Chapter 4: What is the package?
Ric
Ric was walking back to his hotel room thinking about the last time he had seen Michelle. He couldn't wait to open the package and find out what Michelle could possibly want him to have after all these years of not seeing each other.
He was pulled out of his thoughts when he reached his hotel room and after he went inside he was about to open the package when he realized that he was supposed to call his wife and talk to her. Ric and his wife had made it through the close call where they almost got divorced and she had even forgiven Ric for his night with Michelle. Ric's night with Michelle had made him realize how much he loved his wife and he had gone home to Beth right away to confess and beg her not to divorce him.
Throughout the rest of his career, up to this point, Ric had tried very hard to be home more often and take vacations to be with his wife and kids. This had made his marriage to Beth much better. To this day they had a very happy marriage although every marriage has rough points. With this in mind Ric called his wife, like he had planned, and they talked for the rest of the evening about everything Ric had been up to. For the time being Ric forgot about the package from Danielle.
Randy
Randy Orton had been thinking about what Ric had said all that night and he had realized that Ric was absolutely right. Randy loved his wrestling career because it was the perfect job for him. He could wrestle, travel, and meet people. He acted like he really enjoyed it, and to an extent he did, but Randy was tired of the constant stream of parties and girls throwing themselves at him. Most people didn't know this about him but he was really a romantic at heart who some day wanted to settle down and get married. Ric was like a second father to Randy, sure Randy had a really great dad in Bob Orton but Ric was kind of like Randy's 'on the road dad'. Randy really looked up to Ric because Ric had a great wrestling career and a great marriage. That was what Randy really wanted. The problem with being a professional wrestler was that it was really hard to find girls who liked you for you and not what you do, look like, or how much money you have.
Ric
Ric woke up in his hotel the next morning to the sound of his beeping alarm clock. He didn't know why he had set it because it was a Raw night but he didn't have anything to do until the show. Then he remembered that today he was finally going to find out what was in the package. It had been a week since he had received the box from Danielle but he continued to put off finding out what was inside the package. After a quick shower and getting dressed he decided it was finally time. The box was wrapped in brown paper. Ric slowly began to unwrap it and was full of so much anticipation but with a hint of dread lingering there too. Once he had finished unwrapping the box he took off the cover and discovered that the contents were a scrapbook. He carefully took the scrapbook out of the box and opened to the first page. On the first page was a letter written by Michelle.
Dear Ric,
If you are reading this letter it means that I am no longer on this earth. What I am about to write to you is very hard but you must now know. You have a daughter. That one drunken night we had produced my daughter Danielle. Ric you are her father. I know that this will be hard for you to believe and you may ask why I never told you till now. I knew that you were happy in your marriage and I didn't want your one experience with me to ruin your marriage. I never told Danielle who her father was and even now you don't have to tell her. I just wanted someone to know, so the secret wouldn't die with me. I figured it would be best if you knew. What you do with this information is completely up to you. But, if I know Danielle, which I do, I know that right now she is hurting far more than she is letting on. We were all each other had and she could really use some one right now to help her through this. The following scrapbook is something I did about Danielle throughout her life just so you could see what she has been doing and how she grew up. Just know Ric that I have and will always love you, the father of my daughter, no matter where I am.
love forever,
Michelle
This letter completely floored Ric. He was in shock over it for the rest of the day. All afternoon he looked at the scrapbook, at his daughter. She had done so many things with her life and he had missed it all. There were pictures of her being born, pictures of her baptism, pictures of her first dance recital, pictures of her first day of school, and pictures of all her school activities. Then there were pages about her high school graduation and her college graduation. She was valedictorian of her high school class. A copy of the speech she gave at graduation tugged at Ric's heart strings. Michelle wrote that Danielle had gone on to become a social worker to, in Danielle's words "help the less fortunate kids who had neither a father nor a mother unlike me who had a wonderful mother who made up for me not having a dad". This hurt Ric even more. After seeing all this Ric wondered 'Should I interrupt her great life to tell her I'm her father?' and 'if I decide to tell Danielle that I'm her father, how will I do that?'