Chapter 21

Maggie slept late, Tuesday morning. The sun bathed her bed, when she woke, and went to her shower. Dressing in jeans, and cotton blouse, she went to the kitchen, and poured coffee, while her toast cooked. The notes on the refrigerator door, told her that the kids expected to be back for supper, and, that they, all three, had something they wanted to talk to her about. She took her toast and second cup of coffee to the den, absorbing the house, as she went. She was pleased, at the obvious effort, the kids had made, to clean it up, for her return. When she had returned her cup and empty toast plate to the kitchen, she went back upstairs, to strip her bed, and those of the children. As she threw back the covers, she noticed the stains she had been too tired to notice, the night before. Her forehead creased in thought, she threw the sheets down the stairs, and turned to the girls room. Their sheets were even more stained than her own, which caused her frown to change to a slight smile, and her brow to smooth. The only questions in her mind, as she threw the girls sheets after her own was; who had helped the girls stain their bedding? As long as it had been Sean, she could be content; but if Sean had been elsewhere, leaving the girls on their own, not only had her plan gone awry; but Sean had proven himself unworthy of the trust, she had placed in him. In a funny way, she was relieved to find Sean's sheets as stained as the girl's. The stains were not unfamiliar to her, after twenty years of an active sex life of her own, with Jake, and Jake's, with the girls. Perhaps, she thought, Sean and the girls had gotten together, with a vengeance, as the sheets indicated. Her doubts ended, when she entered Sean's bathroom, to get the towels. She grinned, as her eye fell on the jar of salve, that she knew Jake had kept in the girl's room, to soothe his prick, after an extended sexual encounter with them. It matched the one in her room, which she had seen just this morning, as she prepared for the day. She collected the girl's towels, and took everything to the laundry room, for processing, and proceeded about her chores, for the day. Unpacking, and storing her clothes, put her thoughts back to her week-end, and the events that had occurred. How many of them she would reveal to the rest of the family, occupied her thought for some time. When it was well past the time it would have done any good, she called her office, to tell Mike she wouldn't be in. Their conversation was a little stilted, still, they found it difficult to end. She promised she would get things settled, in her mind, by the next week-end, and call him; he was not to expect her into the office this week, however. By four, she had finished her chores, piled the clean linens on the kid's beds, and settled in the solarium, with a glass of iced tea. Sean got home, soon after Maggie relaxed, poured himself a glass of tea, and joined her. She allowed a short, but intense kiss, before pushing him away, with a smile.

"Not now baby, we've got to talk. Did you have a nice week-end?"

"Great, Maggie! The girls were a lot of fun, to be with. We didn't have one fight, all week-end. We got along better than we have in years. We learned a lot about each other."

Maggie nodded, and smiled knowledgeably, at Sean. He smiled back, and reflected on how he had been able to lie to Maggie, while telling the absolute truth.

The girls burst in the front door, laughing. They saw Maggie and Sean, and went to join them. Maggie sent them to the kitchen, to get themselves some tea.

"Do you, and Sean, want more, Mom?"

"Thanks, Toni, I'd like a re-fill."

Julie and Toni went to the kitchen, for tea, and brought it and some chips back, to the solarium. They gave Maggie her tea, placed the chips on a table, and settled into a chaise, near the sofa, Sean, and Maggie, were on.

Maggie took the floor:

"We've got to talk, kids. Things are getting very serious, we need to get a lot of things straight, amongst us, so we can keep our heads straight, through every-thing that's happening..."

"What's happening, Mom, I can't..."

"Wait, Julie! Listen to me, all of you! I'm going to talk, and you'll listen, for a while. Then we'll all have a chance, to have our say. There's some background you need, to help in this. None of you has been upstairs yet, so you don't know. I stripped beds, and towels from the bathrooms, to wash them, and saw the stains. That gives me a pretty good idea, of what went on here, this week-end."

The kids looked from one, to another, with apprehension on their faces.

"I'm not angry, and I'm not surprised, either. It was something I anticipated when I decided to go to Atlanta. In fact, I tried to push it into happening. Why I did that, is the question you need the background to answer. I've got to go back, almost ten years, to start this. Your Dad and I had been married almost ten years, by then, and I had never been happier. You guys were a delight. Sean, you were eight, and Julie, you and Toni were six, and just starting school. One night, after we were in bed, your father told me something about his family, and his childhood, that I hadn't known, before. I had just told him that I thought he was a wonderful lover, and asked him, how he had learned it. I knew he had had only two lovers, before me, and yet he seemed much more experienced, than that. That was when he told me how his mother had..."

Maggie went on, to tell the children, the tale Jake had told her, on those two nights, so many years ago. She finished, by recounting her questions, and his answers, over the next year, while they were reaching a conclusion, on the subject.

"We finally decided that your father would teach you girls, what he felt you should know, and how you should respond, to society's censure, and attempts to lay a feeling of guilt, or shame, on you. My job, with you girls, was to keep him informed, as to what questions you were asking, and how you were progressing, in you're maturing. I told him, when you two started having your periods. You may remember, talking about it with me, at the time. He, and I, decided that, six months after your first period, would be about the right time, for him to start teaching you. Your Daddy kept me informed, of every step he took. I wish you had known, how proud of you I was, when he told me, how unselfishly you two reacted, on that boating week-end. I planned my trip, to my mothers, around that cruise schedule. Sean's going to Washington, at that time, was just Serendipitous. If that hadn't occurred, we had a back-up plan, available. So, you see girls, I knew all along, what was happening. I had thought about it so long, that, when it finally happened, I felt no jealousy, or ambivalence... That's not completely true... That first night he spent with you two, was pretty tough for me, but as I lay there, picturing what the three of you were doing, I saw that it was the right thing to be doing, and that ended my only bout with jealousy.

"But, Maggie..."

"I know, Sean. You're wondering about yourself. I owe you my most abject apology. I wasn't strong enough to do my part. I was to do for you, what Jake's mother, did for him, but I didn't have the courage. Not until I was faced with coping on my own, after your father died. Besides needing comfort, I knew, that I had to start immediately, on what I had neglected, over the years. That's why I took you to bed, the night after Jake's funeral. I had taken the four days, between his death, and that night, to come to this decision. One I thought I had made, years before. 'Better late, than never', sounds too flippant, for something as important as this, but it is exactly what I decided. I only hope you can forgive me. Perhaps, it's just as well I waited. Now you can learn from your sisters, as well as from me. I know that they won't be jealous, of you and me, just as I was not jealous, of Jake and them. So now, it's all out in the open, among us. Sean, you've got a big responsibility, laid on your shoulders. Not only, do you have to be the man of the house, for the rest of the world, but you've got to try to be the man, for the three of us girls. Your father always managed, although sometimes, lately, he was hard pressed to keep up, with three horny women. You've got to try, though. We need to keep all of this, just in the family. That way, at least, we won't have to worry about disease... Society, at large, would be horrified, and try to brand us as perverts, and degenerate psychotics. They'd try to dirty your father's memory. We know different, but we'd never convince the outside world. There's more to tell, but this brings us up to this week-end, and now it's your turn, to bring me up to date, on your reaction, and activities. Let's take it in order. You girls go first, 'cause you've been involved longer. Tell us how you feel, and what you want to happen, from this point on."