Luke - 15, sophomore at Notre Dame. Ended up running the contracting business at Lefleur. Not the most personable fellow. Actually, kind of a rude prick. Half the company wanted nothing to do with him, including me. He had on a cast on his left arm, from playing football. All of the boys were jocks, and over the years there were enough casts and bandages to pay for an orthopedic wing at the local hospital. That always made me think that while they were jocks, they weren't good jocks.
John - 13, freshman at Notre Dame. Very personable and very smart. John ended up actually running the show at Lefleur after we all bought it. He was a dream to work for. He handled setup and service. We became good friends.
Gabriel - 11, junior high at St. Peter's. Also very personable and smart. He ended up running sales at Lefleur. I spent half my time reporting to him and the other half reporting to John, but it really wasn't confusing. Also a good friend. He went to college at Siena for business.
Rafael - 10, elementary at St. Peter's. Extremely volatile. Worked in sales and accounting for the company, but I can't say he was any great shakes at either. Half the time I wondered how he managed to survive, but a rising tide raises all boats, so to speak. Most of his positions amounted to where he could do the least damage. Very prickly, and not a friend. He went to college at St. John Fisher for history.
Michael - 6, just started St. Peter's. Very friendly and a natural born salesman. By 16 he was working for Lefleur in sales, and rose to Number 2 in sales. He died in his mid-40s from cancer. A hell of a nice guy!
Ruth - 2. There was a four year span between the oldest eight and the youngest five, and Ruth was the first of the 'second family.' There was actually some resentment among these kids, and most of them wanted nothing to do with the company. Ruth was quite unfortunate, in that she looked a lot like her mother (ugly and morbidly obese) and had the IQ and personality of a rock. Literally! We employed her in positions where she could do the least damage, and then monitored her closely to fix what she still managed to fuck up. She was our flower girl.
Peter - newborn. Peter wanted nothing to do with the company and went to college to become a physical therapist. Nice guy, married a tiny little redhead who was smoking hot, and they had four kids. He was the ring bearer at our wedding.
Still to come, in future years:
Paul - Worked for many years as our dispatcher, but then transitioned to sales, where he proved to be an absolute genius! Nice guy, he married one of our salesladies.
Sarah - Grew up to become a school teacher. When Harriet and Big Bob passed away, she became one of the executors, and was an incredibly meddlesome troublemaker at it. She made very few friends in the 'first family.'
Miriam - Also became a physical therapist. She was also a meddlesome troublemaker when Harriet died. Harriet developed liver cancer, and Sarah, Miriam, and Ruth would argue over the treatment. Harriet ended up listening to the last one around, so she ended up changing her treatment and doctors several times, to the point where nothing could save her. Then the three of them repeated the process when Big Bob got melanoma two years later.
An incredibly diverse crew, to be sure. One thing to notice is that all the names came from the Bible. The boys started off with the four gospels, followed by the three named angels, and then they moved on to the saints. All the girls were named after saints or important Biblical figures. Even Marilyn! Within the house she was known as Mary, and when I asked her why, she explained that her father had named her Mary Lynette, after the Virgin Mary, and his baby sister Lynette. Unfortunately, the nurse was hard of hearing and changed it to Marilyn. Nobody noticed until she was enrolled at UCA, where the nuns demanded they use the names on their birth certificates.
Most of the older boys were quite mystified when I showed up. I don't think a single one of them thought of their older sister as a person in her own right, deserving of a life and love of her own. I was the first guy she had ever brought home. Most of the boys found me a curiosity but got over it quickly. Matthew saw me as a guy his age and we talked together fine. From Luke on down the boys were quite a bit younger, and they basically ignored me.
Little Michael didn't ignore me, however. I was the new friend who picked him up and played with him. After listening to me talk to his parents for a few minutes he popped up and asked, "How come you talk funny?"
Marilyn and his mother gasped and told him he was being rude, but I just laughed at him. "That's because I'm a southerner and y'all are just a bunch of Yankees.", I told him. I wasn't overly surprised by this. I had always had a strong southern accent, and simply hadn't realized it until I went north to school. On my first trip through I had lost it almost totally within my first year, but I would still pick it right back up whenever I traveled south. This time I hadn't lost it, and I didn't think I would. For one thing, every time I went to boot camp or other training, I would be in the heart of Dixie!
"What's a Yankee?", asked the little boy.
"A really lousy baseball player.", That earned me a lot of grief from Michael's older brothers, most of whom were Yankees fans. "Just remember, buster, that where I come from, y'all are the ones that talk funny!"
Marilyn gave me a raspberry for that.
Mark, on the other hand, thought of me as a challenge. He was very smart, and more than a little brazen and egotistical. He would always try to push his luck with Marilyn and me, knowing that Marilyn would never go up against him and that she would keep me in line. Tonight was no different. After he and Matthew brought back the pizza and wings, he decided he needed to sit at the bar, so he took Marilyn's barstool. No big deal, since she wasn't sitting on it at the time, and the rule is, 'you snooze, you lose.' However, he ended up yanking it out from underneath her as she started to sit on it, and she fell on the floor. Everybody stared at Marilyn, although nobody offered to help her up, and he looked at me with a smirk.
Bouncing him off the wall would not get me in anybody's good graces, especially Marilyn's, so I simply stood up and helped her to her feet. As I did, I heard him snicker behind me. I took a deep breath, and Marilyn grabbed my arm. "Don't!", she said lowly.
I took another deep breath and nodded to her. I turned to face Mark, and saw all of the family watching us. I slid my own barstool over to Marilyn and allowed her to use it, and then looked Mark in the face. "Mark, do you have a girlfriend?" I knew he did, since he married her a year after Marilyn and I got married.
"Yeah, why?", he said with a touch of bravado.
"Just curious. Suppose somebody you had never met came into her kitchen and knocked her to the floor in front of you. What would you do?" I reached into one of the pizza boxes and pulled out a slice of pepperoni pizza, but I never took my eyes off of him. Marilyn put her hand on my arm, but otherwise kept quiet.
Suddenly Mark's eyes widened. I think he decided that maybe the new guy wasn't somebody to test quite so boldly. He grabbed a slice of pizza and headed out to the living room. I took his abandoned bar stool and sat down next to Marilyn. I looked at her and gave her an innocent smile. "Can I get a beer?"