Our Emerald Isle - Legacy

Our Emerald Isle – Legacy

 

Inheriting a lot of money is an awesome responsibility.  I was not taking it lightly.  Of course I did not know for certain how much I would be receiving but I expected it would be several million.  I was bound and determine not to let the windfall change me or my way of life.  A trip now and then, perhaps a new car, an Italian handmade suit, Gucci shoes, catered meals, you know just the necessities of life.

 

Brian and Traci were not as fortunate as I because they would have to share the portion Doris would leave them.  They were not overly upset of course but their needs would have to be scaled back and could only be half of mine.  My mother had another son by a former marriage but he was pretty well off and while I am not a pauper my assets do not match his.  He probably would not care if mom’s cut of the three way pie were just given to me.  Marsha had a daughter, Rene’ who would get Marshas’s share.  So everything was as it should be.  It never occurred to us that perhaps our mother’s and Marsha had plans of their own that may not have included indulging their children that really didn’t need anything anyway.

 

All of us scampered around to bring the pub up to standards that our mother’s ( Marsha included in the term mother because she had been part of our lives for over 30 years) would approve.  It wasn’t so much Brian and I that cared but Traci and Bev did want to show the mom’s that their boys were being well taken care of, a woman daughter wife mother thing I guess.  Anyway the place sparkled, all was where it should be, nothing out of place.

 

They arrived promptly at three like they said they would.  It was great to see them and they were just as glad to see us and were really impressed with what we had done with Devere’s Pub.  We chatted about this that and then another but nothing of any consequence, meaning inheritance, was brought up, but that was OK, we really enjoyed ourselves and for short periods forgot when the grand announcement would take place and what the particulars would be. They were enchanted by Ray the Raven and thought Abdul was a nice guy after they found out he was not a Muslim but a Baptist as proved by his wearing of an Irish Baptist Convention name tag. 

 

After dinner that night Doris was the one who broached the subject.

 

Doris:  Well you all might want to know the particulars that found us, the three of us visiting all of you and partaking in such a lovely Italian meal.  We three won the  Lottery of sorts.

 

I guess I was the first one to pick up on the words “of sorts.”  What do you mean by “of sorts” Doris?

 

Marsha:  Well let me answer that.  I had gone to Oklahoma for a church convention and stopped by to see Doris.  We chatted and decided that it had been years since we had seen the Grand Canyon and decided to drive out that direction.  When we got to the Arizona state line I mentioned to Doris that the last time I had been in Arizona was when your Dad and I stopped in Tucson on our way to California and looked your mother up, Snapper -  Jan.  Doris always the adventurer said she had met Jan a couple of times and why don’t they just change plans a little and drop down to Tucson and say hello.  Who knows, Doris said, Jan may want to go to the Grand Canyon also.

 

Jan:  So they did.  I must admit I was very shocked because I had not seen either one of them since that time at Mama’s house when all three of us where there for one reason or another and Ted was helping Rene’s boy friend fix his car or something.  I thought it very funny to see Ted so uncomfortable.

 

Doris:  I thought so also.

 

Marsha:  Me to but I wasn’t about to say anything because I had to go home with him that night.

 

“Well,” I said “I remember that also, but how did you win the lottery?”

 

 Brian, Traci, Bev and I were finally told the story.  Although all three women told different parts of the story at different times and sometimes and the same time, let me try to consolidate it for brevity sakes.  

 

Doris, Marsha, or Jan:

 

“We talked about what we all had been doing and who perhaps we had been doing it with, just girl talk.  Then we talked about all the kids and grandkids and as you might suspect we talked about Ted.  It was funny that we all had similar stories about our lives with him but there was just enough difference in every ones age and his at the time we were together, that he was a different man when we each new him.  But there was a continuity that made things very similar when in came to his basic personality.  Places and times change but people don’t, or at least not a whole lot.   Now we are not here to talk about all that.  That was then and this is now.  For one reason or another we decided to buy a lottery ticket, you know just for fun.  We thought about just getting an automatic pick but decided to pick the dates of our children’s birth days.  However we were two numbers short.  So we picked Ted’s birthday  and the date we bought the ticket.

 

Well we hit five out of six numbers, the date we bought the ticket was the one we missed.  So instead of the multi million we only won $50,000.00 a piece after taxes.  

 

We decided we would all take a round the world trip and thought what a better place to start than visiting the kids in Ireland.  We will leave here tomorrow, for Dublin, then Belfast.  Then on to London, Pairs, Rome, Berlin, Istanbul, New Deli, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Anchorage, and San Francisco.  Jan will go back to Arizona, Doris to Okalahoma, and Marsha to Kansas City.  If we are real lucky we will have spent all the money by the time we get home.

 

“ I think it is about time to go to bed now, we leave tomorrow morning and have a busy schedule ahead of us as you can see.”

 

Well as you can tell my Gucci stuff was a thing of the past, but I really didn’t care.  It was nice to see them altogether and happy.

 

I suspect Brian and Traci felt the way I did.  For me it might have been a little deeper feeling because I knew all three where as they had only known two.   Here they were three women off on the adventure of their lives all of which I knew at different times in my life and theirs and Dad’s, and in ways that may seem hard to explain, loved everyone of them and still do.  You love many different people in life for many different reasons.  Each had done something special for me.  They may not remember some of the kindness they displayed when I needed it the most, but I do.  I have a good memory and a long one.

 

That night Bev asked me if I thought it strange that Dad’s ex wives seemed to be friends “of sorts,” or at least comfortable and compatible with one another. “ No, not really.” was my reply.  “What is it they have in common then?” Bev asked.  “They all married Dad,”  I said.