Chapter 34

Bill’s turn:

Cindy’s words – “Deena. What are you gonna do with that?” came back up in my head when I was back in the office. There’s a sheaf of drawings for a project. Can’t help it. Huge monitor on my desk, but there’s just something about that stack of paper and penciled notes. And time to think.

Deena. The ‘Deena’ who still calls me ‘Dad’ even in the middle of sex, either just the two of us or in the midst of a no-holds-barred threesome.

The Deena whom I love in so many ways, my almost perfect daughter until I married her best friend, even though I’d harbored suspicion that she wasn’t my DNA, a suspicion validated by two lab tests.

Deena, whom I loved the same as and differently than my little brown-haired, brown-eyed Haley. I loved them both. They loved me. They loved each other.

One day I found Deena at home by herself.

“Where’s Haley?”

“Still on campus. She’s arguing her way through an engineering course.”

“How’d you get home?”

“Jeremy lives out in the country from here. I’m not far out of his way.”

Mention of MY Deena in a car with a male of indeterminate intent popped my antennae up to full height. I guess I’m not as subtle as I wish, sometimes.

“Oh, come on, baby,” she said.

I was ‘baby’ or other pet names almost as often as I was ‘Dad’.

“I hitched a ride with Jeremy because I knew that I could get home and have my way with YOU. You and me, all to ourselves.”

“I worry, punkin.” She’d been ‘punkin’ since she was old enough to recognize my voice.

“That’s part of it. I will always be ‘punkin’ to you. And this...” and she swung around me and kissed me.

It was like I was drinking a potent cocktail of sensuality.

“Better?” she asked, eyes sparkling.

“Better.”

“Bedroom?”

“Yes...”

When Haley walked in, she found us still in bed, acting like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“How’d your professor take the idea about testing out of that one?” Deena asked her.

“He put up a noble fight. I practically had to recite the whole book.”

“Uh, those guys who took his class told us what he covers. It’s NOT the whole book,” Deena stated.

“Yeah, and I very tactfully alluded to that finding, but he said that he’d cover a lot of that as side discussions in the classroom, which is...”

“Bullshit,” Deena said. “We got notes from those other students.”

“But he gets to say,” Haley sighed.

“He’s the professor,” I said. “A little god, in his own mind, and he’s just using a bit of his godhood.”

“Well, he finally gave me permission to test out of it.”

By now she was as naked as Deena and I. “Deena, I just KNOW you’re all juicy and delicious. Bill, if you’d be so kind as to do me from behind while I enjoy Deena, an orgasm would help get my mind right.”

So what do I do about Deena?

I don’t get a say. She’s a very capable, precociously so, human female and she gets to say. She and Haley got to say that Deena should be more than the daughter in our home.

I’m holding a butterfly in my hand. It’s all beauty, but the beauty in part resides in the freedom it enjoys in life. That’s Deena, and yes, Haley as well. I’m in close proximity to the beauty, and if either wanted to leave, capturing would give me something I never wanted.

I want Deena to do what’s good for Deena.

Deena says what’s good for her is being part of the ‘us’.

“When I found out you were marrying Haley, Dad, my heart bounced. I knew she was good for you and I wanted something good for you. Haley is my best friend, and I wanted something good for her, too. I knew you and she would be great together.”

“I worried that you’d think I was some kind of perv, marrying a young teen like that.”

“Oh, I know. I listened to Mom go on and on about it. But, Dad...”

“Humm?”

“I saw how happy y’all were. I knew it would be like that. And I really was already thinking about moving in with you before you and Haley were getting married.” She giggled. “No telling what all I was interrupting, huh?”

“Cut the crap, darlin’,” I laughed. “I know Haley told you...”

“My sister. Once she and you were legally married, she told me ... fourteen. And SHE initiated it.”

I smiled thinking about that day.

“And when the DNA test said I wasn’t your natural daughter, I thought ‘I’m fourteen and I love the guy’...”

“I’m still your dad, Deena. Always was that way.”

“And always will be, Dad. But more. Haley’s got something from you that I can’t replace. And I got something that she can’t replace. And you KNOW how good the three of us are.”

“But if the right guy came along...”

“Never gonna happen. I got the right guy. When I’m eighteen, nobody will be able to say anything. We’ll take the evidence to a lawyer if we need to.”

“Dunno what the court could do. Erase your birth certificate?”

“Dunno. But by that time everybody will pretty much know.”

So what I am I going to do about Deena? Love her as long as I live, whether she’s part of our happy little triangle or whether she strikes off on her own. I just can’t see that second idea happening, though.

So back to the drawing. It’s a fairly common design for a utility distribution substation. We’re doing a lot of them as rural electrical co-ops grow to meet modern power requirements. I’m looking at four circuit breakers, twelve hundred amps at a hundred and fifteen thousand volts, a pair of transformers that will take that and drop it down to thirty-four thousand five hundred, and a distribution bay with five outgoing circuits, room for one more on one side, two more on the other. Thirteen million dollars. They’ve already got the land picked out. I’m speccing out the equipment, but seriously, nothing special here. Haley stayed with me for a bit, giving me the opportunity to verbalize my thoughts and for her to learn what drudgery sounds like.

“Oh, come on, baby ... You’re putting together part of the nation’s energy infrastructure.”

“Thereby making sure that the lights stay on at WalMart,” I said.

“WalMart is part of life.”

“My wife is a philosopher.”

“And almost a Stearman pilot. Even if I do have to adjust the rudder pedals all the way up.”

“How’s Cindy say Sandy’s doing?”

“Said she hasn’t had time to get bad habits. She’s tryin’ to sign Sandy off for her first solo before she leaves. Says that nobody’s done their first solo in a Stearman since 1950.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said, “but I’ll guarantee that Sandy’s gonna have bragging rights if she does it. What’s Matt say?”

“Matt’s gonna be here if it happens. Says he can’t even fly the thing, but he’s gonna watch Sandy.”

“Matt and Sandy? A thing?”

“Wanna see her dad turn colors?” she giggled. “Say something about that.”

“He wouldn’t be a bad match,” I mused. “Actually HAS a job. Intelligent. Seems decent. Neither of you said he hit on you, and both of you are entirely hit-worthy.”

“It is well that you notice that, sir,” she said. She does that fake formality just for fun. That’s part of the fun of being married to Haley. “And next time you go look at a substation, you need to bring us. Call it ‘take your daughter and wife to work’ day or something.”

“I wish we could get up to the sub that Carl and Sunny are commissioning. It’s completely new and our people are doing the whole thing. I could give you free rein.”

“And I like Carl and Sunny. They’re good. Carl was always fun to talk to when he was working in the office.”

“One of the good ones,” I said. “Not taking anything from Trevor or Chase, though.”

“No, they’re good, too. It’s just that Carl has a funny way of saying things. Hope Sunny’s treating him nice.”

“Uh, Sunny’s his junior tech. She’d better be.”

“And you think that’s how that’s gonna shake out?” she asked.

“They’re co-workers, baby. That’s all.”

“Yeah ... same job, same trailer park, side by side. He’s single. She’s single. Yeah.”

“Just because YOU are happy being married doesn’t mean that it’s what everybody’s looking for.”

“You don’t necessarily have to look for it. Sometimes it’s an existential imperative.”

“I need to put you to work at WalMart. You’re using too many big words.”

Maddie was listening through my open door. “That ain’t a solution. I know an English major who’s running a shift at WalMart.”

“It happens,” I said.

“Oh, I know,” Maddie laughed. “Used to make Dad change colors, telling him I was majoring in French literature.”

“You have an evil streak, Maddie. Your parents are wonderful people. How’d they go wrong?”

“Hurricane’s fault. Got me friends with Nikki, and Nikki leads to Cindy, and heaven knows where you go after that.”

‘Where’ was right outside the window, herding a grinning Sandy in and out of the skies at the stick of a big biplane.

Brindy and Carlita came in at lunchtime bearing a sandwich tray from a diner up the road.

I guess Cindy and Sandy saw the SUV pull up because the next circuit, the Stearman stopped near the fuel pump.