A Curious State of Affairs

I felt like there was a hunk of burning hot lead in the pit of my belly. It was almost too much for me to comprehend; my brother-in-law was responsible for my father’s abduction. I had always thought that John was a trifle strange, but it never occurred to me that he could be such a creep. Not only had he impregnated my father (I wasn’t even going to consider how it might have been done), he had also felt the need to spawn with my sister as well. This meant that Chloe and Lola were not only our half-sisters, but our nieces as well (and Jenny’s step-daughters!). It reminded me of that old Ray Stevens song, “I’m my own Grandpa”. The only difference was that the song was mildly amusing, while this whole situation was anything but.

I folded up dad’s letter with the money tucked inside and carefully slid it back into the envelope. I was determined that, when I finally did find my half sisters, they would get everything that my father had intended them to get. Every letter I had read thus far had “Return to Sender” scribbled on the front of the envelope. Even though dad must have been very hurt when every envelope had been returned unwanted, he persisted in writing to his daughters at least every month. Every letter contained money and my father’s never failing conviction that we all would be united as a family one day. There were over two hundred letters in the bundles. I felt a little guilty reading them as they were never meant for my eyes, but it was like reading a chronicle of our lives. Dad mostly wrote about us kids in his letters and very rarely about himself. I felt closer to him as I read them.

 

I was lazing about, a few hours before having to leave for work. Sprawled across my bed, staring at the ceiling, I tried to decide how to get the hero of my novel out of a particularly sticky situation. I had put Andy down for her nap and the house was quiet. It was the perfect time for such a mental excursion. I finally decided that what my hero really needed was a tattoo of a great red dragon across his chest. I was contriving a way in which hero could acquire such a tattoo (and bust some heads in the process) when the phone rang. I lunged for the handset on the bed side table and caught it after the first ring. 

“Hello?”

I looked in on Andy to make sure that her sleep had not been disturbed. She looked up when I entered the room but quickly lost all interest and went back to sleep.

“Hi Pascal, It’s Amber,” said the voice on the other end.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I was wondering, I know you don’t have to be at work for a while yet and I wanted to know if I could come over a bit early.  I have a few things I need to give to you.”

“Really?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine what she might have that she would need to give to me.

“Uh, sure, that’s not a problem” I told her. “Do you wanna come over for some lunch? I was just about whip up some bachelor chow.”

“That would be great.” 

I could tell she was excited but, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. 

“I should really be going, I am sure you have things you need to do and I have housework that needs tending to,” Amber said as she rose from the kitchen stool. The scotch we had been drinking gave her cheeks a lovely pink glow.

“As much as I hate to I have work that needs to be done for tomorrow. I have presentation I need to make. The company I work for is bidding on another government contract.”

“If you have to go into work tomorrow who will be watching Andromeda?” she asked curiously.

“If Lazlo or Vidcund are off they take care of her, if we all have to be at work, like tomorrow, I will call ‘The Nanny Van’ and they will send someone over to keep her. Usually that old cow Sophie Miguel.”

“Is she that bad?” Amber asked.

“She is really good with the baby, but otherwise she is completely useless. Last week she caught the stove on fire. It was a lucky thing that Lazlo got home when he did, or the house would have gone up in flames,” I explained.

“Oh my! That’s terrible. How on earth did she do that?”

Morning broke over the seemingly peaceful desert haven of Strangetown. Birds twittered in the palm trees. Butterflies glided on perfumed breezes over the flowerbeds. Sleepy eyed children woke to the smells of blueberry pancakes.   The sun crested the distant mountains to the east, bathing the tiny oasis town in golden beams of light. A dog barked a playful warning to a passing mail carrier and a cat pounced from a neighbor's windowsill onto a feather fluttering in the breeze. Lazlo Curious stood naked in his bathroom and wept.

Andromeda Lesath Curious arrived on this planet at 3:48 AM on November first. I named her after Andromeda, the beautiful daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, also our nearest large neighbor galaxy, and Lesath, Scorpius's Upsilon star.