Chapter 3: A new challenge

It was a little before four pm when Clarity and I arrived home. Because parking was a major problem, particularly with the amount of cars in our family, Clarity and I had to lug the Chinese food the two blocks from the Chandelier and lighting store we had purchased and then later had converted into an eight car garage, to the house. I noticed the J. Edger Hoover mobile already parked inside the garage so I knew that Dana and

Candy must have left work early in order to participate in the group family meeting.

Everyone was there except for the babies which we were informed had already been put down for the night so they wouldn't interfere with the meeting. Clarity was greeted as though she had been gone for a year, then after unburdening myself of the numerous bags of Chinese take-out; I did kisses and blatant groping all around. While I was fondling Pat's posterior I whispered to her, "How about some hot candle wax later on baby."

She leaned back and her nose crinkled up when, looking very confused, she said, "Hot candle wax sir?"

"Forget it," I said kissing her. "Just something Clarity said."

"Miss Clarity?" Pat called out releasing me and walking toward Clarity. "What did you tell Mr. Sam about hot candle wax?"

Clarity laughed, "I promise to tell you later Pat. Right now let's eat before Heather and Katherine call."

"Very well Miss Clarity but I intend to hold you to that promise. Mr. Sam had a rather strange gleam in his eye when he asked me about hot candle wax." Pat said.

We all dug in to the food and managed to get our fill before five. Than at exactly five pm both Katherine's and Heather's phones started ringing.

Clarity pressed both conference buttons and then said, "Hi Heather. Hi Kath. Thanks for calling."

"Hi," Heather said.

"Hi," Katherine followed and then she said, "If this is some kind of a set-up just so you can tell me and Heather that you're all naked and having a glorious orgy in order to make us jealous I swear I'll find some way to pay you all back."

"No, the naked orgy part comes later. This is serious family group meeting business right now." Clarity assured her.

"All right, but we expect pictures if the later part happens," Katherine said cautiously.

"And Heather and I are expecting you to make a conjugal visit to us real soon Sam."

"Darn right! Real soon!" Heather agreed.

"I can't think of a more pleasurable trip." I also agreed.

"Okay, I know it's late back there so I'll get right to the point." Clarity said. "What I wanted to talk you all about is my mother."

"You mean Sam's first wife?" Katherine asked.

"Yes," Clarity confirmed. "I'm really starting to get worried about her. As you know I've been calling her once or twice a month but lately she really seemed depressed and out of sorts to me, so last week I flew down and went to see her in person. I didn't say anything to you guys about it because I didn't want to trouble you if it turned out to be nothing, but after seeing her I realized I was right and she's in real trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" I asked.

"Well, I think she may have taken my leaving her and coming to live with you guys much harder than any of us realized." Clarity explained. "Oh she's thrilled now that I'm going to such a prestigious college and all, but remember she doesn't know anything about what my life or her life would have been like if you guys hadn't stopped me from being raped, so to her it just felt like her sixteen year old daughter had walked out on her, and with that happening less than a year after her divorce I'm guessing she must have felt a bit like everyone had abandoned her."

"Hmm..." Jen mused. "As I recall in this time line the other Sam and your mom were divorced about five years ago in 1979."

"Un-huh," Kim agreed. "Unlike in our Sam's original timeline when they weren't divorced until 1981 after the rape."

That reminded me of just how tricky it had been for Clarity to get her mother to agree to let her move in with us when she was only sixteen and still in high school. The one thing in Clarity's favor at the time was that Mary realized her daughter had started running around with a rough crowd at school and after getting to know Heather and Vicky she recognized that these two girl's would be a much better influence on her daughter than her current set of friends. Then after learning, and meeting the adult women also sharing the same house she had reluctantly agreed to let Clarity move in with them providing Clarity came to visit her now and again. Which Clarity did. Needless to say Mary knew nothing of me living in the same house and the few times that Mary came to visit Clarity at the Beach house I made sure I was nowhere around.

As for Clarity's father, the Sam of this time line, he was not a problem because nobody told him Clarity had moved and he never learned of it. After he had divorced Mary in 1979 he had taken a new job in upstate New York and other than sending regular monthly alimony and child support payments contact with his ex-wife and daughter had become virtually non-existent.

"Anyway," Clarity continued, "none of us even recognized what was going on, and I know I certainly didn't, but I guess after I moved out mom developed a serious gambling problem. The gambling didn't really start affecting her life that negatively until after I turned eighteen and the child support payments stopped coming in."

"How so?" Vicky asked.

"Well, it seems that after I came to live with you guys mom started using the child support money to gamble with. Remember my dad was pretty generous with those payments so mom had a lot of extra money each month and no daughter to spend it on. But when I turned eighteen and dad's payments stopped coming in each month she started gambling with money she didn't really have. She begged, borrowed and stole the cash to feed her habit. It turns out that over the last year not only has she mortgaged her house twice over in order to feed her gambling habit but she's also in debt to some bookie to the tune of over twenty thousand dollars."

Candy whistled, "Twenty grand. That's more than just a little habit."

"And don't forget the mortgaging of her house all in one year." Dana pointed out.

"Well, we could certainly help out with her current money problems but I'm afraid she'll just dig herself back into the same hole again." Katherine brought up.

"Yeah, but we still need to do something to help her right?" Vicky remarked.

"Yes, we need to find a way to solve her real problem as well." Maria suggested.

"It sounds like you've already agreed to help." Clarity interjected. "That's what I wanted to ask you all about."

"Well of course we'll help." Dana said emphatically.

"Darn right!" Heather agreed.