Colleen – chapter 03 – part-10

Christopher never took his eyes off of Patricia as he walked over to give her the corsage. It was a small flower on a wrist band and after he slid it on he lightly kissed the back of her hand. He leaned forward and put his lips next to her ears. I was the only one close enough to hear him whisper, “I’m glad it’s you.”

Christopher and Patricia suddenly realized that they weren’t the only people in the room. Chris had a slightly embarrassed look as he asked, “I completely forgot…Dad, is it ok if I borrow your car tonight?”

Patricia took a hold of Chris’ hand and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry; transportation is all part of the package. C’mon Brigid, let’s show the guys what we’re taking.”

Chris and Keith had confused looks as their smiling dates pulled them out the front door. The rest of us followed and the small crowd stood on the front porch looking towards the street. There parked at the curb was Mike’s band new silver Mercedes Benz.

The Mercedes was Mike’s pride and joy. He was fanatical about the car; he valued it second in his life right after his family and just ahead of his business. Colleen and I were surprised that he had let Patricia take it for the weekend. It was later the next week that Sharon told us she and Patricia had worked on Mike for three solid days before he collapsed from the pressure and allowed his daughter to take the car.

We used a whole roll of film taking pictures of the two couples and as Colleen was reloading the camera, Christopher spoke up.

“Mom…enough…we need to go.”

The two couples went down the porch steps and when they reached the car, Patricia gave her best friend Christopher a hug and handed him the keys as she slipped into the passenger’s seat. He was grinning from ear to ear when he slid behind the wheel. He leaned over and kissed Patricia on the cheek and started the car; in the backseat, Brigid was leaning against Keith who had his arm around her shoulders. As they pulled away from the curb to go to the prom, the only words to describe to the expression on Keith and Christopher’s faces was “idiot grin.”

Patricia and Brigid looked pretty happy also.

We watched them move down the street and I asked Colleen, “are you sure this is the right thing for them to do?”

Colleen gave me the smile that always melts my heart then slid her arm around my waist and said, “Yes Bobby, this is exactly the right thing for them…all of them.”

Later that night after Colleen and I had gone to bed, I was awoken by a noise in another part of the house. As I got out of bed I looked at the clock and saw that it was 12:30. I walked down the hall toward the light that was coming from the kitchen then stopped at the doorway and peeked in.

The four kids were sitting at the kitchen table in their prom dresses and tuxedos. The table was strewn with sodas and chips and they were engrossed in playing our battered copy of the board game “Chutes and Ladders” that someone had dug out. They were using it as an excuse to talk and laugh and I suspect they were having more fun here in our kitchen than they did at the prom. Chris was seated on the same side of the table as Patricia and I could see them holding hands under the table.

I started to stick my head in and say hello but thought better of it and went back to bed without disturbing their fun.

The next morning Colleen and I were in the hall headed to the kitchen when we passed Chris’s bedroom. His door was partially open and we looked in to check on him. He was lying face down with one leg sticking out from under the covers and his arm hanging limp off the side of the bed. Colleen smiled then turned to the door across the hall. She opened it and we looked in. Brigid was in her bed and Patricia was sleeping in Molly’s bed. The contrast between the two rooms couldn’t have been any greater. Christopher’s room looked as if a small piece of military ordinance had been detonated in his bed. Brigid and Patricia’s beds looked liked the sheets had just come back from the laundry, freshly starched and pressed.

When Colleen went into the kitchen to start the coffee, I went into the livingroom. An unconscious Keith was sprawled on the couch, covered in a blanket, his tuxedo crumpled on the floor.

For the rest of the weekend the four of them were inseparable. Colleen helped Brigid and Patricia pack a big lunch for a picnic out by the river. Christopher and Patricia stayed next to one another the entire day, so close that daylight could not pass between them, never letting go of each other’s hand. Brigid and Keith showed no signs they would even consider being separated from each other for longer than five minutes.

Late in the afternoon, Colleen fixed a pot of tea and she and I took our cups out onto the back deck to relax. Keith had recently learned to juggle and was standing at the bottom of the steps entertaining the rest of them. Brigid was sitting at the bottom giving him words of encouragement and laughing at the jokes he made as he dropped the red rubber balls every thirty seconds. Christopher and Patricia were sitting on the top step, her arm hooked through his, watching but not commenting.

There is one genetic trait that is visible in all of the O’Conner women. It is obviously embedded in the X chromosome because it shows up in Mom and her daughter and all eleven of her granddaughters.

It is the smile.

It would be more accurate to classify it as a half smile, pushed slightly to the left side of the face. Even though it is barely discernible to the eye, the contentment that flows out of it can be felt on the other side of the river.

This was the smile that was on Patricia’s face as she rested her head on Christopher’s shoulder.

The next day after church, Brigid and Patricia had to return to Santa Teresa and start their final push to finish the semester at UCST. Frank and Linda, and Colleen and I were standing on the front porch and made our good byes to the girls then Chris and Keith walked the girls down to the sidewalk. We couldn’t hear what they were saying but this good bye was taking much longer than ours.

Finally they couldn’t put it off any longer. Chris gave his sister a quick hug and said something that made her laugh. And then Patricia…

Christopher and Patricia held on to each other with an intensity and desperation that was difficult to describe but was very plain to see. The kiss was long and slow and you could see that they didn’t want to let go.

There was one last wave good bye and the car pulled away from the curb. Chris and Keith stood and watched the car as it rolled down the street. You could visibly see their bodies slowly slump as the fact that the girls were leaving began to sink in. They stood watching long after the car had turned the corner and was no longer in sight.

They turned and looked at each other, both at a loss for words. Finally Keith spoke.

“Hey, I have to take the car to school in the morning. I can give you a ride if you think you can drag your ass out the door by 7:30.”

“Sounds good, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Keith turned and walked back to his house. Chris walked into our house and I doubt that he even knew we were standing there as he went past. He spent the rest of the day in his room with the door closed, only coming out for dinner.

On the second Friday in September that year we loaded everything that he needed into Colleen’s minivan and moved Christopher into the dorm room that he would be sharing with his buddy Keith the day before freshman orientation at UC Santa Teresa. Once that was done, Chris was very patient with his mother but was giving visual cues that it was time for his parents to head for the door so that he could get on with the business of starting college.

I had taken the following week off and we planned to casually drive up the coast toward San Francisco, stopping when we got tired and have a quiet non structured vacation. But first we stopped and had lunch with Mom and Harold before going back home to pack. Just as we were finishing up, Mom looked at us with a thoughtful expression.

“Now that Christopher is out of the house, will you two be able stand all that quietness?”

Slowly the impact of what Mom had just said began to dawn on me. It had been twenty-one years since I first came to San Miguel and moved in with Colleen and the girls. In all of that time Colleen and I had never experienced a time where she and I were alone for any extended period of time. Now for the first time in our lives we had the opportunity to be alone, to focus on just ourselves and not anyone else. No more driving the taxi to soccer practice or cello lessons…just Colleen and I…alone…together.

I was contemplating this thought, causing my heart rate to go up when Colleen snapped her fingers in front of my face to get my attention.

“Bobby, we need to get going, there’s a lot stuff we need to take care of this afternoon.”

I was glad Colleen had been able to cut the lunch short and graciously get us on the road to San Miguel. As we pulled away from Mom’s house I asked Colleen, “Exactly what is it we have to do this afternoon?”

Colleen’s brown eyes were shining and the grin was spread across her face as she leaned over and whispered in my ear.

“You, dear husband, are going to get into my panties.”

We were half a block from the house when Colleen reached up under her skirt and began wiggling her hips as she worked her panties down her legs. She pulled them off of her feet and left them lying on the floorboard as the car came to a stop in the driveway, tires squealing and brakes screeching. Throwing the doors open we got out of the car and she said. “Jesus Bobby, we could have been here a lot sooner if you didn’t drive like an old lady.”

Under normal conditions, the drive time from Mom’s house to our house is one hour and five minutes.

Today I had done it in forty-six minutes.

We held hands as we raced up the steps to the front door. Colleen was grabbing at my belt as I fumbled around trying to get my key into the lock. When I finally got the door open, Colleen pulled me inside by the waist band of my pants as I kicked the door closed behind me. She was frantically shoving my pants down my legs as she went over backwards, pulling me on top of her.

My cock was buried to the hilt in Colleen’s cunt before her ass hit the floor.

Ten minutes later we were both screaming “OH FUCK OH GOD SWEET JESUS YES!” as we exploded in orgasm.

I will admit, and proudly so, that we went just a little bit crazy. We were alone and didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing us scream or grunt in ecstasy. Over the course of the next four days we went at each other like a couple of demented rabbits. We didn’t put any clothes on until I went back to work the following Monday. Luckily we had food in the house and didn’t need to go out.

We fucked.

There is no polite way to say it.

We fucked.

We fucked all over the house.

We fucked in every room of the house, all of the rooms more than twice including the laundry room, the kitchen pantry, and most of the closets. Down and dirty, nasty, screaming, grunting, sweaty, belly slapping against belly fucking. After it got dark on Tuesday night, I grabbed Colleen by the wrist and pulled her out the backdoor.

“Where are we going?”

“The garage, it’s the only place where we haven’t done it yet.”

“Ok, but hurry up before Linda turns on the porch light.”

We were buck naked, holding hands as we raced across the backyard headed to the side door of the garage. Once we were finished in the garage, we raced back into the house and collapsed on the bed in exhaustion. We were both unconscious for eighteen hours before we woke up. For the rest of the week it was nothing but sweet, gentle, softly making love. Always caressing, always touching.

We never did make it to San Francisco that week.

There was one thing that had worried us over the years. We knew at some point, the kids would learn that Colleen and I were brother and sister. But to protect them we wanted to control the time and circumstances of when they were told. Because of the age gap between Meghan and Molly and then Noelle, Brigid and Chris, we decided to do it in two phases after they were in college.

The first phase was in the fall after Molly started her freshman year of college. Mom helped us by having them to lunch at her house and then she and Harold withdrew to another room near by so that Colleen and I could talk to the girls in private. We were talking in circles around the fact when I finally got to the point and told them straight out that their parents were brother and sister. When I finished talking, Meghan and Molly sat impassively looking at us with that contented half smile on their faces.

Meghan’s smile got a little bit bigger when she said, “We already knew that. We wondered if you were ever going to talk to us about it.”

“How did you know?”

“Oh come on Dad. When you came here from Chicago, we were little kids, we weren’t idiots. Besides, Aunt Sharon and Aunt Mi Lin told us.”

“WHAT! When was this? Why did they do that?”

This time it was Molly who spoke.

“Right after I started high school. And they didn’t want to tell us, we kind of forced them to. We knew there was something about our parents that we didn’t understand so we just kept asking until they told us.”

“How did you feel after you found out?”

“Aunt Mi Lin helped us the most with that. She asked us two questions. Did we think you and mom loved us any less than someone else could because you were bother and sister? And did we love you guys any less now that we knew? The answer to both questions was no. No one could love us as much as you two and if it’s possible, we loved you even more.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment when Meghan asked, “When are you going to tell the others?”

Colleen answered, “We’ll wait until Chris is in college. We want them to be old enough to be able to cope with news like this.”

“When it’s time to do that, wait until Molly and I can be there. We want to help them understand.” She paused for a moment. “Hey, with news like this aren’t we supposed to get lemon meringue pie?”

Mom and Harold came back into the room to ask what we were laughing about.

Now that the other three were in college, it was time to talk to Noelle, Brigid and Christopher. Meghan and Molly came down for the weekend to be there when their brother and sisters would need them the most.

To say that they were stunned would be an understatement. The three of them sat, not moving, their eyes wide and mouths open. Meghan and Molly began talking to them telling them everything they knew, sharing how they felt and what everything meant to them in their lives. The three kept shifting their attention from Meghan and Molly to Colleen and I then back to their older sisters.

At last they were silent and Christopher realized the others were staring at him. He sat up straight and looked at the gang of four and said, “I’m sorry girls, it’s just not going to happen.”

It was Noelle who snorted, “You wished it would happen.”

Now that the bother and sister thing was out of the way, Colleen and I had to tell them the rest of the story. I think the three of them were more astounded to find out that I was not Meghan and Molly’s biological father than they were by the news about Colleen and I. The news that Colleen and I had both been married before sent all five of them reeling. Even Meghan and Molly didn’t know about Barbara and I told that story very quickly with out giving them any of the harsh facts. Without commenting, they sensed that it was a painful period in my life and didn’t press for any details.

The last part was telling them about Bill. Over the years Meghan and Molly had never asked about him and had forgotten that it was another man who had given them half of their DNA. Curiously it was Noelle and Brigid who asked all the questions for their older sisters, gently drawing out bits and pieces of information from Colleen and I to paint a picture of their father.

We told them how Bill was such a good friend to me, how much he and Colleen loved each other and how his death nearly destroyed Colleen.

The five of them were in a group hug when Chris looked at his sisters then his parents and with a soft smile said, “Good lord, what kind of family was I born into?”

Our children are normal every day, run of the mill kids, no different than most other kids. There were times when I felt that I could strangle them and no jury in the world would convict me. And then there are the times that they will commit an act of such rare beauty and sensitivity that it brings tears to our eyes at the memory of it.

Early the next morning after “the talk” Noelle, Brigid and Christopher left the house before Colleen and I came out of the bedroom. Meghan and Molly were up but had no idea where they had gone. We assumed they had gone off somewhere to be alone and talk things through for themselves.

The three of them came back right after lunch. They rushed into their rooms to change and get cleaned up. They were only at the house about ten minutes when they grabbed Meghan and Molly, loaded them into the car and took off again without telling us where they were going.

Several hours later they returned and Meghan and Molly came through the front door and rushed over with tears to hug Colleen and I. They were both so emotional that it took a lot for their mother and I to get the story out of them.

It was Christopher’s idea but Noelle and Brigid immediately jumped on board when he presented his plan. When they left the house that morning, they drove to the cemetery where Bill is buried. There was no one around so it took them a while to find his grave. Once they found it, they spent a long time cleaning up around it, pulling out the weeds the cemetery workers missed and trimming the grass away from the grave marker. In this cemetery there are no headstones, only rectangular bronze markers that lay flat on the ground. They went to a hardware store and came back with a can of Brasso and some rags. The three of them spent the next hour carefully cleaning and polishing the marker until it literally glowed in the sunlight.

When they were done, they came home to get Meghan and Molly and took them to the cemetery. The three had already bought flowers so the only thing that Meghan and Molly had to do was to place them in the container that was waiting by the marker for the man that had given them life. Noelle, Brigid and Christopher had done this out of love for their older sisters and to honor the memory of someone who meant so much to their parents.

During Christopher’s first semester at college, he started to struggle in his freshman English class. For our five kids, struggling meant that they were getting a B+ instead of an A. So Chris turned to the most logical place to get help.

Patricia had just gotten her teaching credential from UCST that spring and was starting her first year teaching English at a junior high. She had taken an apartment two blocks from Chris’s dorm so he began going to her for extra tutoring.

Mom and Harold, plus Mike and Jimmy all had our kids over for dinner at various times during the school year so they wouldn’t feel so isolated being away from home, even if it was only an hour away. It was Mike who told us about Patricia and Christopher spending most of their free time together and that she and Chris were practically joined at the hip.

As soon as Mike said this, alarm bells began ringing in my head.

I looked at Colleen but she only gave me that half smile and stroked the back of my hand as she whispered in my ear.

“Don’t worry Bobby, it’s the right thing.”

Christopher was getting his Bachelor of Science in structural engineering. Every waking moment was spent studying and the classes he had to take his last year were the most difficult of the degree program. Because he needed a more quite study environment than he could possibly get in the dorms, he looked for somewhere else to live. We were not at all surprised when he told us that Patricia had invited him to move into her apartment for his senior year. She had a spare bedroom and it was still close to campus and the library.

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