I was sitting in front of my house trying to decide whether it was worth it to give my car a wash and a polish. I was leaning strongly towards the 'no' side.

Ellen and I were fighting again, over whether or not we should get involved in the problems her parents were having with her oldest sister. The girl was fourteen and she didn't want to go to an all girl's high school.

I liked Megan, and didn't see that she even needed our help. She had her father wrapped around her little finger and was using him brilliantly to hold her mother to a stand off.

As usual, we compromised over it. I wanted to stay completely out of the whole thing and Ellen wanted to come down with both feet on her sister's side. The compromise was that we'd drive over there and I could stay out of it while Ellen and Megan ganged up on her mother.

We got there on a Sunday afternoon, an hour or so after they got back from the ten o'clock mass, and tying on the feed bag at the all you can eat chicken in the basket dinner out at the Roadhouse.

Tom, Ellen's father, was hiding in the den, sipping a scotch and trying to make himself invisible. Mrs. DePaul had Megan in the kitchen with her, raking her over the coals and trying to score her points on the 'for' side of the argument question.

"Do you want to wind up like your sister, married to a lumberjack with more muscles than brains? Is that what you want?"

I heard that part and knew that Ellen would be unlimbering and then unleashing the big guns anytime now. I looked over at Tom and winked. He got up and brought me a cold beer, a Rheingold as I remember.

"Because, if that's what you want, those are the kinds of boys you'll be meeting in the public high school, not refined gentlemen like your father. You'll meet brawlers and drinkers and people who are forced to live by their wits, Megan. Is that what you want?"

"Mom's telling you the truth, Meg, you should listen to her. I'm not saying Jackie's not more than a little crude, and he's a cut above most of the boys you're likely to meet. He does have other good qualities though, in spite of his pronounced lower forehead and brow and his funny shaped skull. He makes a piss pot full of money and has a dick so big it would make Man O'War pout in embarrassment. Right mommy? You saw it that one time you peeked at us in the shower? And Meg, the other thing is that you can just see how refined going to an all girls Catholic High School has made me. If you want to try out some lesbian sex, Sacred Heart is a good place to go. I bet I must have fought off at least fifty girls in the showers over the years I went there. Of course, if I'd known then what a talented tongue could do for a girl, well, let's just say I might have been a whole lot cleaner in high school."

"Ellen! I might have known you'd automatically take the opposite side from me. Why do you always do that?"

"Mostly because you are usually wrong. You spout your prejudices as if they were facts. Jackie is a businessman, and a successful one too. He makes twice as much as daddy does. All you ever see are the things you've been taught to be afraid of, not the things that are real and might matter. I hated going to Sacred Heart. Megan will hate it too. Why do you always try to force us into the mold your parents forced you into? Let her make a few choices for herself once in awhile. What's for dinner?"

Dinner was somewhat subdued. Tom finally put his foot down and told Megan she could decide which high school she wanted to go to. His wife got up and left the table, running off to her room.

Ellen's two other sisters had big grins on their faces knowing that precedent had been set there that evening. I sat there, quiet, not envying Tom in the least. His wife wasn't a woman who had much flexibility to her. She would do her very best to make him regret not backing her in this matter.

I was able to prevail on Ellen to leave before the shit hit the fan. By the time Tom was allowed back into his own bedroom, Megan had already enrolled in the public high school and nothing bad or dramatic had happened to her.

When Megan announced that she was pregnant right before Christmas, Tom took up semi-permanent residence in the den and took to sleeping on the couch in there.

"Jackie, is it Ok with you if I invite Megan to come live with us until after the baby is born? She won't be a bother, and mom is making her life miserable at home."

"No, Ellen, it isn't Ok. I told you before, I don't want to get in the middle of this thing. Let your parents take care of it. I'm not stupid you know, you're thinking about adopting her baby when it's born. I don't want anybody else's baby. If you want a baby, you have to earn it, the same way women have done it since the beginning. No cheating."

"I don't want to adopt either Jackie. I'm just worried about Megan. You know how my mother gets. How about we bring her here for one month, just to give her a little break from mom."

"How about you give me a break for a month and just drop this, all right?"

"She's my sister. When have I ever stopped you from helping anybody in your family? Never, that's when!"

"Ok, you can bring her here for one month, but that's it, Right?" Ellen just looked at me, not saying what I needed her to say. "Right?" I could see myself drowning in the quagmire my life was going to turn into. "Please, one month and no more?"

"Sure baby, just for a month. You'll see, it will be fun."

I was so screwed. I could see it in her eyes. The next morning we went over to get Megan and her things to move her into our guest bedroom. Tom was there, and from the look on his face I could tell he wanted to ask us whether we had room for him too.

Ellen and her sister were both giddy on the short ride to our house. They were making plans and putting together a mental list of all the things they wanted to get done in the time that Megan would stay with us. One month became two, and then was stretched to three.

Megan was a good kid, good natured and helpful to Ellen and me. She tried to always look on the positive side of things. She didn't mind walking to school if we couldn't drive her for some reason, and would always let us know if she was going to be late coming home after school.

Ellen knew that she was still seeing the boy who had made her pregnant, but she didn't see any harm in it, since her sister was already pregnant.

Megan was almost five months pregnant when she lost the baby with a miscarriage. She woke up not feeling that good, and decided not to go into school that day. By early afternoon, she was starting to vomit and her temperature began to spike up. Ellen was ready to take her to the hospital just to get a doctor to check her over when Megan screamed from the bathroom that she was bleeding. We rushed her to the hospital, but by then it was too late, and she lost the baby.

They did a D&C on her and kept her in the hospital for several days. That was tough for a girl just turning fifteen. Her mother just added to her woes when she visited Megan at the hospital and tried to tell her it was God's punishment for her sins.

When they released Megan from the hospital we decided to let her live with us for a while longer. I told Ellen that I wasn't going to put up with Megan being allowed to run around with that boy any more. We spoke with Megan and she promised that she was going to obey us in that regard.