[Cape May, NJ]
“Mom, what are you doing?” asked Brittany.
Melissa was standing at the window of their apartment, peering into nowhere.
Her daughter’s words brought her back to reality.
“Oh, sorry. I was miles away.”
“Were you thinking about Jack?”
“Sort of. Why?”
“Mom, didn’t I unpack your case when we arrived while you sorted out something for us to eat? I found his letter.”
The realization that his love letter to her had been exposed began to sink in.
“Did you read it all?”
“We both did.”
Melissa’s face fell.
“Mom, that was a beautiful love letter. He really cares about you.”
She nodded her head.
“Mom… Jack is a real person with real feelings for you. That showed through from almost the first sentence. He has opened himself up to you. Dad would never dare show even one little weak spot. He makes him all about himself, just like Trump. From what you said and reading the letter, it is clear to us that this Jack character is a very different person from Dad. What he says makes it clear that he loves his life, and he wants you as part of it as an equal. Dad never treated you as an equal partner. You were there to be the good housewife and not have an original thought of your own. We didn’t understand that until a couple of years ago. Being away from home and DC has given us both a different outlook on life. That’s why we told him to his face the other evening over dinner that we were not going to become tools in his political advancement. Gramps cheered. Dad stormed off in a huff. He came back later in a cab, very drunk. That was the first time he has shown us that he was a human being for as long as either of us can remember.”
Melissa welled up. No one had ever spoken to her like that, and it hurt that it was left to her daughter to give her the facts of her old life.
“Mom, it does not matter to us if he wants to wear women’s clothes. We aren’t like Pop. Two of my classmates are lesbians, and one of Zane’s is openly gay. That does not make them lesser people.”
“That’s not what your father was saying three weeks ago on RSBN? I saw his interview on YouTube. It made me so angry, and I hadn’t even met Jack then.”
“That right-wing propaganda channel needs to be shut down right now,” said Zane, who had just come into the room.
“Along with Newsmax and Pox News.”
Melissa was lost for words.
“Do you want to be with him?” asked Zane.
“At the moment, no. He’s up to his neck in wool. It is the middle of sheep shearing season.”
“Shearing?” asked Brittany.
Melissa smiled.
“I had that very same question. Once a year, all the sheep that live on the moors for most of the time are brought down to specially constructed pens where teams of men with clippers cut the old wool off the animals. I watched a video of them doing it in Australia, and it only takes a few seconds.”
“What happens then?”
“The wool is graded and sent to buyers. Most of Jack’s wool goes to a factory where it is turned into insulation for buildings. Jack supervises that stage of the operation.”
“He’s not doing the shearing then?” asked Brittany.
Melissa shook her head.
“They employ specialist teams who move around the countryside all summer. It takes skill to do it quickly and not injure the animal in the process.”
She swallowed hard.
“But they do operate from dawn to dusk. The shearers are paid by the animal. They come, shear every animal move on to a new location and repeat it. At least that was what Jack told me about the operation.”
A silence fell over the trio.
“When are you going back to England?” asked Zane.
“What do you mean?” said Melissa.
“Mom, it is clear to both of us that you would rather be with him than here with us. So?”
Melissa didn’t answer.
“What if we came as well? Then you are spending time with us as you promised Pop, as well as with him.”
Melissa shook her head.
“And when your father finds out? He will go berserk and accuse me of trying to turn you against him. He could apply to the court to revoke my access to you until you are of age. I don’t want that to happen.”
“Who will tell him then? We won’t.”
“What about your social media? Won’t it look suspicious if you suddenly go dark?”
“We can announce that we are going offline for a bit of cold turkey.”
“And if he comes here looking for the three of us?”
“Does he know where we are?”
“He knows that we are in the vicinity of Cape May. All he needs to do is call the cops and say that he suspects I have kidnapped you, and I’ll be a wanted felon. Sorry kids, as much as I’d like to get on a plane with you, it is not going to happen.”
“Will you go back to England when we are done here?” asked Zane.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Mom!” exclaimed Brittany.
“Go. This man sounds like a great guy, and they are thin on the ground. After Dad, you deserve someone completely different, and Jack seems to fit that bill…”
Melissa smiled.
“And there speaks the voice of experience.”
“No, Mom, not mine but the moms of several of our classmates. They have been traded in for younger models and, like you, are free agents. We’ve both listened to the tales of disaster when it came to finding a good man to hitch up to. Then you find one without even trying?”
“What about his desire to…”
“Mom,” said Zane as he looked at his sister.
“You need to know something.”
He swallowed hard.
“I’m gay.”
Those two words dragged Melissa out of her malaise in a flash.
“Zane? What about those girls you dated?”
“I dated them to keep Pop happy. They were all daughters of people he wanted to curry favor with. I dated them for a bit, and then we parted. They were in on the game so none of them were horrific breakups. Dad was happy that I was dating, but all the time, I was secretly seeing a guy from school. Brittany knew about me a long time ago, but because of him, we agreed never to say anything.”
“Now that you are free of him,” said Brittany.
“It is time to let you in on the secret,” she said, smiling.
The news about her son had rocked Melissa’s world. She’d been rebuilding her life since the divorce, but this news had thrown a wrench into it big time.
Her shoulder sagged, and she sat down on one of the stools in the kitchen.
“Mom, don’t be sad,” said Zane.
“It had to come out sooner or later. Don’t worry about Pop. The plan is to formally come out on my eighteenth birthday. He’s already talking about throwing a big bash in DC with all his cronies, backers, lobbyists and especially those who have daughters over sixteen. You know what he’s trying to do. Coming out as gay would put his scheming nose well out of joint and in public. It would be a political kick in the balls for him.”
Melissa shook her head.
“Don’t become like your father, darling. Yes, he’s become a real bastard since going to DC, but you are better than him, and you know it. If he does put on a birthday event for you, then I suggest that you just don’t turn up. That will cause him to lose face with all his cronies. Then… when he balls you out for not being there, you can tell him that you were thinking of him by not coming out at the party. That will shut him up for long enough for you to exit stage left. Not embarrassing him by coming out as gay would be far worse than not turning up.”
Zane thought for a moment and then smiled.
“Mom, you are too good at this. You should become a politician and stand against him!”
Melissa laughed.
“I’ve had a lot longer dealing with your father than you have, and besides, I value my sanity and integrity. If I ever mention standing for anything beyond a school board, you have my permission to put me out of my misery.”
“Ok, Mom. I will remember that promise!” he replied, smiling.
[Later that evening]
Brittany came into the lounge of the apartment carrying her laptop.
“I’ve been looking at flights.”
Melissa internally groaned.
“You said that you went to a place called Yorkshire. I found it on the map, and there is a flight from Kennedy to Manchester tomorrow night that has space for us. How about it? We don’t need a visa as tourists…”
Melissa looked at her children. From the looks on their faces, this was one battle that she was not going to win.
“What will I tell your father? And how do you have your passports with you?” asked Melissa, who was suffering from a bit of temporary brain fog.
Zane looked at Brittany, who nodded her head.
“We had hoped that you would send for us from Europe, so we made sure that we had them with us when we went to stay with Gramps. Besides, we would have needed them to go to Cancun,” said Zane.
That sounded reasonable to Melissa. The proposed trip to Mexico had slipped from her mind.
Brittany smiled.
“You know that I was talking about becoming a Veterinarian?”
“Yes?” replied Melissa, wondering where this was leading.
“There is a college not far from Manchester that is one of the best schools in the UK for Veterinary Studies.”
“So?”
“They also run degrees in Environmental Management and Sustainability,” added Zane.
Melissa suddenly understood that she’d been outwitted by her children. For an instant, she was angry; then she felt proud, proud to have two very intelligent children in her life.
“So? You would like to visit and put your names down for 2024 and 2025?”
“As we are foreign students, we don’t go through this thing that the Brits call ‘clearing’. As long as our GPAs are above 3.5 and we can afford the fees, we should be able to get in,” said Brittany.
“And…” said Zane as he imitated a drum roll.
“It is less than an hour from Manchester Airport.”
Melissa’s eyes went up. She had been stitched up good and proper. The last person to do that to her was her mother when she ‘arranged’ for her to start dating Jeff.
“So, you can tell Pops that we went looking at colleges, and this is one of the best in the world,” said Brittany.
“But... Zane, what about your father’s plans for you to follow him to DC as a lawyer? He won’t give up on that easily. Then, you know his views on climate change and all that green stuff. Are you deliberately trying to make him blow his top? I know that you told him, but he would need more than one telling-off to get him to change his mind.”
“That is the last thing that we want to do. By studying outside the US, we will be out of the picture when the hacks come after him,” said Zane.
“And just why do you think that the ‘hacks’ will come after him?”
“There have been rumors in DC about him being on the take for well over a year now.”
“Aren’t all of those in the DC swamp in the pockets of at least one donor, but how did you hear of this?” remarked Melissa.
“From my tennis partner,” said Zane in a matter-of-fact manner.
Melissa knew when she’d been backed into a corner.
“Ok, let’s go. I guess you want my credit card?”
Brittany smiled.
“I’ll let you finish off the purchase.”
“A mother’s work is never done…” she joked.
With the flight to Manchester booked, there remained the little job of making a call to Jack and sorting out where they should return the rental car. A call to the rental company sorted that out. She would return it to the airport before they checked in for their flight. On the same call, she booked another car for pickup at Manchester Airport.
They left the apartment the next morning and headed north. Cape May is at the end of a peninsular with just a few ways on and the same few ways off. After dropping off the keys at the letting agent, Melissa steered the car onto ‘The Garden State Parkway’.
After a lunch stop near Neptune, Melissa walked away from where they’d parked the car and made a call to Jack.
“Yes, it is me,” she said when the phone was answered.
“How is shearing going?”
“You are? That’s good.”
“No, Jack, that wasn’t the reason for my call.”
She took a deep breath.
“I’ve had my arm twisted by my kids into coming back to your part of the world.”
“Err… Tonight. We are on a flight from Kennedy to Manchester… tonight.”
“No. I’ve booked a rental car.”
She laughed.
“Yes, I know that I have a bit of history with rentals, but there is somewhere else that we want to go.”
She swallowed hard before saying,
“Have you heard of a college called ‘Harper Adams’?”
Melissa listened to Jack and shook her head.
“What did you major in?”
“I think that is pretty close to what Zane wants to do.”
“I will be glad to see them again as long as we won’t be putting them out too much?”
“Ok, give me a call when you are all done for the day. We are about an hour and a half from Kennedy. I know that we will be early, but that’s not the point.”
“Jack… They are cool with you.”
“Sorry. I didn’t hide your letter, and they read it and… I’d already sort of accidentally let it out.”
“Err, Jack, if I wasn’t cool with things, do you think that I’d be calling you right now?”
“Yeah, we need to have a long talk when I’m over there. There are some things that you need to know before… Well before.”
“Give my love to Moira and Henry. Bye.”
Melissa hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d made the call, and he hadn’t run a mile. She felt a tear well up inside her. Just hearing his voice again made her feel weird. Nice, but weird.
“How was the call?” asked Brittany when Melissa returned to the car.
“Ok.”
“Ok? Is that all?”
“Yes. Ok. I need to think a few things over, but I promise you that before we get on the plane, I’ll tell you.”
Both Brittany and Zane knew from the look on their mother’s face that the call wasn’t all plain sailing.
There were a couple of hours to wait before check-in opened when they arrived at their terminal at John F Kennedy International Airport.
“Let’s find a place to sit while we wait,” said Melissa.
Zane’s stomach decided that this was the best time to grumble.
Melissa smiled.
“Thanks to your sister, we are flying business class, and we’ll get a meal before we board the flight.”
“Mom? How do you know that?”
“I read about the services here in an in-flight mag of the airline when I was in Europe.”
Those words didn’t mean much to her children as they’d only flown internationally once before, and that was on a budget airline, thanks to the insistence of their father.
They found a place where they could buy some half-decent coffee and a muffin for Zane. Melissa hoped that would be sufficient for the time being.
“I promised to give you an update on my phone call before we boarded, so here we are.”
Melissa looked at her children. They'd become adults without her noticing. She'd missed so much of their childhood, thanks to their father.
“Jack will be expecting us… the day after tomorrow. That’s the last day of shearing, and there is a big party at their place in the evening.”
“Where will we stay tomorrow night?” asked Zane.
“Jack is sorting that out, but it looks like there is space in the big house for you. I’ve booked us a rental car from the airport. Then we can go visit this college you are interested in. I have the name of a lecturer who, if they are there, might be able to give you the grand tour.”
“How did you come by that? Did you get it out of thin air?” asked Zane.
Melissa smiled.
“Jack studied Estate Management there. It is his alma mater.”
“Where will you be staying?”
“They have twelve bedrooms apart from theirs. The team of shearers are using ten of them. I’ll stay the one night in Jack’s spare room. When they have gone, I’ll move into the big house.”
Zane looked at his sister and grinned.
“I’ll have none of that. Jack and I? It is early days, so don’t you be getting ideas, ok?”
They both nodded their heads.
“Good. Then we can rest easy tonight and hope that this Professor Colin Wilkes is not on vacation tomorrow.”
Brittany entered his name into her phone.
“He’s the deputy head of the department. Almost the top guy,” she remarked when the results were returned.
Melissa smiled.
“What it won’t say is that the Professor is Jack’s second cousin.”
She’d finally got one over on her children but in a good way.
[to be continued]