NOT
leave his sister or let them be separated again. He had made his decision on their relationship and he planned to remain firm and resolute about it.
Jessica looked up into his eyes with adoration painted all over her face. After their mother had caught them, the first two things that had flashed through her mind was, 'I'm going to lose Jason all over again because of this' and 'This is exactly the kind of thing that would cause him to break us up!' She had been frightened and worried about her brother's reaction to their current predicament. More so than any punishments that their parents may hand out to them, losing Jason was more important to her than life itself. She felt that she could weather
ANY
storm as long as she had her brother by her side. When Jason had put his arm around her in front of their parents and pulled her up close and tight, it sent a message not only to their parents but to Jessica herself and she immediately caught it. All of her fear and worry dissipated instantly.
Their father chose to take the floor first, so he stood up from his chair to address his children. The frown disappeared for a moment, replaced by a more thoughtful look and he began to speak his peace.
"The acorn never falls very far from the mighty oak tree."
"Daddy?" Jessica asked with concern in her voice.
"Children, you know that I don't believe in double standards. I'm not going to lie to you and pretend that everything about this awkward situation is satisfactory. Trust me when I tell you that I am truly worried and very upset. I'll explain the reasons why in a few moments. But at the same time, I can't be angry with the two of you without being angry at myself. If there is one thing that your mother and I are careful about, it is hypocrisy. Neither one of us are two-faced hypocrites.
"I know that you both know a lot about your Aunt Linda, but there are secrets about her life that we have never shared with you two. We weren't specifically hiding it or trying to keep it buried even though it isn't something that most of society would find acceptable. So everyone in our family just ignores its existence and never discusses it, your grandparents included.
"You both know that she was my little sister, and that there was only a 15-month gap between our ages, not the 31-month gap like between the two of you. I didn't meet your mother until sometime after she and Linda became best friends, so I should probably let her pick up the story from here." Mr. Stewart then looked over to his wife wordlessly asking her to pick up the narrative.
"The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things: Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax-of cabbages-and kings." Mrs. Stewart recited a verse from one of her favorite poems as she remained seated, but leaning forward now resting her elbows on her knees.
"Momma?" Jessica spoke again with concern still in her voice.
"Before I begin, show me and your father how you two kiss whenever you are alone with each other. Just pretend that we are not here." After a short pause, neither Jessica nor Jason had moved. "Go on now, just be normal with each other just like you are whenever you are alone. Your father and I are not going to bite."
After a brief hesitation, Jason removed the arm he had around Jessica so that she could turn halfway and face him. As she leaned over towards him, he brought his face close to hers. Their lips met and their tongues entwined in a passionate kiss. They parted after a good long passionate kiss, a kiss that probably took all of 45 seconds but undoubtedly seemed like 5 minutes to the siblings under the scrutiny of their own parents.
"You two are truly adorable together," their mother gushed. "So! Your father and I have secrets in our past that we never discuss outside of our own bedroom. I know that
all of us
are very close to the McLaughlin family, but what I am about to tell you would most likely end that friendship forever if they were to ever discover the truth. So everything that we are about to discuss needs to be kept
super
secret. It needs to remain strictly between the four of us and absolutely no one else, understood?"
The two siblings nodded their acceptance of the restriction.
"Okay, so where to begin? I suppose that High School would be the best place to start. Your Aunt Linda was only about 6 months older than me but because of how our particular birth dates fell on the calendar, we were both still in the same grade during all of our school years together. I knew who Linda was from pretty early on, but she had a different set of teachers during our elementary school years and we never had any classes together.
"During middle school, we both ended up in band during the same class period but again we didn't share any other classes with each other. So other than a cordial greeting in the hallway to acknowledge one another, we still didn't become friends right away. Circumstances brought about a change in our relationship when we both got to High School.
"Our tenth grade year was the first time that we had several classes together. All of our morning classes matched up exactly the same plus our lunch period was also shared together. So was our first class after lunch which was band practice. Something just clicked between us and we started to hang together. She played the Trumpet but I played the French Horn. As we became closer and closer over time, she chose to switch to French Horn so that we could sit together during band class."
Father Stewart chose to interrupt his wife's story here. "Linda and I were always close and talked to each other about everything. Then one day, she came home from school and I noticed that the instrument case that she was carrying was a different size and shape to the one that I had always seen her with. When I asked her about it, she told me about how much she liked your mother and wanted to be close friends with her. She explained that she had changed instruments in band so that the two of them would be able to sit in the same section together. I asked her if this was a 'girl crush' and she giggled. She answered me back with 'maybe'. But I digress, I'm sorry dear."
Mrs. Stewart continued, "After a while she started inviting me over to her home for visits and studying, so I did the same for her. And that was the first time that I met your father. Linda and I studied together and socialized in the same circles from then on. We soon became as thick as thieves. But your father's family was a lot different from my own. Everyone in my family gets along very well and you both know that I'm still fairly close to my parents.
"But their family was very different from mine because they did lots of stuff together. They enjoyed sitting around the table playing board games together like Risk
©
and Clue
©
. I really got into that experience because that wasn't how things went at my house. I thought it was very special that their family was so close and spent so much quality time with each other. About halfway through the school year, we started taking turns sleeping over at each other's homes.
"Pillow talk soon led to talking about boys and sex. Linda admitted to me that she wasn't a virgin, but she clammed up super tight when I pressed her for details about her sex life. I asked her about what it was like to kiss a boy on the mouth. She giggled about it the first few times that I tried to get her to talk about it. She admitted to enjoying the make-out part of dating a whole lot. But she still refused to talk about going all the way.
"Time went by and we continued to become closer and tighter. Not only was she like a sister to me, but we were best friends forever just exactly like Jessie and Mel."
Jessica suddenly coughed as discomfiture radiated from her whole being. Surely her parents were not aware of the true nature of the relationship that she currently shared with Melanie.
"Actually," Mrs. Stewart continued. "I suspect that your Aunt Linda and I were a lot closer than you two are." She looked at the floor for a while. Jason had seen his mother pose like that before when she was steeling herself to confront his father about something.
Raising her eyes to look directly at her children, "During our Senior year of high school when we were both 18 years old, your Aunt Linda taught me how to kiss...like a real, true lover's kiss. We were having a sleepover one night and I was lamenting the fact that none of the guys that I liked would ever ask me out. I remember telling her how embarrassed I was that other girls we knew had been kissing their boyfriends in the hallways between classes for a couple of years now. It seemed to me that every boy at our school had a hangup over the fact that I wasn't white. They didn't want to date a squaw."
