or sometimes you just don't see it coming!
The Beginning!
It isn't essential to have read the parts of the Inheritance series that have been previously written to understand this story, it will be sufficient - if you haven't read the other parts - to know that this is part of a bigger story and that this is where it all begins. It has also, as these things tend to do, gotten much bigger that I ever thought it would. Because of this I have decided to split this part of the story into two 'smaller' parts, as much as to get something published as anything else. However it stops me from continually adding more and never getting it finished, and once it's been published I can move on to the second and final part.
This is a fiction; all of the characters are made up, some of the characters are based vaguely on real people but really, really vaguely. Oh and they're all over 18. Enjoy!
May 1987
John Porter was not a man given to excesses of emotion, if anything he prided himself on his calm, almost clinical mind. He did have a temper -- a fine one, but he kept it firmly under control, preferring reason to anger. But as he entered the room he was angrier than he had ever been. On the bed in front of him, sprawled his daughter -- lying in her own vomit, a bottle of wine lying next to her, the dregs staining the bed clothes. She was partly dressed, and her semi-nakedness emphasised her vulnerability, the dishevelled clothes showed him glimpses of her body, a full breast uncovered, her perfect body, her sexy body. Her father recognised her as a stunningly, pretty girl even with the slight swelling in her normally flat belly but John didn't think of his daughter that way, as open and lewdly available as she was now. His recognition of her sexuality and attractiveness did not lead to feelings of desire, nor did it lead to feelings of guilt, John simply, dispassionately, (and with a tiny twinge of pride) understood that his daughter was beautiful even if she was impossibly rebellious at times, and was passed out drunk in front of him.
John searched around and found a flannel in the nearby bathroom. He started carefully cleaning her face and hair. Gently he wiped the ruby coloured mess -- wine and smeared rich red lipstick - away from her mouth. The anger he felt was over-ridden by his concern for the girl and her unborn child.
His attentions must have stirred the girl's consciousness. She opened blurred, unfocussed hazel eyes.
"Daddy?" She asked in a little girl voice, surprised even though it had been her call, drunken and slurred that had brought him several hours through the night to get her. "Wha_? What are you doing here?"
"You called us Jane. Don't you remember?"
Slowly Jane shook her head, the motion aggravating her nausea, "No." She told him, "Wha_? When?"
"It doesn't matter lovely girl," John's voice was soft and loving, "I'm here."
She looked at him, mascara and tears mingling as they rolled down her cheeks, "He left me daddy, he left us!"
"Don't worry about him Jane; you're coming home with me."
Jane looked about her, seeming to see the mess she had made. "Am I in trouble, daddy?"
John pulled her to him, feeling her softness, and he cradled her -- the mess on her face ruining his shirt, something that never even crossed his mind -- "No my lovely girl, you're not the one in trouble." His voice so low it rumbled in his chest.
Jane snuggled drunkenly into his strength and he held her for a few minutes.
"Come on now, let's get you dressed." And he found a coat in the wardrobe, draping its loose volume around her, before guiding her down the staircase and out to his waiting car.
John went back inside and after a quick search he located Jane's handbag and purse. Checking for her house keys he closed the door and drove her off into the night.
Even though it was past three in the morning Elizabeth Porter was wakeful and waiting for her husband's arrival with their daughter. And without a word she whisked the girl away, up the stairs to a bedroom, where she undressed her and put her to bed. The car journey had given the eighteen year old time to sober up, so Elizabeth had few worries about leaving her, and when she did it was only after she saw her daughter sleeping soundly.
"Are you going to punish her?"
John was sitting in his chair by the fireplace with a cup of tea. He was staring into the flames, and didn't appear to have heard her. Elizabeth repeated herself.
John looked at her, "Jane? I don't know, that very much depends on what she chooses. But it will be her choice. Oh no, don't worry. She's very upset and she'll need some time to get her head together."
Elizabeth knelt by her husband's legs, he stroked her hair, "Him on the other hand."
Elizabeth looked up at John's face, "You're not going to... You know." John knew people, people who could do things like that.
John looked down and cupped his wife's face, "Oh no, he'll live. But he'll be very aware of what he's done wrong. And I don't think a divorce will be a problem."
Elizabeth could see John's other hand balled into a fist on his other knee, his knuckles pale in the fire light -- by this alone she realised just how angry her husband was. In the twenty years of their marriage she had never seen him like this. Jane was a rebellious girl, for the last two years she had done almost everything she could do to disobey her father and mother, ending up married to Peter Bailey, and pregnant at just eighteen. In all this time John had endured her antics without any sign of this temper. Then earlier in the evening there had been the call that had caused him to drive off into the night.
"Mum?" Jane's voice was thick with drink and emotion. "Pete's gone, he's left me, mum. I want to die."
John Porter's response had been immediate -- driving through the darkness to where the couple had been living, kicking the door open and rescuing Jane -- and giving thanks that Bailey had not been present.
The next day a doctor attended. Examining Jane and the baby, he spent half an hour and took blood samples but felt that the baby was unaffected by its mother's efforts the previous night. Aside from several bruises Jane was also physically sound, but she remained in her bed for several days, at first because the doctor suggested it, but then because she wanted to avoid facing her father.
Her mother on the other hand was a constant presence. Jane dozed most of the first day, sleeping off the worst hang-over she had ever had. When she did wake, to drink water or go to the toilet, Elizabeth would be there offering support. Neither woman spoke, but Jane embraced her mother, silently thanking her. When she got back into bed she lay there, while Elizabeth washed her face with a damp flannel, cleaning it of smeared mascara, washed out make-up, and the shadowy smear of lip stick and revealing the fresh face of the girl underneath.
While she slept John looked in on them both, "I have to go out for a few hours. May not be back 'til tomorrow."
He returned two days later. Some years later he would tell Elizabeth and Jane of what had gone on, but at the time no questions were asked and nothing was offered.
While he had been away John felt justice had been served, with the assistance of the 'friends of a friend'. Pete Bailey lived, unharmed but scared. John's anger had been such that his friend had had to make some strong suggestions about the way to proceed. And John accepted he'd been right, it had been better done the way his friend suggested.
John loved his daughter, if Jane kept the baby John would love his daughter's child too. He despised Pete Bailey, but John now had him in a position where he would always know where he was and what he was doing.
On the fourth day since her return home Jane woke to see her father sat in the chair beside her bed, silently regarding her.
