Chapter 4

By the time the ice storm had ended, the whole world had been wrapped in a crystalize version of a snow globe designed for a Christmas decoration. Vicki huddled deep into the down filled comforter on her bed. Her eyes felt like lead weights and she certainly was not prepared to get out from under the covers she was still cold. Opening one eye she moaned softly.

The room was softly lit and bathed in the afterglow of a newly built fire, hearing the chime of the mantle clock she wondered if the five o'clock hour was for a.m. or p.m. With the opening of the door she soon had her answer. "My sweet Victoria, are you going to stay in bed for the rest of the evening too? If you are, then I will leave you to your rest but your mother and father are in the drawing room. They are anxious to see and speak with you." Barnabas had moved to her side sitting on the edge of the bed.

Vicki sighed softly and sat up pushing her hair from her face. "My god how long have I been asleep?" She yawned looking at the clock and then the window.

Barnabas leaned forward and kissed her lips lightly, "I would say close to sixteen hours my sweet. Do, you need more sleep or will you be getting up?"

Vicki rolled to the other side of the bed, sat up and hustled to the bathroom. "I am getting up, I just need to take a quick shower and brush my teeth. How are they Barnabas?" She paused at the door before closing it looking back at him for confirmation they were not upset or worried about her.

Barnabas smiled, "I explained to them you were just overwhelmed and that you were willing to hear them out and accept that they were your parents so they are anxious to see you for themselves to make sure you are fine."

Vicki smiled, blew him a kiss and whispered, "Thank you." She closed the door and left him to leave the room to allow her to take care of her ablutions. Making his way down the stairs to the drawing room he smiled seeing Elizabeth more relaxed. He had made it a point that the moment the day had dawned and he knew that they were awake at Collinwood he was going to reassure his cousin and Vicki's father that she had thought it through and was more willing to be accepting and forgiving than she had when first told of her parentage.

The relief that spread over Elisabeth's face had been instantaneous. Her joy at discovering her daughter did not hate her or was going to reject her was overwhelming. Her eyes had filled with grateful tears and she called George to tell him what she had learned and asked if he would be willing to come out after he got off work to go with her to the old house to talk with their daughter.

George had informed her that he had talked to his children about his newest discovery and that they had a half sister. "Elizabeth I was thinking we need to have the family get together perhaps here or maybe at Collinwood so that everyone can get acquainted with one another."

"Of course you are welcome to bring your family here, I think Victoria should be in an environment that is familiar and under her control and Collinwood or even the old house would be the best for her comfort." Liz was just thinking about how to make Vicki more comfortable when she met her family.

"If you are sure, maybe we should leave it to her and let it be her suggestion. My kids are anxious to meet her and want to get to know her. I told them we all needed to give her time to come around. That she just found out she had a mother and father. Of course my kids wanted to know about you Elizabeth and they wanted to meet you too."

Elizabeth felt touched that George had handled the explanation to his family with so much tact and grace that it did not paint her in as bad a light as she had feared. "I would be happy to meet your children George. I fear I did not get to know them as well as I had wished I could or should have, I hope you can forgive me for being so reclusive for all those years."

George sighed deeply, he knew she had good reason for acting as a recluse and far be it from him to find fault with her in any form. "Liz I understand why you felt you were trapped and chose to stay close to the house. Obviously, your self-imposed confinement was your form of your own prison. We had to finally have Jason Maguire to confess so that you could be exonerated from the thought that you had killed Paul. So there was no need for a prison."

"George can you forgive me for not telling you?" Liz's voice had dropped low enough that she was close to tears thinking of how many people she had hurt with her decision to keep her silence. The pause was long enough that it allowed Liz to believe he had reconsidered his original feelings.

She heard him blow out a long held breath then say with as much emotion as he used to share with her so long ago. "Elizabeth, the thought that I shared a child with you will never allow regrets or cause me to feel any less for you than I already do. I loved you then as I love you now. I told my children I never quit loving you. They know I loved their mother in my own way, but my heart was always yours and unfortunately Lydia knew that too."

This had stunned Liz, to know that woman who had filled is life for the past twenty five years knew he was still in love with his first crush was stunning. "She knew?" Her voice had choked with emotional knowledge and she gripped the phone tighter.

George sensed she was beginning to feel the pain of another she had affected and it was beginning to tell on her just by the tone of her voice. He had not loved this woman for years to not know her like a well-read book. "Elizabeth, she accepted it because she accepted me and my feelings. What you don't realize is that when we first started dating she accepted the fact then she would be second in my life. She knew I loved you and would always love you."

If George had hair he would be rubbing it back from his forehead, instead he just ran his palm over his baldpate and sighed. Turning to see his daughter Penny leaning against the door watching her father's face and the torment and hurt he was feeling. An edge of resentment filled her and she quickly pushed it down seeing the tragic look on her father's face. She could read the regret and the recrimination in his eyes. "Look Liz, I will be out in an hour, I really need to take care of something here."

George knew Penny had over heard his last words to Liz Stoddard and he needed to explain. Just from seeing the look on her face just now, he knew she felt a loyalty to her mother. George put the phone back in its cradle turned to face his daughter, "Penny?" He held out his arms and she moved to embrace her father. He held her closing his eyes he could not help but wonder who it was that held his other daughter when she felt insecure, vulnerable or alone and this tore at his heart.

"Come along baby, we need to talk and I am trusting you to use that practical mind of yours to hear me out. I know your brothers are a little torn between accepting and resenting me for what happened twenty-five years ago. I just don't know how you really feel. I just ask you hear me out and let me confess to you what happened from the beginning."

He turned with his arm still around his daughter's shoulders. Leading her to the sofa. Releasing her to sit he chose to stand to begin his explanation. "You see sweetheart, Dad was young and full of piss and vinegar. He was a little wild and filling all the oats he could fill at the time. I was reckless and rebellious. There had been a dare thrown down by Bob Johnson, Eddie Freelander, and Marty Johnson. We all made a pact that our last summer before college we would find a girl and well. . . " He blushed thinking about how stupid he had been.

"YOU planned getting her pregnant and abandoning her?" Penny was stunned that her father could ever consider such a heartless thing. She had popped up from her seating position, eyes wide and filled with disgust and accusation. She moved to the front room window to peer out unable to look back at her father her estimation of him now soiled in her mind.

"Yes, we were going to find girls, talk them out of their virginity and well not exactly get them pregnant but have boasting rights as to who was the first that could claim the stud title. I am not proud of that and trust me I have had twenty-five years of eternal regret over our stupid dare." George slumped into his favorite reading chair. His gaze went to the back of his daughter to the floor and the worn carpet that had seen plenty of years of wear and tear by three active children.

"I never expected to fall in love with Elizabeth and trust me, there were plenty of boys that wanted to be the center of her universe. All of them, Bob, Marty, Eddie all tried to get her attention and frankly they wanted to be close to her money, not her. She was off limits the first time Marty tried to breach the doors of Collinwood. Her father let him known and told him to pass along his message, his daughter would never marry anyone locally or be with anyone locally."

Penny turned to peer at the bent head and slumped shoulders of her father and moved by her own love for the man that had given her shelter, love, and security for the past nineteen years she moved to put a hand of comfort on his shoulder. He reached up to cover her hand on his shoulder. "It really was unexpected how Liz and I met and eventually we hid our relationship from everyone. I went on and was dating another girl who had become very obsessed by me. She was harassing me at work, at home, at school and it got really bad and so Dad had stepped in to protect me."

George squeezed her hand stood releasing her hand and began to pace the room. "See Liz and I were in the right place at the right time. I had decided to go fishing and Dad told me one of the best spots to fish was right off the point, just past Widow's Hill. That had always been considered neutral property, not quiet on Collins property and not a part of the county or city it was just accepted that it was Collinsport. So, I packed up my gear and went out there to do a little fishing."

George took another deep breath and allowed his own memories to flood him. "Liz had also decided she was going to swim for a while, the day was beautiful and when I saw her come out of the water and up on the beach I was awe struck, she was gorgeous. She told me later she thought I looked like Adonis a Greek god."

George smiled thinking of that moment; they both knew that they had found the other part of one another with one look. She had approached him and the rest of the summer was spent with each of them trying to find ways to be together. "She was so beautiful and so alone. Her father had built such strong towers around her that he had not realized he had isolated her in that big spooky house on the hill. "Her mother was dying, she was unable to speak to anyone about her feelings and what was happening in her life. She could not go to her father, he had no clue how to talk to a young woman approaching the beginning of her life and she like me was rebellious."

George turned with a sheepish smile edging his lips. "Our first kiss was stolen in Portland." He had laughed, "I never knew how tricky she could be when Liz Stoddard set her mind to a task she was a powerhouse to be reckoned with and that day she had told her father she was going to Bangor. So she had taken a car and met me outside the city limits." He glanced to see a slight smile edging his daughter's lips as he spoke of his stolen moments with Elizabeth Collins.

"Daddy how did you know you was in love? You both were so young." Penny watched her father sit next to her; he reached over and took her hand in his hand. He studied her hand and sighed.

"I know some day I will be expected to give you to another man because you found a part of yourself in another. When you look into that persons eyes and you feel something in your soul that you belong to them. In Liz, I saw you honey. I saw my life and my future and my heart returned in that gaze." He had been honest with his answer and waited for her response.

"But what about mom? I mean mother must have seen the same thing in your as you saw in Mrs. Stoddard?" Penny had grown up with Carolyn as a friend, not a best friend but a school friend that had shared her life with her and she had remembered being invited to Collinwood for birthday parties and various other functions and had seen the tragic figure that was her mother keeping a close eye on her daughter but always a haunted sad look edging her eyes when she moved about that huge fancy house that many rumored was haunted.

George nodded, "I understand what you are asking me pumpkin and I tell you now, I had a deep affection and fondness for your mother that grew into a form of devotion and love. I told her from the beginning when we first met in college that I was in love with someone else. She accepted it in the beginning she was jealous and she was demanding that I love her as much as she loved me. I tried sweetheart god knows I tried to find the same love I had for Liz for your mother. But a part of me still held to the one woman that had become my whole life."

"Was mom attracted to you because you were a jock in college?" It was a fair question and frankly one George resented to a degree. He had gotten a lot of attention when their college football team had become State Champions and then National Champions and he had been the team captain and a strikingly handsome one had attracted a lot of female attention. Lydia had been on the cheer squad and had caught his attention. In the absence of Liz being there he had for the sake of appearances made it a point to be seen with her.

He had already learned that Liz had left to go broad to travel and had found someone and announcement of an impending marriage was going to be announced so he gave into his growing needs to be loved and gave his attention to Lydia. He was heartbroken and wanting to assuage his pain by finding comfort in the arms of another. Lydia was obliging and they eventually became the couple on campus or in those days the BMOC or big man on campus was with the girl of most men's dreams and they had become the COC.

Later after graduation and being home for the summer he had heard she was engaged and soon enough it was in the newspaper. He did not realize that a parent wishing to protect what was their pride and joys had interfered with their growing affection to one another. George was heart broken, he still held the memories of that time in the fishing shake when they had shared so much with each other.

Looking at Lydia he had confessed he loved one woman and probably would always love her but he had to b practical and he would try and love her. Three children later and the imminent end of her life Lydia had told him to go to Liz and tell her he loved her, to be with the woman he loved and had loved. She admitted she knew she had been a pale comparison to what he had with Liz. He had been stunned at her admission she knew had held her husband's heart these many years. He knew he had never told her so how?

Laying in her deathbed, she smiled one of those all knowing and accepting smiles. Looking at him with eyes that were filled with the love she had held for him these many years she spoke softly with short gasps of breath. "George, you know I know you better than you know yourself. I have watched for years the way you light up when her name was mentioned, I have watched you jump from our warm bed in the middle of the night to handle something a deputy could have handled. I have heard the tone you use when you speak of 'Mrs. Stoddard' or Collinwood. How could I not know? You love her, she is a free woman now, go to her and confess your love."

It was one of the most real moments he had ever shared with this woman and now he realized how much he had loved her for whom she was. "Lydia you know I am not going to deny my affections for Liz Stoddard but they were born from a young impressionable boy of so long ago." He had laid his head on her chest and could hear the rasp of her lungs as they struggled to draw air to give her life. I spent so much wasted time at the end of your life loving a memory that I did not realize the wonderful woman that had stood at my side. Will you ever forgive me for this total lack of sensitivity to your needs my sweet Lydia?"

He heard the emotional gasp as her feelings filled her and caused her to rasp with a need to draw air. "George I loved you enough for the both of us. Now, my time is growing near and I know in my heart I want you happy and not alone." She had looked over the room filled with the mobiles he had built from a lightening strike on the beach and molded the sand into glass. "I was content to share your life, and your children with you. I know what I saw when I looked into your eyes and I accepted I would always be second especially when I learned it was Elizabeth Stoddard that held your affection."

"So, mother knew and accepted it?" Penny had looked at her hand held by her father's. She was conflicted she really wanted to hate Carolyn's mother but her mother had not suffered from anything untoward or manipulated against her mother. The woman was no monster but a tortured individual that had a child and was so afraid she had no one to turn to for help or to be able to confide, her mother had died, her father was a disciplinarian and she had kept it silent to protect her father and her grandfather's position.

George felt his own emotions were turning very raw and he knew that she was not condemning him as Victoria had last night, she needed reassurance that he loved her mother the best way he could. Since Lydia's death George had shut down his emotions. He was not about to act on the advice of his dead wife and rush to Collinwood to profess his undying love to the one true love of his life. Then all hell began to break loose with that demented Elias and his bat shit crazy sister Clarissa. Finding a house filled with desiccated corpses that were probably molested and then a house full of pregnant women that had been abducted was enough to drive any sane person a bit wild with anger and rage.

The one thing he kept thinking was what if it had been his Penny in one of those rooms what would he have done? "Penny, your father loved the woman that bore you and your brothers into this world. I may not have given my whole heart to her but she had my heart, my respect and my admiration." He had told his daughter the truth and he wanted very much to make his other daughter understand how important she was to him.

"Liz and I shared a child and we shared our hearts and a part of my heart is always with Elizabeth. My devotion and my attention was to your mother and when she needed me the most she pushed me to the one thing I thought I would never have. That is how forgiving and loving she was and I see so much of her in you." He had broken his hold on his daughter's delicate hand and looked into her eyes seeing Lydia's eyes and he smiled. "I will always have your mother as long as I have you in my life sweetheart."

He watched her eyes tear and she moved to hug her father and held to him. She remembered those times held by father and daughter when she was growing up. It was the smells of his sweat, the hint of his aftershave, the smell of leather from his gun belt, and then there was the poke of his badge against her tender flesh. She had added that with the tenderness of his protective hold. They all represented what she knew to be security. She felt safe when her father lifted her in his arms, held her close and whispered his love you pumpkin in her ear.

Whenever she had felt afraid, alone, or lost he had been there with his sage advice and his loving embrace. He had constantly reminded her how much he loved her and when her two brothers had taunted her unmercifully he had been her hero sitting his sons down to tell them to protect their sister not taunt her. She was reminded now that Vicki or Carolyn never had what she had and she felt sorry for them both. It was ironic that she could feel sorry for the poor little rich girl on the hill. She truly felt the one that had lost out on all of it had been Vicki; she was the one that had suffered the most. She had been abandoned in a foundling home. "Daddy do you think Vicki will ever accept us as her family?"

George looked at the only daughter he had known until the other evening and smiled. "I think we will find out soon enough. I want you to be open minded, don't blame Liz and pray darling, pray that she will accept us as much as we are willing to accept her."