Family Tradition: Next Generation

"Mary's been talking about me, I see," she responded, with a smile and a twinkle in her eye. "I won't try to deny it: the best sex I ever had in my life was that night with you. To be completely honest, I was hoping you would spend Friday night with me. I can see you thinking how unfair that is to Joe, and you're probably right, but it didn't stop me from hoping.

"You made love to me that night, you didn't just fuck me, and you did it very, very, well. Because of that, there'll always be a special place for you in my heart. I know you're afraid it will be the same for Mary with David. I don't think you have any reason to worry: you're a superb lover, and Mary is more in love with you now than she was twenty years ago. For the record, that one night is the only time I've been unfaithful to Joe.

"You now know the real reason Mary will have sex with David. She's making a virtue of necessity by trying to find things about it to look forward to, though she's having a hard time keeping that up as she sees how much you're hurting." She tactfully didn't mention that what my wife found to look forward to was a night of hot sex with a handsome younger man.

"Will she do it, even if she knows I'll be fucking Karen?"

Millie looked at me sadly. "I believe she will. I believe she will do it for Cassie's happiness, even if she has to pay for it with a broken heart."

"Whose heart: hers or mine?"

We stared at each other in silence until Millie rose to leave.

"Thank you for coming, Henry, and for listening to me. I desperately hope, as I hoped twenty some years ago, that you will make the right decision. You did then; don't let me down now."

"I'll do my best," I answered her. She hugged me, and left the restaurant.

At least now I knew why Mary said Cassie was counting on her. Her "trying to find something to look forward to" made more sense now, too. On the other hand, even if she wasn't doing this for selfish reasons, she still got a night of what she hoped would be hot sex with a handsome young guy out of it. All I got was an unfaithful wife. Could I put up with that for my daughter's happiness? Should I?

I finally gave up trying to work, and tried to think of a plan. Was there a way that Cassie could be happy that didn't involve Mary fucking David? The state of my brain was such that it took me a couple of hours to come up with what you've probably figured out already, but I finally did. I couldn't wait to tell Mary, so I went home early.

Mary looked listless and tired. The first thing I did was take her in my arms and just hold her for a while. Then I told her I had a plan.

"I hope it's better than your last one," she said sourly.

"Okay, Mary, I deserved that. I think it is, though. Here's what I propose.

"You probably already know that Millie told me the whole story about Keziah and everything. I propose we get David over here, and you and I sit down with him and Cassie. You tell him the story."

"Why me? Why not Cassie?"

"Because when he remembers what he's gone through the past few days, it will be important for him not to hear this in Cassie's voice. You can see why, can't you?"

Mary thought a moment. "Yes, I think you're right. It's better for them if he remembers her telling him how it'll all be okay. Yes, I'll tell the story."

"Then we send them off by themselves. One of three things happens. Worst case, he insists on wanting sons, she insists on not having them. Frankly, I think if they can't work through that to an agreement, they probably shouldn't marry, at least not yet, because in the future they'll have to come to an agreement on other hard questions. What do you think?"

"That would be too bad; they love each other very much. Still, I think you're right: if they can't agree about this, they at least need more time. What are the other two options?"

"Second, David convinces Cassie to allow the possibility of sons. She withdraws her stipulation that David have sex with you, and your obligation is over."

"Meaning I don't fuck him. Okay, but what if Cassie convinces David?"

"Then you give Cassie the preparation, and she's the one to do it. You see? Either way, this lets them make the decision, then they're the ones to implement it." I admit it, I'd hoped for a big hug here, or at least a smile. Instead, Mary looked at me like I was trying to sell her snake oil or something.

"And I still don't fuck him. That's nice for you, but what if I want to?" I couldn't say anything. My eyes widened, my pulse raced, and the blood drained from my face. She wasn't smiling; she looked completely serious. We stared at each other for a lifetime worth of seconds.

Then she grinned at me. "I had to ask that after all you've put me through since yesterday. Henry, without the tradition, I would never have even thought of wanting David, and you know that, you chump." I went completely limp with relief and collapsed into a chair.

"I had you going, didn't I?" She laughed at me. "Seriously, I think this is a great idea. How long did it take you to come up with it? It's really rather clever." This was more like it, I thought.

"Longer than it should have, really. I wasn't much good at work today."

"Henry, if I'd offered you the choice Cassie will offer David, what would you have chosen?"

I laughed. "That's easy. Daughters you want, daughters you get. I'll bet David says the same thing."

She smiled impishly at me. "You'd have watched me drink the stuff, and then put the suppository up my pussy?"

"Watched? No way. I'd have insisted on helping!" We laughed together, for the first time since that awful evening when she was checking out David.

"Henry, not to take anything away from you, it's a great idea, but why do you suppose nobody thought of it before? Why hasn't some other bride to be taken matters into her own hands?"

I thought a moment. "Back in the day, having sons was considered proof of manhood: no 'real man' would have agreed to have only daughters, and the women knew that. Later, there was the accumulated weight of the tradition. Poor dear, I know you felt that, too." I cuddled and kissed her.

"Besides, we don't know for sure that some bride didn't convince her husband to willingly have only daughters. The women in your family can be mighty convincing." We laughed again, thinking of Cassie.

It was all sort of anticlimactic after that. We told Cassie, and she excitedly agreed. She couldn't even wait until after supper to get the "stuff" from Mary and get David over here. He came, Mary talked, and we sent the young lovers out of the room. They weren't even gone three minutes before they came back through the living room, holding hands and rushing headlong for the door.

"Not so fast," I called to them. "What did you decide?"

David grinned at me and said, "What's to decide? It's time we started making you two some granddaughters. Come on, Cassie, it's been four whole days!" Mary and I fell against each other, laughing helplessly as he dragged our daughter out our front door with the obvious intent of thoroughly ravishing her. Her ear-to-ear grin told us just how much she objected.

Mary and I had our laugh out and looked at each other. We didn't say a word. We didn't have to.

Later, much later, we lay in each other's arms. "I need to tell you something," Mary began.

"Uh-oh," I thought. She heard me and punched my arm.

"It's not like that, love." She smiled that smile at me. "You remember I was trying to find things to look forward to? My favorite was the day after, when I would come back to you and tend your dear wounded heart and heal it and love you back to me. It was killing me to know how badly I was hurting you, even though I didn't think I had a choice."

"I know, Mary. I saw how awful it was for you, too; that was the biggest reason I knew I had to find us a way out of this mess. I'm sorry about the thing with Karen, but without it, I would never have heard the real story, and I never would have guessed it. Forgive me?"

Mary's answer was to snuggle closer. "You found a way I could stay faithful to you," she said, her voice low and serious. "You know how important that is to both of us, how we show our love by staying faithful. You found a way to save that for us. I love you, Henry, more and more every day."

"I know you do, but any time you want to show me..." She did. Again.

A few weeks after the wedding, we were relaxing under the big tree in the back yard. Cassie couldn't seem to find her way off David's lap, and Joe and I sipped our beer and razzed them, while Penny cleared the supper dishes. Suddenly, we heard raised voices from the kitchen: Mary and Millie were both shouting. Penny looked at me and turned toward the house; I caught her eye and shook my head "no." I was pretty sure I knew what this was about.

This time it was Millie who emerged from the house, and she was shaking with anger, not fear. "Joe, we're leaving." He looked a question at me; I said "We'll talk later" under my breath. Millie spared one wrathful glance at me before dragging her husband away.

"What was that all about?" Penny wanted to know. Before I could answer, Mary joined us. To my surprise, she was perfectly calm, though there was a fire in her eyes and a jut to her chin that I hadn't seen before. She walked directly to me, pulled my head down forcefully, and gave me a long, toe-curling kiss.

"Yeah, Mom! Show us how it's done!" Cassie hooted from her position on David's lap. Mary blushed a little as she released me, but her smile and her eyes said she wasn't sorry for a thing.

"I'm sorry you all had to hear that," Mary began, "but I'm afraid it had to be done. You see, Mom found out what we did so that I could stay faithful to my husband. She was... well, very upset, and started calling me names. I could have handled that, but she started in on your Dad, and I wasn't about to put up with it. I told her he was worth more to me than all the generations of my family put together, and I would choose his happiness over any of them." She looked positively heroic as she made her declaration. I couldn't help it: I applauded. Penny and Cassie and David joined me, and we kept it up until we had her blushing.

We talked later that night. "I've never seen you like that," I marveled. "You were amazing. What got into you?"

Mary giggled. "I was inspired."

"By what?"

"You, silly." She laughed again. "You, my steadfast husband, so strong and determined in your love for me. I had hoped Mom would see it our way, but if she didn't, I was ready to take whatever she wanted to dish out. That was a small price to pay for the fact that I can still say I've been completely faithful to you. I was just thinking how much I love you, when she started calling you all sorts of names, and I absolutely lost it. I was almost ready to hit her!" Wait, who was this woman, and what had she done with my Mary?

"Instead, I got a grip on myself just said that this was the house I shared with my husband, and I would not hear him spoken of like that. She left in a huff."

We snuggled for a bit. I wanted to tell her how honored I was to have her love, and how much I honored, loved, and respected her, my amazing once and forever true love, but I couldn't find words. Our eyes met, and we understood.

*********

The tree in the back yard has grown in the last five years, like our family. We're grandparents now, Mary and I. David and Cassie's oldest, Maria, is trying to keep her younger sister out of trouble. This is hard, because Karina and trouble go together like pooh-bears and hunny. Penny and her husband, Jeff, have joined Cassie, David, and me with beers in our hands. Mary and Millie are doing something in the kitchen. And Joe? He is lying flat on his back in the grass, grinning ecstatically and laughing fit to kill as his great grandson, Joseph, bounces on his tummy.

Penny had told Jeff the whole story before she accepted his marriage proposal. It was only right that he knew, she said, and Mary and I supported her completely. They decided together to skip the tradition and accept whatever children came. Mary didn't seem to care one way or the other: "Always be true, and raise them to do the same," was all she said. When Millie found out, she went ballistic, and it took her longer than we hoped to come around. I think Joe's happiness (and little Joseph's irresistible cuteness) helped reconcile her.

We still tell Keziah's story. It's part of our family history, and it's an object lesson about abuse of power and position. The tradition, or I might as well call it what it was: the curse, is broken for good. I'm proud that Mary and I helped kill it, and that our love proved stronger than the curse.