Hi! Lisa here. I’m taking over for a bit, because this part of the story is really not about Sarah, and if she told it, she would probably have to say, “Well, I guess you had to be there.” Or “… at least that’s what Lisa says”. So, since I was there, I will tell the story.

Sarah called this chapter, “Lisa meets someone”. What!? How about “Lisa meets a man she would have been looking for all her life, but she didn’t know he existed?” It was love at first sight, but not like you probably think, and I’m not sexually attracted to him at all. That requires a lot of explanation, doesn’t it? Well, here we go!

I woke up one morning and, as I came to the part of my obsessive-compulsive routine that ordered me to go to the kitchen and see what’s for breakfast, I found my mom sitting alone at an empty table. She said, “Come sit down, Honey, I want to talk to you about something.”

I was ready to deny anything and everything. “Whatever you heard about me and that boy, it’s not true.”

My mom smiled and said, “I know it’s not true, and there’s not even a boy, is there?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, let’s lay jokes aside. This is serious. I have some things to show you.”

My heart sank. “It has to be something bad.”

“I don’t think so. It depends on how you look at it. Here is the first item. I have a friend in Dallas that has been sending me stuff on this subject whenever she sees something. This is the most recent item she sent.” She handed me a newspaper clipping.

It was an obituary for Steven Owen Parker from the previous year. “Oh! He’s d….” I studied the picture. He looked happy, and I wondered if he ever got the son he so wanted. As much as I hated the man a tear still formed in my eye. I sniffed. No! Don’t show any emotion over this man! Damn! Why am I like this? “This was a year ago. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I was afraid it would just open old wounds. You were devastated from the rejection you felt when the only father you had ever known so callously left us. But let me fill you in on the rest of the story. Your dad and I hadn’t been married too long before he began to abuse drugs and alcohol. He was never home. There was a really nice guy named Joseph at the law firm for which I worked. We got to be good friends … then better friends. Sometimes, something happens when a man and a woman get to be too friendly. That ‘something’ happened and I got pregnant.

“I certainly couldn’t tell Steve that the baby might not be his. It would have killed him, but not before he killed me. I also decided to keep it from Joseph because he would have accepted responsibility, but I felt it was my fault. You know, the woman was supposed to be the one to make sure something like this didn’t happen … at least, that was the way it was looked upon back in those days. I resigned from the firm citing ‘personal reasons’. Your ‘father’ (She held her hands up to make quotes) was excited. He thought I quit my job because I was being a dutiful wife, and I would bear him a boy, apparently thinking he couldn’t father a daughter. When you were born, he was disappointed, but he apparently thought that a girl could be molded into a reasonable facsimile of a boy and taught, or forced, to take an interest in sports and other ‘boy’ things.

“When I left the law firm, I stole a hairbrush from Joseph’s desk. I used hair from the brush and some hair from Steve to have tests done. Joseph Rivers is your father.”

I just sat there for a few seconds with my mouth open; trying to take in all this new data and process it. I was so stunned that I said, “That means Steve is not my father!” That was obvious, of course, but I was disoriented at this point. Maybe I needed to convince myself. Now that I was convinced, I could react. “Oh, mom, that’s the best news I’ve heard since … forever ago! So that solves the mystery of my last name! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“He got married and I didn’t want to take a chance on interfering with his marriage because you would probably try to find him and contact him. If he didn’t want to see you, that would be another rejection. Recently, however, he got a divorce. I called him and told him he had a daughter. After I told him, he didn’t say anything. I didn’t hear anything on the phone, and I thought he had hung up on me, but apparently, he was just picking himself off the floor. He was overjoyed and wants to meet you.”

Only then did the enormity of this hit me. Tears started flowing, and my mom embraced me and held me as I cried the final tears about the loss of my dad years ago and the pain of being rejected just because I wasn’t a boy. Then, there were new tears; tears of joy because the ordeal was over. I had carried the burden of pain, loss, and rejection for many years. Regardless of what was happening in my life; good times or bad times; this remnant of past injuries lurked just beneath the surface. I had tried, crying it out, trying to forget, or laughing it off. I pulled a tarp of jokes and laughter over the undeserved cruelty visited upon me by someone who should have given me love and security. Suddenly, the nightmare was over. As you can imagine, it was a considerable time before I regained my composure. When I finally felt like the tears were finished for a time, I was able to tell my mom, “It’s so good to know I don’t have ‘loser’ blood in my veins. This changes so much! Can you tell me more about him?”

“Well, he’s an attorney working for one of the biggest law firms in Houston. He’s smarter and better looking than Steve. It’s just a shame I married Steve before I met Joseph. I assume you want to meet him?”

“Are you kidding? I want to meet him right now!”

“Well, I have a tentative dinner date for the three of us tonight at Floyd’s.”

I hugged my mom. “Oh, thank you, mom, for screwing around on Steve!”

“That’s the most unusual ‘thank you’ I’ve ever received. You can’t imagine how hard it was to keep this to myself for all these years while you pined away for a worthless bastard you thought was your father.”

“Wow. This is better than a birthday and Christmas and all other holidays combined! I better start picking out something to wear. I wonder if I look like him. Do I look like him, Mom?”

Mom smiled, “Maybe you resemble him a little in the face. The rest of you looks more like me.”

“Yeah, I would hope so. Do you have pictures?”

“I have some clippings from newspapers over the years. I knew that someday you would have to know about this, and you would ask for pictures. I’ll get them.”

She had the scrapbook handy in a kitchen cabinet, figuring she would need it after this meeting. I opened it to the first page. There he was … my father!

“Steve was actually trying to raise you as a boy. You probably remember that he tried to get you interested in sports. Eventually, he gave up on that and he became convinced that girls and women are not much use. When I got a divorce, I took my maiden name back and had yours changed to ‘Rivers’. Only James, Kim, and I know about this. Well, you and Joseph know now. It was difficult keeping this from you for so long, and I apologize, but I thought it was necessary. I thought if you had even a clue that Steve was not your father, you would start investigating and not stop until you contacted your real father. ”

“You’re right about that. Mom, that is so cool. You must have had an idea, right … I mean about who was the real father?”

“Female intuition. So, you want to stick with ‘Rivers’, or change to ‘Brooks’?”

“Mom, I’ll have to think about that. That’s a choice between two great alternatives! Wow again! This is wonderful. I don’t have to worry about following in loser footsteps. I worried about that because addiction is a genetic trait.”

“That’s true, but you’ve seen the results. I think you would avoid that at all costs!”

“You’re right about that too, mom!” I looked back at the scrapbook. Handsome doesn’t begin to describe him! He was stunning! (Can you say a guy is ‘stunning’?) I turned the pages and saw article and pictures about court cases and important meetings with important people. The pictures were in chronological order, and I could see that as time passed, his hair began to show a little gray, sometimes called ‘salt and pepper’, and he was even more beautiful! (Yes, beautiful!) I looked at my mom. “Oh, yeah, he’s divorced!”

“Oh, no, don’t get too far ahead!”

“Yeah, that would be just too perfect!”

It was my turn to tantalize Sarah with news. I asked her to help me prepare for a special dinner, and I revealed details to her in a painfully slow way. I went over the story about my parents and she sat mesmerized. When I finished, she hugged me as tears flowed from her eyes.

“Lisa, Steve was the one blemish on our family. He’s out, and I’m glad. We’re now as near perfect a family as you can get.”

“Yeah … near perfect. Let’s not mention the ‘A’ word.”

“What word is that?”

“Adultery.”

“Oh, yeah. What? I’ve heard the word, but I’m not sure about the meaning. It probably means ‘acting responsibly’ … like an adult. Yeah, that’s it!”

“Well, the ‘A’ word worked out for me. Ironic, ain’t it?”

“Ain’t it, though? Let’s pick out some clothes for you.”

We picked out a dress that wasn’t too tight and came to just above my knee. It was well-fitted and blue with tiny bits of something similar to glitter. We pick out some jewelry and some 3” heels. We were happy with our choices. My mom, of course, had veto power, but we saw no reason she should use it. It was only 10 AM, and I had all day to nervously wait. All day, I went over in my head what I would say. I wondered if I would faint. About 3 hours before the dinner date, I showered, fixed my hair, and got dressed.

We got in my mom’s car and headed to Floyd’s. We got there about 20 minutes early. I was more nervous now than I had been all day. Right on time, he arrived. The waiter showed him to our table, and now I knew I was gonna faint. Of all the ways I could resemble him, the most striking resemblance was our eyes. I looked into his eyes and it was almost like looking into a mirror! I held out my hand and he kissed it! That was good … I always thought it was odd for a man and a woman to shake hands. We all sat down, and he said, “Well, how are you ladies tonight?”

I opened my mouth to say, “Fine.” And my voice cracked. Then the tears started to flow. I tried to hide my face in my napkin. When I couldn’t stop crying, my mom suggested we go to the ladies room. Once we got in the ladies room I started hyperventilating. We didn’t have a bag, so I put both my hands over my face to try to cut some oxygen and calm down. I finally got better. “Now I’m embarrassed,” I told my mom.

“No need to be, Honey. He understands that this is a huge thing for you. It is for all of us. Let’s go back to the table. Don’t try to talk until you feel like you can without crying. OK?”

“OK.”

We went back to the table and my dad stood up when he saw us approaching and sat back down after we sat. What a gentleman! He began to reassure me. “Honey, I understand that this is really a big deal for you. This situation deals with who you are. Regardless of what some people say, who your parents are makes a big difference. It’s a very big deal to me, also. Your mom has told me a lot about you, and I want you to know I’m glad to have a son and two daughters. I’m glad to have you for sec... first daughter! You’re smart and very beautiful. I hope you’re happy about this too.”

A son and two daughters? I have a sister and a brother? This just gets better and better! I tried to speak, but couldn’t. I motioned to my mom to speak for me.

“She was happy to learn that Steve is not her father, and she was elated when I told her about you. Maybe before our meal is over, she will be able to speak.”

I nodded my agreement to my mother’s words. My father just smiled. I saw that I had his smile. He was so good looking that it was hard to look away from him. I finally regained my composure enough to speak a little, but I was unable to eat a bite. I thought about what Sarah had said about being “blessed”. She was right. Despite the questionable circumstances, I finally had a real father; a father with (maybe a tiny bit flawed) character. I was blessed and at peace. I was having dinner with both my parents. As I thought about this, the tears filled my eyes again. I dabbed the tears with my napkin and held on. Someone watching me would think I was miserable, but it was the happiest day of my life. I had gained a father, a sister, and a brother. I was elated, but I was so exhausted from the emotion, that I was almost glad when the meal was over. I went home and fell into bed. I was so tired, I think I fell asleep in mid-air during the fall, and I slept till the room was brightly lit by the mid-morning sun. I didn’t hear Sarah come to bed or get up. I awoke rested and happy.

Next: A cure for pestilence and an argument for prohibition