Chapter 19: Hereditary Slut

The silly season was upon them once again. Helen had to balance her course load, the care for Larissa, and having a boyfriend of sorts. That was not conducive to developing much of a holiday spirit, and she had to be careful to curb her temper. She also had to tread lightly around Danny who was still having the blues after the break-up with Lucy. This made it difficult to find the time for the parties Eric wanted her to attend with him. He quite liked to trot her out for his fraternity brothers to see them.

Eric in Philadelphia was quite a different guy from the Eric she’d met on the beach in Kitty Hawk. Here, he was living in the ΑΦΣ frat house, and the fraternity was the most important thing in his life, easily eclipsing his coursework and even his girlfriend. Helen had also found out that around his brothers, Eric was a follower to the point of being obsequious to the older brothers.

She did not feel comfortable at those frat parties. The memory of when she’d got drunk at Earl’s frat party and picked up by the cops was still stinging her badly. At the last of those bashes, four or five of the accompanying girls, half wasted, let themselves be persuaded to do an impromptu wet T-shirt competition. Fortunately, Helen never drank alcohol at those parties, or elsewhere for that matter, but after having to dodge drunk frat brothers repeatedly, she was leery of going to another one. So, when Eric wanted her to accompany him to their New Year’s celebration, a notoriously raucous affair, she had nixed the idea. Eric was pissed off at first, she cold-shouldered him for a few days, but then he conveyed an invitation for an evening at his parents’ home in the suburbs. In a way, she was looking forward to that dinner. It would be a compensation for the three frat parties where she’d had to accompany Eric, and she would meet his parents for the first time, who were some big-time execs in the insurance business. Buttering Danny up shamelessly, she had talked him into taking Larissa on New Year’s Eve.

In the back of her head, however, there was a dull sense of worry. The thoughts she’d had about her future plans and the way it would affect the shared parenting had left her thinking about the wisdom of their decision — well, mostly her decision — to not get involved with each other romantically. Danny was a dependable friend, a caring father for Larissa, and an all-around good guy. Yet, she could feel the growing distance between them, even exacerbated by Lucy dumping him for her planned career. She could even sympathize with his attempt to distance himself from the females in his life. Lucy had been a constant in his life, and yet she dropped him like a hot potato to get accepted by a talent agency. Those Finnish twins had proven to be egotistical airheads, and she, Helen, had dumped Larissa on him during most of their stay in Kitty Hawk, to be with Eric. When he agreed to look after Larissa over New Year, Helen had felt like a jerk. Reluctantly, Helen was facing the prospect of becoming a single parent in the not-so-far future, and the thought left her hurting on a subconscious level.

Even her own upcoming birthday, her long-awaited 21st, was not lifting her spirits as she’d thought it would. She would come into control of her trust fund and be responsible for yet another thing. In fact, Trudy had made an appointment with her attorney for Helen to sign the papers for the transfer. Therefore, on this mid-December afternoon, as she was returning from Penn, she was feeling slightly gloomy. Larissa would be at Danny’s she knew, and she would likely spend the evening in her room studying while Trudy would be out with friends.

Opening the front door, she was a little surprised being greeted in the small foyer by Trudy. The old woman looked a bit apprehensive.

“Hey, what’s up, Trudy? You look like I feel.”

“Hi, kiddo! Do you think you have a few minutes for us to talk? I must tell you a few things that cannot wait any longer.”

Helen went from gloomy to worried in a second. She knew that Trudy was suffering from a number of age-related health issues.

“Sure. Are you all right, Trudy?”

“Me? Yes, sure. Oh, that! No, this isn’t about me. Come on in! I brewed some coffee and baked scones.”

Helen followed her grandmother into the living room and sat down at the table. Trudy insisted that she poured herself coffee and had a scone before she would start, and Helen dutifully spread black currant preserve on her scone.

“Helen, my darling, you’ll be getting control over your trust fund next week, and there are a few things that you must know before that. I have been keeping things from you, but now I have to spill the beans.”

“What things?” Helen asked suspiciously.

“Well, did you ever ask yourself why Hiram Gunderson dislikes you so much? Why you couldn’t do anything right in his eyes?”

“He’s misogynistic?” Helen hazarded.

In spite of herself, Trudy chuckled softly. “Yeah, that may be one reason. No, the main reason is that he did not want you.”

“He wanted to have me aborted?” Helen gasped

“No. Helen, there is no easy way to say this, so I’ll just blurt it out. The Gundersons are not your parents, not biologically. They adopted you because Margaret wanted a second child which she couldn’t have herself after Earl’s birth. She got her will, but Hiram made her and you pay for it.”

“They adopted me from ... an orphanage?”

“No. Margaret is your aunt. Helen, have a look at this picture!”

Trudy opened an album and pointed at a photograph. It showed a pretty young woman with a laughing face, her blonde hair in dozens of thin, beaded braids. Something tugged at Helen’s heart and she swallowed hard.

“That’s my aunt Grace, right? The one who died before I was born?”

Trudy’s eyes were misty. “Yes, that’s my Grace, my younger daughter. A friendly, a happy girl, so full of life and love. But no, she didn’t die before you were born. You know that she had a car accident?”

Helen nodded.

“Well, her head was hurt badly when she bumped against the side window. She was buckled up, but that didn’t help her. They put her on life support in the hospital, but they couldn’t pick up much in her EEG. She was pregnant, in her last month, and I had to make the decision to have them perform a C-section before they pulled the plug. She hung on for only two more days after you were delivered.”

“Who is my father then?” Helen asked, swallowing heavily.

“He was driving the car. He wasn’t buckled up. He died instantly in the crash. His name was Jerry Walker, but he was better known by his stage name, Def Blind. He was a musician, mostly Punk Rock. He and Grace were very much in love, but while she was able to stop drinking and other stuff after finding out that she was pregnant, Jerry couldn’t or wouldn’t. He was stoned when they crashed.”

“Now I know why I hate Punk,” Helen quipped listlessly.

“Yeah, me too. The stupid thing is, he wasn’t that much into punk himself. Most of the songs he wrote were folk or pop, ballads even, but his label only wanted his punk persona. He was a deeply unhappy person. He left a large catalog of unpublished songs, a number of them even about Grace. Well, they’re yours now. They’re part of the trust fund. What money he had, what his insurance paid to you for him killing Grace, also went into the trust. That’s why you would have found out anyway. The trust paid for your costs of living and your allowance too, or Hiram would never have agreed to take you in. I should’ve raised you myself, but Margaret was begging me, saying how much she’d loved Grace, and how much she needed to raise you. So I gave in. I also had to promise never to tell you. I broke that promise today, but she broke hers when they chucked you out.”

Helen felt dazed as the thoughts were criss-crossing through her brain.

“Why ... why did he hate me so much then?”

Trudy shrugged. “Think of it! You were the daughter of his irresponsible sister-in-law and spawned by a heathen and anti-Christ. That’s how he called your father. He was deathly afraid that somebody in his church might find out that he was raising Satan’s child.”

“But he wanted me to marry Edward!”

“Honey, Edward is also an embarrassment to his father. He’s gay. You would have been his beard, and he would have to accept you and somehow perform daily exorcisms on you,” Trudy grinned.

“Edward’s gay? Oh God! Dad ... Gunderson wanted to marry me off to a gay man?” Unconsciously, Helen had quit thinking of him a father in the blink of an eye. “The fucking asshole! Gunderson I mean. That’s why Edward was so understanding — he was being coerced too.”

“Basically yes. He was also secretly planning his coming-out. He broke with his father’s church last year and joined the Immanuel congregation. It’s part of the ELCA, and they ordain LGBT pastors.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, Margaret sometimes calls. Let me tell you: she was scandalized about that! Betraying his father like that! It was so funny! Anyway, this is about you. Have you any more questions?”

Helen nodded. “How much is in the trust fund?”

“It started with about $124,000 from the insurances. Another seventy-four thousand were added from the sale of your father’s estate, like the equity in his house, his instruments, his motorcycle. The interest from that was a little over $10,000 per year to which I chipped in another two grand to make it an even thousand per month. That’s what I paid to Hiram and Margaret for your upkeep and allowance.”

“But I’m getting far more from it,” Helen protested.

“That’s because the trust fund stands at $420,000 now. The royalties from his four albums keep trickling in. More importantly, I have also been marketing your father’s catalogue of songs, the unrecorded ones. You can look at the statements. Twelve of his songs were recorded by other musicians after his death, and half of them charted in the Billboard Hot 100. One, Amazing Grace, even went up to Nº 15 seven years back. Of course, it was written about your mother. Kylie Henson just recorded another one, Tormented, a few weeks ago. That’s how I came in contact with her. It’ll come out with her next album.”

“Wow! So he’s been that prolific songwriter, but he wasn’t allowed to sing his own songs?”

“That about covers it. The stuff they let him sing was the chaff, the material he wrote on the road when he was strung out and angry. He had great talent, but he was also quite messed up. His mother was a mess, his adopted father must have been a horrible person, and he never talked about them. Sad.”

“How big a catalogue are we talking?”

“About 80 songs, without the variations. My agent represents the material and makes the deals. You still own each of them by the way. Somebody wants to cover any of the recorded songs, they too have to pay royalties to you.”

“Again, wow! I mean, I can’t hold a tune with a bucket, and here’s my supposed father who was this genius songwriter. What else did you keep from me?”

Trudy made a face. “Well, you’ll find out anyway when you’ll renew your driver’s license next year and get your birth certificate. Your birth name is Melville. The Gundersons adopted you a month after your birth.”

Helen nodded and even smiled as a thought struck her. “Hey, can I revert to Melville?”

Trudy chuckled. “Somehow I saw that one coming.”

Over the next week, Helen scoured the internet and local newspaper archives for traces of Jerry Walker or Def Blind. There was little. His obituary did not name his parents or surviving kin, only his birth date, Oct 11, 1963, his death date, November 29, 1989, his alma mater, his profession, and that he was survived by a daughter, Helen Melville. The obit had been put into the papers by his agent, Drew Hotchkiss, but a further search showed that man to have died ten years ago, with his agency becoming defunct. This was literally a dead end, but Helen resolved to contact his old college for his records.

She also found references to his real name from the songs that were recorded posthumously. There were a lot of sites showing his name, but no information about him as a person. Of his stage persona, Def Blind, there was more material. There was even a fan club still in existence, and on their website his memory was kept alive. The images showed an angry looking man in typical punk regalia with shaven head and blinking metal studs in his ears. It was difficult to associate this person with the songs he had composed but never performed.

She also accompanied Trudy to her lawyer, Irving Weissman, who showed her the documents for her trust fund and let her sign the transfer. Using the opportunity, Helen asked Weissman to start proceedings to revert to her birth name, but also to execute a will, leaving her earthly possessions to her daughter and naming Danny as executor.

When she dropped off Larissa on the next Saturday morning, she decided to tell Danny of the revelations. Contrary to her usual habit, she did not hand over Larissa at the apartment door when Danny opened.

“Hey Danny!” she greeted him with a smile, and he smiled back at her.

“Hey, yourself! Anything I should know before you leave?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. May I come in for a few minutes?”

“Sure. Make yourself at home while I unwrap Larissa.”

She followed him into the apartment and took off her coat while Danny peeled their daughter out of her layers of clothing.

“Let’s go to the kitchen. We’re having breakfast.”

Helen almost backed out, but she reconsidered. Better to get it over with. Ashley and Lynn were at the kitchen table having breakfast, and they greeted Helen friendly before turning their attention to Larissa. Helen sat down on an empty chair and Danny produced a plate, cup, and knife for her before he poured her a coffee. She smiled at him gratefully.

“Thanks! Danny, I need to let you know about a few things.”

His eyebrows went up, but he kept his mouth shut, looking at her expectantly.

“You see, Trudy turned the trust fund over to me last week. She also told me a few things about ... well about me. First things first, though. I made a will, naming Larissa as sole benefactor. I also named you as executor. Are you okay with that?”

Danny was worried she could tell. “Is something... ?”

“No! I was just being careful. The trust fund is larger than I thought, and I want to make sure that Larissa will get what’s hers if I’m run over by a bus.”

“Okay, I can do that,” Danny answered readily. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Trudy dropped a real bomb on me. I’m not a Gunderson; I was adopted,” Helen stated matter of factly.

Danny studied her for a moment before he replied. “That’s not bad, is it? You don’t have much in common with them anyway. Do you ... You know who your real parents are?”

“Yeah. Trudy had a second daughter, Grace. She died after a car crash in her last month of pregnancy, but the doctors did a C-section to save me. She never saw me, but my Aunt Margaret swooped in and begged Trudy to allow them to adopt me.”

“What about the father?” Ashley asked softly, putting her hand on Helen’s arm.

“He was driving the car. He died instantly. They ... they weren’t married, you know. He was a punk rocker, a local celeb, and he was stoned when they crashed.”

“Oh, shit!” Danny said softly. “Umh, Helen?”

“Yes?”

“You’re still better off with them compared with the Gundersons.”

“Yeah, I think that too. Only problem, Trudy had her daughters unmarried. My mother was unmarried, and now I’m a single mother. I’m almost a hereditary slut!”

Danny snorted. “If that’s your problem, forget it. You’re fine just the way you are. Right, girls?”

In a second, both Ashley and Lynn were out of their chairs and hugging Helen from both sides.

“For once, my idiot brother gets it right,” Ashley assured her. “Besides, Irina was a single mom, and so was her mother. You and Danny are in the same boat.”

“Yeah, he’s a hereditary slut too,” Lynn giggled. “We love him anyway, and we love you too.”

Helen exhaled deeply. While her head had told her that this would not change much, except for perhaps some stupid remarks from Danny, she was relieved anyway. She was also happy to note that Danny had his mouth under control. She looked at him and saw his lips twitch. She shook her head.

“Get it out, Danny, before you explode!”

“What? No. I’m only thinking how the Gundersons never gave you a break. It must’ve killed the bigoted bastard that he had to raise you.”

Helen nodded. “That’s what I figure too. Well, I’ve started proceedings to revert to my birth name, Melville.”

“Good for you,” Danny nodded. “Honestly, Helen? I always suspected that you were not Gunderson’s daughter, that maybe your mother — well, aunt — had, umh, contracted you out.”

Helen had to laugh now. “You know, there were times when I thought that too. I mean, the dads of my friends at school were spoiling their daughters rotten, but Gunderson always looked at me with — distaste?”