Suzie rolled her eyes. "What does he want me to say, that you should have let Hamilton kill all of you?"
"He doesn't care what you say. You left, so there has to be a big bad secret involved. Throw enough mud at me, maybe a voter thinks I'm dirty."
"Nobody's camping on my front yard!", avowed her husband. "I don't know about Maryland, but you start harassing a trooper's wife in Minnesota and you'll find out about the limits of freedom of the press real damn fast!"
I shrugged and nodded. "Fine by me. They were a pain in my tail back the first time around on this."
There was a bit of commotion in the family room and Suzie got up to sort it out. She came back in a moment later. "Little ones need to go to bed. Give me a few minutes and I'll be down again." She left at that.
I turned to John. "Is there a place I can stash my driver? He's out in the car."
"You have a driver?"
"Slash bodyguard. I usually have security when traveling. Uh, he's armed, if that's a problem."
My brother-in-law muttered under his breath. "He'd better be licensed. I've had more than enough fun and games tonight."
I went out and brought in the security driver and we stashed him in the family room with a cup of coffee. I went back to the living room and talked to John some more. Suzie came back after a bit and sat down with us. She was quiet, and then picked up the box she had brought down earlier. She called out, "Jack! Come on in here!"
He came zooming back in. "Yeah?"
"Come on over here. I want to show you some pictures. I've had these saved away, but I won't lie anymore. These are from when I was younger." She opened the box and started going through them with her stepson and husband, who then passed them over to me.
It was a wrenching look into the past. Not everything was bad, not by a long shot! Especially when we were little, and before Hamilton and I hit our teens, there were a lot of smiles on our faces. Young Jack was absolutely awestruck when he saw the photos I had taken of Suzie when I gave her that tandem skydive in Fayetteville, which made me laugh all over again. There were some shots of her at college, and on the occasional trip out to see us. Then they all stopped suddenly. She collected the pictures and put them away.
"Why did you change your name?", he asked.
She sighed. "I wonder that myself at times. I had to move away. It was just too crazy at home. Maybe someday you'll understand better."
He turned to me and said, "It was your fault, wasn't it?"
Suzie gasped and John looked angry. I just answered, "Yes, it was." I held a hand up to forestall the others. "This is going to be hard to understand, but as you get older, it will make more sense. My brother had a disease, a mental disease..."
"You mean he was crazy!"
"Yes, that's the easy explanation."
"Like on TV, right? Brothers are always crazy on TV!"
I snorted a laugh at that. "Wait a few years, and I'll tell your brothers you said that." That earned me a big grin. "Anyway, my brother was very sick, and one day he came to my house and tried to kill my wife and my baby. I mean, could you imagine somebody trying to come into your house and trying to kill your mom and your brothers?"
Jack's eyes widened. "Whoa! For real?"
"For real. They weren't home, though, but I was, and then he tried to kill me. I had to stop him."
That got us another, "Whoa!"
"Jack, I think it's time for you to go to bed. We'll talk some more tomorrow, okay?", said Suzie.
He looked at me. "So, it's your fault, but it's not? That's what you meant?"
"You're a smart guy, Jack. We'll talk again.", I told him.
The boy headed out of the room. His father looked after him, and then glanced at Suzie and me, and then followed his son up the stairs. "Why did you leave?", I asked my sister.
"I had to get away from Mom and Dad. You know that. They were as crazy as Hamilton and you were involved and I had lawyers chasing me about it, making me pick sides. It was easier to just move away and start over again."
I nodded. "I know that, but why change your name and never call? It wasn't any easier for us than it was for you."
"Carl, you were always the strong one in the family! You made me strong, not the other way around! I had to leave!", she cried.
"You couldn't even send a letter? Not even to your godson?"
At that she broke down and began crying. I sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder, and she began crying into my shoulder. That's how her husband found us a few minutes later. She looked up as he entered and went to him and began crying onto him. I looked at him and just shrugged my shoulders. Now what?
She sniffled to a stop and said, more to him than to me, "I got all caught up in the lies. Once I changed my name it was easy to pretend I had a new life. Each lie led to another, and then another, and there was no going back, and I was ashamed to admit it. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" She started crying again.
John Rottingen nodded towards the door, so it was time to take my leave. "Can I visit again, tomorrow, before I go home?"
Suzie silently nodded. "Come over after lunch tomorrow.", said her husband.
I nodded and collected my driver, and we headed out. It was too late to call my wife, so I simply went to bed. I slept late, and then called Marilyn mid-morning.
"How did it go?", she asked.
"Okay, I guess. She fainted dead away when she saw me at the door, but her husband already knew she had been lying about her background, and he married her anyway. I guess that's a good thing.", I replied.
"It means he loves her, you nincompoop!"
I chuckled at that. "I guess it does. I'm to go back after lunch." I told her more about the conversation last night, and Marilyn reiterated that I was to invite her and her entire family for a visit, as soon as possible. I promised I would do so, and gave her my love, and then we hung up. I cleaned up and dressed, and then headed downstairs. I was able to get in a workout in their Nautilus room, and then went back upstairs, showered and shaved, and dressed. I called my driver and told him I planned to have lunch and wanted to be picked up at 1:00 at the front entrance.
By half past I was back at the Rottingen's. Suzie was looking a lot calmer, although I don't think she had slept much. She told me, in fact, that she and her husband had stayed up half the night talking.
The years had been relatively kind to my sister. She was still blonde, but it looked like some of the highlights came from a hairdresser. She had put on about twenty pounds, but it was fairly evenly distributed. Her face was a little puffy, but that could have been because she had been crying so much in the last day or so.
Today I was invited into the family room. Suzie showed me around the first floor of the house. I could tell she was proud of her life and her family. John warmed up to me a bit more, especially after I asked how he and Suzie had met. "I got sideswiped in my cruiser and broke my arm, and ended up on her floor over night. She was my nurse."
I smiled. "That sounds like a really cheesy made-for-TV movie.", I told him.
"Pretty much!", he admitted. "I asked her out on a date, and she said yes."
"That was in 1983?"
"March 1984. We got married in December."