Shattered 22

Sorry, this was supposed to be another tearjerker like

Remorse

, but it didn't really end that way. I really tried, but Jenny wouldn't let me do that to her. She ended up being a much stronger person than I expected. She adamantly refused to fall into that pit of despair. She decided to pick herself up and move forward with her life. No bitches or bastards are burned here. There is also no reconciliation. The only burning here is in the comments section where I am sure that I will be charred to a crisp.

Shattered

It had been this way for my entire life. At least, it seemed that way. Looking back, I couldn't remember a time when I hadn't felt this way. I couldn't explain it, and I never found a reason for it. Something just felt -- wrong. I just seemed to not ever really fit in. I'm not talking about with friends or my school classmates, for sure them too, but that was different. I knew why I didn't fit in with them. No. What I'm talking about is with my family. It was slightly better with my mother and my identical twin sister. As far as my younger siblings and my dad, I just never really connected with them. Sure, I tried, but it was just off.

Julie, my twin sister didn't seem to have this problem. If she did, she never gave even the slightest hint of it. We were both clones of our mom. Red hair, green eyes, 5'8" tall. By the time we were 18, we had 36C breasts, slim waists, and flared hips. Yes, we were on the more attractive side. Julie never lacked for boyfriends. Truthfully, I was hit on quite a bit as well. Not as much as Julie was, that's for sure. It was mainly due to personalities. She was vivacious and outgoing. I was introverted and studious. All that stuff about identical twins having some sort of mysterious subconscious connection? I don't have a clue about that. I know that Julie and I didn't have it. We didn't have any more of a subconscious connection than I did with my other sibs.

I think that may have been some of the problem. Mom and dad, along with the rest of my siblings were all outgoing and made friends easily. While they didn't really struggle in school, they never really stood out academically either. Me? As I said, I am introverted. I prefer to spend my time with books and researching stuff on the computer. Math and science seemed to come easy to me. When we graduated, Julie was somewhere in the middle of our class. I was salutatorian. I missed valedictorian by 0.01 points. I had cramps during one of my finals.

As I was getting older, mainly when I was in high school, I would occasionally notice my mom and dad looking at me a bit funny when they thought that I wasn't paying attention. That was a laugh; I was always paying attention. It was just another weird thing about me. I could be immersed in my physics textbook, and still be aware of what was going on around me. One time, I was studying in the livingroom when mom and dad were in the kitchen. I happened to catch their reflection on the TV screen as they stood in the doorway behind me. A minute later, they went outside and had a discussion.

Oh. I should probably do some introductions here. I'm Jenny. Jenny Michaels. I already told you that I have an identical twin sister named Julie. We are the oldest. My parents are Patricia and Jerry Michaels. I have a brother that is two years younger named Jimmy, and a sister that is four years younger named Jill. Don't ask me why my parents got hung up on the letter 'J'. I have no idea.

Julie has been a Daddy's Girl for as long as I can remember. I just never seemed to bond with him. I guess I love him, I mean he is my dad after all. It isn't as if he never tried. He showered all of us with all the love he could. He treated me the same as all the rest of my siblings. It was the same with us kids. We were typical siblings. Sure, we fought sometimes. We still loved each other and would do anything for each other. There was just something that didn't fit with me.

It all came crashing down when I was 22-years old. I would say that my world was shattered, but that would be an understatement. In truth, my entire family was shattered. Suddenly everything fell into place. The puzzle was put together, and I discovered why everything felt so wrong all my life. What caused the shattering of my family was my fault. I did it. I didn't realize what I was doing at the time, but that isn't really an excuse. Looking back, I would have done it regardless. My personal world had been shattered for 6-months already. I had kept it a secret from the rest of my family. The secret would be revealed in just a couple of minutes when Julie and mom got here.

Here, being the apartment that Julie and I shared. We had both just graduated from college. I was headed for my Masters, then my Doctorate. Julie was heading to interviews and a career in the corporate world. I had been out of town for a couple of days, supposedly touring the campus at the university I would be attending. I had gotten back the night before. After mom picked Julie up to go shopping for interview clothes, I began my task. I had gotten it finished about 20-minutes before they were due back. I had a feeling that a lot of things would change at that time. They had already changed for me.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Mom screeched about 30-seconds after walking in the door. I noticed that she had suddenly gone pale.

"It's a memorial." I answered calmly. I had 6-months to wrap my head around this. She had less than a minute.

"Who is that?" Julie asked. "And why do we suddenly have a memorial for him in our livingroom?"

OK. I need to go back about 6-months. It was an Organic Chemistry class. Advanced, of course. We had been discussing DNA. It wasn't as if this was the first class I had that examined that subject. The professor was going into all sorts of matters related to using DNA. After class, one of my study partners began talking about how they did a DNA test for Ancestry dot com and found a whole bunch of relatives she didn't know about. So, me being the curious type, I decided to do my own check. A few weeks later, I began getting results. A small piece of the puzzle fell into place. There were several matches that I had never heard of before. That wasn't really much of a surprise, since that was kind of the point anyway. The surprise was that there were exactly ZERO matches for anyone on my dad's side of the family. I did see several from mom's side though.

OK. That didn't add up to what I knew. You see, it was never really a secret that Julie and I had been born before mom and dad actually got married. They had been dating for a while, and, when mom got pregnant, decided to move in together. The excuse was that they didn't really see the need to make it official at the time, and they would plan their wedding after they were stable in their careers. It was two years after we were born that they made it official. They claim Jimmy was conceived on their honeymoon.

So, I just had this one small piece of a puzzle. It sure looked like I was not actually related to my dad, but that didn't really compute. More data was needed. I got that on Thanksgiving a month later. After dinner, dad crashed in the recliner in front of the TV. I was sitting on the sofa watching the football game. I was just biding my time. Sure enough, the time came when we were the only ones in the room, and dad was zonked out. Stealthily, I snuck over to his chair and gently swabbed the inside of his mouth. The results a few weeks later verified that I was not related to him. Things were starting to make sense now. At least I had a possible excuse for never really bonding to him like I should have.

Now, if I wasn't biologically related to my dad, who was I related to? Logically, I could reach out to one of those unknown relatives from Ancestory.com. Another possibility would be to simply ask mom about it. Being an introvert, I really was not relishing the idea of blindly contacting a complete stranger. Seriously, what would I say? 'Hello, you don't know me, but I am you niece.' OK, that could work, but just the thought of it terrified me. Would that end up destroying someone else's family? Suppose mom got knocked up from a one-night-stand with a married man. Similarly, confronting mom could lead to all sorts of problems for my family. Did dad know about mom's affair? Did he know that he wasn't Julie's and my biological father? What kind of can of worms would I be opening?

There was only one answer here. Gramma! Gramma was my mom's mother. I had always gotten along with her really well for some reason. It also seemed that she favored me over my twin sister a bit. It also helped that she really didn't care much for my dad for some unknown reason. Oh, she was always civil to him, but she wasn't affectionate. I also got the faint impression that she was somehow a bit disappointed in mom. It was just more of the weirdness that I felt growing up.

"Hi Gram." I said as I waltzed into her room. Gramma was not in the best of health. She was in her 80s, so life and age were catching up to her. She was still sharp as a whip, though. Her body might be failing, but her mind was still sharp.

"Jenny, dear. How nice to see you. What brings my favorite granddaughter to see this old lady?"

"Oh Gramma. You tell all your grandchildren that they are your favorite."

"Yes, I do. But in your case, it's true."

We chatted a bit about how things were going with everyone. Then it was time to bring up the reason for my visit.

"Gramma, I need to talk to you about something, but you need to keep it a secret. I don't know what's going on, but I'm really scared that this will cause a lot of problems."

"Hmmm. That sounds ominous, but you can count on me. I would never reveal anything we discuss in private unless you give my permission to do so." Then I saw a gleam in her eye. "I have a suspicion on what this may be about but go ahead. Tell me what you need."

"OK. It started a couple of months ago." I don't need to rehash everything here. It would just be repetitive. I'll just say that I explained the DNA testing, the list of unknown relatives, the results of the secret DNA test I did on my dad, and the questions I had.

"It's about fucking time." Gramma sighed. "OK. Yes, you mother had an affair. It wasn't what you are thinking, though. She didn't cheat on Jerry. She was actually cheating on her husband with Jerry. Somehow, her husband found out and left right around the time you and Julie were conceived. Everyone believed that the reason he left was because Patricia got pregnant by Jerry. Everyone believes that he is your biological father. They never did a paternity test because it really didn't matter. There was only one small issue. That was you. It wasn't really anything overt, but your personality and mind are a close match to who you now know is your biological father. He was always extremely smart and quite introverted. Just like you are. Julie ended up being a lot more like your mother. I think Jerry and your mother may suspect the truth, but it's better for everyone to ignore it."

"You mean that mom was married before?" I was astonished.

"Yes. And he was a wonderful man and a devoted husband. He would have made an excellent father as well. He was very smart, had a great career, and absolutely doted on your mother."

"Is that why you don't like Jerry?"

"I hate that damned snake. He came in, seduced your mother, and destroyed the best man that ever graced this planet. I'm also very disappointed in your mother for her part in that as well. She had the best husband a woman could ever ask for, and she threw him away for that low-life piece of pond scum." Yeah, Gramma has always had a bit of an anger management problem.

Now, I had to know. "Who was he, and do you know where I can find him?"

"Are you sure that you want to open this can of worms? This might lead you to nothing but heartache. It could also cause problems with your family."

"I really need to know, Gramma. You said that I am a lot like him, so I really want to meet him and get to know him."

"Very well, dear. Your mother doesn't know this, but I recovered most of the stuff she threw out after he left her. It's in a box in the back of my closet. I have no idea where he is. He just packed a few things and drove away. No one has heard from him since. That was almost 23-years ago. He may not even be alive anymore. That's also the real reason that your mom and Jerry had to wait two years to get married. She didn't know where to find him, so she had to wait until she could divorce him for abandonment before she could marry her lover."

I took the box from Gramma's closet. I hid it in the back of my closet at home. I didn't want anyone else to know about it. I would pull it out and study the documents and photos when Julie was out. After getting all the information I could, I steeled my nerves and began making telephone calls. Some of those calls led to meetings. It took another month, but I finally had a clue that looked promising.

We just stood there staring at each other. I had lost the ability to speak when he opened the door. Finally, he broke the silence.

"You must be Patricia's daughter. You look exactly like she did when she was your age. I assume that Jerry is your father, unless she was cheating on me with someone else as well." He didn't look overly happy to see me. I could kind of understand that as well. "Well, other than her somehow finding me and sending you here to torture me with my memories, what do you want."

I suddenly became really nervous. This might not have been such a brilliant idea. I was at his cabin. He had turned into kind of a hermit. We were miles from the nearest person, up in the mountains. There were no utilities here. Electricity was supplied by a solar array on the roofs of the cabin and outbuildings. Water was supplied from the stream near the cabin. There was a large propane tank off to the side. He also had a large satellite dish in the yard.

"Uuuummm, no. Actually, my parents don't know that I am here. They don't even have the slightest clue that I even know about you. I'm here because I need to talk to you. I also have some information that I think you need to know. May I come in so we can talk?"

He looked at me for a minute, then nodded his head and opened the door for me to enter. Being a good host, he offered me a cup of coffee. I accepted. A couple minutes later, we were sitting opposite each other in the kitchen.

"This is your show." He said with a nod for me to begin.

"OK. First off, my name is Jenny Michaels. Yes, my mother did marry Jerry. Just to clarify, are you David Young?" He just nodded. "OK. Good. I should also inform you that I have an identical twin sister. Her name is Julie. Although they are not particularly relevant here, I have a younger brother and a younger sister."

"Why would they not be relevant?" he asked. I noticed something in his expression had changed from a minute ago.

"Although this is not 100% conclusive, I am 100% sure that it is true." I handed him the documentation from the DNA testing. "As you can see from the first document, my DNA profile matches up with several of your relatives. I don't see you in there, but I am assuming that is only because you have never submitted your DNA to the site." I could see a shine begin to form in his eyes. "Just for clarification, the next document is the DNA profile from Jerry. I got it while he was sleeping, so he has no idea about this. As you can clearly see, he is nowhere close to a match to me."

"I had no idea." He whispered. "I didn't even know she was pregnant. Even if I had known, I would have assumed he was the father."

"No one knew. When they found out, everyone also assumed that Jerry had knocked her up."

"Your mother doesn't know?"

"I think that she and Jerry may suspect, but I doubt that they even want to acknowledge it. The only other one that knows is Gramma, and she is sworn to secrecy. Even Julie doesn't know."

"Lydia. How is the old gal? I always admired her. She was always a class act and a great woman."

"She's doing OK. She has to live in an assisted care facility now because of health problems, but her mind is still sharp. By the way, she wanted me to tell you hello from her. She always loved you. Oh, she still hates Jerry with a passion."

He smiled wanly, then looked back at the documents. I watched as his tears began to form. His face went to sadness, then I saw a bit of anger.

"Why are you doing this? After all this time, why bring this up? I had no clue that I had any children. Now I discover this, and I have missed out on their entire lives. Why?"

Yes, I had considered this reaction. It wasn't what I had hoped for, but it was a distinct possibility. Gramma told me that he would have been a great father. She said that he had loved children and really wanted some of his own. I imagine that it must be devastating to suddenly learn that you have two adult children that you have missed out on. From my research, I had learned that he had never remarried. He never had the chance to have children. He was so devastated by what my mother had done to him, that he had simply withdrawn into himself and became isolated from everyone.

"I am doing this for a couple of reasons. One, we have both been lied to for 23-years. I want to set the record straight. Second, I want to get to know you. Gramma says that I am a lot like you. I've never really fit in with the rest of the family, but I believe I can finally find that family member that I can form a bond with. While you have missed out on me growing up, I have also missed out on my daddy while I was growing up. Yes, there was Jerry, but that wasn't the same. Sure, I was always told that he was my father, but something was never right. I never bonded to him like I should have. Now, I know why. It's too late to make up for what we lost, but I want to have the chance to have a relationship with my real daddy going forward."

I saw in his face that he was approving of what I was saying. He seemed to accept it -- until I got to the last part. It was then that a deep sadness fell over him. I didn't understand what was wrong. I had gotten the impression that he would welcome the chance of a relationship with me, but it suddenly went off the rails. I was shocked when the tears began trickling down his cheeks.

"Don't.... Don't you want to see me? Don't you want to see if we can form a relationship?" I stuttered. Tears were beginning to form in my own eyes by this time.

He nodded his head. "I want that more than anything, Jenny. I want to get to know everything about you. I want to know both my daughters and have them in my life, but I can't. It's too late."

"It's not too late. Yes, we've both missed the first 23-years, but we can pick up from here and move forward. It's not too late to start." I didn't understand what the problem was. He wanted to. I wanted to. Why was it too late? It just didn't make sense.

And that's when his heavy sobs broke free. He leaned down with his hands over his face and began crying in deep heavy sobs. I rushed over, pushed him back in his chair, sat on his lap, and hugged him to me tightly. "What's wrong? Why is it too late? Why can't we have a relationship?" I asked as I held and comforted him.

"Because I'm dying, baby. I have cancer. It's too late because I only have a few months to live." He managed to explain through his great wracking sobs.

That's when I lost it as well. I had finally found my daddy. My true daddy. A daddy I hadn't even known about until a few months ago. I had finally felt a connection -- a REAL connection to a father figure, and now I was going to lose that. We sat there and cried for an hour. Towards the end of that hour, something inside me began to change. His words had shaken me deeply. I had never felt that level of despair before. I had finally found what I had been searching for, only to see it ruthlessly taken away again.