, and changed. Trixie baked some cinnamon buns with lashing of melted butter.

An Announcement

Hi Everyone. I shall be hovering rather erratically around this blog in the next few days. So I thought I would say why and prevent the thousands of you from going into a period of excited anticipation in the hope that some terrible thing had happened to me and would I ever recover etc etc. I’m fine!

Yesterday morning (3^rd May) one of my brothers, Rick, had a sudden heart attack and died. So I shall be doing my best to get to his funeral on Friday which is a four-hour drive away.

Four years ago Rick caught a viral infection in his eyes and went blind in one eye and largely blind in the other. Two years ago he had both legs amputated and was just now learning again to walk on his artificial limbs. He was having a race with his youngest grandson as to which one of them would learn to walk first! His passing, despite these setbacks, has naturally come as a big shock.

So all in all I shall only spasmodically attend to comments and the like – if at all. There are stories waiting in line to be posted so these will still appear, but the numbering will be a bit messed up!

With Covid doing its thing, income here has been a little tight, so this year Rick had been paying my rent – so I owe him one.

A little bit about him can be found HERE.

Thanks

Bruce

2110. Mind your Qs

When Queenie and Quentin decided to start a family they thought it would marvellous to call any child that came along with a name starting with a Q. They would be the Q family; Mum, Dad, and the kids.

As it turned out they had but the one child – a boy. Queenie wanted to call him Quin or Quay, and Quentin wanted to call him Quade or Quincy. That’s why today he’s known as Jack.

1929. One never knows

When Elaine and Charlie announced their marriage engagement everyone knew instinctively that it was a relationship concocted in heaven. They were perfect for each other. Both were mean. Both were snarky. Both could be malicious. In no time they’d knock the rough corners off one another. It wasn’t so much cruelty of action; it was cruelty of tongue. Both could make ground meat out of a tough steak simply by verbal lashing.

The engagement period seemed to go well. There were no volcanic eruptions – much to everyone’s disappointment. Then the wedding day arrived and they had chosen a simple wedding in a little country church, with just a few friends and family members. They returned from an extensive honeymoon even more convivial than when they left. The pundits’ disappointment continued.

Next came a baby, and another, and a third. This was getting ridiculous. The relationship wasn’t meant to last. Pre-nuptial common sense demanded a marriage breakdown.

And then one day Elaine lost her job as a school secretary. Apparently she had expressed an opinion that favoured the wrong political party. That was when the waspish habits of bygone years leaped back into gear. Both Charlie and Elaine stood in front of the principal’s desk.

They hadn’t lost the touch. No indeed!

That was years ago. They’re grandparents now. Many of their acquaintance’s marriages have disintegrated. One never knows.

1757. You’re hired!

Congratulation, Elric, you have the job. We were delighted with the quality of your experience and expertise shown in both your interview and your CV.

Your ability to cut through nonsense and get straight to the core of the matter was the singular feature of your interview that stood out from all the other almost eight hundred applicants. Your Harvard degree certainly helps but it’s not everything. It’s how you use your degree that matters.

So we are delighted to welcome you to the team. You start tomorrow. Dad said to say “Well done”. I was wondering when you go home if you can tell Mum that I’ll be a bit late home for dinner this evening.

1575. Family photo album

Catriona had put a lot of work into her family photo album. It wasn’t so much an album; it was more a family tree. Each old photo was accompanied by a brief biography of who was who and what they had achieved in their lives. Catriona nonchalantly kept the album on her coffee table. Visitors would dip into it while Catriona was out in the kitchen making the tea and quickly baking a batch of edibles.

Here was a picture of her great great grandmother who single-handedly had confronted a whole tribe of warlike natives demanding money.

Here was a picture of a great uncle who used to ferry people in his rowboat, one person at a time, across the raging Lualaba River in the Congo.

Here was the highest in command saved when his ship was torpedoed in the war. That was her grandfather.

Here was…

Here was…

There is no doubt that Catriona’s ancestry was riddled with heroines and heroes. It was extraordinary how bravery can be passed on from one generation to the next. Was it Nature or Nurture?

“Perhaps it’s a bit of both,” Catriona would say, “although there are some people in my tree that are not yet in the album. If the truth be known, they were quite ordinary!”

Indeed! If the truth be known! The whole thing was a fiction in Catriona’s world. She had been adopted at birth. She had no clue who her biological parents were. Murgatroyd, a visitor from Little Ivywood Hamlet, pointed this out.

“Heavens to Murgatroyd!” exclaimed Catriona. “This is the family tree of my adopted parents. Family is not in the genes; it’s in the heart. And this is an album of my family.”

1556. Memories

It seemed like just an ordinary old photo. Granddaughter Natalie was showing it to her grandmother. Grandmother Lilianna had been born in Poland but had come to her new country with her parents and siblings when she was nine.

Which one are you? asked Natalie.

Lilianna had not seen the photograph before. Where did you find it?

It was with a pile of stuff in a box, said Natalie. What are the names of your brothers and sisters?

Lilianna pointed them out as she named them. There’s Franciszek and Filip. And there’s Zofia and Maria. You know great-aunt Maria. And I don’t know who that other little girl is. She must have been visiting at the time.

But, said Natalie, it’s written in Polish on the back. Daddy translated it for me. It says “Our six children”.

The photograph had taken Lilianna back to that terrible day. She knew who that fourth girl in the photograph was. It was her sister Dominika. Dominika was still alive and living not too far away. Dominika was ostracized. She had never been spoken about for decades. And now her photograph had emerged. It brought back extraordinary memories of… of…

Can I keep the photo? asked Lilianna.

Of course, said Natalie.

After Natalie left to go home, Lilianna threw the photograph into the fire.

1519: Moderation in all things

Claudéric de Moulins d’Amieu de Beaufort was just an ordinary bloke. He was unmarried and lived in Illkirch-Graffenstaden.

Asceline de Pardaillan de Gondrin too was an ordinary of person. She lived in Krautergersheim.

They fell in love. They had met at a Social Justice Convention. With Asceline and Claudéric, modernity and moderation went hand in hand. They were a thoroughly modern couple.

Asceline de Pardaillan de Gondrin decided to keep her own name when she married Claudéric de Moulins d’Amieu de Beaufort. But what if they had children? What family name would each child use?

It was a conundrum that was easily settled; they would join their family names. Many years later, Renaud de Pardaillan de Gondrin de Moulins d’Amieu de Beaufort married Marguerite Dembélé- Vallée-Boutet-Aubert-Caillat-Gainsbourg-Ouvrard-Chéreau-Cazenave-Auvray-Bourdon. They too were modern and moderate. They changed their name to Smith. It was so foreign and exotic.

1475. Bon appetit!

It was Thanksgiving, and Fred and Jaime Burtwhistle had much to be thankful for, although they couldn’t agree on what their next step in life together was to be. Fred’s Great Aunt Donnabelle, whom they loved very much for obvious reasons, had died and left them a gigantic fortune. It was such a pleasure to be able to spend money and not have their nosy great aunt overseeing. Waiting for her to die had taken years.

Then there was Jaime’s Aunt Mabel to be thankful for. She would never shut up. Talk talk talk. She had a motor accident at some stage during the year and lost the ability to talk. What a relief! What a blessing!

Jaime’s father was a chronic alcoholic and they had put him in a care center of some sort for drunks. It was going to be good not having him around on Thanksgiving to ruin everything.

Fred’s mother, a widow, was a nut case. She had been “institutionalized”. Hopefully in a padded cell. You’ve no idea how embarrassing that woman could be.

So indeed there was much for Fred and Jaime Burtwhistle to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. They had no children, so it was to be just the two of them. Of course, they couldn’t agree on how best to spend Great Aunt Donnabelle’s inheritance. To solve this disagreeable problem Fred had poisoned the cranberry sauce, and Jaime had poisoned the pumpkin pie.

Bon appetit!