Author's Note: I'm sorry for being AWOL recently. I have struggled greatly with this diary entry and have written (and discarded) several versions before coming up with this one. I love the dialog in chapter 17 of "Twist" and can completely see that Skype call in my mind's eye. Thinking about what would have transpired immediately after that Skype call ended has been one of my inspirations for creating "Anne's Diary"…but it turned out to be harder to write than I expected. I hope you like this final product.

As always, thank you for your reviews – and I welcome your feedback/suggestions for future diary entries.

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– – – Anne's Diary – Anne's Diary – Anne's Diary – Anne's Diary – – –

March 2011
(Anne wrote this entry in her diary on the day of the events recorded in chapter 17 of "By a Simple Twist of Fate")

Dear Diary,

What a gorgeous Sunday morning! I am sitting in a warm sunny spot in the bay window looking out at this morning's winter wonderland. With the fresh snow that fell last night, the landscape is cloaked by a smooth, white blanket only interrupted by a few animal tracks (likely made by the neighbor's cat stalking the birds and squirrels who call our apple tree home). Everywhere I cast my gaze outdoors, it is like I'm looking at a display of diamonds sparkling with explosive joy when the sun catches on the snowy crystals.

I'm back now – I found myself first mesmerized by the view and then distracted by discovering snow-inspired poetry on the Internet…but I'm putting those things aside and have returned to you, Diary. My intention is to spend a few minutes writing here in your pages, then I really must set myself to the task of grading papers for my English Literature class tomorrow. So, let me begin by detailing for posterity the elaborate reasonings Izzie shared with me during our Skype chat last night about why she should be permanently excused from eating vegetables. If this girl does not grow up to be a lawyer like her mother, then maybe she should become a used car salesman. She can talk anyone into seeing her viewpoint on anything! The "great veggie battle" arose when...

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[a few diary pages were intentionally omitted from this excerpt]

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Well, Diary, it is now bedtime and I am finally coming back to tell you about how my plans for the day were completely and totally derailed this morning. After finishing up recording the "Izzie story" earlier today, I had just refilled my coffee and was starting to grade papers when I got a text from Rilla: "Heads up! I just told the girls…!" Almost as soon as I read that, my phone began exploding with texts from Joy, Nan, and Di. I wish I could somehow include here a chronological listing of the texts as I received them and as I tried to answer them. I kept having to switch between threads and found myself typing the same thing to different girls. Sometimes, I replied in the wrong thread…not that they probably noticed anyway. They were each in a state of shock and disbelief…

Here's a few of the things they wrote at first:

Joy: You knew?

Joy: A prince? THE Prince?! How? WHY?

Di: Rilla just told us about her boyfriend. Will we have to bow to her?

Di: She is going to need a better wardrobe!

Nan: OMG! Prince Kenneth!

Nan: He was there! At her flat! And I didn't see him because I joined the call late! :-(

Finally, for my sanity, I stopped responding to each of them separately and suggested that I either join them in their existing Skype call or that we start a new Skype once they finished their call with Rilla. To be fair, I did text Rilla to ask her which she would prefer…and she immediately threw me to the wolves by volunteering that I could handle the girls better if she wasn't on the call. Ummm…thank you?

Gilbert noticed (and commented on) my constant text alerts. He was concerned that something bad was happening so it relieved him to know that the flurry of texts was the result of a conversation in the girls' Sunday morning Skype call and that they all wanted me to get involved. (Which was the truth!) He said it reminded him of how, years ago, all four of the girls would come rushing to find me to tell me their own side of any story first before their sisters could get a word in edgewise. Thankfully, Gilbert decided to put on his headphones and listen to the "Neurology Matters" podcast at that point, so I was able to have my Skype call (actually, the "interrogate Mum" call) without Gilbert hearing.

I have been wondering how (and when) Rilla would decide to reveal her news to her sisters. Apparently, without any preplanning, Ken assisted her with this today. From what I understand, Joy, Rilla, and Di (a still very sleepy Di) were on the call together when Ken leaned in front of Rilla's camera to casually say "good morning" to the girls before he left the Shoebox. As if that was an everyday occurrence!

From what I could glean during the girls' "talk over top of each other" recounting of the story to me, here were their first reactions:

Joy said that she was quite shell shocked by seeing Ken on her screen and then immediately realized that Rilla must have met him at the UN party so many months ago. (I wonder if Rilla will now tell the girls about the demise of Joy's actual dress and that Ken replaced it with the one currently hanging in Joy's closet. What will Joy think of that!?) I imagine that Joy will prod Rilla into letting at least her and Dan meet Ken in person (since they are her only relatives in NYC and Joy has always adopted a bit of a parental role with Rilla). That's ironic, the non-parent might meet the boyfriend before the actual parent does…yet I'm the one who has had to cope with all of this stress for so long! It doesn't seem fair…

Di, apparently, didn't process who Ken was based on his appearance or voice. Granted, she wasn't fully coherent at first, but I think the sleepiness quickly got shaken off once she realized the identity of this man in Rilla's flat. It was amusing to listen to both Joy and Nan continue to berate Di for not following the news enough to recognize the Prince of Wales. Di's retort was "that's why I have the two of you…so I don't have to keep up with these things!" (That was actually pretty good logic, I thought.)

And Nan…of all days for Nan to be late to join the call! Nan takes after her grandmother Marilla in following the official news about the royal family…and so it was quite a devastation for her to miss seeing Ken there in Rilla's place speaking to them on video…! If I understood what Joy and Di were saying (they were still talking over top of each other), Nan was agitated until Rilla apparently offered the possibility that he might say hello again next Sunday. But Nan now has the challenge of trying to keep this exciting news inside of her and to restrain herself so that she doesn't immediately spill this secret to Jerry. I reminded her that she needs to compartmentalize this as if it is patient information that she must keep confidential (just like at her clinic).

After the initial bombardment of information and questions at the beginning of my Skype call with the girls, I suggested a brief "time out" for everyone to go refill their coffee cups and calm their thoughts. When we regrouped a few minutes later, I realized that (aside from who Ken is), the girls' biggest shock was the feeling of frustration and hurt that Rilla had kept this information from them. And that frustration transferred onto me because I have known about this since December and have also withheld it from them.

With a bit of patience and my best calm storyteller voice, I reminded them that this hasn't been my secret to reveal. I think the lightbulb eventually went off for each of them when I asked rhetorically if any of them would want me blabbing their personal secrets to the rest of their siblings…that seemed to drop their mum-directed frustration down a notch.

I also pointed out that they are each now a willing or unwilling member of an exclusive club within the Blythe family…those who know about this relationship between Rilla and Ken. Joy, especially, was really surprised that even Gilbert doesn't know about Ken. (I assured her that it has NOT been easy!) Finally, I impressed on the girls that they must keep this information confidential – not telling their significant others, their brothers, their grandparents…and not even their father. It is up to Rilla to enlighten the others about her news…not us!

As the conversation went on, it was quite hard for me to get a handle on Di's honest reaction about Rilla's bombshell since Di quite often covers her feelings with bravado. But in the end, I think Di's overall hesitancy and concern was not so much about who Ken is, but rather that she initially felt really hurt by Rilla's implied lack of trust. I tried to soften things up a bit by reminding Di (and all of them) about how Rilla truly has been private about her romantic interests ever since coming back from Europe with Joy's family a few years ago. Rilla's reticence probably goes deeper than that…seeing as how she is the youngest girl with so many older brothers and sisters willing to quickly express their opinions about her love life, Rilla has been pretty good at being closed mouthed about her relationships for years (except for Carl, of course).

Joy didn't really say much during our call to express her opinion one way or the other about Rilla's royal sweetheart. (That's the lawyer part of her stepping in… "You must always listen to your client or to the witness without revealing your true feelings.") I am sure that once she gets some time to cogitate over this, I will get an earful from her (and no doubt, Rilla will, too)!

And Nan, well…my romantic Nan essentially has them married and Rilla living in Buckingham Palace already! However, in typical psychologist fashion, she also quickly identified some very legitimate concerns for Rilla's security and privacy in NYC if this information gets out to the press. Maybe Rilla will listen to Nan about this…hopefully! Goodness knows, Rilla hasn't let me even START this conversation with her!

Before we got off the call, I was able to unburden myself to the three of them about how relieved I am that they now know about Ken! I am inwardly soaring with happiness that I don't have to hold all of this in to myself anymore! I hadn't realized till now how much I've missed talking with others about this huge subject. I gave them a bit of an overview of how hard it has been to not purposely or accidently reveal this information in any way, shape or form. And I told them about how their father has noticed me surfing online about the Royals – so now I have created some classroom assignments about celebrities and royals in order to ward off his speculations about why I would be reading tabloid fodder. They laughed as I told them of (and demonstrated) his groans and moans when I recently made him listen to me read some of my students' papers to him.

Assuming that Rilla hadn't directly mentioned the need for absolute secrecy, I warned the girls how very important it is to keep this information private. I acknowledged that they would not intentionally reveal this to a reporter, but urged them to treat Rilla's relationship news as if it is confidential lawyer or patient or research information – situations that all three of them deal with regularly. I think it surprised them to hear of some of the evasive measures Ken takes when coming to Rilla's flat…the motorcycles, the ever-changing nondescript cars, the clothing, etc. I stopped myself before I scared them to death by revealing to them some of the things I've read about happening to people when the media spotlight suddenly turns onto them. This sort of media scrutiny is very, very worrisome to me, but today wasn't the time to discuss that.

Instead, I ended up accidently lightening up the conversation by getting them all talking about Rilla's past boyfriends. Joy told us a story about something Tristan did – which had Nan in stitches. Di appropriately mentioned that Ken's attention to Rilla makes him a real prince when compared to the behavior of the others. Hahahaha. Nan teasingly suggested that the family should throw Rilla a themed birthday party in July – maybe "Princess and the Pea" or "Cinderella" or the new Rapunzel from Disney's recent "Tangled" (since Rilla already has the long braid). That suggestion took off and everyone started flying with ideas. I liked Di's offer to look for suitable "glass" slippers. These girls of mine!

And so, my long-suffering diary, it is now past midnight and I have a full day of classes (for which I never graded the papers…ugh!) in just a few hours, so it is off to bed with me before I turn into a pumpkin! :-)