Melissa somehow managed to make her connection for the flight home in Rome. The image of Jack meeting her at the airport was there front and center in her mind. Even being chatted up by two Italians on the long flight failed to get her to show some emotion other than contempt for them. She was lost in her own thoughts.
The brief visit to Yorkshire had upset her sketchy plans for the future in a big way.
Those few days with Jack and his family had been a breath of fresh air for her. It had been totally the opposite of her married life back in the Ozarks. The almost total lack of standing on ceremony or the worry about what others might think and then say about her was startling.
The fakeness of her old life was staring her right in the face. She admired their ability to laugh at their own misfortunes as if it were just part of life. At first, it had unnerved her, but by the time she and Jack ended up at Moira’s Sisters’ place in Scotland, she had accepted that this was just part of life. For years, she’d had to be so careful about every word that she said in case it was posted online and could be used to embarrass her former husband. It was as if the shackles that Jeff had put on her when he was elected were finally sent to the scrap yard.
The envelope that Jack had given her was ever-present in her mind, but there was nowhere apart from the toilet on the two flights where she could open it in private. As there was almost a constant queue of people waiting for the one that wasn’t blocked, she crossed her legs and hoped to make it to DC.
The sight of Dulles Airport as the plane came into land made Melissa sort of sit up and take notice of her surroundings. She had hoped to get at least a little sleep on the flight, but between the two men who were sitting on either side of her and the brat in the seat behind who kept kicking her seat, she failed miserably. Her body clock was still on UK time, and it was saying loudly, 'I need feeding and sleep'.
She couldn’t be bothered to head downtown but instead went to the nearest hotel and found a room for the night. The cost was staggering, but it would have to do. Then she shook her head. She had more money than she could imagine, but being careful with the cash was deeply ingrained into her psyche.
After a shower, she felt much better, so she went down to the restaurant. To her dismay, one of the Italians from the plane was loitering with intent near the entrance.
“Ah, there you are. I knew that if I waited and prayed to the god almighty, you would come to me.”
“Fuck you,” said Melissa in a very loud voice. Then, she gave him the middle finger.
She didn’t wait for his reply but headed for the lift. It would have to be room service, after all.
While she waited for her overpriced burger and even more overpriced lite beer to arrive, she took the envelope out of her handbag.
It was addressed to her in perfect copperplate writing. She'd seen Jack writing some things during their road trip and knew right away that it was his writing.
The letter inside covered three sides of paper. It was all written in the same perfect script. That in itself was so rare these days. It must have taken him a lot of time to write it all down.
She mentally kicked herself. All she was doing was delaying the inevitable. She hoped that it was not a ‘dear Melissa’ sort of letter. There was nothing left but to begin reading.
Right from the start, it was not what she had expected. It read more like a potted life history. It described a side of Jack that, upon reflection, had been there just below the surface all the time. By the time she reached page three, she was crying. He had poured his heart out to her.
She knew what it was that was so hard for him to talk to her about. A lot of that was down to her background and especially some of the public statements that her former husband had made in recent years about LGBT people. She read the last paragraph again just to be sure that she hadn’t made a mistake. She hadn’t. Jack was someone who liked to dress up as a woman from time to time. He didn’t want to become one, but anyone who was in a relationship with him would inevitably find out. With her husband following the MAGA party line and calling all trans people ‘groomers’ and ‘paedophiles’, Melissa understood very well why he had not talked to her about it. He was letting her free to break off all contact with him if she could not handle being seen with someone who sometimes liked to wear a dress.
She sat for God knows how long, staring into space, trying to get her mind around what Jack had revealed to him. It was only when there was a knock at the door that she returned to reality.
The burger tasted of nothing, and the beer was some tasteless thing. She'd never baulked at drinking that sort of beer before, but ever since, she'd had a pint of… She tried to remember the name of the brewery at Jack's Hotel; she'd developed a taste for ale. Then it came to her. Black Sheep. It had a taste that made all the ‘Lite’ beers that Jeff only drank in public almost tasteless.
Sitting alone in her hotel room, she lamented not being back in Yorkshire. The food at the places they'd stayed at on their trip had always been magnificent and often not that much more expensive than the fast-food alternatives sold by the major chains. To return home to such crap was a reflection of the society that the USA had become. Everything seemed to be about a quick buck, and to hell with the consequences.
The question that Melissa had to answer was right there in the letter and the experiences she'd had with Jack and his family. While she could afford to go almost anywhere on the planet and live a life of relative luxury, there was something down to earth and real about that little bit of 'God's Own Country'. Something was nagging at her. It was a memory from her early childhood, but at first, she could not drag it into her conscious mind. She hated it when that happened. She was sure that there were parts of rural America that enjoyed the slower, less profit-driven way of life, but she’d never found one.
The empty beer bottle and drooping eyelids told Melissa that it was time to try to get some sleep. She wasn’t going to solve the conundrum that Jack’s letter presented her in one evening or even one week.
With some effort, she turned her mind towards spending some time with Zane and Brittany.
The dawn of a new day didn’t bring any solutions to Melissa’s problems. Even checking out proved problematic. For some reason, her credit card was refused.
She took this on the chin, and instead of making a scene, she took an Uber to a branch of her bank and drew out the exact amount of her bill in one-dollar bills. While she was waiting to be served, she called the credit card company. They told her that her card was not blocked and that she should get the hotel to resubmit the transaction. Melissa calmly said,
“Thank you, but I have arranged for an alternate method of payment.”
Armed with the cash, she returned to the hotel where she tried to pay her bill despite protests from the staff that they ‘didn’t take cash’ any more.
Melissa smiled.
“I have tried to settle my bill with the legal tender of this country. I will leave now. If you as much as even think of calling the cops, I will call my husband, who is a member of Congress here in DC, who will, in turn, call the media. Do you want me to do that? Oh, and I don’t see any signs saying that you no longer take cash therefore, you take cash.”
They didn’t answer, so Melissa walked out of the hotel with her head held high.
Outside the hotel, it dawned upon her that she didn’t have a plan for the day. She was due to meet up with Brittany and Zane the next day in Williamsburg, Virginia. They had been staying with Jeff’s parents for a week. Jeff was off somewhere with his girlfriend, according to Brittany’s social media posts. He had not bothered to formally introduce her to any of his family.
Melissa had smiled when she read that. She knew that his father would tell him to get lost. Infidelity is not allowed in that family. That point was made clear to Melissa before they became engaged to be married. She had remained faithful while he hadn’t, but it didn’t matter now. That part of her life was behind her.
Just thinking about that made her blush. She would have jumped into bed with Jack if things had turned out that way, but he’d been the perfect gentleman all the time until they had said an emotional goodbye at the airport. That behaviour made him not being there at her side all the harder to manage. She had just one day to try to put him to the back of her mind and think of her children.
Melissa took an Uber to Union Station. While she was traveling into the city, she booked a hotel in Williamsburg and a rental car from the hotel for the morning. Her day of ups and downs seemed to have a down episode when she discovered that the train that she’d used before for the trip no longer ran and that the next train was late the following afternoon as the early morning departure was cancelled.
Thankfully, she was able to cancel the car booking and instead rented one from Reagan International Airport. Leaving the station behind her, she took the metro directly to the airport. While she waited for the Metro train, she mentally compared the state of the US rail system to her admittedly brief experience of the British one. When going from London to York, a similar distance of around 200 miles, she found that trains were running every half an hour, not one or two a day. Once again, she had to reset her mind and think about the here and now and spending some time with her children.
At the agreed time the next morning, Melissa arrived at Jeff's parent's home. To her, it was unnaturally quiet. His parents had two rambunctious golden retrievers that usually came bounding around the house to greet the newcomer. They were conspicuous by their absence.
Melissa rang the doorbell and waited. There were no sounds from inside the building. Melissa began to get worried when an SUV came up the driveway. Her heart dropped when she saw that her former husband was driving. The missing dogs were in the back.
“Hey babe,” said Jeff.
“What are you doing here?”
“Errr?” said Melissa.
“I’ve come to collect Brittany and Zane. It is my time to have them, remember?”
“Sorry, babe. They are on their way to Cancun with my parents.”
“What the hell are you doing here then?”
“Looking after the dogs. It was all done at short notice, and none of the kennels can take them.”
“Short notice? Yeah right. When I spoke to Brittany less than two days ago, she knew nothing about going to Cancun or anywhere for that matter. You are a bastard, aren’t you!”
“It’s not like that, babe!”
“Do they know about her?”
“They do. Zane spilt the beans, so thanks for that.”
“It is no more than you deserve.”
Their conversation was cut short by the arrival of a taxi.
Both of them looked at the cab. Zane was the first to emerge. Brittany got out the other side.
“Why aren’t you on the way to Mexico?” shrieked Jeff.
“Because we want to be with Mom,” said Brittany.
“Gramps and G-Mom have gone on without us. We told them what you were trying to do, and they didn’t like it. Gramps said to tell you that he will be having words with you when they return. G-Mom was just as angry.”
Jeff went red in the face.
“Gramps also said, ‘Don’t you dare put the dogs in kennels and slither off back to DC like the snake that you are’.”
Melissa resisted smiling. Jeff’s father knew his son very well indeed.
Zane went and paid off the taxi after removing his and Brittany’s bags from the trunk. He put them in Melissa’s SUV.
“Where are we going, Mom?” asked Zane.
“Cape May. I rented an apartment not far away from the Cape for a week.”
“Hey? Don’t I get a say in this?” argued Jeff.
“Sorry, Dad. Mom told us before she went to Europe that she’d be back for this week. She confirmed it before she left a place called York. You tried to make her seem to be the one who cheated on the other. Mom told us the truth and showed us the evidence. She treated us like adults, unlike you. Sorry, Pop. We are with Mom on this. Right Britt?”
“Sorry, Dad. Zane is right.”
Then she turned to Melissa.
“Shall we go, Mom, we have quite a drive ahead of us?” suggested Brittany.
“Yes, darling, we should get on the road.”
Melissa turned and left her former husband, standing in the middle of the drive with his hands on his hips and with a scowl on his face.
[Two hours later]
“Ready for a coffee stop?” asked Melissa.
“Mom, we need to talk, so yes,” said Zane.
Melissa was a bit put off by his tone but carried on driving until they came to a strip mall that contained a small coffee shop and bakery. She pulled off the road and parked the car.
“Let’s get something to drink, and then we can talk, ok?”
Neither of her children argued.
They found a place to sit in the shop that was well away from the counter once they’d obtained and paid for their drinks.
“Well?” said Melissa.
Zane looked at his sister, who began.
“Mom, we were worried about you. That last week and a bit in Europe, you changed. Before that, you were, I’m sorry to say, just treading water. It seemed that you went to Rome and Paris and everywhere else, but you weren’t really there. You were there in body, but your mind wasn’t. It was like you were still telling us about Dad. You were angry but afraid to show it to us. Are you with me so far?”
“I think so.”
“Then, when you called us and told us that you were in a small town that hardly appeared on Google Maps, your whole voice and everything was different. It was as if someone had flicked a switch, and you were you again, but with bells and whistles on.”
“Brits is right, Mom,” said Zane.
“It was as if we were speaking to a different person.”
“Sorry,” muttered Melissa.
“Don’t be sorry, Mom. The old you was right there again when you dealt with Dad back at Gramps’s place. He was trying to drive a wedge between us and you. Even G-mom saw through his plan. They are not happy with him, and that’s why he was told to look after the dogs like a naughty child. You did nothing wrong, Mom, and that’s why we were so happy when the old you came back to us. What happened? Did you meet someone?”
Melissa’s idea about keeping Jack a secret just went up in flames.
“I did meet someone, but it is not what you are thinking. I met someone at the Hotel that I stayed at when I went north. He was working behind reception at the time. He treated me like a human being and not like someone to pick up. So many men had tried that in my time in Europe, it was getting tiresome.”
Zane was about to say something, but Melissa glared at him.
“The next day, I visited this place that had been a flourishing Monastic site until Henry the Eighth fell out with the Pope in Rome over a divorce.
As it was a nice day, I took this little road that climbed up out of this beautiful valley and up onto what the locals call ‘the moors’. That’s when I picked up a flat in my rental car. It was then that I found out that where I was had zero cell coverage. I was not looking forward to walking off in search of a house or a phone when this old… and I mean really old truck came up the road towing a trailer. The driver was the man from the hotel from the previous day.”
“You were rescued by your knight in shining armour?” joked Brittany.
Melissa smiled.
“Not quite, but he did take me a few miles to the farm where he was delivering the load of fence panels that were on the trailer. I was able to make a phone call to the rental company and get that sorted. But it looked like I was stuck there for the night. The hotel was full, so the man offered me a bed at his parents’ place. I said yes. They took me in and treated me like a long-lost relative. For the first time in years, I felt at home, and I could relax.”
“That’s when your voice changed,” said Zane.
“Jack… His name is John, but everyone calls him Jack, offered to take me on a little trip up to Scotland and show me the places that tourists from this part of the world generally don’t get to see. He was the perfect Gentleman at all times. I was treated like someone special for the first time in years. You don’t know how nice it felt.”
“Did you… you know?” asked Zane.
Melissa glared at her son for a second. Then she smiled.
“Jack was the perfect host as were his parents Moira and Henry. Their family had lived in the same place since well before the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. That’s more than nine hundred years.”
“So, they are loaded then?” suggested Zane.
“It was not like that, so don’t go getting any ideas. Yes, they have land and tenant farmers and own the hotel and some other businesses, but they are down-to-earth people. Jack is on first-name terms with all the tenants. Some of the families have been tenants for well over a hundred years. No, Zane, they were just nice people who made me feel so very welcome and, importantly, asked nothing from me in return.”
“Sorry, Mom, I don’t accept that. Everyone these days has an angle, or at least that is what Dad keeps trying to instil in us. He wants us to be like him, become a lawyer and then stand for office. Neither of us wants anything to do with the law, and after how he treated you since going to DC, neither do we want to follow him. He won’t listen, so that’s why we were thinking of going to college in Europe, but he would not even consider it. It is as if we are his personal property.”
“Jack didn’t have an angle, as you put it. I came out of our marriage with a good settlement, and there is money in a trust for you both to use for college as you see fit. Your father can’t stop you from going to Europe to study if that is what you want to do. You will then both adults, and he can’t stop you. But… getting back to Jack and everything, I do miss him, and no, I never even kissed him until we said goodbye at the airport, but it wasn’t that sort of kiss, so don’t even think that there is something more than friendship between us. Got it?”
The reaction of Brittany and Zane told Melissa that they didn’t believe a word of what she’d just said.
“But something is stopping you from going back to him right now?” asked Zane.
“I made a promise to spend a week with both of you, didn’t I? And I always try to keep my promises, don’t I?”
“After this week? What are you going to do then?”
Melissa had been putting off even thinking about what she should do after this week.
“I don’t know. There are lots of things to consider. For starters, I don’t have a place to live. All my clothes and possessions are in that one case in the trunk. I left everything from before when I left him. I need to start again somewhere, and at the moment, I don’t know where that will be. Then there is your father. His recent speeches are just sad. He’s joined the anti-LGBT MAGA crowd in his party. My trip to Europe opened my eyes to a far more tolerant world.”
“Is Jack gay?” asked Brittany as she made a huge leap.
Melissa shook her head.
“No, he’s not gay, but he told me that he likes to dress up as a woman from time to time and no, I have not seen him in a dress.”
There was a silence between the three of them. It was Brittany who broke it.
“If you want to be with him, then we are with you, aren’t we Zane?”
“We are,” replied Zane without hesitation.
Melissa felt that a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Do you both mean this? You aren’t just saying it to please me?”
Both of them shook their heads.
“We are at school with kids who are gay and lesbian. They are just people like us. Trans people are just the same. If we go back to school up north next month, then we will be amongst them every day. They are just normal people. Dad’s words are horrible, and we told him so after that last campaign rally where he warmed up for Trump. He told us to shape up and get on message. We are not going to do that. We are not clones of him.”
The vitriol in Zane's words was very evident.
“If you go back to school? What are you saying? Are you going to drop out?”
Both of them shook their heads.
“Dad does not like their progressive teaching methods and has threatened us with sending us to a school in Alabama near his alma-mata, Auburn.”
Melissa shuddered at the thought.
“I’d only go if I could enrol in their Vet’s program”, said Brittany.
“But I found out that he put my name down for the pre-law program.”
“Just how did you do that? Please don’t tell me that you hacked his phone or computer.”
“I overheard him talking to Gramps when they were out in the yard the other evening. He’s done the same with Zack. He didn’t even ask us about it. We called the College the next morning and removed our names from any list that he might have signed us up for,” said Zane.
“He wants me to meet the son of one of his cronies from DC and to become like you were for years, Mom, the stay-at-home wife who raised his kids and did his work in his district for free. You know that he was taking a salary for you all these years? It is there in his filings to Congress,” said Brittany.
“I didn’t know until just before we were divorced. I never saw a penny of that money. I hope that has stopped now that we are divorced.”
“Mom,” said Brittany,
“Dad is a crook, and we want nothing to do with him. Gramps told us the same thing last night while Dad was out walking the dogs. That was when we hatched the plan to not go to Cancun like he’d planned.”
“I know that he’s a bit of a crook. Aren’t they all in DC?”
Melissa looked at her phone.
“It is time we were moving. I said to the agent that we’d be there by four.”
That put a halt to their conversation for the time being. Nothing was settled yet, but at least she knew that her children would not disown her should she go back to Yorkshire and Jack.
[to be continued]