Happenstance

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This fictional, novel-length story tells the tale of a man who finds out just how complicated life can be and how chance and coincidence - happenstance, if you like - can turn that life into something that Alice of 'Through The Looking Glass' fame might understand.

While reading this tale of love, deception and betrayal, those who persevere will come to understand that love can hide a multitude of sins. They might also come to understand that perception is not reality. This is particularly true about subjects many consider to be taboo.

I have published all five chapters of this story under the 'Loving Wives' category because that's the general theme. It should be noted, however, that there are references to subjects some readers might consider should be published under other categories. But please don't go getting your tits in a tangle about it. As I hinted at earlier, all is not what it seems.

Please note that the right of Black Jack Steele to be identified as the author of this work - Happenstance - is asserted under worldwide copyright laws. All rights are reserved.

HAPPENSTANCE

Copyright © Black Jack Steele 2022

"Happenstance - 'time and unforeseen occurrence', in the words of the wise Israelite king, Solomon - befalls us all". (Ecclesiastes 9:11)

CHAPTER ONE

The Reunion

Matt receives an unexpected visitor.

It had just gone seven o'clock on the night of Wednesday, December twentieth, 1998, when, as I was settling into my recliner chair to watch the evening news, my doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting visitors and was a little annoyed as I struggled to lock the footrest of my recliner into place before making my way to the foyer to greet whoever it was that had chosen this hour to call on me.

'If this is someone trying to sell me something, they're going to cop an earful,'

I thought as I turned the key in the deadlock. I didn't appreciate having my evening routine interrupted, particularly when I was looking forward to enjoying a bowl of my celebrated chilli while catching up on the day's worldwide, nationwide and statewide events. As a journalist - with my work published under the by-line Matt King - I made my living from being up to date with what was going on around me, and the nightly news was one of the tools I used to keep myself informed of world events.

My feeling of angst quickly dissolved, however, when I recognised the strikingly beautiful young woman standing nervously on my porch. She didn't have to introduce herself. I'd have known her anywhere. She was the spitting image of her mother.

"Shelley!" I cried as I reached out to pull her into my arms. "My darling Shelley. Is it really you?"

"Yes, Daddy," she said, her voice struggling to be heard as she tried to speak while holding back her tears. "Yes. It's me."

"Let me look at you," I said, holding her out at arm's length to see her properly. At about one hundred and sixty-five centimetres, she was the same height as her mother. She also had her mother's strikingly blue eyes and dirty blonde hair; although she wore it a bit longer than her mother had done. She even had her mother's straight nose, wide, perfectly-sculpted mouth and oval-shaped face.

Her figure was a little less developed than her mother's, however, with smaller breasts and hips. With so many of her mother's other traits, though, I hoped she'd been able to avoid carrying the one thing I hated about the woman: her cheating slut gene. There had been no sign of it in Shelley when she'd been younger, but she'd only just started to feel the effects of puberty when her mother had stolen her from me. And she'd been living with the treacherous bitch for the past six years, so there was no telling how much of her mother's disingenuous personality had rubbed off on her.

There was none of me in Shelley's makeup, however. Her sperm donor had done a runner when he'd found out he was going to be a father and had left Charlene, Shelley's mother, to raise their child on her own, a job she'd done with her family's help, right up until I had met her.

I had fallen in love with both Charlene - or Charlie, as I had called her - and Shelley, and mother and daughter had moved in with me in July of 1985; just six months after we'd met. We'd lived together for the next seven years, during which time Shelley and I had become closer than many natural father and daughter combinations.

I would dearly have loved to adopt her, but despite having asked Charlie to marry me and change her name from Horseman to King a number of times during our early years together, she had refused to do so. As much as I tried to pise it out of her, she would never tell me why. That, of course, put the kibosh on any plans I might have had for formalising my relationship with the young girl I considered to be my daughter.

But while Charlie wouldn't accept my name, she did accept my help when it came to improving her education. She had been only sixteen when she'd fallen pregnant and was seventeen when she delivered the baby she named Michelle. With her parents' help, she'd managed to finish her high school education, but any thoughts she might have had of going on to obtain a higher level of education were set aside when her father was injured in a workplace accident. His deteriorating health made it necessary for her to find work to help with the family's finances.

The worker's insurance and superannuation payouts received by her mother following her father's death three years after Shelley's birth eased the financial burden on both Charlie and her mother. Those payouts provided enough to cover the small amount still owing on the family home and to leave her mother comfortably well off. That meant she could continue to watch over Shelley while Charlie worked.

Charlie was twenty-two years old and was working as a checkout chick in a major supermarket when we'd met, and her parenting and other family responsibilities took up almost all her free time. But with her mother's help, she managed to fit a few date nights into her schedule. Sometimes, those outings were just the two of us, and others, they would include Shelley. There were even a few dates during the early part of our relationship that included Charlie's mother, Irene.

It wasn't long before our relationship became intimate, and Charlie began to spend the odd night at my place. Those nights turned into weekends when Charlie, Shelley and I would interact as a family. During those weekends, I began to connect with Shelley, who had not yet turned five.

Once my two girls moved in with me, and I had demonstrated that I was capable of sharing the parenting duties, Charlie started attending night classes at the local technical college, where she acquired the secretarial skills needed to broaden her employment opportunities. Within a year of commencing her studies, she was out of the supermarket and was working as a receptionist in a real estate office.

Her responsibilities grew over the ensuing years, and by the time we were celebrating the commencement of our sixth year together, she had obtained both her rental agent and real estate sales licences. By then, she was bringing home a much fatter pay packet than I was.

Unlike Charlie, I had gone on to university after leaving high school and was still studying for my journalism degree when we met. I was also two years younger than her; although I didn't know it when I first asked her out. In fact, when I did find out about our age difference, I added three years to my real age so she didn't think I was too young for her. I don't think she ever learned of that little prevarication.

Shelley turned five in August, just a month after she and Charlie had moved in with me, so we were an odd mix. Charlie was twenty-two. I was twenty. And Shelley was five. Despite our ages, I was probably the most mature of the three of us, with Shelley coming in at a close second. Charlie, although older than either of us, was probably the least responsible.

Unfortunately, that remained true during the whole time we were together, which is probably why Shelley and I hit it off so well. She and I were the grown-ups, and Charlie was our demanding, irresponsible, attention-seeking child.

When viewed with the advantage of time, it was a wonder Charlie and I stayed together for as long as we did. Perhaps it was the security provided by living in a stable family environment. Or maybe it was because she didn't want to break the bond that had developed between Shelley and me. Whatever the reason, it was strong enough to keep us together for seven years; seven years during which Shelley and I formed what I thought would be a lifelong connection.

My home, at that time, had been a small, three-bedroom bungalow that had belonged to my paternal grandparents. After they had died in a car accident, it had been passed to my father, who had rented it out as a source of additional income. When I had to move to the state capital to attend university, however, Dad allowed me to use it as my residence while studying. But he wasn't giving me a free ride. In addition to paying minimal rent, I was expected to maintain the yards and ensure the place was always well maintained and presentable.

Being understanding parents, Dad and Mum agreed to allow me to invite Charlie and Shelley to move in with me when our relationship showed signs of becoming permanent. After seeing that we had settled into a stable family situation by the time I had finished my tertiary education and had managed to find work as a journalist at the city's major daily newspaper, my father transferred ownership of the house to me as a graduation present.

Our first year together was our most difficult period. In addition to getting to know each other, I was in my final year at university, so I was still attending lectures and studying or working on assignments while at home. Charlie was working during the day, so she would drop Shelley off at her mother's place on her way to work and pick her up at the end of her shift. Despite my study schedule, we spent the early part of most evenings bonding as a family unit. Charlie would snuggle up beside me on the lounge, and Shelley would curl up on my lap as we watched something on television after dinner.

Unless Charlie was working or I was cramming for exams or putting the finishing touches to an assignment paper, our weekends were spent together undertaking family activities. Saturday mornings were usually spent doing our weekly shopping, with the afternoons set aside for house and yard maintenance. Sundays were family days, during which we would either load our picnic basket into one of our cars and drive down to the local lakeside park or head over to Charlie's mother's place for an afternoon barbecue.

Irene Horseman and I got on reasonably well, and I knew she appreciated my efforts to be a husband to her daughter and a father to her granddaughter. She seemed to hold back from giving me her complete approval, however, and I always got the impression that she was never sure our relationship would stand the test of time.

'Perhaps she's simply being a typical mother-in-law, thinking I'm not a good enough choice for her daughter.'

I'd thought at the time.

My parents, on the other hand, fell in love with both Charlie and Shelley, and we tried to set aside one Sunday each month to make the two-hour drive up to the family grazing property on the Darling Downs for Sunday lunch. That didn't always work out during my final year at university, though, due to the lack of funds and my heavy study workload.

Once I had graduated and had started work, our schedule became a bit more flexible. Money was still tight, though, so Charlie had to continue to work at her supermarket job during the day and undertake her secretarial studies at night. But with me working regular hours, I could watch over Shelley while her mother attended night school.

I believe those first three years together, with only ourselves and no money to splurge on luxuries, helped us become the tight family unit we were. It was certainly the period during which Shelley and I developed our close bond. While her mother was attending her lectures, the young girl would settle herself on my lap and lie back against my chest as I reclined my chair. In that position, I would rub her tummy while we watched the news together. It didn't take much of that before she fell asleep. On other nights, she would snuggle quietly into my chest while I watched something on television she wasn't interested in. Gently rubbing her back achieved the same result.

Then there were the nights we would leave the television off, and I would read to her from one of her books; books that she selected but which I would have thought were well beyond her age group. By the time she was seven, she was reading material that I would have said was suited to girls two or three years older than her.

That was our bonding time. Shelley would climb onto my lap and listen intently to the words of the book or article I was reading. It might be a news item from the daily newspaper, an excerpt from a classic novel, or a poem written hundreds of years before either of us had been born, but she'd give my words her full attention until she drifted off to sleep.

That degree of intimacy gradually modified as Shelley grew, and in time, I would find myself sitting in the middle of the settee with my big girl snuggled into me on one side and my little one on the other.

In addition to her inquisitive nature and sponge-like ability to soak up knowledge, Shelley was an adventurous child who appeared to have no fear of failing at whatever she set her mind to. Irrespective of whether it was a mental or physical challenge, she was up for it. There was one thing she was afraid of, however: storms. The sound of heavy thunder and the flash of lightning filling the sky sent her into a panic, and stormy nights would have her climbing into bed between Charlie and me for security and comfort.

By the time Shelley was ten, both Charlie's career and mine had progressed to a point where we could afford to loosen the purse strings a little. I had become a recognised investigative journalist with my own by-line, and her mother was becoming known in her real estate firm as a sales agent with potential. Despite our increasingly busy lives, though, we both supported Shelley's activities. It was only rarely that we weren't both at her sports and other school events, and even rarer that neither of us was able to attend due to work commitments. In fact, that only happened once. On that occasion, I had been sent out of town to cover a story, and Charlie - who had planned on being there - had had a client reschedule a house viewing. After that, I promised myself I would never let it happen again. And I didn't. No matter what I had on my plate, I would make time to be in attendance.

The same couldn't be said for her mother, however. As Charlie's career blossomed, she missed more and more of Shelley's Saturday sporting functions. I didn't like it, but I understood that weekends were a busy time for a real estate sales agent. I knew Shelley was disappointed; although she didn't say as much. But it did result in Shelley and me growing closer.

Despite career hiccups, we managed to muddle through our somewhat complicated relationship and lived our lives in much the same way as every other couple with a growing daughter. Like many other husbands, I put aside many of my own desires to maintain harmony in the household.

But when it came down to it, my desires were small. There were only three things I would have liked to have had. The first was that Charlie and I were married. The second was that I could adopt Shelley. And the third was that Charlie and I had a child - at least one - of our own; a brother or sister for Shelley.

Unfortunately, none of those things was going to happen. For starters, Charlie insisted that she was vehemently opposed to the institution of marriage. And so far as having more children was concerned, she told me that there had been complications during her pregnancy with Shelley that resulted in her being unable to have any more children. When I asked about the contraceptive pills she took every morning, she told me they had been prescribed to address a hormonal imbalance. Knowing nothing about women's problems, I accepted her reasoning without question.

---oooBJSooo---

In the main, however, our relationship - our de facto marriage? - hung together for almost seven years before I noticed the first signs that all was not as it should be in the King-Horseman household. Whatever it was that disrupted our lives started in about July of 1992 and, in a few short months, turned our once happy and harmonious family into something that often resembled a battlefield.

Charlie, who was coming home later and later from work each night, had become combative, finding fault with everything Shelley did and picking fights with me about the least little thing. In a few short months, our hugs, cuddles and terms of endearment vanished, and our usually robust sex life became a thing of the past.

And I wasn't the only one feeling the disruptive vibes. Shelley was also feeling them.

"What's going on with Mum, Daddy?" she asked me one night after her mother had brought her to tears over some perceived slight. "She seems to be suffering from PMS on steroids."

"I have no idea, Sweetheart," I answered truthfully. I'd learned a little more about female biology by this time and didn't think Charlie would be starting menopause at such an early age - she was only twenty-nine, for heaven's sake - but I'd heard my father describe what my mother was sometimes like, and it sounded like Charlie's behaviour was similar.

After trying to talk to her about it - and getting my head bitten off for my troubles - I had to go back to Shelley and tell her that I would have to use the research facilities at work to find an answer.

"Maybe you can ask your grandmother," I suggested, "In the meantime, try to stay out of your mother's way as much as possible."

After talking to a few colleagues at work and spending a bit of time in the newspaper's research library, I was left with only two possibilities: either Charlie was going through early-onset menopause, or she was having an affair. The former opinion came from the female staff members. The latter, from the males.

I rejected the cheating-wife suggestion out of hand. Charlie would never do that to me... to us.

It was only in hindsight that I realised how naïve that assumption was. By the end of the year, both Charlie and Shelley were gone. But they weren't just gone. It was as if they had been taken by aliens. They had completely vanished from the face of the Earth.

Sadly, I knew nothing about their disappearance until I returned from a ten-day assignment to find that the two females who had been a major part of my life for almost eight years had left me. Without a note to tell me why or when they had done their vanishing act, I could only assume they had taken off within a couple of days of my own departure. That assumption was supported by the musty smell that permeated the closed-up house when I opened the front door upon my return.

---oooBJSooo---

Unfortunately, the fact that I'd been out of contact with them while I'd been away didn't help me pinpoint their exact departure date. That information came from one of our older neighbours who was usually up and about before the sun each day. He told me that, just before daylight on the Saturday morning following my departure, he'd seen Charlie and a man loading suitcases into the cargo area of a late model, maroon Toyota Land Cruiser wagon before helping a sleepy Shelley into the back seat.