Paul and Nora: Part 5

Once everyone was sitting at dinner, their plates full and starting in on their food, Paul cleared his throat.  Nora looked up at him and smiled encouragingly.

"Kids, I need to talk to you," he started.

Tristan's head popped up.  "Dad, my grades are good.  I got an A on my test yesterday."

"I'm glad to hear it," Paul chuckled, "but grades aren't what I was going to talk to you about."

Tristan smiled sheepishly.

"I don't know if you all knew this, but I was married to someone else before I married Mom."

"What?" Tristan asked. "Is this bigamy?"

"Of course not!" Paul shouted.  "I was divorced by the time I met your mom.  Please, let me finish."  Paul took a deep breath.  "My first wife, her name was Jessie, and I weren't married very long.  When we did get divorced, she was pregnant, but I didn't know that.  I found out today that I have a seventeen year old daughter."

The room was silent for a moment.  The boys sat, staring at their father, forks of food suspended in the air.

"You have a daughter?" Tristan finally asked.

Paul nodded.  "She is your half-sister."

"I have a sister?"  Isaac asked.  Paul nodded again.

"Where does she live?" Blake asked.

"Well, she was living with her mom, but her mom just recently died, so she has moved in with her grandparents.  They live here, in this city," Paul explained.

Paul looked at Nora.  She smiled.  Despite the tricky subject, he was handling it well.   The boys were too, but then Nora figured their calmness about the situation could be due to shock.

"Will we get to meet her?" Blake asked.

"Sometime, yes.  Mom and I are going to meet her on Friday."

Isaac started to bounce in his seat.  "Do we get to go too?"  he asked.

"Not this first time," Nora spoke up, "but we will tell her all about you and you can meet her the next time."

"Oh boy!" Isaac cried out, "I've got a sister and I'm going to meet her."  Isaac seemed to take the idea very well.  Perhaps he didn't really understand what it all meant, but it didn't matter.  He had taken his new sister into his heart and accepted her immediately.

Blake and Tristan ate for a few minutes in silence.  They seemed to be considering what this all meant and how their lives would change.

Isaac rambled on about meeting his sister in between bites of food.  He was in the middle of a sentence about how he was going to take her to all his soccer games when he stopped and asked Paul, "What's her name?"

"Alexa," Paul answered.

"What happened?"  Tristan asked. "Why did you leave your first wife?"

Paul was surprised by Tristan's questions.  He didn't like talking about this part of his past.  He had spent years trying to bury that part of his life away.  He felt angry by Tristan's accusation and wanted to tell Tristan to mind his own business.  But then he realized this was Tristan's business.  He, Blake and Isaac had every right to know.

"I didn't leave her.  I loved her.  She left me and I don't know why.  I thought we were happy and in love, but one day, I came home to a letter from her.  She only said she didn't want to be married anymore.  I never saw her again,"  Paul sighed.

"Mom," Blake asked tentatively, "are you going to leave Dad now?"

"Of course not!" Nora said.  "I love him and I'm happy with him.  I would never leave him."

"Listen kids," Paul said.  All eyes turned to him.  "I know this is strange.  It's strange for me too, to learn that I have a daughter, but no matter what, you are my sons and I love you.  We love you," he pointed to Nora.  "We will never leave you and never stop loving you.  Things are going to change now, but generally, our lives will go on as normal.  We'll still go to soccer games and band concerts.  We'll still go to see movies, have five mile runs, and all of our normal activities.  I'm not exactly sure how adding Alexa to the family will change our lives, but we will carry on as normally as possible."

"Is she going to live with us?" Isaac asked.

"No dear," Nora answered, "she will live with her grandparents."

Blake and Tristan nodded.  They were fairly quiet through the rest of the meal.  Isaac, however, was not.  He spent the rest of the meal talking about how he and his best friend at school were plotting to scare the girls at recess and his soccer game on Saturday.

That night, Nora went to check on her sons before they went to bed.  She did this most nights, but felt tonight was especially important that she visit with them.  She couldn't imagine what they were feeling and how much of everything they truly understood.  She went to Tristan first.

"Are you OK, Tristan? You've been very quiet this evening."

"It's so weird, Mom," Tristan said.  "I've got a big sister.  I've always been the oldest and now I'm not."

Nora sat down on the edge of his bed.  "I know it's odd.  But, you are my oldest.  You will always be my oldest and I'm guessing Dad will always thing of you like that, too.  Don't worry, you are always the oldest in our family and you are Dad's oldest son.  You've not lost your place."

"Do you think she goes to my school?" Tristan asked.

"I don't know.  I suppose she might.  I'm guessing, though, that she is a senior.  So, even if she is at your school, you aren't likely to run into her," Nora answered.

"That would be really weird," Tristan said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Nora agreed, "I suppose that would be very strange."  Nora looked at her son.  He had Paul's dark curly hair.  She stuck her fingers into his hair and ruffled it.  "Night Tris," she said.
"Night Mom,"

Nora left and closed his door behind her.  She checked on Blake.  He was sitting on his bed drawing.  Nora looked over the pad of paper at the picture.  It was a lovely landscape that he had been working on for several days.  He was working on a new part of the picture.  It was a lone pine tree set apart from the other trees.

"Is this the art you are going to enter in the contest?"  Nora asked him.

"No," Blake answered, "but it is an idea I might go with.   I've got several concepts in mind.  I'll show them to Mr. McDonald tomorrow and see what he says about the pictures."

"Well, I'm no expert on art, but I like this one a lot.  You do amazing work."

"Thanks," Blake said.  He flipped the pencil in his hand around and began erasing a part of the lone tree he had just drawn in.  He flipped the pencil around again and began to redraw the part he had just erased.  Nora couldn't see a difference, but Blake seemed happier with the newly drawn bit.  He defiantly had an eye for detail.

"OK, well, night Blake."  Nora backed up to the door.

"Night," Blake answered, but never took his eyes off the paper.

"Not too much longer, OK?" Nora said.  "Lights out soon."

"K," Blake answered.

Nora shut the door and went to Isaac's room.  It was empty.  Nora sighed.  She knew where he was and it was going to be hard to get him to bed.  She went back to the living room.  Paul and Isaac were sitting together on the couch watching sports.

"What are you doing up?"

"Mom, it's the highlights," Isaac answered.

Paul and Isaac were following a major worldwide soccer tournament in South America.  Every evening the scores and highlights were featured on the sports channel and they were watching that day's features.

"Paul, not too much longer, OK?"  Nora said.

"Yeah, Nora," he answered.

Nora smiled and went back to her chair with the murder mystery on the table next to the chair.  She picked up the book and settled back down into the soft chair.  Maybe now she could do some reading.

PART 6