Another big thank you to blackrandl1958 for inviting me to participate in
her event
. I hope I've justified her confidence in me. A thanks as well to her for her editing handiwork and patience.
It's not everyday a father hears that his 21-year-old daughter has just inherited $44.13 million.
Then, in the same sentence, he hears that she's another man's daughter.
The din in the room suddenly became crushing for Brady Robbins. The pressure on his chest was unbearable as he slumped in his chair, sure he was having a widow-maker heart attack. If only I would have had the attack 10 seconds earlier, I could have died a happy man, he thought to himself. Instead, it seemed he would die a miserable bastard.
Just then, everything went black.
When the lights came back on, he heard a soft beeping in the background as he tried to open his eyes. When he finally prised them open, he was looking at the white ceiling of a hospital room. He scanned around the room, noticing that he was hooked up to a multitude of machinery. He was alone for only a couple of seconds before a nurse walked in quickly, giving him a bright smile when she saw he was awake. He reflexively smiled back; after all, she was a good-looking woman.
"Welcome back, Mr. Robbins," she said brightly.
He had to clear his throat to be able to croak out a response.
"Fuck!"
The nurse looked at him in shock and concern. He realized he should explain his utterance.
"Can't buy a fucking thrill!" he spat hoarsely. "A lucky man would have died."
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You are a lucky man. And not many people die from a combination of gastritis and extreme anxiety," she said.
Brady looked at the nurse quizzically.
"Gastritis? Anxiety? I was sure I was having a heart attack," he said.
"And you wanted to have a heart attack? Because..." she asked.
"Because dying would have put me out of my misery," he said, barely above a whisper.
Sasha England recognized pain when she heard it. She pulled a chair next to the bed.
"I know I'm not a shrink or a bartender, but my husband says I'm a good listener. Why don't you see if he's right," she said.
"Have you ever heard of Bryan Patrick?" Brady asked.
"The tech millionaire who died of a heart attack about a month ago at only 45 years old?" she replied with a question to his question.
"The very one," Brady answered. "He was my best friend in the world for the last 40 years... or at least I thought he was. I found out at the reading of his will that he fu... had sex with my wife... and that my daughter is his biological child."
"Does that mean she's now a multimillionaire... oh... I'm sorry, Mr. Robbins," she said as the light bulb went on in her head. She dropped her eyes to the floor.
"It's not
your
apology I need, but thank you for your concern," Brady said.
"How long have I been here?" Brady asked. "Has anybody from my family come to visit?"
"You've been here four days. Your family's been here for hours each day. They usually show up after breakfast and a combination of them stays until supper. They seemed incredibly relieved when the doctor told them you didn't have a heart attack.
"They'll probably be here in a little bit."
Brady's wife and two children were ecstatic when they showed up 20 minutes later and found Brady awake. His wife, Traci, planted a soft kiss on his lips and his children--new multimillionaire, Ariel, and her 19-year-old brother, Lenny, gave him kisses on his cheek.
The conversation was light and breezy for the first few minutes as the rest of the family expressed happiness over Brady not having a heart attack. The talk then drifted over to Ariel's recent windfall, which was set up as a trust to be turned over to her when she reached 25. Brady stayed quiet during the discussion, although his family didn't notice.
"I think I'm still in shock," Ariel said at one point. "Uncle Bryan was always super-cool, but this is amazing."
"It will be amazing if you throw a million my way," Lenny said.
Brady could tell that while Lenny appeared to be kidding, the tone of his voice was despairing. Taken at face value, Lenny was probably wondering why Uncle Bryan left the bulk of his fortune to his sister, and nothing to him. That meant both Ariel and Lenny didn't hear or pay attention to the rest of the thought Bryan had when he made the bequeathment.
Did anybody besides him hear the full statement, he wondered?
"I leave the bulk of my estate to Ariel Robbins... my only biological child," the lawyer had read, pausing for a beat after naming Ariel before finishing the remainder of the sentence.
The room, which included the entire Robbins family and about eight other people, exploded in gasps and exclamations after Ariel's name was read, in effect drowning out the rest of the statement for most in attendance. Brady heard the full statement before suffering his blackout. He now wondered who else heard the full statement. It was obvious his two kids didn't hear it. If his wife heard it, she wasn't saying, but then again, why would she?
Within two weeks after Brady was released from the hospital, he had DNA confirmation that Ariel was not his biological child. After that, he didn't need confirmation as to who her biological father was.
Brady was close to both his children, and he knew in his heart that Ariel would always be his daughter, regardless of DNA. Whether Traci would always be his wife was another matter.
It wasn't hard for Brady to pinpoint the time in question. Bryan had come to stay with Brady and Traci for a week, but Brady got called out of town for a couple of days to substitute for another employee who was auditing a company, but who suffered a death in the family. Brady left on a Friday morning and got back Sunday morning.
Although Bryan was his best friend, Brady was not blind to the fact that he was a major pussyhound. He had continually warned his wife to be vigilant around his friend. Apparently, she had not heeded his warning--in a big way--and had been playing him for a fool ever since.
Brady and Bryan had been best friends since Brady's family moved next door to the Patrick family when the boys were 5 years old. The two did everything together, from playing sports to even double-dating.
It was over a girl that the two had their first real argument. Brady had found a girl that he was head over heels in love with during the boys' junior year in high school, and he and Bryan had gone out on several double-dates during this period. Bryan, a handsome, natural flirt, had a roving eye and always had a pretty girl on his arm, while Brady, no less handsome, but more introspective and quiet, dated far fewer girls, but usually for longer periods of time. In this particular instance, Brady had been dating Kathleen Howe for more than two months, but unknown to him, Bryan had started spending more time with her, and when it came time for junior prom he asked Kathleen and she accepted. When Brady asked his girlfriend a few days later about the event, she informed him she had accepted Bryan's invitation, devastating Brady at the time. The two friends actually came to blows over the incident and didn't talk for another two months.
Bryan took Kathleen to the junior prom and had one more date with her. When he didn't call her for two weeks after the second date, the young woman took the hint and tried to get back together with Brady. He laughed at her and then hung up the phone.
Bryan apologized to Brady a few weeks later, but it took a few more weeks before the two re-started their friendship back on a serious basis. While they again got close, Brady never forgot.
The dynamic duo was broken up when Bryan went to Michigan to study computer science and Brady went to Michigan State to study accounting.
While Bryan continued his ways of bedding virtually any pretty co-ed that came along, Brady stuck to his pattern of being monogamous for months at a time. He started dating Traci Hysong his senior year in college, and the two were married three years later. By then, Traci had met Bryan several times, and the latter was Brady's best man at his wedding to Traci.
Like most women, Traci found Bryan handsome and charming. Brady, however, made sure Traci knew that he didn't trust his best friend around his girlfriend... and later his wife. He repeatedly warned Traci not to fall for Bryan's advances... especially under the guise of his "just joking around."
"You act like you don't trust me. Have I ever given you cause not to?" Traci inquired after Brady cautioned her for the umpteenth time.