James Jonathan Pruitt, better known to all as Jimmy-Jack, had died at the tender age of 40, leaving behind his wife and three daughters. The lawyer had called them together to read through Jimmy-Jack's last instructions relating to his will and testament. The lawyer's assistant had just served coffee to the four women and now stood by with boxes of Kleenex. The attorney believed that those boxes would be needed.
Pulling some papers out of a file, the lawyer, Prentiss, held them up for the loved ones to see. "It's pure Jimmy-Jack; he insisted on writing out his last instructions himself, longhand. The formal legal Last Will document has been filed with the courts and a copy will be presented to you before you leave.
"However, he requested that I read this handwritten synopsis to the four of you, together. It includes personal messages absent in the formal, legal document." He cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and began:
"If this is being read to my family, it means that I am gone. I've prepared this document and the accompanying will with my friend and attorney, Richard Prentiss, to make known the arrangements that have been put in place for the care and well-being of my loving family, when I am gone.
"But first, a little background, some of which my daughters might not be aware.
"When I fell in love with my darling and bewitching wife, Maureen", (Maureen simpers at this loving praise), "I was just twenty. My parents insisted that I should wait, but Maureen and I were in love, I was already receiving money from the Pruitt Family Trust and could easily support a family, and so, saw no reason to delay our happiness.
"My parents finally agreed to sanction our wedding once we included them in on the secret of Maureen's pregnancy, which resulted in our lovely daughter, Lydia. My mother still insisted upon a prenuptial agreement, to protect the Pruitt Family Trust. In this prenup, my wife agreed to forgo any claims to any property that was being held in trust for me or my descendants. Of course, my wife wanted to protect our offspring and willingly signed the document. As I found was typical of her, she didn't read the document she was signing.
"It was a good marriage. I've been happy for the last twenty years. Lydia was followed within a year by Rebecca, and a year later Jocelyn joined the family. I was a doting father, and they were, and are my adorable girls.
"Three were enough, though, for my wife. She complained our daughters were already robbing her of time she wanted to share with me. I thought it was cute; my girl was jealous of my girls. But I agreed, three was fine (although I would have liked a son) and offered to have a vasectomy. My loving wife instead opted for having her tubes tied. She insisted, against all the evidence I could provide, that I might be risking impotence with a vasectomy, and she couldn't have that happen to her lover. That settled the matter, and I was happy with our precious three.
"Now, at thirty-nine, I've been laid low by acute leukemia. My doctor told me that mine was the oldest onset of this disease that he'd ever encountered, and that the prognosis wasn't good. My parents are gone, and I have no siblings to harvest bone marrow from. My AB- blood type limits possible donors and furthermore, there are rare leukocytes in my system that further reduce any possible donor pool.
"My loving daughters, who have always held my heart in their hands, wanted to be tested, although the chances of a match were slim. They didn't match, of course. Maureen had predicted that they wouldn't and had attempted to dissuade them from being tested, to save them unnecessary pain. Desperate to help in any way possible, my girls insisted and were tested. No matches there, as predicted.
"Being wealthy, I was able to bring in multiple experts to review the data, hoping against hope that one would find the miracle for which we prayed. As I am now dead, you already know that I didn't get that miracle. Instead, I got whatever the opposite of a miracle is.
"On reviewing the rejected matches, one doctor, with whom I had become friends, asked if there could have been some mistake in my daughters' testing. According to the DNA, they were only half-sisters. The same mother, but three different sires."
The lawyer paused and took another sip of water as the girls gasped and turned shocked eyes onto their mother. "MOM!" the three voiced as one. "Way back then, you were cheating on Daddy?" Lydia continued.
"No!" insisted Maureen. "They must have screwed up the samples."
On cue, Prentiss continued reading the document. "While I insisted that it was impossible, the doctor suggested that the easiest way to confirm the tests was to profile Maureen's DNA and if the tests had been mixed up, she would not be the mother of the test subjects. I purloined one of her hairbrushes, and the resulting tests confirmed her maternity of 'our' daughters." He paused again for the expected gasps, and smiled as the Kleenexes began being distributed.
"I hid in the hospital for the next week, claiming that testing was necessary; testing which would affect my immune system, so I was kept in isolation. I was devastated that my 'loving' wife had never been mine, even before our marriage. I had to accept the fact that during my entire marriage, I had been a cuckold. Her 'concern' that a vasectomy might cause impotency suddenly became clear. The truth was my vasectomy wouldn't have protected her from future pregnancies.
"At this point, I engaged the services of a private investigator. It wouldn't take him long to establish that even as I was languishing in the hospital, Maureen was having trysts with several lovers. My wife had turned out to be a very busy girl.
"In spite of it all, I did realize that my girls, my loving daughters, were indeed my daughters. They obviously didn't know about their paternity, or they wouldn't have offered to be tested. They loved me, and I love them. I will always be their father and will always want to support and protect them.
"Jocelyn's 18th birthday was in a few months, so divorce wouldn't result in child support. The girls' college careers were well funded with 529 accounts, so they would be fine. I was picking up the phone to call my friend Richard Prentiss to begin the divorce proceedings when the absurdity of it hit me.
"I was dying; would probably be dead before a divorce could be finalized. If I lived, divorce would just result in my funding my wife's future sex life. No, divorce wasn't the answer. I wanted the woman to suffer, not to profit from our marriage.
"The PI had continued researching my wife's history, subtly interviewing her friends and acquaintances, while reviewing her financial histories, including her credit card bills. It was in the bills that he struck gold -- my wife frequented a restaurant twenty miles away, an unremarkable restaurant with nothing to recommend it other than the motel it was located in.
"The restaurant's wait staff, as well as a motel desk clerk, were very informative about Maureen's activities and more importantly, the identity of her many partners. The motel clerk had believed that Maureen was an escort of some type. Reviewing motel security tapes allowed the PI to acquire license plates on the cars driven by the lovers. Some of those lovers liked to brag over drinks, and it was in one of those discussions that my real heartbreak was realized.
"It happened that Maureen only utilized the motel when I was likely to be home. Other times, the lovers frolicked in my own home, usually in one of the guest room. And they had met my daughters. My loving daughters. In fact, the PI reported that one man, a George Ramos, had a hilarious story about a day I came home unexpectedly and in a Keystone Cop type of hectic activity, he had to climb out a window while my wife threw his clothes out onto the lawn. He was able to get away and my wife had cleaned up the room while my daughters delayed me downstairs. While my loving daughters, complicit in their mother's infidelity, delayed me downstairs."
Jocelyn sobbed as she said, "Daddy knew! He knew we were covering for Mom!" There was a flurry of Kleenexes being pulled from the boxes.
Prentiss continued on. "So that's the background and complete history of my twenty year marriage. There's nothing left to say other than to detail the arrangements I have made, except to say that I forgive my daughters. I'm sure that they kept me in the dark about their mother's activities because of the love they have for her and the desire to keep our family intact.
"Therefore, working with Prentiss and various financial advisers, I have established a trust for my daughters, a trust that is well funded enough to ensure their continued lifestyle and that of their children. They are also the current beneficiaries of the Pruitt Family trust, of which I am now sole trustee. My children will be well cared for during their lives, regardless of what might happen between their mother and me.
"However, there are conditions on the new trust, conditions which have also been added to the Pruitt Family Trust. If these conditions are violated or not met by any of the beneficiaries (to include my daughters and all their descendants), that beneficiary and his/her descendants will be disenfranchised from both trusts, in perpetuity.
"The condition to be met are:
