Chapter Five

Grandma Edna left a letter to her daughter with copies to Val and Frank, explaining she was leaving town permanently. Grandma wrote she knew about Helen's adulterous behavior. The first time was with Frank's best friend, Stephan Michael Valentino, continuing with him until his sudden death. She brought Anthony (Tony) Morelli to her bed during her mourning. She assumed I was another Steve offspring until my broken arm. I needed surgery, and the blood type was off. Helen had enjoyed other men over the years.

Grandma wrote: Did you think I was too dumb to put it together, Helen? Valerie from Valentino, and then feminizing his name for your second daughter. Did you associate Stephanie's strange blood type with your other lover, Anthony Morelli? Your daughter's blood type is the same as Joseph Morelli's. Recent DNA tests proved Joe and Stephanie are half-siblings.

What despicable mother pushes her daughter into a consanguineous marriage? Since you are uneducated and usually drunk, the big word means incest.

You knew I was a CPA at the Lewinsky Tax office for years, earning a good wage, which is why I have money now. Harry insisted the money be invested for my senior years while we lived off his income. I worked while you were in school. I never put my job above my husband and daughter. You were embarrassed I was working and not at home washing windows like the other uneducated, lazy Burg women.

You nearly failed high school. Your dreams of becoming a nurse fell when your grades were too poor to get you into nursing school. Refusing to get a job at the button factory, you looked for a sugar daddy. Frank was a military-damaged man who needed a supporting wife. Instead, he got an emotional jailer. Harry called you a vulture, feeding on the sick and innocent. I seriously questioned whether you were our offspring.

Valerie wanted to go to college, but you forced her to drop out after the first year and marry. What Val has kept from you is her husband did not run away with the babysitter. Valerie screwed Steve's boss. When the boss's wife found out, Steve lost his job. By then, Valerie had burned through Steve's money. Steve got a job in Dallas, but Val refused to move. Suddenly alone, the vamp returned home with her lies. She sided up to Albert to get the divorce, paying him with sexual favors. Lisa is his child. Pauline is by an unknown man. This latest fetus is from Tiberius Garcia. Tiber is a black Latino from Panama who lives in the Latino Burg. I wonder how Val will explain the baby's darker color.

Like you, Valerie refuses to honor marriage, jumping in other men's beds. And like you, she refuses birth control because you told her a good Catholic does not use birth control. What part of lying and adultery are supported by the Church?

Albert has drawn up divorce papers. He demands sole custody of his daughter, Lisa, and to sever Valerie's rights based on her alcohol abuse and repeated adultery. Val is exactly like you.

Are you ready to support Val and her remaining children? There will be no help from me. I refuse to continue supporting the Plums, Valerie, and her children. Harry and I paid for half of Stephanie's college education. We also paid for two tasteless and tacky weddings that ended in divorce. Since moving into the Plum house, I have paid you $500 monthly rent or $6,000 yearly. This money was separate from my loans to you and Frank. I moved in with you not because it was proper but to protect Stephanie from you.

There will be no more money from me now or at my death. I have rewritten my will. You and Val will receive one dollar, the lowest legal amount. The rest will go to charitable organizations.

Stephanie refuses any inheritance, and I have honored her wishes. Unlike you and Valerie, she lives within her means, including paying off the debt dumped on her in the divorce from that despicable man you arranged. Did you and Frank offer to help with that debt? Of course not. You lied, telling her you were still paying for her wedding.

Stephanie is the only decent thing to come from the Plum house despite her contemptible sperm donor, Tony Morelli, and her equally deplorable egg bearer, Helen Plum. You don't deserve the term mother. Thankfully, her kind, loving, and hard-working genes skipped your generation and came from Harry and me.

You and Frank have abused her all her life. Frank ignored both daughters, perhaps knowing they were not his seed. Maybe he knew Tony Morelli was Stephanie's father and froze her out of his life. The worst abuse was when you kept Stephanie from getting timely medical help. As a result of the rape by her half-brother, Joseph Morelli, and his dirty dick, he and you have destroyed her ability to bear children. The joke is on you, Helen. You've been pushing your sterile daughter to marry to produce your grandchildren. Her sterility is yours and Joseph's fault, not hers.

Before you start with the pathetic and annoying "Why Me?" Look in the mirror. You are the reason you are where you are today, an adulterer, abuser, liar, and a stinking drunk, not a proper Burg woman. I am sending copies of this letter throughout the Burg. Others will know what a despicable woman you are.

The final blow came when Grandma Edna finished her letter:

In closing, I gave my attorney the authority to call in my loans to you and Frank. Due to years of late and failed payments, the loan amount is now $93,000. Payment is due within 90 days. My attorney will give you the details.

Enjoy the rest of your pathetic life, Helen. You deserve it.

Signed, Edna Mazur

As promised, Grandma gave the Clip and Curl ladies copies of the letter. Within hours, the news was all over the Burg. The result was catastrophic for the Plums. With Edna's letter and my genealogical information, Helen's and Valerie's Burg standing crashed in flames.

Frank and Helen learned their house needed extensive repairs before being sold. Eventually, the Plum residence was foreclosed.

I contacted Steve Sutton, Valerie's ex-husband. Steve wasted no time calling Grandma Edna's attorney and Albert Kloughn to begin the process of reclaiming his two daughters, Angie and Mary Alice.

Valerie went from having four daughters to one, Pauline. Tiberius' daughter was born with the dark skin of her father. The Plum house was gone, and the five-some moved into a two-bedroom home far from the Burg. Frank slept in the basement. The Plums never dared set foot in the Burg again.

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