Chapter 3: Maid in America
San Jose, California, June 30, 1995 (Five years later)

Heather was seething as we left the theater. “We absolutely shouldn’t have bought tickets. I knew we’d regret it.”

“I don’t know,” I said, mostly to be oppositional. “It had its humorous moments.”

“Humor?” She looked at me, her expression a mixture of aghast and appalled. Aghalled, maybe?

“Sure. I mean, the implication that Wallace was the father of Edward III is pretty funny if you think about it, since it would have required Edward’s mom to get pregnant at age 10 and carry the baby for around seven years before giving birth.”

“What?”

“Especially since she didn’t even leave the continent until years after Wallace died. An immaculate conception, maybe?”

She shot me a still-more appalled look, which I hadn’t even thought was possible. “How can you even say such a thing! She was French.”

“Well, yeah.” I was goading her and I knew it, but it was a habit I just couldn’t bring myself to resist.

“And while we’re on the subject, where did Wallace get off sacking York?”

“Maybe he pulled a permit?”

“It absolutely did not happen.”

“Poetic license. Don’t take it personally.”

“I’m from York, you bumbling colonial! Of course I take it personally!”

I unlocked her car door and opened it for her. “Can we go back to where we were discussing the improbability of French chastity?”

“The entire movie was absurd, from start to finish,” she shot back as she got her seatbelt fastened. “Stupid idea.”

Shutting her door and walking around the car to the driver’s side gave me the time I needed to compose my response. “I didn’t suggest we see it.”

“You didn’t talk me out of it, either!”

“I assumed you were looking forward to seeing a Scotsman get hung, drawn and quartered.”

“Well . . . that part was pretty good. But the rest of it? Heroic Scots?” She made a noise that is difficult to transcribe. It sounded a bit like “Phhhhghts,” and it was about what you would expect from a Yorkshire girl, under the circumstances.

“You know, you’ve all been one happy country for a few centuries. Maybe it’s time to let it go, don’t you think?”

She glared at me. “Says the man whose country is still fighting the Civil War.”

“Yeah, but that’s just a hundred thirty-some years ago.”

“Your whole nation, such as it is, is barely more than two centuries old!”

We continued in this vein for several miles as we drove past campus and found our way to the apartment we shared. It was familiar terrain, since we’d been together for five years now.

I still wasn’t sure how that had happened.

After my year at Leeds, I’d finished my BS back home and gotten accepted at Stanford in the Electrical Engineering/Computer Sciences Laboratory PhD program. Before I knew it, Heather came over to visit and stayed with me in my apartment. Somehow, she never got around to leaving.

She was still fuming about dastardly Scots and the idiot Americans who love them when we arrived at our quite modest apartment. Upon entering, she stalked back to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable, while I went to the fridge to see what might be handy.

“Luigi Litton!!!”

The tone of her voice was enough to bring my foraging to a halt.

She stormed back from the bedroom, waving a really lovely red bra like it was the Oriflamme of St. Denis. “Haven’t I told you – haven’t I been very clear – that you are never to borrow my underwear?”

“Well, in fairness, you do get some pretty nice shit,” I said, placatingly.

“I am – you must agree – a truly remarkable woman. A thoroughly modern, exceptionally tolerant woman.” In a tone of pure menace, she added, “Wouldn’t you say so?”

“Well, sure . . . .”

“One of the rare women who would have no issue with her fiance parading around in suspenders, knickers, and a bra.”

“We aren’t actually –”

“Don’t interrupt me! What’s your band size?”

“Thirty-eight,” I confessed.

“And what, pray tell, is my band size?”

“Thirty-four.”

“The difference between the two being?”

Math, at least, was my strong suit. Well, one of them. “Four inches, technically.”

“Four inches! Do you know what happens when you stick a thirty-four inch band on a thirty-eight inch moron?”

“He looks cute?”

She made a sound like a buzzer. “Ehhhhh! Wrong! Incorrect! Not cute! Never cute!” Affecting a bad Italian accent, by way of the Nintendo bastards from Japan, she added, “Baby Weejie, Number: Not one!”

Swear to God, if I ever make it in the video game world, I’m going to create a thoroughly obnoxious, but insidiously memorable, character and name it after Nintendo’s founder. It will be so bad that no-one will give their children his name, not until fifty generations have passed!

I couldn’t let Heather know how much I detested Mario Kart or she’d use it even more. We had that kind of relationship. “I’m a weener,” I replied, mimicking the line the Luigi character uses when he, err, wins.

She gave me an arch look. “Well, about that, actually . . . .”

“Now, now, let’s not get personal.” I may not be He-Man, but my equipment is fully functional!

“A red lace La Perla bra is quite personal, don’t you think? I rather imagine it’s why they call them ‘intimates.’”

“I can think of more plausible reasons,” I smirked.

She whacked me with her delectable delicates. “Enough! I had a special prezzy for you, and now I think I shall send it back!”

Heather had a talent for finding truly naughty presents, but puppy-dog eyes weren’t going to get me out of this dog house. “I apologize.”

“Specifically?”

Yeah, she was pissed in the American sense of the word. “I’m sorry I borrowed your bra, Heather.”

“And . . . ?”

“And I won’t borrow it again?”

Whack! “Try again, Weej — you’ve already wrecked this one!”

I swallowed. “I won’t borrow your other bras?”

“Good start. And you’ll buy me a new one?”

“Well, I mean . . . I bought that one, didn’t I?” Heather didn’t have any income, far as I knew. I’d probably bought the present she was talking about, too.

Whack! “Not the point, Princess!”

“I’ll buy you another one.”

“A better one?”

“There are better ones?”

Whack. “There are always better ones, silly.”

Ah, the joys of being a woman! “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I’ll buy you a better bra.”

“And you promise you won’t wear it?”

I hesitated just an instant too long, earning another whack from the lacy La Perla. “I promise I won’t wear it,” I said hastily. Maybe too hastily. A promise made under threat of physical violence isn’t enforceable, is it?

She gave me a long, skeptical look before relenting. “Fine, then. You shall have your prezzie after all — it’s laid out on the bed. You might as well have this too.” She handed me her erstwhile weapon of choice.

“Laid out on the bed” sounded promising, so I took my new bra and headed that way with a smile I was careful not to share with Heather.

Oh, she is a naughty girl, I thought, as my eyes caressed the French Maid’s outfit she’d found for me. Now I remember why I enjoy her company! In a trice — whatever the hell that is — I had divested myself of my boring male attire and fully engaged in the serious business of transforming into a sexy, submissive slut.

Black silk stockings, and a black lace garter belt . . . I ignored the black panties, though, and purloined the red pair that went with the La Perla bra. Can’t break up the set, after all. Crinolines to fluff out the micro skirt of the black dress with the tight sleeves and deeply scooped neckline, white lace at the collar and on the little square at the front of the skirt. Four-inch black patent heels and a pill-box hat . . . . I’m in heaven. Or Nirvana, or something!

It took me a bit to do something interesting with my hair and makeup, but I didn’t want to keep Heather waiting too long. God knows what she’d get up to with free time on her hands. I made my way back to the living area, schooling my walk and my expression into something suitably meek.

Heather was sitting on the couch in a pose of studied nonchalance, legs crossed at the knee, her bare right foot waving back and forth. “Oh, there you are. What took you?”

I clutched my skirt with both hands, did my best curtsy — it needed work, but I was eager to practice! — and murmured, “Sorry, ma’am. No excuses, ma’am.”

Her eyes gleamed wickedly at my little display. “I should think not. Come here, girl!”

I minced over and stood directly in front of her, keeping my eyes downcast.

“Give us a spin, now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, mild as a newborn lamb, and gave her a slow twirl.

“Hmm,” she humphed. “A competent initial effort, I suppose. You should practice. But just at the moment, I need my toenails painted. Chop, chop, now!”

I spent the next fifteen delightful minutes on my knees, my legs tight together and my pantied butt hovering just above my silk-encased ankles, tending to Heather’s toenails — which, in all honesty, needed a bit of tending. It wasn’t a maid’s place to say “tsk, tsk,” but I surely thought it . . . when I wasn’t entertaining far more interesting thoughts and making them as welcome as a rich John in a high-priced bordello.

My unorthodox fantasies were rudely interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. “That’ll be the pizza,” Heather said. She pulled a pair of bills from her purse, made a roll, then leaned forward and tucked them into my bra, barely concealed by the bodice of the uniform. “Get that, would you?”

Frozen in disbelief, I gave her a look of pure horror. “But . . . I can’t . . . .”

She made her “phhhhghts” noise again. “My nails are still sticky. Besides, it’s just some kid you’ll never see again.”

“Palo Alto isn’t New York City!”

She raised an imperious eyebrow, which served to remind me of my current lowly state. Deliciously lowly state, for certain specific purposes, but still. “Serves you right for ruining my best bra,” she humphed. “Now handle it, missy!”

I rose from my kneeling position and reluctantly made my way to the door, steeling myself for the reaction I was sure to get from Domino Dude. Now I remember why Heather and I aren’t engaged. Witch. But she was right, really. Why should I care what a delivery boy thinks?

The bell rang again, twice, just as I reached the door and yanked it open. . . . “Mom!”

And there she was, long-suffering look and all, carrying a dish of lasagna large enough for the entire 101st Airborne. “Good evening, dear,” she said with a sigh. “Give me a hand with this, would you?”

She handed me the dish and breezed past. “Hello, Heather. Don’t you look nice tonight. I love that color on your toenails!”

A very startled Heather started to get up, but Mom waved her back. “No, no! I can see they’re still drying!” She bent over and bussed Heather’s cheeks with audible “smacks.”

“We weren’t expecting you tonight,” Heather managed, covering her discomfort at the cross-channel invasion of her English space.

“Yes, I can see that,” Mom observed, casting a look in my direction. “Luigi, darling, I’d hoped you’d outgrow all of that once your father was no longer alive to torment.”

I decided it was time to stop gaping like a beached guppy and get in the game. “The priest said he’d be looking down on us from heaven.”

Mom crossed herself piously. “He’s a holy man, Father Caspian, but don’t believe everything he says. I think he makes a lot of it up.”

I nodded in agreement. “All that stuff he told us about water getting turned into wine seemed a bit like wish-casting. That man does like him some grape.”

“Don’t be snide, dear. If you’re going to dress like that, why don’t you set the table.”

“And get your mum and I a glass of wine,” Heather added sweetly. “There’s a good girl.”

I put the lasagna pan down on the dining room table before the weight of it permanently damaged my arms and clip-clipped my way to the kitchen, grinding my teeth silently and trying to think of something witty to say. But it’s hard to pull off insouciant when dressed like a cherry tart.

Best to just roll with it.

I poured two generous glasses of Greco Bianco — Palo Alto sported some good wine shops — and put them on a tray. Might as well do it right. Then I carried the tray over and bent my knees to offer glasses to the women, now facing each other on opposite sides of the big couch like opposing duelists at dawn. “Your wine, ma’am. Ma’am.”

They selected their pistols from the proffered tray, but otherwise ignored me. “Are those horrid realtor people still bothering you, Mrs. Litton?” Heather asked.

“Nonstop! They seem to think my little bungalow will be worth something.”

“Conventional wisdom suggests God isn’t making more real estate,” Heather observed.

Mom had to think about that one before waving it off. “I’m sure that’s right. But if they think it’s going to be worth more soon, maybe I should just sit on it for a while so that I get the benefit, don’t you think?”

I thought about what the nascent tech boom was doing to housing prices in the San Jose Area – what people were starting to call the “Silicon Valley,” and opined, “good thinking, Mom.”

“Seen and not heard, missy!” Heather said sternly, before returning her attention to my mother. “It takes ages to train the help properly!”

Mom played right along, damn her. “I can certainly see that. Heavens, she didn’t even do her nails! Anyhow, as I was saying . . . I think I’ll sit tight for now. Matteo was up just last week; he agrees completely.”

Why she would listen to Uncle Matteo, who was a fine hand with the butcher’s knife he wielded at the meat department of Vons, rather than the son who actually knew something about property values in our area, was beyond me. I wobbled on my right heel and scrambled to avoid dropping the plates I’d pulled from the cabinet. Maybe not entirely beyond me, I thought with a rueful grimace.

Once I had the table set with plates, silverware, napkins, glasses of cold water, and appropriate serving utensils, I said, “all set.”

Heather gave me a look of pure disbelief.

With an internal sigh I was careful not to display, I walked the ten feet to where she was sitting and gave her another curtsy. “Dinner is served, ma’am.”

My mother rose first and smiled. “He’s much more polite this way, Heather. I can’t say I’m wild about the look, honestly, but . . . clearly there’s a plus side.”

Heather did her best to stand with feline grace, which . . . not bad, all things considered. She gave my cheek a double tap. “Still a work in progress, but we’ll get there.”

When she got to the table, however, her demeanor changed. “What’s this?” Her tone was icy.

“Dinner? Uh . . . ma’am?”

“Is there a reason – some shred of an explanation – for why you set the table for three?”

I saw my mistake and cursed myself. She’s going to play this for all it’s worth! “No ma’am. I’m sorry ma’am.”

Mom was having almost as much fun as Heather. “Clear it away this instant!” She tried to sound stern, but couldn’t suppress a giggle.

I pulled the third place setting as they seated themselves. Unsure what to do, I retrieved the wine bottle, poured a bit more into each of their glasses, and unobtrusively retreated about five steps back into the kitchen. It wasn’t a huge apartment.

Mom and Heather continued to chat — pleasantly, to all appearances. Or, make that, to most appearances. Anytime the two of them were in the same room together, a certain sparring always seemed to be taking place, just below the surface.

They were, this time, content to ignore my presence. Until, that is, the doorbell rang again, because of course it did. Heather just shot me a look.

What the hell, I thought, resigned to my fate. I’ll never live the day down anyway. I walked over to the door and opened it, to the intense amusement of the Pizza delivery guy. He was on the rugged, scruffy side and probably wasn’t any younger than me.

“Who is it, missy?” Heather called out.

Turning my now flaming red face back toward the table, I said, “Pizza delivery. Ma’am.”

“Goodness! I’d completely forgotten! We have so much food already . . . why don’t you ask if he’ll join us?”

My eyes closed briefly as I turned back to the doorway. Yep. I’ve made the guy’s list, and he’s checking me twice . . . . “We had an unexpected delivery of food. Would you care to have some lasagna before you go?” My eyes pleaded with him to say “no.”

The message failed to transmit, or — more likely — his receptors were overloaded with other stimuli. I guess the opportunity was just too good to pass up. “Sure!” he enthused. “But . . . I gotta deliver the pizza. Or at least collect for it.” He stepped past me into the room, looking around for some place to put the big square box.

I took it from him. “Right this way,” I ground out, leading him to the table.

“Hey, thanks! This smells just like my mom used to make!” He was eyeing the lasagna longingly.

Mom stood and beamed. “It’s a family recipe! Please, come in, come in!”

You’d think it was HER place.

“You’re Italian?” he asked, as if her hair, her face, and her cooking required any additional evidence to complete the picture. You expected smarts from the Pizza Boy?

“My family is from Calabria,” Mom said. Her pride in this fact was as evident as it was strange. I mean, seriously. Tens of thousands of people shook the dust of Calabria from their shoes when they fled the bad times, and they’d been assiduous ever since at obeying biblical injunctions on fruitfulness and multiplicity. Might as well have imported loaves and fishes.

“I’m Luke,” he said, sticking his hand out for my mother to pump enthusiastically. “My family’s from Naples.”

“Well,” she said, trying to come up with something polite to say.

“You poor dear,” Heather supplied, rising in turn and extending a graceful hand.

Luke took it, and seemed disinclined to let it go. “No, really, it’s great. Everything about Italy is great. Pizza! Art! History!”

“History, like ‘Caligula,’ or history like ‘Mussolini?’” I asked.

Pizza Boy looked baffled. “Huh?”

Mom gave me The Look and directed me, naturally, to set another place for our unexpected “guest.” “Sit! Sit!” she implored him.

Luke finally released Heather’s hand – the dog! – and took a seat. I bussed about getting him a place setting and bent to put it in front of him.

“Eeep!”

“You have something to say, missy?” Heather asked.

“No ma’am. Nothing, ma’am.” I was disinclined to tell them that Luke’s hand had wandered under the back of my skirt to give my rump a pinch. I scurried back to the kitchen.

Luke helped himself to an enormous slice of lasagna and dug in with a degree of relish that could not have been better calculated to win my mother’s heart. Heather and Mom kept him company, probably matching a small forkful for every three truckloads he shoveled into his face.

“Would you like a bit of wine with that?” Mom asked him.

He looked conflicted for a tenth of a second before succumbing to temptation. “Just a little one, maybe,” he said. “I still have to make deliveries tonight.”

Heather snapped her fingers, and I knew it was my cue. Another glass on the table, and I began to pour. This time, I managed to give no sign when I felt his fingers tickle my ass.

He managed to finish in five minutes flat. “Sorry; I gotta get back. But thanks for this, it’s been great.” Again, he took Heather’s hand, this time in both of his. “Really, really great!”

“Delighted,” she demurred.

At Heather’s request – well, command, really – I escorted Luke to the door. “Don’t forget to pay him, Missy,” Heather sang out.

You. Are. Such. A. Witch!

As I reached into my decolletage and pulled out the payment for the pizza, I’m sure my poor excuse for a blush — olive skin, you know — stretched to below my skimpy skirt. “Here you are, sir,” I said, desperate to have this over with.

He leaned in close to take it. “Are you free after work?” he whispered.

My eyes went wide. The guy must think he was dropped into a wet dream! “No, sir,” I said, careful to keep my voice low. “Mistress is very strict.” Damn, Weej! Just how did “low” manage to slip into “sultry?” WTF?

He looked crestfallen. “Can I have your number?”

“Forty-two,” I husked, closing the door on his puzzled face.

“Was he trying to pick you up there?” Heather inquired, dabbing her lips with a napkin.

“Umm.” There wasn’t anything wrong with Heather’s hearing. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Did you give him your number, then?” With charity for none, and malice toward Luigi . . . .

I decided a bit of subtle, but servile, defiance would serve her right. “Yes, ma’am,” I said brightly.

It didn’t work. “A threesome might be fun.”

The idea both surprised and unnerved me. It . . . might be?

That, however, was a bridge too far even for my Mom. “You see, Luigi? There are consequences to dressing like that! Being a woman isn’t all fun and games!”

“I might have missed something,” I responded, “but fun and games seemed to be his main area of interest.”

“Luigi!”

“Mom!”

She slapped her hand on the table. “I want you to stop the foolishness. All of it. You are my only child and I’m not getting any younger. I would like to live long enough to play with my grandchildren!”

“Mom, please. Your mother is still alive. Your grandmother is still alive. It’s not like you’re living on borrowed time!”

“You never know,” she said darkly. “There was your father, cut down in the prime of life!”

“By cirrhosis of the liver.”

“That means organ failure.”

“No, Mom, it means he handed the Angel of Death a scythe and frickin' dared him to take a swing.”

“Still.”

Heather was watching the byplay with amusement, like someone with seats at Wimbledon’s center court. Being English, she seemed disinclined to let loose with cheering when one side or the other scored a point. This was actually a tactical error on her part; regardless of the merits of her arguments, my Mom would nonetheless expect vocal — even voluble— support.

Not hearing it, Mom changed tactics. “You need to settle down. I don’t know about this woman,” she indicated Heather with the lift of her head, causing “this woman” to bridle in a most satisfactory way, “but she’ll probably do. What are you waiting for?”

“True love?” That response wasn’t going to win me any brownie points, but I was more than a little miffed with Heather anyhow.

Her expression didn’t disappoint.

Once launched, Mom tends to extend attacks across a wide and shifting front, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when she followed her first sally with something completely different. “Also, you’re being stupid about family. You know how I feel about that.”

“I do recall you were generally against stupidity.”

“You should get back to your uncle,” she said, ignoring my attempted diversion. “The, whatsits. You know, the discount.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed. “Discount?”

Mom waved her hand, annoyed at herself. “That wasn’t it, but —”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Why not? He’s invited you to visit. Said you could stay for as long as you like. Read between the lines! He has no children. No heirs. You could get all of it.”

“I don’t want it.” There. I'd said it.

Mom looked baffled. Heather, interestingly, looked not only baffled, but . . . angry?

Mom was first out the gate. “You used to talk about it all the time!”

“That was just to annoy Father.”

“But you said —”

“Looking down from heaven. I know. I was just teasing, Mom.”

“It’s land. An estate. A . . . a title. Imagine!”

“As you can tell,” I said, fluffing my little black skirt, “I have a vivid imagination. But I’ve been there, Mom. It’s . . . I mean. Really. I don’t know why anyone would want it. This is where things are happening.”

She gave my modest apartment a look that spoke volumes. “Here? Really?”

“Yes, here!” I actually stamped my foot, which must have looked cute as all get out. Not exactly the tone you’re looking for, Luigi! “Here in Palo Alto! We’re remaking the world, Mom. Castles and manors and all that nonsense . . . it’s yesterday. It’s medieval. No-one in their right mind wants it!”

Mom was stunned into silence. I mean, she probably would have expected a speech like that from Father – on the rare occasions when he was sober – but not from me.

Heather, on the other hand, rose to her full height, angrier than I could ever recall seeing her. “Luigi Giovanni Litton,” she said, her voice low and bitter, “do you mean to say you were offered the Viscount’s title and turned it down?”

“What? No! I . . . .” My mind whirled. “What do you even know about that? I never said anything!”

“You are such an infant,” she scoffed. “I knew the day you insisted we visit that old castle rather than go down to London. Information on the peerage isn’t exactly secret.”

“Okay . . . so what? I’m not interested. What’s it to you?”

“Suppose I’m interested! Don’t I matter, too?”

“What?” This was so completely out of left field I couldn’t even formulate a response. We aren’t married. We aren’t even engaged!

She walked over to where I was perched in my four-inch heels and stood two inches from my face. “You will call your uncle, apologize for being rude, and accept his invitation.”

What the hell? “I will not!”

“You do as I say, ‘Missy!’”

And, deep inside, something twisted, bent, buckled . . . and snapped. “What do you think I’m going to do? Curtsy? Screw you, Heather!”

Her right hand cracked across my cheek so hard I saw stars. “Goodbye and good riddance, you little pansy!” She grabbed her purse and stormed out the front door.

Serves you right that you forgot your shoes!

“Never understood what you saw in that one,” Mom sniffed.

“Not helpful, Mom.”

“Yes, that was definitely one of her many faults. I could list a few more, if you like.”

“Mom!”

She sat back down and patted the seat recently vacated by Lucca di Napoli, the lascivious lasagnavore. “Sit.”

I sat. It seemed like a good idea.

“Despite what you currently look like, you’re my son and I love you. That girl wasn’t good for you. I knew it; you knew it.”

I looked down, unable to meet her eyes, but murmured, “we had our moments, Mom.”

“No doubt.” Mom doesn’t seek out sarcasm, but she doesn’t take heroic measures to avoid it, either. If she’d concluded that present circumstances fairly screamed for it, I couldn’t really fault her logic.

“Did you have to mention my uncle?” I couldn’t keep the whine from my voice.

“I was curious to see whether she knew . . . and how she would react.”

“Wait, what?”

“Luigi, honey. You two got along like a pair of Sicilian capos. I think I understand why you stayed.” She raised a hand to bounce one of my cute curls. “But I wasn’t sure why she did. Now I know . . . and so do you.”

“That’s nuts, Mom. That property’s not worth shit – I bet your Palo Alto bungalow will be worth more in ten years!”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s from the old world, like your father. People back there don’t see things like estates and titles the same way we do.”

“Father wasn’t like that at all.”

“He was, Luigi. He walked away from it, and he never told me why. But all that hatred, that anger . . . would he have felt all that, for all those years, if it hadn’t been important to him?”

I had to think about that. “So . . . you think she was chasing me because she wanted to be a ‘noble?’”

“You know what I think, son. What do you think?”

“I think,” I said very carefully, “that I have a killer headache, and that my feet hurt, and that I need to clean up this mess or I’ll be even more angry in the morning.”

“Okay, dear,” she said soothingly. “I’d stay to help, but . . . you make such an adorable maid, I’d just get in your way.”

“Grrrrrrrr!”

“Maids don’t growl, sweet cheeks.” She rose, kissed my forehead, and departed, pausing at the door just long enough to say, “You should hand-wash those panties. They’re far too expensive to ruin in the washing machine.”

I sat at the table, all dressed up with nowhere to go. I should have been thinking about Heather, I suppose, but I wasn’t. I was thinking about me, mostly. And about my family. It seemed like I couldn’t escape my crazy father even after he’d slipped the mortal coil.

Why DID father walk away from it all?

To be continued . . . .

Author's note: Many thanks to RobertLouis and AlisonP for their help reviewing this story. And to my dear friend Joanne – this chapter was for you!

For information about my other stories, please check out my author's page.