Chapter 9

Jen and I stayed in the house we had lived in all our lives. Mom and Dad had purchased the house right after they were married. It was home. But we made plans over time about what we would do after we graduated.

Jen graduated from High School without much more help from me. She was a smart young lady and once she got her confidence built up she really didn't need much help. I didn't use Eggplant any more.

I managed to graduate from University at around the same time. My major was Business. I had planned to take over from my Dad but that was not to be.

We talked about how we could get married. It would be tricky but unless someone really investigated we should be able to do it. For our first step we waited until after graduation. Jen turned 18 by then and I was no longer her guardian. She was able to make her own decisions. Jen needed to change her name legally. She decided to use Mom's maiden name. We had Bob handle it for her. We told him it was to honer Mom. I think he suspected something but never mentioned it. Bob arranged for all our accounts to show the new name. After the name change, I made a copy of her new birth certificate and changed the names of her parents to our maternal grand parents names. Then I copied it again. The new copy looked legit and showed no sign of tampering. We kept all the old papers and used them for a while till we took the next step.

We decided, after some thought, that we wanted to travel. We had more money than we knew what to do with so we put off Jen's further education, bought a camper and took off to see the country. I think, over the next six months we hit every state and most if not all National Parks. We stopped in Reno and using Jen's new birth certificate, we got married in a small Chapel across from the Court House. We honeymooned at Lake Tahoe. We rented an apartment for two months to establish residency. While we waited for the time to go by, we traveled around the state. At the end of the two months we applied for and received new drivers licenses. We now could show being married when ever we wanted to. Then we left to travel some more.

Jen had decided she wanted to go to Nursing School. She wanted to be like Mom. As we traveled around the country, we checked out a number of Nursing Schools. We found a well respected school in a town we liked with a nice climate. For the time being we rented a small home. We weren't sure how long we would stay.

Jen started school and I found I had nothing to do. I was not used to being idle. As I traveled around our new town, to get used to it, I passed by a nice looking Service Station with a for sale sign out front. There was an old man in the office and I stopped to talk to him. He told me the station was doing well but he was more than ready to retire. He had no family to take over so he was selling out. I made no commitment but got all the details. That night I talked it over with Jen and she agreed it would be a good way for me to keep busy at something I was good at. We made the deal. The old man stayed around for a while to let me get to know the station and his customers, then he moved to Florida.

I wasn't sure how long we would stay but knew it would be at least until Jen got her RN. As it turned out, after only a year we decided we liked the place and would make it our new home. We shopped around and found a nice house that was bigger than we needed but was large enough for a family. We both wanted kids after a few years.

The days, weeks and months rolled by. We were happy living as man and wife. Nobody locally knew we were siblings. Then one day we received word that Bob had passed away from a sudden heart attack. His firm assured me they would continue to handle our affairs if we were willing. Jen and I talked it over. We were settled in the new town and had business and banking ties there. We were in fact friends with the branch manager of the local bank where we did business. We met with him and explained our financial affairs that were being run by Bob's firm. He said his bank would be very pleased to take over the financial side of things and recommended a local lawyer for the legal side. The lawyer was young and had not been practicing long but was highly respected by the community. He had finished at the top of his class and published the Law Review while in University.