Epilogue

Forty exciting years passed, so let me update what happened to all my family, friends, and Stevens A&D.

Stevens Aerospace Exploration, LLC, has grown six-fold in the last forty years, and I am the CEO and chairman of the board. Ruth is still my stay-at-home wife of forty years, and she raised our two daughters, Cat and Lissa, born before we married, and our two children conceived after we married, Carter and Lexa.

My three sisters, Dianna, Dixie, and Danni, are also on the board; Dianna’s oldest daughter, Julie, is our CFO, and her son David is our general manager and CEO in training.

The joint venture started four decades ago by Space-X, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Stevens A&D grew to twenty-five corporations and six friendly countries. It took ten years to happen finally, but once the tax-paying voters figured out what NASA was up to, congress was forced to delete its budget line. NASA came out of its demise with a better reputation in history books than in the eyes of the American public.

In order of importance to the project, the countries that joined what eventually would be called World Space Command were; #1, Australia for their vast open areas where engine testing can be done safely and their immense reserves of many valuable unmined ores, #2, India for their many brilliant scientists and titanium reserves, and #3, Saudi Arabia for their money and chemicals derived from oil. Great Britain, France, and Germany were the other three countries that joined because they hated to be left out, but they also had scientists with unique skills.

The Chinese government, who always made it sound like they were ahead in the moon race, was surprised when the four original corporations landed a rocket on the moon’s south pole in late 2025 and quickly established a base. Surveys were done on the surface and in caves hidden from all human sight for billions of years, and large amounts of iron ore, magnesium, and bauxite, were discovered. In addition, substantial amounts of titanium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and manganese were confirmed, and the most important discovery was finding ice at the moon’s poles. Soon, we were establishing bases underground, reducing exposure to radiation and making it easier to establish and maintain a habitable environment to begin mining and manufacturing operations.

In 2045, China, after finally having free elections, joined with most of the United Nation’s countries to form Earth Corp.; dedicated to unifying all the ethnicities and races into one group, The Human Race, and created with the primary goal ‘To Protect the Human Race and our home Planet, Earth.’

Before Mars colonization began, all space ventures were consolidated into World Space Command.

Dianna’s husband Joe retired from the Navy at fifty-four as a two-star rear admiral. He plays golf and writes books about naval warfare. Their middle daughter, Rose, never married and teaches at an elementary school in Spartanburg. Their youngest son, Ed, went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Dixie’s husband Brad quit working in his dad’s company after ten years and became a day trader. He started off getting his ass handed to him, but after a year of learning from his mistakes and with the help of a loan from someone who shall remain nameless, he made a fortune, paid taxes, and still retired at forty-seven. He is Joe’s golf partner and plays poker at Spartanburg’s casino. Their oldest daughter Vicky has my old job as an engine designer and is married with one child. Dixie and Brad’s boys, Troy and Connor, work for World Space Command, although neither would describe their jobs as work. Troy and his wife are permanent settlers on Mars, while Connor, and his wife and son, are stationed at the main moon base.

Danni’s husband Cliff owned 50% of a car dealership for eleven years before selling out. He used that money to buy a small publishing company specializing in printing authentic-looking leather-bound copies of first-edition classic books. He created a set of fifty classic books that he would sell individually or as a monthly subscription. His business started slowly until a local cable network began televising a weekly special showing a book reading, showcasing his books at the library. Overnight his online business took off.

He sold this business when he turned 55 and retired to become a full-time grandfather. Six months later, while he was asleep, a blood clot went from his leg to his lungs, killing him instantly. Danni threw herself into being the best aunt and grandmother ever. Her two oldest children, Henry and Linda, live everyday lives that have nothing to do with space. Henry is married with three children and is an engineer on a freight railroad line going from the Canadian cobalt mines to smelters in the Midwest. Linda is married to the manager of the Greenville Walmart, and they have one daughter. Danni’s identical twin daughters, Jilian and Lilian, are astronauts training for the third mission to Callisto scheduled to leave in eighteen months.

Uncle Bob retired when he turned seventy, and I took over as CEO. He and Aunt Jolene traveled worldwide for the next three years before settling outside Greenville city limits and spoiling their great-grandchildren. Both are in their mid-eighties now and still get around pretty well. I’ve lost touch with their sons, Peter and Paul, but after graduating from MIT, my buddy Larry trained his replacement at Stevens A&D and disappeared for twenty years. When he returned, I discovered he worked for HP Enterprises designing their revolutionary new processing chips made in zero gravity on the moon.

Mom died at age 81 while watching television with dad. She just closed her eyes and went to sleep. Three days after the funeral, dad died in the backyard of Mom’s mansion. He was found face down on the grass, holding my mother’s Bible. He was 82, and no one was surprised that he went so quickly after Mom.

Ruth’s mom passed away last year at the age of 85. She suffered from dementia and wandered away from home quite a bit, but she died praying on her knees beside her bed.

My PA for twenty years, Carmen Rodriguez, passed away ten years ago at seventy-one. Amara, my former secretary, stayed with me for fifteen years before moving to Colorado Springs when her husband transferred there, and I still get a Christmas card from her every year.

In May of my 65th year, the biggest week of Ruth’s and my life started quickly and with a sense of extreme urgency. Standing in my living room, I observed the organized chaos in our home in preparation for the extraordinary events soon to take place.

Our granddaughter, Elizabeth, or Liza, was getting married in three days to a Yankee lawyer, Matthew Collins. Liza’s mother, our daughter Cat, was busy making last-minute changes to her wedding dress while her father, Preston ‘Press’ Winters, was entertaining young Matthew at the bar, feeding him shots of vodka. The wedding will be held this Saturday at noon, with the reception at 2 PM at the Taj Mahal Hotel & Resort Casino, in their largest ballroom, located dead center in the great metropolis of Greenville, South Carolina.

Tomorrow, at 10 AM, our granddaughter Olive will graduate summa cum laude from the University of South Carolina, Greenville, with a double major in astrophysics and interstellar biology. Her parents, Frank Longstreet and my stepdaughter Lissa were ecstatic, bouncing off the walls and talking to anyone who would listen. Olive would be working for Earth Corp., the multinational company I mentioned. Frank was on their Board of Directors, one of three Americans on the twenty-member board.

And to round off the busy month of May, our son, Carter, would be taking off on the 30^th from World Space Command, Base Three, located 40 miles northwest of Brisbane, to rendezvous with his ship, ESV (Earth Space Vessel) Albert Einstein. He would command the first mission to Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, and Io, where they would orbit, survey, and drop a rover on the surface of each moon.

With improvements over the last forty years to ion propulsion, made by someone who is too modest to take credit by name, and the orbit of Jupiter relative to the Earth, the four-person multinational crew would arrive at Callisto in eighty-nine days. They were scheduled to spend four months orbiting Callisto, dropping a rover onto its surface, and conducting a thorough survey before traveling to the other three moons.

Before writing more about the mission, I must describe the vessel the crew was traveling in. The main body housed the propulsion engine and all the other systems, including life support and crew quarters. They would be pushing two craft, which can only be described as duplicates of Mississippi river barges. The barge closest to the crew ship contains the supplies for the current trip, which they can access through a connecting passageway, and the lead barge would be left in orbit around Callisto for the next mission, a human-crewed landing scheduled to take off in three months.

Leaving Callisto, the ship would travel to the other moons and complete the survey, drop the rovers, and depart as quickly as possible. Even with a one-meter, metal-covered water jacket, the ship and crew would still be absorbing some radiation from Jupiter. Being in orbit much further out from Jupiter, Callisto does not receive a dangerous radiation dose.

Ruth was busy coordinating logistics for these three events with our oops daughter, Alexandra, or Lexa, assisting. I call her our oops daughter because Ruth never went on the pill or had her tubes tied, but it took twelve years for lightning to strike again. I got snipped after that.

Lexa writes books for children and still lives with Ruth and me at home. She thinks we’re feeble-minded and need constant supervision.

I stood in the middle of our massive living room in awe of the events happening in our home. Unfortunately, my daydreaming was interrupted by Ruth’s request for me to get the mail.

I stood by the trashcan in the kitchen sorting the mail; junk, trash, crap, and a thick letter-size envelope, postmarked in Maine. There was no return address, but the handwriting looked strangely familiar. I opened it with my index finger and withdrew what seemed to be about ten handwritten pages. I began to read the first page of the letter that made this story possible;

My Dearest Marty,

I hope you are sitting down; if not, please do so.

I backed up and sat in Ruth’s rocking chair in the kitchen. I felt tightness in my chest and realized I was breathing rapidly. Once the pain in my chest receded, I continued reading the letter.

How much time passed before I felt Ruth shaking my shoulder? It could have been hours.

“Marty. Wake up. I need you to go to the thrift shop and pick up that lace I ordered.”

I mumbled, “Yes, dear, let me get my keys, and I’m off.” She kissed me on the cheek and was gone with the wind.

I looked down at the letter clutched in my left hand, and I had to peek at the first page to reassure myself that I wasn’t hallucinating. I wasn’t. There was no way I would spring this on the family until after graduation and the wedding had taken place. I also realized that there was no way I could hide this from the family. I put the letter in my gun safe and locked it before grabbing my keys and driving into town to the Blue Moon Thrift and Sewing Shop. As I drove downtown, my mind was going 300 miles an hour. When I returned home, I needed to manufacture a smile on my face to avoid spoiling Liza and Olives’ big days.

*****
Our granddaughter Olive, holding her degree and several other honors, ran up to us, dragging her mate with her. Anika Ahmad, half Indian, half Pakistani, graduated magma cum laude, five one-hundredths of a grade point behind Olive. What a pair of brilliant and beautiful young women they are. After receiving hugs and kisses from the family, they were off to post-graduation parties. Sadly Anika’s family was not there to see her graduate because they disapproved of her lifestyle. Imagine, if you will, a Muslim married to a Hindu not approving of their daughters’ sexual orientation. The rest of the family returned home to change before going to the wedding rehearsal and dinner afterward.

*****
The wedding went off without a hitch, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Press was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof, but he made it down the aisle with his daughter on his arm and didn’t trip or fall flat on his face. After the pastor intoned, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” the wedding transitioned into wedding pictures and then the reception.

Hours later, after the bride and groom were off on their honeymoon and most of the guests had already left, I escorted my wife of 40 years onto the dance floor for the last dance of the night.

With the music provided by a recording, I twirled Ruth around and asked, “Do you remember the first wedding we attended together, my love? I loved you the same, then and now.”

“Oh, Marty, you flatterer. If you’re trying to get me into our bed so we can snuggle, then your plan worked.”

“Well, I always love ending up in bed with you, and I have something serious to discuss, and no, I’m not leaving you, nor do I want to have sex with other women, so don’t get upset.”

“What is it about Marty?”

We finished our dance, and I grabbed an unopened bottle of the unique wine served to the bridal party and a corkscrew while Ruth picked up two wine glasses. As we lay in bed sipping wine in our hotel room, I showed her the letter and asked her to read it.

Within 30 seconds, her eyes were misty, and I handed her some tissues so she could continue reading. Unfortunately, she was bawling when she finished reading the letter, and her sobbing caused me to cry also.

“Everyone will still be here tomorrow, and we’re supposed to meet at Dixies’ house for a barbecue tomorrow. I should read this letter out loud then.”

“I agree; this is not something we should try to hide.”

Ruth and I drove to Dixie and Brad’s house at about 10 AM to watch our great-nieces and nephews while their parents and grandparents set up the house and yard for the barbecue. The three girls and four boys between the ages of six and 12 were very overwhelming, but as we learned with our grandchildren, we let them talk and play show and tell while we listened, smiled, and nodded our heads. Finally, after an hour, Gwen and Annalise, their mothers, came downstairs to rescue us.

When everyone had arrived, the catered lunch buffet of barbecue beef, pork, and chicken with all the fixings was ready. Everyone ate until there was no room left for even dessert. I ate quickly and circled the backyard speaking to the people I wanted to remain when I read the letter. I wasn’t excluding anyone; I wanted to ensure the family members affected the most wouldn’t leave.

I asked my sisters If they could organize some young married couples to watch the little ones, and they agreed, even though none knew why.

The last thing I did before taking center stage was speak to Press, “Son, stay close to Cat because what I’m going to read will upset her.”

“I don’t understand, Dad?”

“You will.”

Dianna returned to the backyard and gave me a nod to go ahead.

“I think everybody knows me, I’m Marty Stevens, and I need to read a letter I received last week regarding my first marriage that ended 40 years ago to a woman I loved very much who gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Cat. Wow, I need to slow down.”

I took a deep breath and scanned all the confused faces in the crowd.

“Unfortunately, our marriage ended far too soon, and her death would have sent me to an early grave had it not been for my first love, Ruth, her daughter Melissa, and my daughter Cat.”

I paused as people shifted uncomfortably, and Press wrapped his arms around Cat. I’ve always liked that man.

“Please bear with me, and very quickly, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

“Her name was Elizabeth Cummings Stevens, and she died from a gunshot to the head. It was ruled a suicide by the city corner, although, for a few days, everybody thought the husband did it.” No one laughed.

“Liz left a suicide note explaining that she had DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, or what used to be called having ‘multiple personalities.’ It made sense to me because it seemed like I was married to two different women; one was a sweet, loving, kind, submissive introvert, and the other was a loud, obnoxious, controlling, thrill-seeking extrovert. From the note, the sweet wife described shooting the crazy wife, killing both of them, to protect my daughter because the wild side I called Lizzy was getting stronger, more unstable, and more dangerous by the day.”

I looked at the couples listening to me speak; quite a few were holding hands, or one was held tight by the other spouse. Sadly, when I had finished reading the letter, I believed a hard rain of tears would soon fall in Dixie’s backyard.

“That’s what was in the note addressed to me the day she died, and that is what I believed happened for forty years until I received this letter last Monday from Liz, my first wife.”

That was a head-turning moment; people looked around, trying to find someone who knew what the hell was going on.

“I want to read the letter now because Ruth and I believe hiding it from our loved ones would backfire and hurt people later in life. Does anyone have any objections or would like to leave?”

Everyone was silent and sitting exceptionally still as I started to read.

“My Dearest Marty,

I hope you are sitting down; if you aren’t, please do so. Let me begin by saying, no matter how much you hurt, I loved you, Marty, and you, Cat, with all my heart, and I go to meet my maker knowing that I protected you and kept you safe from the evil one.

I lied on the note I left 40 years ago. I do not have, nor did I ever have, DID. There was only one personality in my head: Liz, the sweet and loving wife who just wanted to take care of you, have lots of babies and grow old playing with our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. However, even though there was only one Liz in my head, there were still two heads.

I was born minutes before an identical twin sister, and when we were two, our birth parents died. For whatever reason, and I never found out why, Social Services split us up, and two different families adopted us; one family lived in Seattle, and one lived in Portland. My sister’s name was Eleanor Cassandra Wentworth, with Wentworth being the surname of the people who adopted her.

As you know, I was adopted by a family with the surname Cummings and grew up in Portland, Oregon. I had a happy life, and when my adoptive parents died right after graduating high school, I decided to find out about my birth family to see if I had any blood relatives left alive.

With all the property, cash in the bank, and insurance policies left to me, I could attend Stanford, my first choice, and pay tuition, housing, food, fees, and books without taking out any student loans. Unfortunately, when I went through my step-parent’s papers, I found my adoption paperwork while looking for bank books and insurance.”

“Daddy, they were identical twins? Which one was my mother?”

“Patience, Cat. Everything will be explained in the letter.”

“After reading the adoption paperwork, I found the office that handled my adoption, and I went to see what I could find out about myself. What I discovered in that office was chaos and confusion because usually, people were trying to find the parents who gave them away. I just wanted my birth certificate and to know if I had any brothers or sisters. It took three days to plead my case before they finally gave in and gave me what I requested.

I was born in Salem, Oregon, and all the file had regarding my sister was a notation that she was adopted by people who lived in Seattle. That was all they had, but at least I had a starting point in Seattle. So I listed the house I inherited and all the land my parents owned with a realtor. After receiving the life insurance money and setting up new bank accounts for myself, I still had five weeks before starting school, so I packed up my clothes, loaded up my new SUV, and drove to Seattle.

I had been there about a week, staying in a local motel while I searched through libraries looking for information about my sister. When I drove by the address the Seattle adoption agency gave me, the people there told me they had lived there for eight years and didn’t remember the previous owners. Finally, on the ninth day of visiting Seattle, I drove by a business called the Kit Kat Club, and under a big sign that probably sparkled at night was a poster next to the entry door, and the woman on the poster looked exactly like me.

I jammed on my brakes and pulled into a parking lot next to the club. I walked around the front of the building and stared at my twin before going inside. It was dark inside, and on a stage that snaked through the club, spotlights mounted on the ceiling followed three dancers as they were dancing topless and swinging on poles positioned every ten to fifteen feet. I watched as customers held their hands up with bills between their fingers, and the dancers slithered over seductively to get paid for their hard labor.

My observations were interrupted by a fat man in a rumpled suit with an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. At the top of his voice, he yelled, ‘Cassie, what the fuck is going on here?’

The music cut off, dancers froze, the lights were turned to full strength, and everybody stopped talking and stared at this man.

A woman walked through a doorway on the back wall with a black wig on, only it was me, no, her; I felt like I was looking in a mirror. She was wearing three-inch high mules and a flowery silk robe, and as she walked toward me with a big smile, I went numb and thought I was in shock.

She hugged me, argued with the fat man, and when he wouldn’t stop shaking his head side to side, she screamed, “I quit, you asshole.”

She disappeared through the door she appeared from and returned five minutes later, dressed and carrying a gym bag.

“I’m Cassie, and I guess you’re the twin I’ve always known was missing from my life.”

“Um, I’m Liz, Liz Cummings.”

I followed her car to her home, and we talked for hours. When I told her I was starting college in three weeks, she replied, ‘Then it’s settled. I’ll sell my house and car, ride with you to San Francisco, get a job while you go to school, and live together as sisters.’

That was the first time she took control; it wouldn’t be the last.

A week after we found each other, Cassie drove my Ford Expedition down I-5 South. Driving straight through Washington and Oregon, she only stopped for gas and a potty break once before I took over when we hit California. While traveling twelve hours on the road, we talked non-stop until we pulled into a Holiday Inn a mile from Stanford.

The next morning Cassie was up before me and was pounding away on her laptop, and when I got out of bed, I could see she was looking for a real estate agent. By 11 AM, we were sitting in a real estate office, and Cassie explained what we were interested in buying to the female agent, licking her lips and staring at our tits.

An hour later, we were walking on the unfinished fourth and top floor of a warehouse, utterly empty except for a few walls, with the elevator stack in the middle and the emergency stairs against an outer wall. Cassie was very excited, and I was just confused, but that evening we were signing papers to buy two condos and rent a house close to the campus.

I was numb, like the day a police officer told me my step-parents had died, and after eating, I went to bed. Struggling for sleep to turn off my brain, Cassie spooned up against my back and began explaining we could afford to do this. Her parents left her almost 1 million dollars, and one of her admirers helped her invest her money, which increased by two and a half times. I slept peacefully, feeling my twin next to me, and until I met you, Marty, we always slept together naked yet never had any sexual relations; we just clung to each other.

The next day, we opened new single and joint bank accounts and deposited the checks we brought from our old closed accounts before moving into our rental home. Seven months later, we moved into two beautiful, expensive condos. I still had my Ford SUV, but Cassie was driving a red Mustang back and forth to her job.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Cassie had secrets she kept from me. One was her job, and I was naïve because I thought she was working in an office somewhere. One afternoon, I had to drive her to work while her car was in the shop, and when I pulled up in front of ‘Centerfolds,’ I turned red when she got out with her gym bag; I believed she had gym clothes in the bag, but I remembered where I found her.

After that day, I started wearing sunglasses around the college, hoping no one would recognize me and think I was Cassie.

From time to time, Cassie would bring a man home with her, usually staying overnight. Since the floor plans for our condos were the same, except Cassie’s was flipped, both bedrooms shared the same wall, although I never heard a sound coming through the wall.

In the winter of my sophomore year, Cassie came up with the wild idea of sharing a boyfriend if he could be a potential husband. I was totally against it, but she kept working on me, nagging, wearing me down; she even yelled at me before I relented. I dated a few of the guys she brought home, but they all were creepy.

Then I met you, Marty, and fireworks went off across the sky; my favorite love songs played in my head, and I was in heat over a man for the first time in my life. Of course, I wasn’t a virgin, but I hadn’t been obsessed with having sex. So when you came along, all I could think about was getting you into my bed.

If it were up to only me, I would have taken you home on the second date, but Cassie wasn’t sure, and she kept making me check out her last date. So for three months, Cassie and I argued, and I had you all to myself, but no sex. Then her latest boy toy cheated on her, and after dumping him, she told me to give you a tryout.

That first night after I showed you where I lived, we were ripping the clothes off of...”

“Okay, everybody, there is no need for me to read this section out loud, just sex stuff.”

“No, no, no, no. You’re not getting off that easy. We want to hear all the juicy parts.” That came from my lovely sister, Danni.

“Oh, come on, family. Please, you are embarrassing me.”

“I want to hear about it, to see how your story compares to some of the ... I’ll call them adventures Dianna and I have had over the years.”

“I thought you were my friend, Joe. All right. I won’t read it now, but I’ll leave it out so you can all read the juicy parts.”

“Now, let me see, where was I?”

“When you were getting dressed to go home Sunday evening, you asked if I had seen your phone. I knew then that Cassie had taken it, but I didn’t know how she got into my condo. After you left, she suddenly appeared in my bedroom, coming out of the closet. She showed me the hidden door between bedroom closets and then grilled me about our weekend together.

She nearly destroyed everything the following Friday night by getting caught on a date with two guys. She wasn’t used to your humor and got angry about your joke. Finally, after I chewed her out, she apologized. That episode was a warning, and I should have ended my agreement with her and kept you for myself, but she was so convincing and had a stronger will than I did.

Whenever apologies had to be made because of Cassie’s actions, I was always the one saying, I’m sorry, and begging you to take me back. I spent Christmas with you in Greenville, and Cassie went to the New Year’s party. Sapphire’s offer tempted her, but for once, she used good judgment and walked away.”

“Who was Sapphire, Dad?”

“What kind of offer did this Sapphire make?”

“What kind of party? You never told me about a party, Dad.”

My three daughters were ganging up on me, Alexa, Cat, and Lissa, or ACL as I refered to them when they ganged up on me.

“She was the hostess of two huge parties Liz and I went to, one New Year’s Eve gala and the other happened the following Halloween.”

Now Lissa was ganging up with Lexa, “Dad? Where were the parties held, in a park or a hotel?”

“They were held at a ten-acre mansion which was very famous. Please stop interrupting so I can get through this.”

Carter pulled out his 38^th generation V-Phone and was searching for something.

“A few weeks later, you took me to Vegas for a weekend. I’ll never forget how turned on I was with my bare tits, pressed against that huge window so high from the ground while...”

The peanut gallery started laughing and giggling, and that’s when I muttered out loud, “I can’t believe Liz added all these private secrets to her letter.”

“Marty, I don’t think she expected you to read this to your entire family.”