Prologue

The giggle from the bedroom reminded me that two women in my life were putting the finishing touches on their makeup before we would all be heading to the graduation ceremony where both would be receiving official recognition of receiving bachelor's degrees. A huge part of me is still amazed we have ended up here, since seven years ago; it all seemed a very distant possibility.

I guess I should start with a quick description of myself and then go to the beginning and explain everything in order. My name is Jason O'Neill. I am a twenty four year old chef working my last couple of weeks at the sorority house that the ladies have been saying at while attending college. I finished a three year course at the local culinary academy a year ago, and hope to open up a resort style hotel and restaurant in the coming months. I guess most women would find me handsome as when I started work at the sorority most of the girls made passes at me before finding out that I was taken. I stand about five-ten and keep myself in rather good shape. I have night black hair and green eyes, which many women have said, look exotic and striking.

But, we should start at the beginning. My father is Albert O'Neill. When he was nineteen he married a young Irish girl named Aine he had met on a trip back to Ireland.

The marriage seemed to be good and I was born a year later, to much fuss. I know my father really loved Aine, but demons in her past drove her. When I was two, my father received a call from the hospital that Aine had been admitted due to seizures. My grandparents told me that my father spent two days at her bedside while doctors tried to mend the damage caused by some poorly manufactured meth, but in the end, the damage had proved too great, and Aine passed away.

My father's friends and family refused to let him wallow in guilt or misery, and made sure that he was out on dates on a regular basis. Those dates resulted in him meeting Linda, a young woman who had been in a relationship with a man who abruptly left her when he discovered that she was three months pregnant. I was only three when her daughter Rebecca was born, and did not understand what was happening, but one day shortly before I turned four, my father got around to proposing to her, and after the wedding we had a unorthodox if happy family.

The best thing for me was little Rebecca. She had inherited coppery red hair from her now missing father, and had an incurable smile. My father had taken me aside the day before the wedding and reminded me that even though I was only four, he expected me to watch over and care for my new baby sister, and I took his comments to heart. I grew up with a little red headed shadow who found anything I did fascinating. It could be as simple as building a sand castle on the beach, or reading a book, but Rebecca always seemed to find a way to participate even when she was barely two. Reading was so much fun because Rebecca lowed to sit on my lap and listen.

Sadly, the relationship between my father and Linda started to sour. Linda was an attractive woman and her self-image resulted in very high maintenance demands. My father had a good job and finances should not have been an issue, but over the years I heard more than a few arguments over money. Rebecca tended to hide with me in my room when the arguments got bad. The funny thing is that I do not believe there was any question that my father did love Linda, he just needed her to show a bit more discipline about money. Shortly after I turned ten, I arrived home from school with Rebecca to find that most of the furniture was gone. Linda had staged a preemptive strike and vanished; taking the expensive furniture sets she demanded my father purchase with her.

This time my father refused to allow his family to set him up again. He threw himself into his work, and was soon spending three weeks of every four on the road.

Rebecca and I lived at home, but with a succession of nannies who would stay with us for six or nine months and then leave. My father said the nannies were required if he was going to travel, but Rebecca had a hard time warming to them, especially since they never stayed, and I ended up growing up faster than I wanted.

The only advantage was that some of the nannies did not mind if an inquisitive young man asked lots of questions, and when I was twelve, Mrs. Hanson, allowed me to start helping her prepare dinner every evening. Rebecca watched quietly at first, but as I learned more and proved that I could be careful, Mrs. Hanson suggested little things I could have Rebecca help with. I know Rebecca gave Mrs. Hanson more smiles than she did any other nanny we had, but sadly a stroke forced Mrs. Hanson to go to a nursing home. Both Rebecca and I visited her regularly until she passed quietly in her sleep when I was sixteen.

I was fifteen when another big change occurred. Father was now making extremely good money, and he had moved us into a rather exclusive neighborhood of Phoenix. Most of the families here were couples without children, but when the house next door was sold, the new family included two children, a twelve-year-old girl, and a ten-year-old boy.

The boy, Jacques, had a bit of an attitude, but Monique and Rebecca bonded quickly, and spent a large amount of time together. I was doubly surprised when my father met the LeClercs over dinner, and then announced that they had agreed to take guardianship over Rebecca and I. "This doesn't mean I don't love you," he told us. "I love you more than I can say, and trust you enough that I don't think you need a nanny in the house, but this way, you'll have someone to sign the forms for school and such and won't have to rely in Fed Ex."

Rebecca and I nodded our understanding. We had struggled in the past when permission slips and other paperwork needed to be signed, because my father's business seemed to have him moving constantly and sometimes it proved nearly impossible to get paperwork signed. Fortunately the school principal was very understanding of the situation.

Well, I have to admit having Rebecca and Monique around was not hard on the eyes at all. Rebecca was just starting to blossom, but the rambunctious outdoor lifestyle that she and I shared had burned every ounce of baby fat off of her long ago. She was growing into a slender, lithe figure with red hair she let fall to her waist. I had once asked her why she let it grow so long, and her reply was, "You like long hair, silly." Monique was a combination of French and Vietnamese. It was an exotic combination, and what little extra fat she still carried when the first moved in was burned off in the first summer with Rebecca.

One thing about this larger house was the rather nice pool in the back. At first Rebecca and Monique swam wearing rather modest swimsuits. Both girls participated in meets at the local swim club and usually they wore their practice suits in the pool, but over time, they acquired still modest two-piece suits that came out on days when their brother was not around. They never seemed to mind if I saw and occasionally I got asked to spread suntan lotion on a back, something that never failed to reduce me to blushing.

I do remember one rather confusing conversation with Monique's mother Thuy one day shortly after my sixteenth birthday. Monique and Rebecca had been asking for permission to throw a small sleepover party, and made it clear they preferred to have it at our house, both for the pool and to avoid Jacques. Thuy asked a number of questions about my intentions and dreams, but finally nodded and pronounced herself satisfied.

I thought that the girls would want pizza for the sleepover, but Rebecca insisted that I come up with a menu and serve the six girls attending her party. I ended up in a longer conversation with Thuy on what would be appropriate and popular before creating a light menu of seared salmon with walnut sauce, or sesame chicken with orange. I topped that off with a handmade chocolate mousse. Honestly, it was all simple recipes and other than requiring a special trip to the market to pick up a few items, did not even require much extra work. However, the girls raved about the food, and Rebecca received requests from three different parents to give the name of the caterer.