Quite a long one, and no explicit sex, so don't expect any. Plenty of emotion though and, for some, a happy ending. You've been warned!
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I had to get married ---- Now that's a bald statement if ever there was one, isn't it?
Well, takes two to tango I suppose, so I should have said that WE had to get married, Maddy and I, as otherwise it could have been a bit lonely stood up there on my own.
Even that's a bald statement, and is only a half-truth, as if we hadn't wanted to anyway, then it just wouldn't have happened.
"James," Maddy, my regular girlfriend for the last twelve months or so spoke out, one fine Friday Evening. "I've got some news for you."
"Good news or bad?" I smiled back, eyeing up my Five foot sixish, blondish, slimish rather gorgeous significant other.
"Not sure James," Maddy grinned at me a little nervously. "Could be either. Depends on you really."
Don't have to report the rest of the conversation to show you where that conversation was going. Suffice to say that a few moments later we were in one another's arms declaring our love for one another and trying to decide when I would transform my newly pregnant girlfriend into my newly pregnant wife.
"Anytime to suit your family," Maddy offered. "I've not really got any family left now that Auntie Beth has died, and I haven't got anyone back in Leicester that I'm still particularly friendly with."
It was true ----- Sad maybe, but true! Poor Maddy had lost both parents as a child in a motor cycling accident, and after some early fostering, had eventually been raised by 'Auntie Beth', a long-term friend of Maddy's late mother just outside Leeds. Poor Auntie Beth had passed away herself just a few weeks previously before I'd even so much as got to meet her her. I'd been away in Canada on business when she'd died, and by the time I'd got back, Maddy had been up to Leeds for the funeral and everything was done and buried --- Quite literally, as it were!
"What about Beth's son, Maddy?" I asked somewhat reluctantly, the conversation having been cut short by her on previous occasions when his name had come up. "You used to be close to Tom didn't you? Wouldn't you like him there on the day?"
"Tom's in prison James," Maddy shot back at me, her annoyance showing through. "I've told you before. I don't want to talk about him."
Oooops! Should have known better than to mention Tom. I knew he was serving time at her Majesty's pleasure, but I didn't know why, or where for that matter. Touchy subject ---Better do a quick change of tack.
"My parents are both retired so I think any date would suit them."
"The sooner the better then James," my wife-to-be smiled back at me patting her still flat tummy, and her anger forgotten. "Let's ring them now."
And so it came to pass.
Just four weeks later we were joined in matrimony at the registry office in Bedford where we were living, a small group of my family and our mutual friends in attendance. We went off to the West Indies where we had a wonderful honeymoon, but it was still several weeks after returning, that Maddy's tummy began to show evidence of the arrival of our first child.
Beth!
That's what we called the little bundle of joy that eventually emerged screaming into this world, complete with a full set of fingers and toes and things, and a pair of lungs that promised a few sleepless nights. My Mum's name was too long winded and out of fashion, so our daughter was named after the woman who Maddy had looked upon as her mother. I thought that appropriate and Maddy loved me for it.
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Married life was great and though I'm not saying we never had any disagreements, Maddy and I settled down well together, with our lovely little infant daughter. Beth was really quite blonde as she started to grow up, with even a touch of ginger in her hair when you saw it in the right light. Unlike my dark complexion and completely black hair, Maddy was a sort of dirty blonde so Beth took after her side of the family. Little Beth however had more my disposition, seldom getting upset or indeed even crying, unlike Maddy who had always been inclined to be a little emotional. A good mixture some might think, the best of both sides, though I was never quite brave enough to suggest such a thing to my darling wife of course.
We'd been married nearly four years, and Beth had passed her third birthday when suddenly not all was well in the Dawson household. Beth was her normal happy self and I was more than content with life, but Maddy obviously had something on her mind. She had given up work shortly before Beth was born, and since I was making pretty good money had never returned. By then we were living in a pretty little village to the north of Bedford and two or three times a week Maddy took Beth into Bedford to do the shopping, take her to the clinic or just meet up with her friends that she used to work with. Yes, and when I was around, we sometimes met for lunch, which was nice. But just lately she had been coming home in a very pensive mood from her trips into town, and there was obviously something bothering her. Maddy had been subject to moody periods in the first few weeks that we'd been going out together, after a mutual friend had introduced us. It was pretty obviously due to her concern that we were getting serious about one another pretty quickly, but she'd long since got that out of her system. I asked what the problem was of course, but just got the old shake of the head treatment. I considered the possibility that she might be having an affair with some guy, but she always had Beth with her, so that didn't seem even a remote possibility. As it turned out I was correct in that assumption, but maybe it might have been better if it had been just that.
"What on earth is the matter Maddy," I eventually demanded more forcibly when she was really down in the dumps.
She looked up at me and just stared sadly for quite some time before she spoke. "I guess I owe you an explanation James. You're going to find out soon anyway, so I might as well get it over with."
"Find out what?" I asked, her words filling me with dread. Was she ill? Was there something wrong with our beautiful daughter?
"Put Beth to bed honey," she suggested with a sigh. "Then come down and we'll have a talk."
"Right." I bundled little Beth up and took her upstairs; happy for once that she was so sleepy and not insisting on me staying on to read her a story. I wanted to get back down and find out what the problem was. If I'd known at that moment, then I would have stayed longer with Beth. Damn it, if I'd known what was going to happen, then I might never have left her bedroom.
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"Come and sit here James," Maddy told me, indicating the chair the opposite side of the table to where she sat rather than alongside her, which was not an encouraging sign.
"James honey, "she started, sighing deeply before continuing. "You've asked about Tom a number of times and I've never told you anything, have I?"
"No," I agreed. "You always shut me down."
"Well it's time that I told you about Tom," Maddy went on in not much more than a whisper. "Tom is a couple of years older than me, and when I was younger he was just like an older brother after I went to live with him and his mother."
"That sounds quite normal," I threw in to encourage her.
"Yes, but as we got older, things changed James," Maddy continued, avoiding my eyes. "We weren't actually related in any way, and we became ..... Well ..... Like boyfriend and girlfriend."
I simply nodded, wondering where this conversation was going, and suspecting that I wasn't going to like it.
"Then as we got into our later teens, we became more than that. A whole lot more."
"What did his mother make of that?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level, and trying not to dwell too much on what 'a whole lot more' might mean.
