Chapter Seventeen: Coming Home

Eight months later, when I brought my baby home from the hospital, waiting in the living room of our house was a party. Stevie was there. Momma had gone back to California. Jessie was there with Willa and Kathleen Lucinda, their baby girl. Cleo was there with Jaques, her paramour as she called him. And so was Ryan. Cleo had told him everything once he found her in Paris. It took him a while to track her down. It seems that Ryan never knew the reason his parents fought, only that his mother had hurt his father. Cleo overheard them arguing one night and confronted her father. He told her she was a bastard and cruelly told her the whole story. She could never bear to tell Ryan the truth until she found out we had gotten together.

He proposed to me and our daughter, Samantha Cleo Lucinda Montgomery, in front of everyone and I accepted, gaining a husband and a sister-in-law, who was also my sister all in one day. I would have hated to see that family tree.

Epilogue

As for how everything turned out well… Mrs. Montgomery finally got up the courage to leave Mr. Montgomery once the truth was out. She became an integral part in the lives of our children. She doted on them and eventually went to live with Cleo.

Mr. Montgomery, well he had to resign from the bank for what he did to daddy. He finished out his life a very lonely and miserable old man. Ryan never forgave him.

Jesse was injured in the Bay of Pigs invasion, but at least it got him out of going to Viet Nam. He was honorably discharged with a Purple Heart for bravery in service to his country. He and Willa moved back to town where he got a job fixing cars. They lived happily ever after here with their two kids.

Stevie didn’t grow up to be a doctor but a veterinarian instead. He got married and lives on a farm outside of town with his wife and three children. I guess sometimes the best parts of history repeat themselves too.

Momma went back to California and we never heard from her again. She was lost in the sixties.

Cleo got her degree and became a very successful psychologist in California, catering to children. She married a record producer, and they adopted four children.

Grammy lived to the ripe old age of ninety-nine. She was very happy because she lived long enough to see us happy. That was her fondest wish.

And Ryan and I, well we had the regular ups and downs of married life, but we were blissfully happy. We wound up with two children, Sammy and Ryan Jr. We are very proud of them and all of their accomplishments.

The saying goes, all’s well that end’s well… and it truly is.