Why are my parents acting so weird? Is it because I just sprung it on them that I am getting married? I know they haven’t met Eric yet, but I was hoping for a better response from them. They know how difficult it’s been for me to get back home since I’ve been in college. Between my classes, internship at the law firm, and spending time with Eric, I haven’t had much time to get back home. I guess once the shock wears off, Mom and Dad will show how happy they are for me. I just don’t understand why they reacted the way they did when I introduced them to Eric and his mom, Allison.
Jennifer decided to get her fiancé and his mother something to drink. Although the air conditioner was on in the house, her body temperature hadn’t leveled yet from frantically questioning her parents as to their behavior when she introduced her company to them. Approaching her parents’ bedroom en route to the kitchen, she heard what sounded like screaming coming from behind the double doors. She knew it wasn’t polite to eavesdrop, but she felt that hearing what her parents were saying behind closed doors would give her some insight into why they reacted the way they did. She crept slowly to the doors and pressed her right ear to the right door. Anxiety was building in her, and she could hear the loud thumping of her heartbeat in her ear, so she took a deep breath to even her breathing; she leaned in closer to the door.
“I knew this would happen!” Margaret screamed.
“Shhh,” Ed hushed his wife as she paced the cherry hardwood floors, “keep your voice down, they might hear us. We all knew the truth would come out eventually, we’ve just never known how to tell her, how it would come out. Especially not like this.”
“Like what? It hasn’t come out yet, but we have to tell her Ed before she makes the biggest mistake of her life. Honey, if we would’ve told her years ago, we could’ve prevented this chaos.” Margaret said as she cupped her face and finally sat on the edge of the bed.
“We never thought that Allison would have more kids, let alone remain here in Dayton.”
“I had an eerie feeling a year later after the adoption was final, and I saw Allison at the store,” Margaret pronounced as she jumped to her feet.
“Try to calm down, sweetie. What made seeing her at the store eerie?
“She was pregnant, Ed! Pregnant! How could a woman who begged us to raise her child as our own because she didn’t want to and couldn’t afford to be a parent end up pregnant again within a year?”
“We can’t worry ourselves with why Allison had another child, we can only figure out a way to break the news to Jennifer and in a hurry.”
“How can we tell our little girl that she is not really ours? How do I tell her that all of the stories I shared with her about her birth were lies? You know we’ve taught her to value family, so how will she react when she finds out that her family has been lying to her? How do we tell her that the man she is in love with and plans to marry is actually her biological brother?” Margaret commenced pacing the floor again.
“I don’t know, sweetie, but I know that we have to.” Ed stopped his wife’s pacing and held her.
Jennifer always hated those paper-thin walls as she was growing up when she talked to her friends on the phone. Those same paper-thin walls allowed her to hear the most devastating news of her life--she was in love with her brother.
Written Circa September 2012
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