And Then the Light Bulb Went On

And then the light bulb went on above my head, like it does in cartoons when a character gets an idea or the answer to a question.

Holy shit -- my third child really wasn't mine -- she was the biological daughter of another man!

I was on the phone with a representative from Genealogygurus.com, inquiring as to why my daughter's DNA test had not been processed after 10 weeks. I had given her the test as an extra Christmas present, and I had given the rep the pertinent numbers so they could track it down. After about a five-minute hold, he came back on the line and assured me the test had been processed. Beyond that, it was a matter of privacy between the company and the person who had actually submitted the test, and he couldn't give me any more information.

"But if you've processed it, then how come she is not showing up in my DNA matches?" I asked in an agitated manner.

"Sir, there are several reasons why your daughter might not be showing up in your DNA matches, but I am not at liberty to discuss that particular test with you," he answered in a somewhat exasperated tone.

And that's when the light bulb went on. Obviously, the number one reason for her not showing up in my matches is because she is not a match.

I ended the call in a daze. I remember hitting the red "end call" button, then I remember starting to cry. I woke up a few minutes later curled up in a fetal position on the family room sofa.

I still had 15 minutes left of my lunch break, so I called my daughter, who was probably also on her lunch break as she worked in the same time zone as I did. I know she usually curled up with a book at her desk for lunch, so I wasn't worried I was interrupting anything. She picked up on the first ring.

"Hey, Dad, what's up?" she said somewhat guardedly.

"Pumpkin, you know I love and trust you completely, but I know what's going on with the DNA test," I bluffed. "I called Genealogy Gurus, and they told me it had been processed about two weeks ago."

There was a sound of air being sucked in on her end, then silence for at least 10 seconds.

"I know, Dad, We need to talk, but I can't do this here and now. Call me tonight, and don't be in the room with Mom when you call."

I was in a fog as I drove back to my office, and I have to admit, I didn't give my boss a productive afternoon at the engineering firm where I worked. There were so many things going through my mind, so many questions. And the thought that my little girl wasn't MY little girl.

Being the analytical sort that I am, I knew I had to prioritize my thoughts, and then work through the problems one at a time. I wasn't a vice president of engineering at Sickafoose Electronics for nothing, and at this point I knew the best thing for me was to treat my personal problems like they were project problems, and take them down in an orderly fashion. The "Old Man" -- Dwayne Sickafoose -- had taught me that himself when he hired me directly out of Purdue University to work for his then fledgling company. With Dwayne at the helm and me never too far away from his right hand, Sickafoose had grown into an industry leader, and we both profited handsomely.

I made great money, had great benefits, and worked with excellent, sharp people. And then it got even better when I went home at night, where I had a beautiful, sexy wife and three wonderful children. Eventually, the children grew up, left home, got married and started having kids of their own. It was a little lonely at first around the house as empty-nesters, but we found plenty to keep us busy, and, it seemed to me that being alone again revitalized us as a couple.

But thinking back over the last month of my life, several small incidents now stood out to me, including a phone call Marissa made to my wife about two weeks ago. We were both sitting in the family room watching TV on a Tuesday evening, when Traci's phone rang. She looked at it and told me it was Marissa, and then answered. The conversation went on for about five minutes, with Traci giving yes and no answers almost exclusively, and I could see tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

When she hung up, I asked if everything was all right, and she told me that Marissa's cat was having some health problems. Nothing to worry about, she said, although I noticed she seemed a little jumpy around me. I thought it was a little strange that she was taking the health of Marissa's cat so personally.

That phone call must have been when Marissa found out. Traci didn't know about me sending Marissa the test. I didn't think it was even noteworthy. Marissa was the only one of the three kids who had any curiosity about genealogy, so I bought a kit online and had it sent to her. I have been researching my family roots for years off and on, and I really liked the DNA testing portion of it. I though Marissa getting a test was going to be great. Apparently I couldn't have been more wrong about that.

When I got home I tried my best not to act any different toward Traci, although I was boiling on the inside.

"Work one problem at a time; one problem at a time," I kept repeating to myself.

I met Traci at Purdue in my sophomore year. We didn't date until our senior year, but we've been inseparable since then -- or so I thought. We got married a year out of college, 31 years ago, and up until today I would have told anyone it was the best decision I ever made. She is still beautiful at 54, and despite having had three kids, she works out regularly and has the body of a woman in her mid-30s. She is both fun and funny, and up until today I had looked forward to spending the rest of my life with this woman.

At about 8 I told Traci I needed to call the "Old Man" about a project we were working on, and excused myself from the room. In fact, I grabbed a jacket and went outside to the porch swing to I could talk without worrying about Traci hearing, then I called Marissa.

Marissa answered on the first ring, and sounded absolutely distraught.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I know I should have told you earlier, but Mom asked that I not say anything until she had a chance to talk to you first," she blurted out before I could even say hello.

"I'm not mad at you. Calm down," I said as soothingly as I could. "I'm not accusing you of anything. You're just as much a victim as me."

I could hear her breathing heavily over the phone. I knew this was killing her.

"Ris, I want you to know that this doesn't change anything at all between us. I'm still your father and you're still my Pumpkin. I have always given you kids every ounce of love that I have, and after all this time I'm not about to stop now -- assuming you don't want me to stop."

She fell to pieces at that point, blubbering almost incoherently into the phone.

"I love you, Daddy. I don't want anyone else but you."

"That's my Pumpkin. Look, I don't want to put you in the middle, but you are my best source of information on the DNA thing. We won't discuss the other thing so you aren't in the middle, but I need to know, did you have any DNA matches?"

"Yeah, Dad, I did," she sighed. "Amanda Anderson came up as my half-sister."

"Mandy? Uncle George and Aunt Jeannie's Mandy? Ah, holy shit!"

"I'm sorry, Daddy," she said quietly.

"Not your fault, Pumpkin. You don't need to apologize to me, ever," I said as calmly as possible.

That meant that George Anderson, Uncle George to my kids, Appellate Court Judge George Anderson to most of the rest of the world, was Marissa's biological father. Shitfuck! That meant my wife was fucking her boss when he was an attorney in the law firm Gooey Howe and Associates. That meant at least 25 years ago, considering Marissa was 24 years old. Traci would have been his admin at that time. He left the firm to become a state judge a few years later, moving to the state capital, before his career really took off.

For her part, Traci didn't move on with George, choosing instead to stay with Gooey Howe and eventually winding up as office manager. But for the few years George and Traci worked together, he and his wife, Jeannie, became good enough friends that our kids still call them "uncle" and "aunt," and their kids call me and Traci the same. And several times when I had been gone on a business trip, Traci and the kids would visit with George and Jeannie for a few days at their lake house ... oh shit! The kids had even talked several times about Aunt Jeannie taking them here or there ... no mention of Uncle George or Mom being with them, and I didn't even think twice about it. God damn!

I must have spaced off at that point, because I heard Marissa calling me, "Daddy? Daddy?"

"I'm sorry, Pumpkin. I was lost in my thoughts. Thanks for your help, Kid. Give my best to Drew."

"Wait, Daddy. What are you going to do?"

It was a legitimate question, but I didn't have a good answer, so I just told her the truth.

"Not sure, Kid." "Well, don't go off and do something incredibly stupid, Dad. A little stupid's okay, but don't get yourself arrested or anything."

I hadn't thought about shooting Traci until that point, but I promised Marissa I wouldn't get arrested, so I guess that took shooting out of the equation. I don't break promises to my kids, ever.

Getting Marissa reassured about our relationship was my number one task, and finding out who Traci's partner in crime was became the second task. Task number three would be getting the ball rolling on my divorce after finding a new attorney, because my current one belongs to the firm Traci works at. That certainly wasn't going to work. Once I had a good sit-down with an attorney, I would deal with the future ex-Mrs. Clark Walters.

Things at home were chilly. Whenever we were together, Traci was chattering like a magpie; I'm guessing out of sheer nerves. She seemed to be trying real hard to keep me happy, figuring that might lessen the impact when I found out. I don't know. But there was definitely a distance between us, and she wasn't going to be the one to break the ice.

I met with an attorney about a week later, and when he found out my wife was office manager at Gooey Howe, he got this real nervous look on his face. So I moved on to the next attorney on my list, a 20-something woman, who just smiled when I mentioned that Traci was the Gooey Howe office manager. That's what I was looking for, someone who wasn't going to be intimidated when one of Gooey's big attorneys stepped up to the plate to represent my wife.

I laid out what little I knew about the cheating scenario, starting, of course, with finding out that my youngest child wasn't mine biologically, and finding out that she was Judge Anderson's kid.

"Appellate court Judge Anderson?" asked my attorney, one Marie Robinette.

"The very same," I replied, watchng her face to see if I needed to find another lawyer.

"This should be good," was all she said back, and then we started discussion of breaking down the financials.

As we both had good jobs with pensions and good benefits, Marie suggested we should just split the joint assets down the middle, keep our own pensions, and sell the house. That would leave both of us well off, although I would be in a little better position because I had a bigger income and better pension.

"Unless you really want to squash her, due to the infidelity thing, the kid thing, or just the general lack of respect thing," she added in quickly, looking for a brief moment like she might just jump up on the conference table to try to right the wrongs done to me.

"We'll have our reckoning, of that I'm sure, but I don't want to hurt her financially," I replied.

"What about the judge? Are we going after him for anything? Because if we are, that's going to get a lot more dicey, and going to run up your bill quite a bit."

"The judge is my problem, and I'll take care of that as I see fit," I snapped, perhaps a little too curtly.

"Got it," she replied.

"If she doesn't fight it, this could take six months," Marie noted. "If she does fight it, we could be talking more than a year."

"I don't have any dates lined up just yet, so take your time and get it right," I told her.

With task three out of the way, it was now time for task four: the showdown.

I waited another week, just to see if Traci's head would explode in the meantime. Saturday night was our usual date night, then we would come home, watch a movie, and make love. But Saturday sex was always special, because we would go to bed early so we had plenty of time for what usually was a night of screaming orgasms for my wife as I usually brought her to about 10 orgasms with my hands and mouth before I entered her. We were both usually exhausted when we were done, and would just cuddle together for a good while before getting up to clean up.

We hadn't done date night in two weeks, though, and hadn't had sex in the same amount of time, because I just couldn't bring myself to do it after finding out about the affair and Marissa. Traci never even questioned it, another sign that she knew I knew, but she was really good at the coy act.

That was about to end, however. I took her out to a nice French restaurant, we split a bottle of wine, and even had great desserts. She was happier than I'd seen her look in recent weeks. Then when we got home, I gently removed her coat from her body, led her over to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair for her and said those famous words, "We need to talk."

Traci sort of half-smiled at me as I poured myself a Jack Daniels over ice and offered her something from the liquor cabinet, which she gently turned down. I set my drink on the table, looked her square in the eyes and said, "The floor is yours."

"It was a long time ago, Clark. George and I haven't slept together in about 20 years. Can't we just leave it as a mistake from the long-ago past, and let it go at that?"

Well, I have to admit I was glad she didn't try to say the DNA test was faulty, but to try to ease out of it by saying it was so long ago it shouldn't matter anymore? Really?

"Okay, you last had sex together about 20 years ago. When did you start having sex, how often, and why did you finally stop? I want all of it. But first off, I need to know if child number one and child number two are his, too."

"No, Clark. Barry and Katie are yours. I didn't even sleep with George until about a year after Katie was born. The affair lasted about three years at the start, then we stopped when George decided to leave the firm and move up the judicial ranks. He waited about a year after we stopped to go for his first judge position, because he wanted to make sure a background check would show he was 'clean.' And then after that we only made love a few times at the lake house, when Jeannie would innocently take all the kids for an afternoon of fun. Jeannie didn't know either at the time, although George eventually told her, and the three of us later had a peace pow-wow, at which both George and I promised her there would be no more sex.

"How come you never told me and tried a peace pow-wow with me? What am I, fucking chopped liver?" I asked harshly.

Traci wiped her hands on her sleeves and answered, "I knew I could never tell you. You'd divorce me in a heartbeat, and I certainly didn't want that. I loved you; still love you."

"You just apparently loved George more," I said. "To start and stop at his command, without giving me a thought. I was your fallback."

"No, Clark, I love you with all my heart!" she pleaded.

"No, you loved him with all your heart. You loved him so much that you gave him up so he could pursue his career dream, all the while knowing I was your back-up plan. You might have loved me somewhat at that point, but you knew I absolutely fucking worshipped the ground you walked on, and you counted on that and our family to get you over losing him."

Traci dropped her eyes to her lap. The truth hurt, and I knew I nailed it.

"But what about Marissa? Obviously, he was doing you bareback, and you had to know where that could lead -- and did lead."

"I just figured that since both of you had brown hair, brown eyes, and light skin, nobody would ever be the wiser as to whose child she was. And I knew you wouldn't have any reason to think she wasn't yours, so when she came out looking like me anyway, I didn't need to ever worry about that -- until you went and sent her that damn DNA test. I honestly never knew before that."

"So this is my fault?" I asked incredulously.

"No. George and I had discussed the possibility, but I told him he didn't have to worry since you two had similar physical characteristics. Last I knew, he didn't know either, but I'm sure by now Mandy has filled him in. I haven't heard from him in at least a couple of years, since we had them at Marissa's wedding to Drew two years ago.

"Well, regardless of who knows what, Marissa is still mine as far as I'm concerned, and that's what I told her. I'm on the birth certificate, I raised her, I love her, she's mine. George better not be getting any ideas on that, and if he calls, you better tell him that.

"And, by the way, I'm having the other two kids DNA tested as soon as possible. I need to know for my own peace of mind."

"Clark!" Traci hissed. "I told you they were yours."

"And you expect me to trust you ... why?" I snapped back.

As much as anything, Traci was completely taken aback by my newfound lack of trust. What the fuck did she expect. But I know it also bothered her greatly that I would be telling the other two kids about her infidelity. No one wants to look like a slut in front of your own children.

"So how often were you two going at it, and where? Finish the narrative for me, at least," I chided.

"We didn't plan this, Clark. It just sort of happened. We spent so much time together working, and then we became friends, and it sort of grew from there. He was kind, considerate, witty, funny, passionate ... you know the man ... and we connected on a deeper level. But since we had spouses we both loved, we kept it to a relative minimum, and moved our meeting locations around, usually just outside of the city. No, we never met up here, or at his home. That would have been wrong on several levels."

"But that didn't stop you two from fucking around a few times at the lake house, after the affair was supposedly over, while Jeannie was out for an afternoon with the kids," I mused out loud.

"No, it didn't," she practically whispered to me. "But I swear to you, we haven't been intimate since then."

"And Jeannie knows all of this, and has forgiven both of you?" I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.

"Yes, I told you."

"I don't think I can," I blurted out, the sound of my voice being rasp with raw emotion.

"We know what we did was wrong, Clark, but it's been over for 20 years already, and you were never hurt by this while it was going on, so can't we just go back to the way things were a few weeks ago? You were my loving husband, I'm your loving wife. Nothing has to change."

"But it already has changed, Traci," I said. "I've spent the better part of three weeks wondering what I did wrong that you fell in love with another man, and wondering if I would ever trust you completely again, let alone trust you enough to stay married to you.

"I gave you my heart completely, and you put it in your pocket and took it out when it was convenient for you. This wasn't supposed to be a marriage of convenience. It was supposed to be a marriage of full-time, all-out love."

Traci started to cry at that point. I hate it when she does that, and I usually will try to comfort her, but this time was different. I went into the family room and flipped on the TV, leaving her at the kitchen table.

We slept in the same bed that night, but for the first time in recent memory, we didn't sleep up against each other. I moved as far away from her as I could get in the queen-size bed, and stopped her from sliding over to me when she got in. The look on her face was both shock and pain. I didn't care.