章 114: Chapter 114: FACING THE MUSIC: FLYNN

The week before Christmas Valerie spent her nineteenth birthday, throwing up. Her mom continually tried to give her anti-emetics to quell the sickness, and eventually we came clean about the real reason Valerie had been puking her guts up.

Naturally, her mom Marian, cried and went off on a rant; directed mainly at me, but after she'd calmed down, she tried hard to be supportive. We weren't sure if her reaction was due solely to Valerie's age, the fact we weren't married or simply that Valerie's condition had reminded her of the children she'd held in her arms all those years ago, that were no longer with her. I tried to place myself in her shoes and the one thing that came to mind was that Martin and Adam didn't have the opportunity to get this far in life the way Valerie and I had. Perhaps her reaction was due to a combination of all of those things.