“Are you going to tell Mom about Joanna?” Pauline asked Alan later that night as they stood outside their home in the dark. The entrance light shone down on them.
Alan rubbed the top of his thinning hair, contemplating his next move.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he replied honestly to Pauline.
“No. I’m glad it’s you and not me.” Pauline smiled weakly. She leaned over and kissed Alan’s tired face. He grinned sheepishly and rubbed Pauline’s lean back.
“You go on to bed. I’ll deal with your mother.”
Pauline obeyed and went straight to her room. She shut the door slightly so she could hear her parents in the next room. Sitting down with her legs folded beneath her, she pressed her ear to the door and held her breath.
Alan placed his hat on the rack and walked into the living room where Jobeth sat quietly, listening to the radio and reading a book.
“Hello, darling,” she said as he walked into the room. She sat her book aside as Alan leaned down to kiss her.
“Jobeth,” he said seriously after kissing her on the cheek,. Jobeth was a stubborn woman, but it had always been one of the many things he loved about her.
“What is it, Alan? You look odd,” she said, starting to stand. Alan placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Is it one of the children? Are they all right?”
“Joanna is back,” he blurted out, finding no other way to say it.
He watched Jobeth’s face for any sign of emotion.
At first Jobeth’s face lightened, the faint creases in her forehead slackened, but just as quickly her face hardened.
She stood up abruptly.
“I don’t want that name mentioned in my house,” Jobeth hissed, looking around to see if Alan-Michael was near. He couldn’t hear the name of Joanna without a slew of vile words spewing from his mouth.
“Jobeth!” Alan beseeched, confronting her. Although he expected her reaction to be mixed with some confused emotions, Alan thought that deep in Jobeth’s heart she’d be glad to hear Joanna was back.
“Alan,” Jobeth glared menacingly, “I mean it.”
“She has two children, Jobeth. Our grandchildren.”
For a brief moment Jobeth’s face softened, but then chilled, causing the soft crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes to look harsh. The torment behind her hazel eyes was evident. She wanted to be happy, but the hurt and anger were still too strong to let go of.
Jobeth thought of Mara-Joy and the child she should have had with Chad—the child that had cost Mara-Joy the ability to ever have children of her own. She thought of Mara-Joy’s tribulation over wanting children of her own and how she had to suffice with other women’s children. Like the stepdaughters she shared with her new husband.
“Those children were supposed to be Mara-Joy’s children, not Joanna’s,” Jobeth spat, refusing to look at her husband, the injustices evident in her voice.
“Think about what you are saying, Jobeth,” Alan remarked, shaking his head in disbelief. “As hard as it was for her, Mara-Joy has come through all this. She is happily married again and has a life of her own. We have to stop all this nonsense, Jobeth. Our family needs to be reunited once again. We have other children besides Mara-Joy and Alan-Michael. I think it’s time we put the past behind us
and moved forward as a family.”
Jobeth stood open-mouthed and unable to avoid staring at Alan. They had rarely fought in there nearly twenty-five years of marriage. And she had rarely seen Alan so disappointed in her.
“I know I have other children, Alan. I’ve always been quite aware of them,” she said rather nastily. She regretted her tone of voice the moment she heard the words fly out of her mouth. It sounded cold and cruel. She pulled back, the front of her hand covering her mouth as though trying to stop any more nasty words from coming out.
“Really?” Alan exploded. All the sentiments he had toward the way Jobeth treated the other girls seemed to be frothing to the surface. Unable to stop the volcano inside of him, he erupted.
“I’m ashamed to admit that I have sat back and watched you play favorites with our children. I didn’t want to believe that the woman I loved could love her children so unequally. You have always preferred Mara-Joy and Alan-Michael to the others. And Joanna,” he said as he ran his finger’s roughly through his sparse hair, “my God, you’ve been the roughest on her. You never let up on how she wasn’t like Mara-Joy. You put the rivalry between them Jobeth, and I helped by sitting back and allowing you to do it. If I had been a better father, I would have put a stop to you and the way you were with those children.”
“I have always loved my children!” Jobeth countered, unable to believe her ears. She clenched her fists tightly to her sides, ready for battle. “How dare you say I loved them differently! It’s just that my love for Mara-Joy is the reason you and I are together. She brought us together! She did Alan! If that child hadn’t needed parents, who knows if we would ever have ended up together.”
“We loved each other before there ever was a Mara-Joy, Jobeth. We would have ended up together eventually. It was meant to be,” Alan said, softening.
He couldn’t stand the anguish in Jobeth’s voice.
“You don’t know that, Alan. You don’t know that for sure.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Don’t you remember those times when everything seemed to be taken from me? From us? My baby boy and Jonah . . .” Jobeth hadn’t spoken of either in years and saying their names brought their faces fresh to her mind.
Jobeth rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, trying to erase the memories of those long dead.
“Did you forget them, Alan? Because I didn’t.” Her eyes were red-rimmed and full of misery. “When I look at our son, I see the baby boy I lost. I see his tiny body gasping in vain for air as he slowly died in my arms. When Alan-Michael was born, it was like I had him back again, but alive and healthy. And then I see the man who helped me deliver him. And I remember how that man, Jonah, helped me to love again. And Mara-Joy, oh, Mara-Joy. Every time I look at her, I see the child who set me free to love you. I didn’t feel I deserved to love, but Mara-Joy’s presence in our lives forced me to make choices I was too afraid to make. Can’t you see?” She implored, begging Alan to see her side.
“Can’t you see our children have brought me to where I am? Alan-Michael is the baby I lost and Mara-Joy is the baby I found that brought me finally to you.”
“Jobeth, I’m so sorry that you’re still haunted by all this pain, but that is still no excuse. Joanna is your child as well and she needs you too. Think about making up with your daughter, Jobeth,” he said rather coldly, “before it is too late and you wish that you had.”
He turned and stomped out of the room.
Jobeth fell back onto the couch like she’d been socked in the stomach. She closed her eyes, listening to Alan’s progress up the stairs to their bedroom. Her throat tightened and her eyes began to water.
“Joanna,” she whispered, “Joanna.”
“I can’t believe the nerve!”
Mara-Joy stormed around the kitchen in Jobeth’s house. She was livid.
Jobeth and Alan-Michael sat at the kitchen table, caught in the cyclone of Mara-Joy’s wrath.
Her hair swung freely in tight curls down her back.
Jobeth thought of how much Mara-Joy resembled Tamara when she was angry. She had the same feisty spirit.
“Settle down, Mara-Joy,” Jobeth said, feeling slightly annoyed. She glanced at Alan-Michael out of the corner of her eye. He was completely frightened by Mara-Joy’s outburst. They had become quite frequent since Joanna and Chad’s return. “You are frightening your brother.” Jobeth said dully.
Alan-Michael straightened in his chair.
“No… she’s… not,” he stuttered, his lips flapping pathetically. Alan-Michael, now sixteen, was a handsome boy with light brown hair and hazel eyes like his mother. In fact, out of all of Alan and Jobeth’s birth children, Alan-
Michael was the one
who looked slightly different from the rest. He didn’t have his father’s distinct eyes or his mother’s long, oval face that his other siblings inherited. He had his father’s broad face and his mother’s eyes but this didn’t make him less attractive than the others, just different.
“But, Mama!” Mara-Joy hollered, throwing her hands up into the air. “She stole the only man I truly loved away from me! I hate her! I hate her! I hate her! Don’t you hate her?” Mara-Joy slammed her fist down on the table, making both Jobeth and Alan-Michael jump.
These outbursts were also becoming more and more violent each time.
“That is enough, Mara-Joy!” Jobeth stood up, shaking. Alan-Michael slunk back in his chair, paralyzed. He’d never heard his mother raise her voice to Mara-Joy.
Stunned, Mara-Joy stepped back, speechless. She was just as shocked by her mother’s outcry.
“Of course I don’t hate my own daughter. I have never hated Joanna. She is my daughter just like you are my daughter and I could hate her no more than I could hate you, Mara-Joy.” Jobeth’s chest rose up and down in anger.
Something was breaking inside her, letting go like a damn finally released. “And the man you love should be the husband you are married to now, not the one you married so many years ago when you were still a child.”
“But, Mama,” Mara-Joy sobbed in a quiet voice, “she hurt us all so badly!”
She plunked down dejectedly in the nearest kitchen chair.
“What Joanna did was wrong, very wrong. But that was so long ago. You two are sisters. It is time the two of you made up. This family has been torn apart long enough,” Jobeth said with resignation, resting her forehead in the palm of her hand.
In the weeks since Joanna returned, her thoughts had been occupied with what Alan had said. His words were ringing true. Maybe she had favored these two children more. In fact, if she was really true to herself, she knew she had. For whatever reasons, she had done it. She now needed to fix the mistakes of the past before it was too late.
“Enough is enough, Mara-Joy.” Jobeth’s eyes shot to her son who sat totally mesmerized by what was going on. “Look how you’ve turned your own brother against his sister. He barely even remembers her and he has a horrible hatred for her.”
“It isn’t Mara-Joy who makes me hate her, Ma,” Alan -Michael said calmly. “I dislike her for my own reasons. I don’t take kindly to tramps stealing respectful women’s husbands away, especially when that respectful women is my sister. Besides Ma, have you forgotten how she flung Mara-Joy’s adoption into her face? That was just cruel. You know, she seduces Mara-Joy’s husband, gets pregnant with his bastard brat and then screams out a mound of filth at
Mara-Joy. And we are supposed to forgive and forget?” Alan-Michael stood up and put his arm protectively around Mara-Joy’s quivering shoulders. He was already taller than her and she seemed small and defenseless in his arms.
“It seems Alan-Michael and I are the only ones who are not blinded to Joanna’s schemes,” Mara-Joy said defensively to her mother. She crossed her arms defiantly.
Jobeth stood staring at them, feeling the hate steaming off of their very essences.
“I realize your sister has made a lot of mistakes in her life, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is still your sister. Whether you like it or not that isn’t going to change.” She turned and left the room, unable to face their anger anymore.
“You are blind, Mother, blind! And I can’t believe you’re turning against me!” Mara-Joy followed after Jobeth. Alan-Michael grabbed her arm, holding her firmly back.
“Mara-Joy, I just want my family to be whole again,” Jobeth said tiredly, not bothering to turn to the steely eyes that accused her. “And, like it or not, that includes Joanna.”
Jobeth opened the front door, leaving the house and her two flabbergasted children behind. The fresh air hit her like a liberating breeze.
“Did you see that?” Mara-Joy swung around to face Alan-Michael.
“I saw it, but I don’t believe it,” Alan-Michael said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Bitch! Bitch! Bitch! She has even turned our mother against us. Our mother!” She curved away from Alan-Michael’s stocky sixteen-year-old body.
“What do you say to that little brother? Isn’t that a fine how-do-you-do?”
“She is really an evil little devil,” Alan-Michael articulated, while placing a sheltering arm back around his sister. She snuggled into his thick chest, letting his warmth protect her.
“It is so true, Mikey. So very true. You are the only one who understands the pain and agony Joanna has caused me. The rest have just forgotten.” She wrapped her arms around his waist.
Alan-Michael felt himself become stronger under Mara-Joy’s grasp.
“I would love to see Joanna’s brains in a puddle on the floor. I would love to see her squirm in pain as I watch her die,” he sneered with passion.
Mara-Joy looked up and smiled into Alan-Michael’s darkened face. He had always had a dark side but the older he got, the more it had grown, twisting and developing into something possibly unnatural. She’d noticed it when he was small. First in his cruelty to animals and then to other children. Mara-Joy had pushed it aside, choosing to ignore it. He was hers. Her Mikey. Always there to defend her at any cost. So what if sometimes he was a little too weird?
“Oh, Mikey, you do love me, don’t you?” she asked sweetly, her head pressed firmly to his heaving chest.
“You know I love you more than anyone,” he choked full of emotion, hugging her tighter.
“Wouldn’t it be great if Joanna were dead? Wouldn’t it be great if something happened to her, an accident or something?” Mara-Joy sniffed, closing her eyes and feeling safe in Alan-Michael’s love.
Alan-Michael became confused. Was Mara-Joy serious? It was so hard to know when she was serious.
“Then Ma and Pa would be ours again and I would have Chad back with me where he belongs.”
“What are you saying, sis?” Alan-Michael asked, looking at his sister with total confusion. “You aren’t saying we should have her killed, are you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mara-Joy sobbed meekly, shoving her head under Alan-Michael’s chin. “I just know her children should be mine and Chad’s children. Not hers!” She sighed and pulled away from Alan-Michael’s warm embrace.
Mara-Joy flopped down on the nearest kitchen chair. “She ruined me, Mikey. Having an affair with my husband and running off with him. Carrying his
illegitimate children.” She placed her head down on the table, letting the cool surface calm her skin. “They left me alone and abandoned. The humiliation I suffered by my own sister’s hand!” She raised her head to Alan-Michael’s frustrated face. A red, angry ball had developed on her forehead.
Alan-Michael was listening intently to every word Mara-Joy said and she smiled wickedly to herself.
“You know, Mikey, she never did pay any attention to you.”
Alan-Michael’s brows furrowed together, trying to remember his childhood with Joanna.
“She hates you just as much as she hates me. Why, I bet she is cooking up some way to hurt you next.” Mara-Joy jumped up dramatically and grabbed Alan-Michael by the shoulders.
“We have to stop her before she gets me! You have to stop her before she gets us!”
“I won’t let her hurt you again!” Alan-Michael sobbed. Mara-Joy took his large head and cradled it to her chest. Her perfumed body made his nose tingle and he felt himself harden when Mara-Joy rubbed her thigh against him. He hugged his sister tighter, burying his face deeper into her fragrant breast.
“There, there,” she cooed, rubbing the boy’s back. She was beaming sinfully, quite amused at how anger aroused her brother. She rubbed her thigh harder on Alan-Michael’s erection. He groaned, embarrassed, between his sobbing.
“She better not try and hurt me, right Mikey?”
Alan-Michael muttered louder as he held Mara-Joy tighter to hi
m. He was entranced by her, obsessed with her. He always needed more of Mara-Joy.
Always.
She pulled away from the confused, aroused boy. Alan-Michael stood drunkenly before her, hands reaching out in vain. She placed a silky hand on his trembling shoulder.
“You have to stop her, Mikey, before she hurts me more.” Alan-Michael yearned to be in Mara-Joy’s arms again.
“You love me, Mikey? You do?” she pouted. He nodded eagerly like a trained dog. “I’ve always loved you the most in this world, Mikey. The most. Please stop her!” Mara-Joy fell to the ground and clutched Alan-Michael around the waist, panting heavily on his erect member that lay squashed and ready to pounce out of its tight confinement.
“I will,” Alan-Michael said venomously while clutching Mara-Joy’s head tight to him. “I will.”
Mara-Joy looked up at her brother. His eyes were screwed shut with intoxication. She grinned to herself and gave him one more hug around his waist, pressing her lips close to his bulging appendage before standing up. She straightened her dress and looked at the helpless blob of a boy in front of her.
“Thank you, Mikey,” she breathed into his ear, her hand firmly pressed against his chest where it lingered for a moment. She then wheeled and left hastily, aware of what she had done to her own brother.
As soon as the door shut behind Mara-Joy, Alan-Michael shamefully ran upstairs to his room and stripped his soiled underpants off.
As he stood in the bathroom scrubbing his tainted underwear, he bellowed with torment and shame, “She’s my sister! She’s my sister!”
Chapter 38 —