Chapter 6

The next few years seemed to slip by at breakneck speed for me. As Emily's twins got older they appeared to enjoy living with us and became, with their mother, an integral part of our family.

I can't put my finger on exactly when they started to refer to me as their father. I think the first time I was aware that they were actually calling me dad was when I heard one of them say to the other, "You'll have to ask dad, if he knows." It was some help that she needed with school homework, I think, and what with my three boys calling me dad all the time, I didn't notice it at first.

But as time went on, I became aware that all of the children were referring to Cecilia and Emily as their mothers. There were subtle differences in actually how they referred to them, mind you, I came to notice that my son would call Cecilia Mum and Emily mother. Emily's twin girls did the reverse. But somewhere along the line, I became "dad" to all of the children. That was to prove somewhat interesting at school open days and parent teacher meetings etc, that I always made a point of attending with both Cecilia and Emily.

It often caused some curious looks and called for a detailed explanation on our account. But most everyone understood that I was playing the father figure to all the children, even if I wasn't the twins' real father and that I was not physically playing husband to the twins' mother. I'm not quite sure that everyone believed that one though, not that it bothered me any. But sometimes the whispering and funny looks would annoy me.

My eldest was fifteen when disaster struck. I normally went into work earlier than the girls, who had the job of running all the children to school before they travelled into the office together.

The first clue that I had that something was amiss was when someone mentioned in passing that Emily hadn't shown up in the office that morning. A call down to the Sales office was to inform me that Cecilia hadn't shown up either. I could get no answer from the home phone, so I figured there had been some delay with the children that morning and the girls would show up soon.

What I was not aware of was that my secretary at that time Myra had been worried. I didn't know that Emily normally informed her if she'd been unexpectedly delayed in the mornings, something that can often happen with children in the house. Whilst I was getting on with my daily work, Myra was in her office making frantic calls to the authorities.

It was about half ten when she came bursting into my office.

"Stewart, there's been an accident on the A40, Emily and Cecilia have been hurt..." Myra's voice faded to northing as she began to cry. But then she managed to regained control of her emotions long enough to blurt out. "They are alive but have both been injured."

After that I couldn't make much sense of what she was saying, but one of the guys came in who had apparently taken the telephone from her when she'd dashed in to me. He told me what hospital the girls were at and even insisted that he drive me there, for obvious reasons.

Both women were still in the emergency room when I arrived at the hospital. After speaking to several doctors and being told that both women were classed as critical, I was allowed to see them before they went into the operating theatres. Once again there was some confusion that I could sign consent forms for both women. You know, those curious looks again.

For the next few hours I sat around the waiting room twiddling my thumbs and worrying. Of course I called my parents and my father left home immediately to come up and join me. Mother had to stay home to look after Aunt Aida.

Both girls were down in theatre for several hours; Emily came back up first and was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. Cecilia having apparently received a serious head injury was in theatre for several more hours.

Myra and some of the other staff from my office turned up at the hospital and arranged for a couple of them to collect the children from school and take them home. Two of the guys actually roped their wives in to play nanny for the couple of days that the girls were on the critical list. They brought the children to the hospital to visit but we thought it best that they didn't stay there with me. I didn't leave the ICU waiting area for the whole three days.

On the third day it was Cecilia who regained consciousness first. She had no recollection of what happen in the accident, but she did remember that she was driving that morning. Several hours later Emily regained consciousness as well; she could remember nothing of the accident either. Thinking that the girls were out of danger, I decided to go home for the night once the girls were asleep.

The taxi dropped me off at my company's car park to collect my car that was still there, but I found the night security guy was waiting beside it. He told me that he'd received a message that I should to return to the hospital without delay. Who gave him that message and how they knew where to find me, I've never been able to discover.

When I got back to the hospital Cecilia was back in the theatre. She passed away on the operating table sometime during the night. A blood vessel in her brain that had been repaired on the day of the accident had burst again with catastrophic consequences.

I'm not sure how I got through the next couple of weeks that were made even worse by the sudden death of Aida on the day of Cecilia's funeral. Emily was still in ICU and too ill to attend either funeral. Well, to be honest she wasn't told of either death at the time they happened, although she worked out pretty quickly that Cecilia had passed away. She could plainly see that Cecilia had not returned to the ICU and probably I spent too much time with Emily and didn't talk enough about Cecilia. I'll never know for sure; it's not something that we discuss.

It was some months after Aida's funeral, that I received a very strange letter from her solicitor. My father was acting as executor to Aida's will, so I couldn't understand why the guy wished to know who my solicitor was. When I called him to ask why he wanted to know, he gave me some bullshit about wanting to know who represented Emily nowadays and knowing that she was using the same guy I was he was asking me instead of upsetting her. I somehow didn't buy this story but had no choice but to accept it at the time.

Emily was in hospital for two months and still had problems with her coordination when they finally let her come home. It was good to have her there though, because she filled some of the gap that had been left in the boy's lives. Emily's two girls and my mother — who'd come to stay after Aida passed on - had done wonders with them though. Although I don't think anyone would replace Cecilia in their hearts.

As Emily got better, things began to return to a new kind of normal. Well, a normal without Cecilia around organising everyone as she had always done in the past. But then life has to go on even when we wish we could turn the clock back.

The worst part of that time was the pending court case. A young van driver had been fiddling with his radio that morning, when he ploughed into the back of Cecilia's car at, at least, seventy miles an hour. Cecilia having been forced to slow down to almost a standstill, by the queuing traffic ahead of her.

Eventually the guy got seven years for causing death by reckless driving. His passenger who gave evidence against him telling the court that it was the first time he'd worked with the guy, who apparently had a very cavalier attitude towards driving. The bailiff read out a whole string of previous convictions for driving violations after he'd been convicted.

There was all the rigmarole of having Cecilia's will read, of course, that was also an upsetting time for all of us. I hadn't realised that Cecilia had actually made a will at first. I had, of course, to protect everyone whilst I was on my travels abroad. Oh, those, by the way, had come to almost a complete stop. I didn't request it, but the powers that be decreed that I shouldn't have to travel abroad so much under the circumstances. I have rarely left the country on company business since.

Anyway Cecilia's will was pretty straightforward. It passed all her worldly worth into Emily's care until the boys were of age; this presupposed that I had predeceased her. If I hadn't then everything she possessed came to me.

Eight months had passed since we lost Cecilia. I think we were just beginning to get used to the new status quo when my solicitor contacted me yet again and asked me to call into his office and see him. When I got there, he gave me a package that he told me he'd received some months earlier.