Chapter 1

I had just come home to my place after having dinner with my mother. What I had found out that night was very disquieting.

Let me tell you about my family and what I was told...

My mother's name is Mary ... my father is Joseph. At least he was my father until what I was just told.

He left after dinner, leaving mom and me to talk alone. This had never happened before, but she asked me to sit down.

"What is it?" I asked. "Are you OK?"

"No Jesse, I'm not. There is something I need to tell you before I am gone."

I moved to by her side and took her hand and said, "Take as much time as you need Mom. I'm right here."

She began to cry a little, and I handed her a tissue.

"You have always been so wonderful honey. I've kept this to myself for a very long time. Have patience with me please?"

"I am as patient a man as I know. I turned 30 tonight and had my favorite dinner with my lovely mother and stepfather. You have never told me about my biological father. Is that what this is about?"

"Yes, it is."

"Go ahead Mom," I said.

"You were born in Bethlehem Pennsylvania on April 3^rd to Joseph and me. We had been kicked out of our apartment for not paying our rent on time. You were born literally in a homeless shelter, but the story actually begins before that."

"Okay," I said.

"I was only 14, when I had a dream. It was a most amazing dream honey. I was still living with my parents when it happened in Nazareth Pennsylvania. I have relatives there, but that's not important to the story I have to tell. Anyway, after the dream was over I slept for a long time. I thought nothing of it until I had missed a period."

"Mother!"

"I need to tell you this story. Are you going to listen or just keep interrupting me?"

"Sorry."

"Such a good boy, you are. I took a home pregnancy test and it said I was pregnant. I went to my parents Anne and Joachim and told them. They wanted to know who I had been with and I told them no one. Mother believed me, but father didn't. He wouldn't speak to me and when he did he wouldn't look at me."

"I knew Joseph from school and he came over and I told him I was pregnant and he comforted me. My father walked in on our embrace and threatened to kill Joseph if he didn't admit to knocking up 'his little girl.'"

"Daddy told him to leave and never come back. I was losing the only boy I ever knew that liked me."

"Mom, it's OK to cry. I'm sorry that grandpa treated you like that. What happened next?"

"I packed a bag hiding it under my bed and later that night I heard something at my window. It was Joseph with a ladder he had made. His father was a carpenter and it was very sturdy and he helped me down taking my suitcase. He was old enough to drive and we left together in his Chevy Impala together. We had talked about running off together and that night happened."

My mother stopped talking and must have been thinking about how to proceed. I got her attention and she began again.

"To this day, I don't understand who or what got me pregnant, but it wasn't Joseph. He loved me enough to run away from home with a pregnant girl. We easily fell the rest of the way in love."

"Now the problem was how would we live on the little money I had and his bank account. We went to an atm and he got all of it out before his parents found out and blocked access to it. We lived on that money until it ran out, which prompted us to move into the homeless shelter. Because I was pregnant, we got a bed to sleep in together. Joseph was a complete gentleman, holding my hand through the night."

"Thirty days later, I gave birth to you. There was a medical nurse who helped you come into the world. Her name was Ruth. She was so helpful, letting me hold you right away. Later that same night there was a big noise outside and a limousine had pulled up and three big men in turbans walked in asking, "If a child had been born in this place?"

"Joseph brought them over to me and they prayed over you. They asked what name I was giving you. Joseph and I hadn't thought that far ahead and they suggested the name of Christos or possibly Immanuel. That's why you have two middle names Jesse."

"Who were they Mom?" I asked.

"They said they 'came from the East' so I just left it at that. They gave their names as Melchior from Persia, Caspar from India and Balthazar from Arabia. They all looked very old. They each left something behind."

"There was a bottle of perfume with the name Frankincense on the label. It smelled wonderful. Next was a small bottle of healing oil, they called it Myrrh. They said to drop a few drops on your forehead before we prayed each night."

"What was the final gift?" I asked my mother who was steeped in tears again.

"It's in a safe deposit box. We never opened it. They said it would extend our lives after we left our bodies. That scared Joseph and I. Melchior handed us some coins and said to 'Keep it safe for your Christos.' Joseph did as requested by these 'Wise men' and by the end of that week we had a small bank account with a mysterious box in a vault."

"You've never gone to see what it was?" I asked.

"No ... apparently the coins we were handed were worth a great deal of money, enough for us to move from the shelter back into an apartment. Joseph started a carpenter shop that you helped in after you were old enough to be around electrical tools."