Chapter 18

“Well, okay, I’ll go get her and bring her down here,” said Ava. The man across from her sighed.

“Okay,” said Blake. “It’s time. Go ahead. Get her.” Ava nodded, turned, and headed for the stairs.

“Blake Willis, went to the wet bar thirty feet across the floor from him. Arriving, he changed his mind and went back to the table he’d journeyed from and retook his seat. He waited, impatiently waited.

“Candace, your daddy and I have something to talk to you about,” said Ava. Candace’s door was wide open. Her mother entered to say what she said.

“I have a test, Mom,” she said, nodding toward the books and papers spread out on the desk in front of where she was sitting.

“Candace this can’t wait. You can finish up studying later,” said Ava.

“Mom?” said Candace.

“Come down, Candace, your dad is waiting in the library,” said Ava.

“Mom ... okay,” said Candace, reacting to her mom’s imperative tone. She rose and followed the mistress of the house down to the second floor of the three-story mansion.

The two women entered and noticed the man of the house tapping impatiently on the table’s top.

“Daddy?” said a now concerned Candace.

“Have a seat baby,” said her daddy. Candace did so. Ava followed suit.

“Thank you,” said Blake Willis. He nodded for Ava to take the lead.

“Candace, your daddy,” she nodded toward her husband, “is...”

“I know Mom, Dad is a great guy,” said Candace, smiling, and interrupting her mother.

“Yes, but that is not what I was going to say,” said Ava.

“Okay,” said Candace.

“Candace, there is a man, a man you have never met, a great man, who saved me back in the day. Before you were actually born. Well, and that man is actually your biological father,” said Ava.

The look on the face of the twenty-two-year-old female was truly remarkable, almost comical except the moment was not funny, not at all; it was dead-mortal-lead-pipe serious.

“Huh?” said Candace.

“His name is Julian Willis,” said Blake. “He’s my brother.”

“The man you said that the twins were named after?” said Candace.

“Yes,” said Blake. “That’s so.”

“But you’re...” said Candace.

“Your uncle,” said Blake. “Well, sort of. As far as I’m concerned, you’re my daughter too.”

“Daddy...” said Candace.

“Candace, nothing needs to change in any big way. But ... you are about to meet the man, that great man,” he said.

“Candace, he does not know about you. The reasons are so complex that trying to tell you everything in one go is going to be a real challenge, but that’s why you are sitting where you are right now. I need you to hold all of your questions, comments, thoughts what all until we are through laying things out for you here, now. Can you do that for me, us,” said Ava. The young Willis girl nodded, slowly.

“I guess,” said Candace. “But meet the man... ?”

“Yes, soon, very soon,” said Ava. “Candace, some of what you are about to hear you already know, have heard about over the years—the naming of the twins—but it’s all so interconnected that you will be hearing some of it again.”

There was a long pause. Everyone seemed confused about who should speak next. It turned out to be Ava.

“Candace a thousand years ago. I was eighteen and had just graduated high school.

“I was a foster child and so, because of my age, I had to leave my foster parents place and get out amongst them; well, I was a technical adult.

“Down the street, your daddy’s brother and their parents lived in a regular ranch style house, a style popular at the time.

“Julian, your bio-dad, lived there with his mom and dad. Blake your dad here, was older and already out and on his own. At any rate, the parents of your dad here and Julian were killed in an auto accident.

“Anyway, like I said, I needed to get me a place and a job, and well, be an adult. I got lucky. Julian took me in and took care of me. We became close, eventually got engaged, and were planning to marry. But there was a fly in the ointment, Dante Rodriguez,” she said.

“Huh? A fly...” started Candace.

“Okay, I was young and I was fat. I needed to lose weight or thought that I did. Dante gave me drugs that fixed my weight problem, but then he became the problem. I couldn’t pay for the drugs that he gave me, so I paid by letting him have me. Eventually I broke it off with him, or tried to, but he wasn’t having any of that.

“Julian came to my rescue, but in the doing of it, Dante was killed and Julian was convicted of second-degree murder. He spent twenty-two years in prison for a crime that was my fault. When he went inside, I had promised to wait for him. But I fell in love with your dad here, and well essentially betrayed him, Julian.

“We eventually outed ourselves to him, that while he was still in prison; told him that your daddy and I were married, but I never told him that the last night we were together, and the one and only night that he and I were intimate, that I had conceived you. He still doesn’t know that part. Hence, we have a big problem,” she said.

“Jesus!” said Candace.

“Candace, I’m as much at fault as your mother in this. It was me who put a move on her after my brother had been inside for only a couple of years. We married and kept the secret of the marriage for seven more years so as not to hurt Julian. But after that length of time we realized that we just could not keep the secret any longer. So, like your mom said, we outed ourselves to him.

“Anyway, your mom and I have tried to make things right by the man, but he hates us. I don’t blame him, but somehow, some way, we need to try again to fix things with the man. We’re hoping,” he nodded in the direction of his wife, “that introducing him to you might be a first step in making things right by him,” said Blake.

“Or make things worse,” butted in Candace. “It’s going to make things worse for sure.”

“I won’t kid you,” said Blake. “Things could go that way. But, if we engineer things rightly, here, well, maybe ... soon.”