Story Blockhead [complete]

Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Written on two cross-Atlantic flights. Needs a LOT of editing. I'll try and post a chapter a day while I try and finish up some other stories.

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Part 1A​


I sat there looking at the man on the other side of the large, expensive desk before shaking my head at what he’d just said to me. “No, I’m not looking for you to get involved, Seth. Nor play mediator, pick a side, or anything else you might be thinking. I’m returning the jewelry to you and I’m just asking for your insight and that’s all.” He just looked at me, those piercing eyes that always seemed to control any situation he was in. Given the look on his face, I felt compelled to add, “Sure, it must be obvious that I’m tired and frazzled. I even admit to getting desperate but that’s not your problem. And frankly it isn’t your responsibility or even your business so please put that out of your mind.”

“That’s not what Thomas seems to think,” he said in that voice he reserves for contentious board room meetings.

I was tired. Bone deep tired. “Then you know more than I do. I haven’t spoken to Tom …”

“Thomas,” he said cuttingly.

I sighed, though I tried not to do it audibly. Seth was not a person I wanted to antagonize. “Thomas. I haven’t directly spoken to the man I’m still married to in six months. Surprisingly still married to, I might add. Which is the point of my visit. That jewelry was never mine personally. It belongs to the Beaumont Family Foundation. It was … on loan or whatever you want to call it … and I no longer want the responsibility of it. Nor do I want any potential problems having it in my possession can cause. Each piece has been inventoried and authenticated by the bank where they were held in trust in my personal security deposit box. I’m also returning the wedding ring despite that being something Tom … Thomas … and I bought together.”

I’ll give him his due, he didn’t just dismiss the fact I was returning the jewelry by tossing it aside. He signed the form that I had created as proof that I was returning them to the family. When he handed it to me from across his desk he raised his eyebrow, silently asking if there was something else.

I nodded. “What I also came to do, Seth, is find out why Thomas has started fighting the divorce when he is the one that initiated and filed for it and insisted on an immediate conclusion. The twins are six months old, and he’s never even laid eyes on them and that’s the way he has wanted it even though family court has tried to set up mediation multiple times. I’m done with the family’s excuses that he is ‘distracted’ because Rachel is overdue, and rumor has it she’s refusing to give birth until they are married. That doesn’t even make sense.” More than a little incredulous under the circumstances in sotto voice added, “Like she can really pull that off.” I snorted irritably while fighting the desire to add a nuclear eyeroll.

Because, oh boy, did it make no sense. Nothing has made sense in almost nine months, certainly in the last six months. But I’m well beyond ready to end this part of the fiasco so I can try and make a life for myself and the twins whether people want me to or not.

Seth opened a thin file folder on his desk. “Thomas says you’re the one that prevented visitation, and that you are the hold up.”

I snorted. “Definitely not. Have they even given you access to the original legal filings, or just tried to fob you off with copies. I’ve signed all the paperwork, forms, paid the legal fees, submitted what he required to have his name removed as the twins’ father …”

Seth snapped, “Enough with the lies Mattice. He says you were the one demanding he relinquish his parental rights in retaliation for the affair.”

Two could play that game. “It’s Mattie … and nope, that’s just more of the spin doctors his father has hired manipulating the story. It doesn’t make any more sense than Rachel’s story of refusing to give birth without a ring on her finger,” I said, then took a breath trying to remain calm and not let my anger get the better of me. The twins had crashed and burned in their stroller, and I didn’t want them waking up in the middle of me having a meltdown. “Since you obviously don’t believe me,” I added deciphering the look on his face, “I have copies of the correspondence with the lawyers … all three of them he hired with your uncle’s help. One of them hired specifically to deal with the entire parental rights and responsibilities thing, as in he didn’t want any.”

“I have here …”

I interrupted him, a dangerous action even at the best of times which this wasn’t. “I don’t care what you ‘have here’. I have original documentation with raised seals, notarized by witnesses in front of the family court judge, with audio and video, and all the rest. All the way from me being handed the divorce papers at the family’s 4th of July cookout, finding out at the same time my husband was having an affair with someone ‘more suited to the family name’, and that Rachel was pregnant, continuing forward to finding out that holding her hand during their first sonogram was why he was missing in action when I went into pre-term labor with the twins due to the stress two days later, and on and on through this entire fiasco. I also have all the medical yada yada proving he is their father … at least biologically … so those lies can be put to rest as well.”

I huffed another tired sigh. “Look Seth, if you don’t know what the holdup is then thanks for seeing me on such short notice. You didn’t have to and I’m sorry I bothered you; I know you are busy.” Knowing I’d get no other chance I added, “But if you do know, and it happens to be that he and Rachel now realize that the house and land I inherited from my mother were never community property because it was in an irrevocable trust set up years before our marriage, and they plan to somehow try to force me to sell just for the heck of it or to cause me pain?” Then I let him see just how angry I was. “Well tell your cousin and his pregnant whore that they are SOL. The judge has already told him that he’s not touching it, attaching it, putting a lien on it, nor anything else. And if you need to see Judge Markum’s words on that subject, I can provide a copy of the filed brief, all the different friend of the court docs that have been submitted to support my case, and an entire box full of other evidence. Your family burnt a lot of bridges with this one Seth. Maybe not every bridge, maybe not even a lot of important ones, but they burnt more than a few and wasted their influence trying to call in favors that haven’t panned out. What’s more? I’m. Done. This entire situation needs to be brought to a conclusion; for everyone’s sake.”

Next thing he said after apparently ignoring my previous soliloquy was, “You’re asking for a hell of a lot of alimony Mattice.”

Tired of fighting the same old lies I responded. “It’s Mattie,” I repeated with emphasis. “And no, I’m not. I’m not asking for anything except he sign those blasted papers so we can finish this. Unless he is trying to break me by lawfaring me to death. Well, that isn’t happening because the Judge finally told his lawyers this morning after the last mediation there is going to be, that if he doesn’t sign within the week, he’ll grant me a Default Divorce that is legally binding anyway. And he’ll put my legal fees on Thomas’ side of the ledger. As for how and why I can prove I’m not asking for alimony, there’s a pre-nup. In fact, I can provide an original copy of the pre-nup your uncle made me sign before he would let me walk down the aisle the day of the wedding that clearly states that I acknowledged that in the event of a divorce, I get no alimony … nothing, nada, nil, bupkis, zilch, zippo, so on and so forth. Or didn’t you ever wonder what the drama was at the back of the church and why he got seated late?”

Seth gave me a cold stare and right when he opened his mouth on one of his trademark zingers, I added, “I have proof. Depositions. Copies of what the videographer was recording just in case I refused to sign so they’d be able to use it against me and get the marriage annulled. Original paperwork that was date and time stamped by the witnesses and notary standing by oh so conveniently no matter how he tried to play it off at the time. I have all the originals despite also having correspondence proving your uncle tried to have it all destroyed to cover up his tactics.” I sighed in irritation again, this time at myself. “Good Lord, I was such an idiot and should have run before I even got an engagement ring on my finger. I was warned I don’t know how many times by a lot of people that your family is crazy, I just thought I knew what crazy meant and love could conquer all. Bleck. Maybe you people don’t start off that way – most of the kids still seem okay until they come home from college and start in the family business – but it doesn’t take long or much to send you that way once you become so-called adults.” I shook my head with the cynicism I’d been forced to develop. “What a fool I was back then. But … I’m not that naive girl anymore Seth. Your cousin and your family have managed to destroy every bit of innocence I could once lay claim to. They tried to turn me into a rag doll, to be tossed out at their whim. At the very least Thomas should have known me better than that. The only thing I don’t and never will regret are the twins. And if any of you think for one second that I’ll not do anything and everything in my power to protect them … you are oh so terribly mistaken.”

Seth was furious. He was not the kind of man that tolerated disrespect or anything he considered subterfuge. It’s why even his own family ran scared of him. But he no longer scared me. I’d faced down way too much treachery, most of it by his family, to be scared of him the way I had been at one time; until I had realized he wasn’t just another typical Beaumont male. Him, I could handle. He might be ruthless with a nasty, nearly reptilian cold anger … but Lord help me (or maybe him) he was also terribly honest. It is why I had come to ask him if he knew what was driving Tom’s … sorry, Thomas’ … change.
 
Part 1B

Surprising me with slowly bringing his anger under control he calmly said, “Show me this proof you say you have.”

I pulled an external hard drive out of the diaper bag I had at my feet. “You can have this one. I’ve got plenty more copies where it came from. The originals are someplace safe. Tell your uncle if something happens to me or the twins, there’s a kill switch. All of it goes straight to every news agency on a list that covers the front and back of five sheets of college-ruled notebook paper. I’ll damn the consequences and consider it voiding the non-disclosure agreement I signed with the divorce paperwork. And you can add that it will also go to just as many legal entities, from local judges on up to the state’s attorney general and beyond. I’ve also got a long list of business associates and Beaumont friends and enemies that will get a copy to use at their discretion. And if you have anything you need to hide – though I’m not saying you do – I would keep it firmly detached from your family and Beaumont Enterprises. They gave me enough evidence on each other over the last three years to make ropes long enough to raise and resink the Titanic … twice I might add. I never bothered putting it all together until Tom … Thomas … threatened the twins through his lawyers. When he did that … well, just think how you’d handle things in my place.”

Seth’s personal assistant, the person he said would be taking notes and acting as a witness to our conversation, momentarily paused in her typing before trying to pretend she was invisible yet again.

I stood up and he snapped, “Where do you think you are going?”

“I’m leaving. You can look at that or not, throw it away or not, do whatever you want with it, including remaining blind to what has been going on right underneath your nose for years because you ignored what you thought were only petty games within the family. But I’m finished wasting my time. The twins will be waking up soon. And more than likely you are going to start getting calls from the family asking if you’ve convinced me to cooperate.” I nearly laughed, though it wasn’t really funny, when Seth’s executive secretary chose that moment to stick her head in apologetically to say that his cousin Thomas was on the phone and demanding to speak with him, that it was urgent. I looked knowingly from the secretary to Seth Beaumont and said, “I’d look at that before you take his call if I were you. I learned the hard way just how good a liar your cousin is. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so I’d run leery of his parents as well. All of you use each other even while you do nothing but sing about family loyalty. Just understand one thing. I’m done. My children are the only thing I have left to live for. None of you want to find out what is going to happen if there is another threat in any way, shape, or form.”

I walked over to the double stroller and took the parking brake off. That stroller is about the only thing I have left of life as a Beaumont now that I’d returned the jewelry. I’d throw it back at my sister-in-laws if I could, who had snidely gifted it to me at the baby shower not long before the cookout. Looking back, I realize they had to know about the affair and the planned ambush that would be coming just a few days later. However, I’ve had to become even more “obnoxiously practical” than Tom and his family used to complain about me being. Thank goodness I was practical, or my children would have nothing, including food to eat and diapers to cover their bare butts.

I had to open the double doors myself to get out of Seth’s office … escape his office since I’m going to try and remain as honest as possible in this accounting … when he said, “Mattice, I’ll be in touch.” It was rather offhanded as he was already plugging in the hard drive.

I didn’t bother to look at him as I said, “It’s Mattie, not that it matters. Because you won’t, at least not with me directly. I don’t know how many times I have to say it but, I’m done. Talk to my lawyer. Or don’t. Just tell Thomas to sign the blasted paperwork and give up whatever game he, Rachel, and his father are trying to play. No one will like the consequences if they don’t.”

I could feel his eyes follow me as I finally managed to exit … but I wasn’t far down the hall when I heard him bite off a loud curse at what was obviously his first viewing of the first moments of one of the more damning videos of “proof” that was at the top of the long list of files on the hard drive. It was a security video of Thomas and his father sitting in a conference room talking about replacing me with Rachel and how that could be accomplished as quickly as possible … not long after we found out I was pregnant and months before the 4th of July cookout.

I was hurrying to an elevator as fast as was seemly to avoid drawing attention to myself. There were people in the lounge where they would wait their turn to supplicate to the CEO of Beaumont Enterprises, one of the most if not the most successful business in the state … and growing beyond all previous boundaries. Luckily that particular elevator was waiting and empty and I was able to get right on and push the down button quickly. Actually “luck” had nothing to do with it, I’d turned that elevator off after I’d used it to ascend to the floor Seth used as his executive office space and conference room. Despite Beaumont Enterprises being a high security office space, I’d learned to have a backup plan and glad I was as I heard Seth yell right as the doors fully closed, “Don’t just stand there, stop her!”

I got off at the next floor down that was not full of Beaumont Enterprises offices and staff. Fetching and carrying for my father-in-law who required warp speed responses to his demands had taught me every shortcut in the tall high rise. And I still had all the key cards I needed since they didn’t know I had them in the first place. I’d theoretically returned the few keys that had been signed out to me the day I’d been walked out of the building by the Head of Security, barely allowed to bring the few personal items I kept in my cubby hole. The man was no idiot, but he’d been given the wrong impression of me, an impression I’d cultivated after finding it safer to be thought of as just another Beaumont brood mare, and one without a pedigree or too many braincells on top of that.

I made it to the maintenance elevator (the one with the “disabled” security camera), closed the doors and quickly went from frumpy brown wren, still fighting to lose pregnancy weight gain, pushing an expensive double stroller to loose coveralls and a baseball cap emblazoned with the building’s maintenance staff logo. I quickly unpinned my long braid and hid it inside the dirty painter’s coveralls. The oversized diaper bag hadn’t just held diapers.

The reason I love the stroller is because it can quickly change into a wagon-style playpen where I laid my babies with a bottle for each of them so they wouldn’t make noise now that they were awake. I then covered the “playpen” on wheels with a painter’s tarp and slid dirty work gloves over my hands to hide the manicure a neighbor had given me in exchange for some computer help. Just in time too.

The maintenance elevators were fast, but I’ve practiced various getaways for a while and was able to finish our camouflage and calmly exit the elevator on a service level without anyone the wiser. It started as a game I taught myself to avoid the “crazy” of my husband’s family. It was like an adult version of Hide-and-Seek. I also knew where all the security cameras were and was able to avoid most of them. A few days ago I had carefully concealed an old beater of a maintenance van in the building’s physical plant area in the lowest basement level parking garage. The van had belonged to my father, God rest his soul. I don’t know if my parents would be scared for me or cheering me on right now, laughing at what some would consider hijinks. I know they’d be praying for my, and their grandchildren’s, safety and that gave me strength and the speed I needed.

The twins and I had arrived in a nondescript four-door sedan. It belonged to the Beaumont family’s car fleet. A cousin-in-law – one I had trusted far too long – explained that it was only right that I have something decent to cart the twins around in, at least until the divorce papers were signed and the arrangement could be made permanent. Yeah. Right. The car was a trap. I realized it by watching a YouTube video of an old spy comedy of all things one desperate night, all alone, needing a distraction because the twins had taken turns refusing to sleep. I found transponders all over the blasted thing, along with a couple of listening devices. I never have figured out what they were looking for exactly, or who was really doing the looking, but I gave them nothing but benign … church, pediatrician, OB/gyn, grocery store, the lawyers’ offices, the courthouse, and the tiny apartment in a bad part of town, the only thing I let them think I could afford. Occasionally I would put a CD into the car’s audio equipment and play some of the worst self-improvement claptrap imaginable, the recordings would have caused chronic narcolepsy for anyone that was listening. It definitely put the twins to sleep every single time, so I didn’t mind it … at least not much.

I rolled my babies into the back of the van using a ramp my father had installed for my mother’s wheelchair and then quickly closed the door and transferred them to their car seats that were out of sight of any of the front windows … the rear of the van had no windows making things even easier to conceal. Soon enough I was backing out and heading to a new, unknown to any of the Beaumonts, way point. There I was picking up my Great Aunt Nanny who said she’d come with me and help until the twins were a little more autonomous, along with the last of my possessions, and then we’d be making a getaway to the homestead where we would stay until my lawyer contacted me to let me know things were over with.
 

Part 2​


“Lands Girl, I didn’t recognize you in that get up. You nearly scared me to death.”

I sighed in relief before asking, “You ready to go?”

“About that, Honey.”

I just stopped. Then I looked at her.

“What?” I asked, dreading what I was about to hear.

“Don’t look at me like that Mattie, Sugar. They didn’t get to me. Lois did.”

“Wait, Aunt Lois? Your twin? That Aunt Lois?” I asked confused.

“Uh huh. We’ve decided to take a world cruise just like we always dreamed. None of us is getting younger you know.”

The woman herself stepped out from around the corner and said, “Surprise!”

~~~~~

Well, it’s obvious that Tom’s family isn’t the only crazy ones. His family and mine are just different kinds of crazy. Tom’s is mean-crazy. Mine is simply crazy-crazy. There was no changing things, there was only dealing with it and managing the crazy the best I’d learned how growing up. Unlike in most families being the black sheep usually meant you were wild and unpredictable. Nope, at least not for me. Being the black sheep in my family meant being staid, grounded, “obnoxiously practical,” and safely boring or at least in comparison to most of the family. But none of that mattered in that moment; I was going to have to think about how I was going to manage the newest new reality later. There was work to be done.

I loaded what little I hadn’t already packed off to the farm in the back of the van. Tucked Aunt Nanny and Aunt Lois in there the best I could; they thought it an exciting lark having to sit in the back on the floor with the twins’ in their car seats and play invisible. Then I pushed and pulled their oversized luggage on the very outside. Apparently, they were flying straight to another sister’s house where two other sisters (a different set of twins) were waiting – Aunt Wanda and Aunt Pansy – and from there they were all going to head to the cruise port. Aunt Lois had decided that now was as good a time as any to get Aunt Nanny out of Dodge. Because of course I was “young and resilient and would figure things out” without their help. Not cruelty, simply honesty, spoken by a dominant twin used to protecting her weaker sister.

I’m not even going to bother and record just how crazy her story was. Crazy things tend to happen in our family … serendipitously crazy things. But it goes something like Aunt Lois was supposed to take this cruise with Aunt Wanda and Aunt Pansy and a friend of theirs. The friend fell and broke her hip and couldn’t go. Aunt Lois had some kind of epiphany and took charge, got the friend in an assisted living facility where she was going to get all the rehab she needed … with some nice-looking young men on staff as consolation … and then replaced all her documents with Aunt Nanny’s. She surprised Aunt Nanny by showing up this morning, despite secretly rearranging everyone’s lives for weeks, and convinced her it was ‘providential all things considered’. She even came up with a scheme to send postcards from different international ports of call purporting to be me to throw “those nasty Beaumonts off the scent.”

I hid my shudder at the likely legal chaos that could cause and managed to say, “Uh … that’s sweet of you Aunt Lois but … really … no need to involve yourselves like that. Just take care of Aunt Nanny. Well, all of you take care of each other. And have fun … and try a little harder to stay out of trouble this time. Please?”

Aunt Lois beamed and told me I was a chip off the old Block. Yep, that’s my name … Mattice “Mattie” Block … legally back to using my maiden name even without the divorce being finalized.

So, I took an unplanned side trip and dropped my great aunts off at the International Airport, made sure a porter helped with their luggage, called the other set of twin aunts … that set anyway … and told them Aunt Nanny and Aunt Lois were on their way and gave the least crazy sister of the quartet a way to contact me in case of emergency(ies), and then beat feet, hoping for it to be many, many moons before I had to see the city again and any of the Beaumonts that lived there.

At a rest stop a few miles down the interstate I took the time for a bathroom break, a diaper change, and to pump my breast milk. I was feeling like a prize heifer (looked like one too at that point), and it was a relief, both physically and mentally. Why didn’t I simply breast feed the twins instead of pumping? Because the three of us developed Thrush when the twins were just a couple of weeks old. We’d all been miserable and me pumping and bottle feeding was the only way to break the cycle. Now they didn’t want to do anything but drink from a bottle because they were both a couple of piglets and they were able to eat faster from the bottle than they got when nursing, which did nothing but frustrate all three of us when I had tried to restart after getting rid of the Thrush.

While the pump was hooked up like a milking machine making me want to giggle and moo as it almost always did, I sat in the back of the van and took my tablet and keyboard out of the faraday bag I kept all my electronics in when not in use. I know I sound as crazy as the rest of my family; paranoid beyond all good sense on top of everything else. However, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. I learned the hard way how true that quote really is. I couldn’t figure out how Tom’s lawyers had access to certain things … like documents, pictures, and statements before I filed them. As Sherlock Holmes is quoted as saying, “When you’ve eliminated all possibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

I took apart my laptop, the same laptop that I’d first built in middle school because my paternal step grandfather, my guardian at the time, wouldn’t allow me to have one otherwise because he was slightly … okay not just slightly … crazy on the subject of the evil of tech. He was so crazy on the subject he made the Unabomber sound reasonable and harmless. He was an actuary by career before he retired if you can believe that. And smart. It took me forever to unravel what he did. He was the one that took all my father’s inheritance – already wrapped up in an irrevocable trust – added in my mother’s inheritance (also in an irrevocable trust) as she’d lost both of her parents as well - as well as the insurance money that came after my parents were killed when some stuff fell off a semi-trailer on the interstate and put it out of my reach until I was thirty-two … or twenty-five if I married. But the stipulation, in case of marriage, was that none of it could ever be in my husband’s name … there was a huge tax penalty and loss of funds if it was attempted. Another protection was the age stipulation and how long it was in a Trust prior to any hypothetical-at-the-time marriage. Poppa Gary was crazy all right … crazy like a fox.

Back to playing Sherlock Holmes. After the examination of my laptop, I discovered that, sure enough, someone had been monkeying around. I spotted things immediately as I’d been monkeying around with the thing myself all the way through middle school, high school, and then community college. I cleaned it of spyware and the “extras” that someone had left in there. I couldn’t take my phone apart, but I did strip it down to bare necessities after finding a couple of monitoring apps on there that had no business being on my phone. I took away the remote access that had been hidden in some other coding on the laptop as well. Whoever it was was good, but I’d been tinkering nearly since birth, completely supported by my father who himself was a tinkerer from a long line of tinkerers. It was engrained in our genetics and being called “Block headed” was a compliment in our family.

When the lawyer – at least the woman who was my lawyer at the time I mean – insisted on trying to loan me a computer after mine had “died”. I smiled, said no thank you, and promptly got a new lawyer. This one in a firm that had represented the only company to successfully sue the Beaumont family and win. They were willing to take the case – an unusual one for their firm – pro bono as they had an axe to grind.

“Just take your fee out of whatever settlement you can swing,” I told one of the law firm’s partners. “But I don’t want to know what all you do with the access you are going to have during the Financial Discovery and the Deposition phases.”

We shook on it, then signed the necessary paperwork. I heard through the grapevine that Seth wasn’t happy at the time, but it wasn’t me he was angry at. Apparently he’d been trying to arrange a quick and quiet divorce so he could clean the situation up and get Tom and Rachel married before the noise made the social rounds outside the city and complicated any of his business dealings. He wanted to know why I’d suddenly switched law firms. I wasn’t explaining, that’s for sure, but it was another reason why I’d braved the lion in his den to try and nudge things along.

For a “stupid naïve girl with barely a community college education”, I’d started learning even before Tom and I got married. I had to just to survive. I used to think that Tom was in the same boat. Younger son who got zero respect in the family. His two older sisters made Cinderella’s stepsisters look like innocent and benign angels. He was constantly ridiculed and underestimated and was treated like slave labor on top of it. And that’s actually why I started learning … to help him pick up the slack of everything that was dumped on him to prove he was a failure. To me it was just another form of tinkering. I didn’t mind that he got credit because at home he gave me all the credit I could desire and then some … until he didn’t. I went from picking up the slack to actually doing all his work so he could enjoy the fruits of “his” labor and network with the goal of taking those next steps up the family corporate ladder.

Oh, he stayed “the face”, but I was the one that wrote the proposals, helped him to practice his presentations, and all the rest of it. It really wasn’t that hard. And to be honest I cheated a bit … okay more than a bit. I had access to files and project information that various family members tried to hide from each other since I worked in my father-in-law’s office ostensibly as a clerk of some description or other. Never underestimate support staff. Never.

I kept track of who was meeting with who just to stay out of the middle of their “friendly feuds” and then used that information in presentations … who had an ego that needed stroking, who had a secret they were worried would get out, which departments were overspending, and which ones were under budget. You name it, I kept an eye on it. Not with the same purpose my father-in-law did, but certainly with more than innocent curiosity. You never knew when something might be important or useful. Including who was tech stupid and would leave their computers open and connected so that I could gain access to files and to the security cameras in the high rise that Beaumont Enterprises occupied. And all the “unauthorized” cameras and other wifi enabled gizmos that collected things they definitely shouldn’t have been collecting.

However, as I turned my laptop on, just to be on the safe side I was not going to access the cameras on the Beaumont floors via any of the company’s terminals. I went straight to the building’s security department. Turns out I found what I was looking for via the cameras in the housekeeping storage area that no one seemed to realize was there.

Coming into the middle of a drama-filled conversation I heard one woman say to another, “… and I’m not cleaning up the mess. They want all that glass and expensive liquor cleaned up, they can hire someone from outside. That’s not in my contract and I don’t need another trip to the ER for stitches.”

“I heard there was a fight and Meester Reginald threw something at Meester Seth and broke the glass shelves in his office. Is it true?” the other woman whispered covertly.

The first woman whispered back, “True. And the something was a bottle of that expensive stuff from the cabinet that I’m not even allowed to clean.”

“Nooo.”

“Yes. And he did it after Meester Seth punched Meester Thomas and called him an idiot … and other things I won’t repeat or I’ll have to take it to Confession.”

“Nooo.”

“Yes.”

“What was the fight about?” the second woman asked, looking for more to be scandalized about.

The first woman hesitated, like she was a bit sorry she’d started sharing in the first place. “I … I don’t know but it’s bad. Very bad. Meester Seth has called a family meeting. No one is allowed to miss. It is tonight after every one else has left the building.”

“Nooo,” she repeated in a shocked and titillated hushed tone.

“Yes.”

“You know nothing else?” the second woman asked the first after the reveals had stopped, like she was looking for more gossip to dine on.

The woman looked around and whispered so low the camera barely picked it up. “I theenk … I theenk it has something to do with Miss Mattie and those babies. Mary said she was up there and then … disappeared. Not even security can find her, and they are still looking all over the building. They think she has help and is hiding from the family so she and the babies can escape.”

“Nooo.”

Even more dramatically she answered, “Yes. And God go with her because I’ve worked here nearly twenty years and I’ve never seen Meester Seth sooo angry, not even when he was a boy working summers and I’m sure you’ve heard those stories.”

The two women quicky separated and went back to work when someone from security jerked the door open and looked around hurriedly before leaving just as fast.

I switched to a couple of different cameras before shutting my piggyback access down after only seeing security team members running around like ants.
 
Kathy in FL said:
Written on two cross-Atlantic flights. Needs a LOT of editing. I'll try and post a chapter a day while I try and finish up some other stories.

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Part 1A​


I sat there looking at the man on the other side of the large, expensive desk before shaking my head at what he’d just said to me. “No, I’m not looking for you to get involved, Seth. Nor play mediator, pick a side, or anything else you might be thinking. I’m returning the jewelry to you and I’m just asking for your insight and that’s all.” He just looked at me, those piercing eyes that always seemed to control any situation he was in. Given the look on his face, I felt compelled to add, “Sure, it must be obvious that I’m tired and frazzled. I even admit to getting desperate but that’s not your problem. And frankly it isn’t your responsibility or even your business so please put that out of your mind.”

“That’s not what Thomas seems to think,” he said in that voice he reserves for contentious board room meetings.

I was tired. Bone deep tired. “Then you know more than I do. I haven’t spoken to Tom …”

“Thomas,” he said cuttingly.

I sighed, though I tried not to do it audibly. Seth was not a person I wanted to antagonize. “Thomas. I haven’t directly spoken to the man I’m still married to in six months. Surprisingly still married to, I might add. Which is the point of my visit. That jewelry was never mine personally. It belongs to the Beaumont Family Foundation. It was … on loan or whatever you want to call it … and I no longer want the responsibility of it. Nor do I want any potential problems having it in my possession can cause. Each piece has been inventoried and authenticated by the bank where they were held in trust in my personal security deposit box. I’m also returning the wedding ring despite that being something Tom … Thomas … and I bought together.”

I’ll give him his due, he didn’t just dismiss the fact I was returning the jewelry by tossing it aside. He signed the form that I had created as proof that I was returning them to the family. When he handed it to me from across his desk he raised his eyebrow, silently asking if there was something else.

I nodded. “What I also came to do, Seth, is find out why Thomas has started fighting the divorce when he is the one that initiated and filed for it and insisted on an immediate conclusion. The twins are six months old, and he’s never even laid eyes on them and that’s the way he has wanted it even though family court has tried to set up mediation multiple times. I’m done with the family’s excuses that he is ‘distracted’ because Rachel is overdue, and rumor has it she’s refusing to give birth until they are married. That doesn’t even make sense.” More than a little incredulous under the circumstances in sotto voice added, “Like she can really pull that off.” I snorted irritably while fighting the desire to add a nuclear eyeroll.

Because, oh boy, did it make no sense. Nothing has made sense in almost nine months, certainly in the last six months. But I’m well beyond ready to end this part of the fiasco so I can try and make a life for myself and the twins whether people want me to or not.

Seth opened a thin file folder on his desk. “Thomas says you’re the one that prevented visitation, and that you are the hold up.”

I snorted. “Definitely not. Have they even given you access to the original legal filings, or just tried to fob you off with copies. I’ve signed all the paperwork, forms, paid the legal fees, submitted what he required to have his name removed as the twins’ father …”

Seth snapped, “Enough with the lies Mattice. He says you were the one demanding he relinquish his parental rights in retaliation for the affair.”

Two could play that game. “It’s Mattie … and nope, that’s just more of the spin doctors his father has hired manipulating the story. It doesn’t make any more sense than Rachel’s story of refusing to give birth without a ring on her finger,” I said, then took a breath trying to remain calm and not let my anger get the better of me. The twins had crashed and burned in their stroller, and I didn’t want them waking up in the middle of me having a meltdown. “Since you obviously don’t believe me,” I added deciphering the look on his face, “I have copies of the correspondence with the lawyers … all three of them he hired with your uncle’s help. One of them hired specifically to deal with the entire parental rights and responsibilities thing, as in he didn’t want any.”

“I have here …”

I interrupted him, a dangerous action even at the best of times which this wasn’t. “I don’t care what you ‘have here’. I have original documentation with raised seals, notarized by witnesses in front of the family court judge, with audio and video, and all the rest. All the way from me being handed the divorce papers at the family’s 4th of July cookout, finding out at the same time my husband was having an affair with someone ‘more suited to the family name’, and that Rachel was pregnant, continuing forward to finding out that holding her hand during their first sonogram was why he was missing in action when I went into pre-term labor with the twins due to the stress two days later, and on and on through this entire fiasco. I also have all the medical yada yada proving he is their father … at least biologically … so those lies can be put to rest as well.”

I huffed another tired sigh. “Look Seth, if you don’t know what the holdup is then thanks for seeing me on such short notice. You didn’t have to and I’m sorry I bothered you; I know you are busy.” Knowing I’d get no other chance I added, “But if you do know, and it happens to be that he and Rachel now realize that the house and land I inherited from my mother were never community property because it was in an irrevocable trust set up years before our marriage, and they plan to somehow try to force me to sell just for the heck of it or to cause me pain?” Then I let him see just how angry I was. “Well tell your cousin and his pregnant whore that they are SOL. The judge has already told him that he’s not touching it, attaching it, putting a lien on it, nor anything else. And if you need to see Judge Markum’s words on that subject, I can provide a copy of the filed brief, all the different friend of the court docs that have been submitted to support my case, and an entire box full of other evidence. Your family burnt a lot of bridges with this one Seth. Maybe not every bridge, maybe not even a lot of important ones, but they burnt more than a few and wasted their influence trying to call in favors that haven’t panned out. What’s more? I’m. Done. This entire situation needs to be brought to a conclusion; for everyone’s sake.”

Next thing he said after apparently ignoring my previous soliloquy was, “You’re asking for a hell of a lot of alimony Mattice.”

Tired of fighting the same old lies I responded. “It’s Mattie,” I repeated with emphasis. “And no, I’m not. I’m not asking for anything except he sign those blasted papers so we can finish this. Unless he is trying to break me by lawfaring me to death. Well, that isn’t happening because the Judge finally told his lawyers this morning after the last mediation there is going to be, that if he doesn’t sign within the week, he’ll grant me a Default Divorce that is legally binding anyway. And he’ll put my legal fees on Thomas’ side of the ledger. As for how and why I can prove I’m not asking for alimony, there’s a pre-nup. In fact, I can provide an original copy of the pre-nup your uncle made me sign before he would let me walk down the aisle the day of the wedding that clearly states that I acknowledged that in the event of a divorce, I get no alimony … nothing, nada, nil, bupkis, zilch, zippo, so on and so forth. Or didn’t you ever wonder what the drama was at the back of the church and why he got seated late?”

Seth gave me a cold stare and right when he opened his mouth on one of his trademark zingers, I added, “I have proof. Depositions. Copies of what the videographer was recording just in case I refused to sign so they’d be able to use it against me and get the marriage annulled. Original paperwork that was date and time stamped by the witnesses and notary standing by oh so conveniently no matter how he tried to play it off at the time. I have all the originals despite also having correspondence proving your uncle tried to have it all destroyed to cover up his tactics.” I sighed in irritation again, this time at myself. “Good Lord, I was such an idiot and should have run before I even got an engagement ring on my finger. I was warned I don’t know how many times by a lot of people that your family is crazy, I just thought I knew what crazy meant and love could conquer all. Bleck. Maybe you people don’t start off that way – most of the kids still seem okay until they come home from college and start in the family business – but it doesn’t take long or much to send you that way once you become so-called adults.” I shook my head with the cynicism I’d been forced to develop. “What a fool I was back then. But … I’m not that naive girl anymore Seth. Your cousin and your family have managed to destroy every bit of innocence I could once lay claim to. They tried to turn me into a rag doll, to be tossed out at their whim. At the very least Thomas should have known me better than that. The only thing I don’t and never will regret are the twins. And if any of you think for one second that I’ll not do anything and everything in my power to protect them … you are oh so terribly mistaken.”

Seth was furious. He was not the kind of man that tolerated disrespect or anything he considered subterfuge. It’s why even his own family ran scared of him. But he no longer scared me. I’d faced down way too much treachery, most of it by his family, to be scared of him the way I had been at one time; until I had realized he wasn’t just another typical Beaumont male. Him, I could handle. He might be ruthless with a nasty, nearly reptilian cold anger … but Lord help me (or maybe him) he was also terribly honest. It is why I had come to ask him if he knew what was driving Tom’s … sorry, Thomas’ … change.
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Well then!

More than enough hints of skullduggery and bad faith to keep me interested right from the GetGo so, count me in!!!

Thanks for the taste Ma'am!!!
 
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Lake Lili said:
Just did another read through and wondering if Seth isn't going to end up being a good guy in the end... he has the potential of being one... Please Kathy, quite happy to start the begging for more early.
Thanks, Lili
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Hard to be restrained when the bait is so good isn't it Ms Lili?
Well for me anyway.

Really hooked on this one!
 
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Part 3​


I finished pumping and got back on the road after changing into some comfortable “mom clothes” and rewrapping my braid around my head like Heidi and pinning it in place. Garrett (named after my father) had spit up on it during his burp and subsequent fit of the baby giggles. Rose, a nod to my mother who had been named Aurora, was more ladylike … at least when the noise wasn’t coming from her other end which she could do well enough to nearly bugle the entirety of Yankee Doodle Dandy in the key of G.

I pulled off the interstate into a small town I’d scoped out weeks ago and took the van to an eco-friendly unmanned, manual car wash where I cleaned off the fake business name and logo that I’d stenciled in temporary paint. The art and fake logo had served its purpose and now it was time to take care of the next things on my list a little less identifiably. Along with the paint, off washed the fake rust and bullet holes and scuffs. It had been like putting makeup on a pig, but it looked realistic enough when I had finished. After the wash, the van was still a beater but at least it looked presentable if a little on the ”sadly vintage” side of the economic scale.

I headed to a storage bay where I picked up all the long-term storage food that I’d been ordering and hiding there for just in case. And yes, I’m fully aware that only makes me seem a little crazier but as the black sheep Block Head, I had all the “just in case” genes necessary to keep my appearance of crazy out of actually being crazy. I’d learned a lot of this from Poppa Gary, never realizing I wasn’t doing anything more than humoring him. The lessons stuck whether I meant them to or not. For the last year I’ve discovered just how sane some of my crazy relatives are. A prime example of this is Poppa Gary despised banks and only used them as absolutely necessary. He died on his throne like Elvis one summer I had gone to help Aunt Nanny clean up her house to get it sold so she could move into a retirement community and look for husband number four. He was also who insisted that I learn to “squirrel away” funds for just in case and who bequeathed me his “squirreled away stash” to keep it out of the hands of his brother who would “blow it on something ridiculous rather than save it” the way misers should hoard their gold. [Insert huge eye roll here, the one I never dared give him growing up.]

I’ve been living on that miser’s hoard, and what I’ve added to it over the years, despite precious anything from metals to stones to real estate to my "spousal allowance" to cash/coin of the realm being heavily taxed, ever since I was “asked politely by security” to vacate the luxury condo where Tom’s father had parked us for safekeeping after our honeymoon. Tom had emptied our shared bank account on the night of July 3rd and blocked my access to it … or had until one of his lawyers had freaked out at just how bad that looked for the case. Especially when the fidelity clause of the pre-nup was filed by my current lawyer. That recouped money, much less than it should have been, went toward paying my first lawyer. Any subsequent money that has come to me has been held in trust by my new lawyer and that’s what they’ve been using to fight my case for me. I don’t care if I never see a cent of it, I just want to be free … or at least my children free of the Beaumont influence.

Anyway, that’s where the money has come from to set the twins and I up at the farm, though the place hasn’t been a farm since before Georgia was a state. The money won’t last a lifetime, but it will help us stay hidden until the divorce is finalized and the resulting Hiroshima’s twin blows over, with some money left over to start an educational fund for the twins. The long-term storage foods are part of that plan. The boxes before me would now last twice as long since I didn’t have Aunt Nanny to feed. I was sad and hurt for a moment but had learned to toss those feelings away as counterproductive. My parents taught me that everything that happens is in God’s Plan whether I understand it or not. It is my responsibility to learn acceptance and patience … both in quantity to last as long as necessary.

The rear of the van was completely cram jammed full when I found a place to wiggle the last bag in. It had taken me longer than I had planned for … I’d assumed Aunt Nanny would have helped to mind the twins even if she hadn’t helped load. I needed to hurry if I was going to complete my day’s to do list.

From there I went to the next town and hit an old Piggly Wiggly – using gift cards that I’d been collecting for months – and purchased all the limits on fresh items and put them in the floorboard of the front passenger seat. In the next town I did the same at a Fresh Market. So on and so forth until I hit the last store on my route and got out right before it closed at 10 pm. The twins looked like they were in a bouncy-ball pit that was full of fresh groceries instead of balls. I’d used gift cards at every stop, including fuel stops, leaving a few cents on each one even if it meant returning something so I didn’t have to use any other form of payment which would require identification. Poppa Gary had told me stories of the days before you had to swipe your ID card when using cash. I had a hard time imagining such freedom, but he swore it was true. Since Aunt Nanny and her sisters told the same stories, I accept it used to be that way, but it sure isn’t that way these days. Remaining anonymous takes real effort and extreme measures, but when you are desperate any crazy seems justified.

I had been following a zigzag pattern heading towards the farm. Thankfully Tom had never been interested in visiting my inheritance. Had laughed and “comically shuddered” at the idea of camping out in a place that had never had running water or electricity. I thought he’d been joking but apparently he hadn’t. Looking back on our courtship and first eighteen months of our marriage, I know Tom was different. He was fun and loving, took pride in standing on his own, and all the other sappy, romantic nonsense that gets you through until all the new gets knocked off a relationship and you find out if you have staying power or not. I can tell you almost to the day when things started to change. It was at his sister’s college graduation party for her MBA. She’d taken forever to get it because she’d taken so many “apprenticeships” (aka "long paid vacations") in her father’s department. How they fawned over her was ridiculous. Tom, despite being younger by several years, had gotten his MBA a year before we married. I hadn’t known it at the time, but that party is when he met Rachel; or gotten reacquainted with her I should say. I’ll leave it at that except for adding she’d dumped him, and I’d been an unwitting rebound. Lesson learned. I’m not against finding love again – because I really had loved Tom before he changed and had enjoyed being in love – but I have the twins to put first now, certainly before exercising any other desires I might develop.

When I walked out of the last store lugging the twins and my purchases, feeling as if a half dozen more hands would have been welcome because the store hadn’t allowed the cart outside, I was glad it was dark. I was disheveled, spotted with the kind of stains that babies make, tired, and barely keeping it together and there was still a bit of a drive to go. I stopped to fill up with fuel, including a couple of empty fuel containers that fit in a metal box attached to the back door to keep the fumes out of the interior, and looked longingly at the sugary caffeinated drinks but knew better if I didn’t want the twins to wind up acting like they were suffering the DTs from Groucholand. By the time I made it to the farm it was a pitch-black moonless night, a lot darker than it had been any other time I’ve been here that I can remember. And yes, I’m here to stay but I’ll get to that in a bit.

The road back to the property isn’t well maintained as it is barely a goat track off a dirt, clay, and limerock forestry road and through several other parcels of hunting land that are no longer regularly occupied … at least not by people. No one can be kept from accessing their land, but that doesn’t mean anyone has to maintain the road to get back to it and there were a few bumps that really upset the twins … and didn’t do a lot for me either as I needed to pump again, hopefully sooner rather than later. I’ve driven the road many times since the twins were born, but usually in an old pick up truck or a side-by-side pulling a small trailer. The van gave us a completely different ride. I didn’t know which was sorer, my bottom from hours in the broken spring chair, the top of my head where it connected with the van’s roof on a couple of the more serious bumps, or … well you can guess. It was like wearing two boulders that tried to act like independent basketballs.

I was grateful to pull up to the house and then around back. I wanted nothing more than to pump and then face plant but that wasn’t happening. I got the twins out, got them changed and fed … then changed again, putting all the dirty diapers into the diaper pail that already reeked necessitating a location change … then put the twins in the nursery in their crib, the only room that is currently livable and set up. There are two cribs but so far they are only happy sleeping in the same bed despite being a girl and boy set of fraternals. I’d warned Tom that twins ran in my family and that I’d even been one … my twin didn’t survive the car accident that had destroyed my mother’s ability to walk (or have more children) … but I don’t think he’d given it much thought not even having met various family members that warned him of the same thing, until I brought the sonogram home.

While I was milked by the pump again, I sat in the room, a solar powered fan blowing a bit of the mountain night air around to get rid of the stuffiness (and stink of nuclear waste baby poots) of the closed up house, and went over my list by the light of a wind-up lamp. It was a bit like being in a cave with a cool ambient temperature. It was just after the holidays and for just a moment I felt like crying – from memories and loneliness - but it passed quickly. I had a lot to do. I needed to get the fresh stuff out of the van and put into the refrigerators and solar powered coolers. Depending on if I got my second wind or not, I would start emptying the van of everything else though where I was going to put it all was still a bit of a blur. If I didn’t have the energy, I would put the van in the barn and then drive it back over once it got dark again. Another bit of paranoia on my part. I was going to be careful when I was outside not to draw attention to us and our location. Maybe my feelings were groundless, but I’d rather be thought crazy than a fool for not taking the situation seriously enough.

How, if the cabin had never had electricity and water run to it, was I able to access such creature comfort as a refrigerator these days is because I’d finally gotten most of Poppa Gary’s contraptions set up. There are still some to go, but that’s life, always a work in progress. While Poppa hated tech in general, there were some things he would tolerate … so long as he wasn’t the one setting them up and maintaining them. That’s what he planned for me to do. And I likely would have fallen in with those plans had things not turned out as they did.

Poppa Gary was crazy, but he was a dependable and predictable crazy. He also didn’t rely on me for his income and made sure I had the full use of the survivor’s benefits I received. And, in his own way, he was kind … brusque, slightly OCD, cranky, opinionated, irritable … crazy but kind; a contradiction, but one I knew I was capable of living with without being driven my own version of crazy. I think losing Poppa’s influence, boundaries, and careful tending is why I was vulnerable to the love bug that bit me when I met Tom. I’d been lonely, so had he. I’d needed connection, he’d needed dependability. We both needed validation in ways our families weren’t giving us. Mine was out of thoughtlessness and self-involvement, Tom’s was due to outright cruelty. I just didn’t realize what the differences we had would mean.

I’d already started the farmhouse’s transformation long before Tom started changing. When he went on his “men-only” retreats or poker weekends with his family, I told him I was going to visit various other of my family members to check on them because so many were elderly. I would, but then I would take off to the farmhouse and work off stress by tinkering. A lot of the old folks were passing. I sent a lot of flowers to funeral homes, and had an entire mourning wardrobe, the first two years of our marriage.

No, I had no idea what was coming. I wasn’t even doing it for “just in case” some cataclysmic event occurred like Poppa Gary was always lecturing me about, usually his fantasy of the loss of all electronic tech via EMP or similar. Nope, I was doing it to surprise Tom for when I was sure he would need to get away from his family. I was building a place for us to escape to, to survive at, until we decided how we were going to fit into the Beaumont empire, or even if we were. I was doing it the same way I covered him in his job. Needing nor expecting recognition, in fact wanting it to be a surprise. I would show him that I was all in and supportive unlike other members of his family to give him time to find out exactly what he wanted.

I don’t know how many times I must admit it, but I was oh so stupid. Or willingly blind. I haven’t decided which yet and I’m not really into the whole masochistic flogging such a thoughtful reflection would require me to be. And right now, I need to get off my butt and get to work. I have a lot to do, and I’ve now faced the fact that I’ll be doing it on my own until the twins are significantly older and can help.
 
TALLON said:
Well, I have reread this one to be up to date. I am enjoying this Thanks for writing Kathy. I have a question have you considered selling your stories on a thumb drive so that we could have them without depending on the internet. If you do, I would love to buy one.
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The completed stories I've tried to make available for free download. Go to the Resource area and look under my name. The links should all still be good. I haven't gotten everything up but I think most of the completed ones are there. If not, I'll try and find the time to upload some more. It is a matter of file size for some things.

 
beaglemama said:
I agree! :) I'm also REALLY happy that Kathy has been finding joy in writing again even if it took a while to be shared with us.
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Life, strewn as it is with the normal challenges we all face plus her specific bane of plagiaristic scum, can sidetrack any of us.

I just keep checking back and am always pleasantly surprised when some new-to-us gem like this appears.

Patience can be a virtue and deliver rewards. I'm an old hunter so sitting & waiting is in my blood . . . . . .
 
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Kathy in FL said:
The completed stories I've tried to make available for free download. Go to the Resource area and look under my name. The links should all still be good. I haven't gotten everything up but I think most of the completed ones are there. If not, I'll try and find the time to upload some more. It is a matter of file size for some things.

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Thank You so much. I will look forward to doing this.
 

Part 4​


I don’t know what I was more enthusiastic for tonight … the chicken dinner and celebratory cupcake I baked for myself, or the ibuprofen for my sore muscles that I ate as the meal’s appetizer course. It’s been three long weeks, but I think I’ve finally got a handle on most of what I need to do in the coming months. I’ve been alone (with the twins of course) without being lonely. I could have used some help on occasions, like maybe from one of those AI bots that Poppa Gary swore was going to be the downfall of humanity. Not for company but for a couple of extra hands when I needed to balance a load, or a couple of extra feet to halve the number of steps I was taking.

First, to recap. That first night all I had energy for was to deal with the fresh groceries, or at least get them as far as the refrigerators and coolers, or hung up in baskets in the pantry so they’d last longer than piled on the countertops. Everything else just had to wait. I slept off and on for what was left of the night and then most of the next day until four o’clock, or at least as much as the twins and their feeding and my pumping schedule allowed for. The January days grow dark early here in the shadow of the Georgia mountains. It allowed me to move the van back to the house from the barn a couple of hours earlier than I had thought possible. Good thing as it took longer to empty the van than I realized it would because I had to make room just to bring everything in.

I had thought about taking everything down into the basement and cellar as I went but decided that created too much extra work and I wanted to clean down there so everything could be put away in an organized fashion as I went. Yes, it created even more of a mess, but measure twice, cut once was always my father’s motto even when it didn’t apply in an obvious way to start with. I’d already made the mistake of just shoving things in whatever available space I could find when I started gathering all of my inherited mish-mash from both sides of my family, hidden for years in various locations … someone’s shed, the unused hayloft in a barn, storage facilities paid for out of the Trust, a corner in an aunt’s attic, that awkward and inconvenient out of the way storage space in a cousin’s basement, under more than few beds or that back of a spare room closet. Everyone in their own way was grateful I was “finally collecting” all the flotsam and hauling it out of their lives. Thinking about it I’m pretty sure they may have even snuck in a little extra here and there. All well-meaning of course, but I knew when I spotted the rag rug made from florescent paisley fabric and the quilt that had to have been constructed from old polyester suits that I’d been had at least a few times. I’d inherited things people couldn’t bring themselves to get rid of to strangers … or the burn barrel. I have a lot to go through.

My mother’s family had been full of women that were … “crafty”. I don’t mean clever though they were that as well. I mean crafty … sewing, quilting, knitting, embroidering, making hook rugs, using punch needles, cross stitch, crocheting, painting, tatting, quilling, spinning, weaving, calligraphy, candle making, stained glass, perfumery, DIY projects, etc. and all the supplies that came with them. Somewhere in all the mess I know I have multiple sewing machines, two antique treadles, a huge quilting machine that needs to be put together, a couple of knitting machines, and bolt upon bolt of fabrics of all types (and fashion decade) and bushels of skeins of yarn and threads, dress forms, and cases of notions and paper patterns in all styles and trends from even before my mother was born. I have a space all picked out upstairs as a craft room where I will gather and organize all of it, praying that I find a way to make everything fit. Another room is going to hold all the miscellaneous art supplies. I already plan to switch some of the antique knobs around on the doors so that those two rooms have working locks to keep the twins out of things that create the kind of messes that only kids are capable of making.

Downstairs will be the music room. It already holds an ancient wooden upright pump organ that doesn’t work and a more than just little out of place baby grand piano put there by my maternal grandfather when his grandmother had passed and no one else had claimed it during the estate auction. What no one had realized was that the reason the “pump” didn’t work was because that’s where she’d hidden her jewelry and the family silver when she’d become so paranoid when dementia had set in not long after her hundredth birthday. The disappearance had caused a schism in the family as everyone thought the others had nicked the items for themselves rather than sharing. In the end that’s one of the main reasons that my mother inherited the original family homestead. That and the fact both her brothers had passed on before their father from their own brand of craziness … mostly wild women and reckless living, which made them happy, just short-lived. My father’s family were as crazy in their own way, it just didn’t tend to shorten their lifespan. To the contrary, they were as long-lived as my mother’s had once been, before crazy overshot commonsense in recent generations.

My widowed great aunts, deliriously happy on their world cruise, are as spry as women several decades their junior. Some of the pictures of their ongoing shenanigans on the cruise activities make me cringe. For instance, them on the pool deck doing the macarena, fruity-fluorescent drinks in hand, obviously enjoying the attention of some of the young crew members. When married or in a committed relationship my aunts can be as staid as a Victorian Age matron. When not? Oh. My. Lord. All their husbands – all four having multiple ones – died happy and well loved, purportedly with smiles on their faces. Good for them. I didn’t resent it, but it was a pill to swallow when my own parents hadn’t been given that kind of time or opportunity on this Earth.

There are a lot of Block Heads wandering the world, under different surnames. I and the twins are some of the few that retain the name Block, and yes that means I had given the twins my maiden name at their birth when no Beaumont showed up, particularly not Tom or his parents, at their birth. Some might say I did it in a moment of pique but so be it. No one objected if they even took the time to notice what I done did before I’d taken my maiden name back for myself. We weren’t Beaumonts, and I didn’t want the twins growing up thinking they would somehow magically become one at some point in their lives. There is no fairytale. They’d never been accepted, they never would, not even by their sperm donor. Not their fault, but I am going to spend my life trying to keep it from being their heartache, like it is mine.

I suppose it is obvious that I’m still processing the whole affair and divorce trauma drama. Commonsense tells me I will for some time yet. So be it. The anger comes and goes. The grief comes and goes. I let myself feel it. I just need to remind myself not to wallow in it. So, back to the re-cap.

I have an internet signal because one of the hunting camps had paid a huge amount of money to have fiber cable run all the way back to their property and a tower built there. The tower continues to work for cell service, and I’ve “borrowed” that service by digging a trench and laying my own cable. And I did it in conduit “leftover” from some materials that had been abandoned on the forestry boundary and was never reclaimed by the contractors that misplaced it. Or I’m assuming they misplaced it. It was a lot of material to leave someplace on purpose and not come back for it.

Also, one of the big telecommunication providers had gotten a grant from the government to run cell service to a US Forestry ranger station that put out business speed wifi. When the hunting camp’s owner vacated and allowed the property to return to the national forest for estate and tax reasons, I picked up his equipment for nothing other than manual labor to disassemble it and haul it off. I was in Community College at the time and hadn’t even met Tom yet. I subsequently re-installed it in the equipment room here at the farmhouse. Between that, and a repeater that extended the service from the forestry station, as well as a booster for those days that weather might interfere, I’ve been set. Depending on signal strength I either use the cable (which is sufficient, if not lightning fast due to distance from its original source) but it works most of the time for what I need; or, the ranger station signal which fills in with more than just adequacy for my needs.

Having internet that didn’t look like it came from my GPS location is a good thing, using the IP that belongs to the equipment rather than a “service provider membership” also helps, but I am careful not to abuse it or take it for granted. Still, I’ve used it to keep track of what has been going on. Tom and his father are in some legal and tax hot water. And it appears that Seth is letting them swing in the breeze. They’d put some personal assets in my name to “hide” them from the rest of the family that mostly originated from my father in law’s blackmail schemes. They’d also been using an account that I’d supposedly opened in my name (I hadn’t) to syphon funds from the Beaumont Foundation. I thought I’d been working for free. They made it look like I was being paid an executive level salary from the Foundation. There were days Tom and I could have used some of that money … and some of the bells and whistles that came with it. I wonder when he found out about it, but I don’t suppose it is really important at this point.

It’s possible that they’d meant to throw me under the bus to hide their perfidy all along. Who knows? But my lawyer, and the firm he was a partner in, had suspected something like that after going over some tax papers. They got the proof during Discovery. It was the second, rather than the first, that lost them Seth’s support. Or so it would appear based on what I’ve been able to put together. How did I come to this conclusion? Seth Beaumont can be wicked mean when he finds the family doing things they shouldn’t that could jeopardize the company, and this was particularly egregious if the family group chats were any indication. I still have access to those chats via a fake account that appears to belong to a cousin-in-law that proved to be one of the ditziest family members. Seth liquidated the assets I hadn’t known were in my name and dispersed the resulting funds to a guardian account for the twins. No one else can touch the account but me. As for the syphoning of foundation funds, he removed Tom’s father from the board of directors (BOD) and basically threw them to the wolves (the rest of the Beaumont family) to survive the bloodletting or not.

Seth is a busy man and doesn’t have much patience for family shenanigans. Tom and his father were still in shock at how quickly Seth moved against them when the next brick in their wall was placed. As Judge Markum had warned Tom, when he still didn’t sign the divorce papers after a week (he’d been a little busy to be honest, between Seth’s actions and Rachel finally going into labor), I was given a summary Default Divorce. What surprised me is the penalty the Judge tacked on. My lawyer and his firm had gone through all the microscopic writing of the Prenuptial Agreement, particularly the fidelity clause, and found someone had made a serious error; the clause applied to both us. Judge Markum applied the stiffest penalty that the contract allowed. I kept everything that I’d come into the marriage with … including the value of the things that Tom had sold out of spite after kicking me out of the condo … and after that was deducted, I received an additional 70% of all remaining marital assets, not including those assets in the guardian account Seth had created for the twins. That was a separate financial issue that the Judge at least appeared to know nothing about, and that Tom didn’t dare talk about or risk retaliation from the family. There was already wailing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that 70% of the company stock that we’d owned was now owned by me alone and outside of family control. It wasn’t a lot of stock as such things go, but it was enough to make a difference if I chose to side with all the remainder of the stockholders outside the family. The stocks had reverted to Class B which meant that I couldn’t vote directly but there were still some things that made those stocks valuable. And granted, while the family held a lot more than just half, there was still concern that too many stocks were slipping outside of family control.

So my first week and a half was full of the twins, the divorce and quietly settling with my lawyer and his firm to make sure all their expenses were covered, as well as starting the process of bringing the mess in the farmhouse under control. Using a solar generator and the ancient wood stove in the kitchen I canned, dehydrated, and otherwise preserved all the fresh groceries that wouldn’t last much beyond my arrival at the farmhouse. My mother had taught me the basics before she and my father were taken away from me. Aunt Nanny continued my education in that regard while Aunt Lois and the other sisters were my teachers on nearly every other thing they considered a “homemaker’s skill”. Poppa Gary tolerated my practicing those skills, particularly gardening and food preservation, because it fit in with his worldview, not to mention the man really liked to eat. He rounded out my education by teaching me to hunt and make what is euphemistically called homebrew. I suppose I could use my obnoxious practicality as an excuse for why I didn’t object and even learned to enjoy hunting and trapping, as well as managing domestic livestock, but why bother. It is simply my past that will help me provide a future for the twins.
 
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