"Well, do you have any comments?" Danny asked the three women watching with him.

"Apart that they make me very much the ingenue, you mean?" Beverly asked, "Somehow the writers do not seem to think that a young woman could not have ambitions nor plans of her own. According to them all I wanted was to find my real parents."

"And you did not want?"

"I had a realistic view of it. The reasons why someone gives up a child tend to be depressing, and even sordid. Or heartbreaking. I had this fantasy "I am secretly a princess" for a few days, but the foster mother I had – a smart woman – let me see what nonsense it was. No, I do not know who my real parents are… I was abandoned on a subway in New York. And the idea that Leonore Grady could be my real mother, leaves me cold. I know of no mother than my foster mother, and that's all the mother I need."

"But of course, you had to have a secret agenda"

"Not so secret. I wanted to do historical research, and Benchleytown would allow me to study the local history of the area, and how it tied to that of the U.S. I did write a couple of articles that got published. I wanted a name for myself. And that's why I put up with all the Benchley weirdness."

"But we certainly were a handful" Dinah commented. "I remember the day you came. Mother and Uncle Louis were having another discussion, or rather the same discussion:.

….

"Why get him a governess?" Louis asked, wearily. "He needs a psychiatrist, and soon."

"He just needs discipline. That should be your job."

"A military school has enough discipline. If he does not burn it down."

"How can you say this about your own child?"

"Because I know why he was expelled from school. Pyromaniacal tendencies. Those need professional attention, not that poor kid just graduated from teacher's college."

"No Benchley will go on record as having under psychiatric care."

"Yeah, the Benchley name must be unsullied. Even if we have to burn alive for it."

"It is your fault for not raising him better."

"Well, I am trying to do the right thing, and you keep forbidding me…. If I was not…"

"If you had not ended up broke in those deals of you and had to depend on me."

Louis sat down, disgusted. "I only wanted to be an artist. But father insisted that I got in business… for which I have no talent. And me made me marry Anne, because she seemed to have money and breeding… well, thanks, Father. Look what you managed to create."

"You should be thankful that I DO have a head for business and so we can afford to live as we do.:

"Yeah… thankful. You make sure that I am thankful. As you make sure that Dinah is thankful and plays the dutiful daughter."

….

"Well, my mother had kept me out of jail, Dinah sighed, and I had to live by her rules…there were times when I wished that I had gone to jail. I would have had it easier there."

"Why would you have gone to jail?" Heather asked.

"Urban terrorism… I did not mean to. I just hung around very idealistic people, or what they seemed to be. I was quite rebellious then… before you knewot, I was making bombs.."

"And your mother made sure you did not go to jail"

"Her lawyers worked hard at it."

"The version of you is a bit rebellious, but nothing as spectacular as that."

"Because I was supposed to be the ingenue. Three ingenues. Me, Beverly, and Wendy." She turned about Wendy. "How about you? How does it feel to be made into an ingenue, as the writers imagined all young women to be?"

"Well, they did get a bit of what kind of struggle I had to live with. But still, they softened it. Yes, father was an alcoholic, and he tended to drink a lot of the money I made. He did sell some paintings, and when he was sober, he could paint well… but he was not sober that often… And then Frank… they made him to be this wholesome boy…. Well, Frank had his own troubles. He wanted money, easy money. So he smuggled drugs from Canada… I kept warning him, but he said that we could use the money. He did not force anyone to buy drugs. People chose to buy them… Well, I had to learn to scrounge… And I am a very competent hacker…. I am not proud of it, but hacking allowed me to steal enough to cover our bills…No, we were not the wholesome couple you see there."

"Yeah, Danny interjected. I recall how Frank used to taunt me when he though I was coming on to you. He threw my being an ex-con to my face. When the only difference between him and me was that he had not been caught yet…"

"Well, it is all water under the bridge, now"

"Yes, it is. But watching this brings it back."