 
Don't Forget to Water the Flowers

Phil Wohl

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 Phil Wohl

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Impressions

It was the first day of spring and the green grass was starting to grow, elated birds chirped their familiar calls and tulip bulbs were peeking out from under the ground perhaps looking for a definitive sign from their mother of nature. Four year-old David Strauss bounded out of the house and was finally released from the painful grip of winter captivity, the confines of his house limiting his impact on society.

While David had no idea where he was going, it really didn't matter. He ran around the house with the kind of speed and precision that was emblematic of his slim, aerodynamic frame. David's mother, Fran, manually opened the one-car garage from the inside and walked up the driveway and then the front walkway with a green hose in one hand and a spray gun for the hose in the other hand. She was attaching one end of the hose to a water spout on the left side of the house by the time David completed his second lap around the house and then realized the center of his universe had entered his orbit. He had been in another dimension, a higher plane, before sensing that there were more important things to do than save the planet... at least for the time being.

"Mommy!" he exclaimed as he joyfully skipped toward her.

Fran had also entered another dimension of time and space once she emerged from the space inside that was full of mixed messages. Her aspirations of practicing law, as well of the aspirations of many of the housewives in this Long Island, New York, community had been put on hold by the sonic boom of children that had been born since emigrating from the cozy hamlet of Brooklyn.

She came back to her motherly senses, as her only boy, separated by two girls, appeared to be interested in what she was doing.

"David! I was wondering where you ran off to," because David was always in constant motion until his eyes closed each night and his body demanded rest, often times in mid-stride.

"What are you doing?" he asked

"Well, now that we are done with all of the snow, it's time to start preparing for spring," she said as she screwed the head of the gun on the end of the hose. She then gently placed the hose on the ground, "Let me show you something."

She gently held his hand and walked a few paces until the were standing at the age of her flower garden, which was in front of their porch and a row of bushes. She then knelt down on both knees and the good son did in kind, revealing her strength as a future educator.

Fran pointed to a tulip that was halfway out of the ground, "That is a tulip bulb that I planted six months ago before all of the snow and cold weather came."

It appeared that every word Fran uttered was blowing David's innocent mind. She continued even though she knew her point would have to be clarified, "In another few days these flowered will come all the way out and show us how beautiful they are."

David was starting to catch on, "But how do they know when to come out?"

Mother looked lovingly at son and replied, "When the sun warms its petals and it's able to drink lots of water."

"Flowers drink water?" he asked and then moved in closer to see whether they had a mouth. "Where do they drink?"

Fran reached over and grabbed the hose, dragging it closer to her until the spout was in her hand. She softly squeezed the handle and a fast, steady flow of water spurted out until she adjusted the nozzle to produce a fine mist. "Plants are living, breathing things, and they get water through their roots. The water goes into the ground and then flowers drink from the bottom to the top. Here, do you want to try?"

David took hold of the hose and his boyish desire to spray water at full force overrode his sensibilities of care and responsibility. He sprayed hard at first until his mother intervened by taking hold of the nozzle and diverting the spray. "You don't want to kill the flower, do you?"

Since he was born a pacifist and shrank every time he heard his father yell or strike the dog, he experienced the first pangs of guilt in his life. "No."

"Flowers are our friends. They help give us the oxygen we need to breath."

David had recovered from his personal horror, "And they are very beautiful."

Fran smiled, "Yes, they are. They are very beautiful."

She handed the hose back to David, confident that he had learned his lesson. He made sure that the water was barely coming out of the spout as he moved closer to the ground to talk to the tulip, "Make sure you drink lots of water. It will put hair on your chest."

Fran laughed at her son's repeating a phrase often spoken in her household when an elder wanted a child to eat something they hesitated to consume. Although David could not image having hair on his chest or anywhere else on his body, it was coming whether he ate things like liver or vegetables. Fran thought back to the afternoon when David said his first word, which coincidentally was "flower" and surmised that her son would either be a willing gardener or a fagala, either of which would be just fine in her book.

"There is just one more thing that you always have to remember," she stated.

He was intent on letting the flower drink, so she put her hand on the hose to stop the flow of water, which then gave her undivided attention. "Don't ever forget to water the flowers."

David nodded and then wanted to go back to doing just that. "And you also have to remember to not give them too much to drink. Do you remember what happened when you drank that big bottle of soda all by yourself the other day?"

David laughed, "Yeah, I nearly peed my pants!" mimicking something he heard from an elder.

"That's right, you nearly peed your pants."

"Do flowers have pants?" David questioned as he moved in for a closer look.

"No."

"That's silly! They have to wear pants," he replied.

"Flowers have dirt," she said.

David looked and determined that his mother made sense, but he probably would have to do some further investigating under the ground at some point that would inevitably lead to another gardening lesson.

Message

It had been half-a-century since David first learned about flowers and he had been long gone from his roots in Dunes Point, New York. Long Island's south shore beach community hadn't changed much over the years and David had found other beaches to walk on and gaze at the Atlantic Ocean waves, although he would even admit that it was tough to duplicate the feeling absorbed from his first beach.

He had been commuting into New York City for decades and had been sitting in his office overlooking Central Park South for nearly 15 years. He had made a decent living as a portfolio manager of an asset management firm focused on value investing, although his personal life was decidedly less predictable but no less fulfilling.

It was 7:44 a.m. and David was looking at the expanse of his Bloomberg terminal for a direction of the market on this first day of spring. Upon completion of his breakfast, which consisted of a bowl of healthy granola he had prepared from scratch at home the night before, he stood up from his cushioned leather chair and walked through the solitude of the empty office to the men's room to complete—as his mom would say—"a number one."

David washed his hands and ripped a sizeable piece of paper towel after splashes some cold water on his face. He wiped his face dry and then looked into the mirror and his familiar face told the same story that it did almost every day, "That today would be a great day where he would be in control of good things happening."

He held the used towel in his left hand as he reached for the handle and opened the bathroom door, transferring the towel to his right hand and dropping it in the garbage as he fluidly exited. His life was now one of purpose, where every moment and action was done with love and precision, a sensibility he learned while studying with Tibetan monks some years back.

A few people straggled into the body of the office and David smiled and nodded to them in greeting. The boutique investment firm managed $50 billion of assets and employed only 150 people at its New York headquarters and a Portland, Oregon satellite office, and David knew all of them by name, except maybe the kid that just started in accounting. He had prodded the founding fathers of the company to hold outings where people could get to know each other in more informal settings like the annual picnic, golf outing and softball game, or bowling, art and comedy workshops. The company offered no awards to its employees in the form of trophies or plaques, but did provide substantial monetary compensation that appeared to be reward enough.

Since David's life outside of work consisted of cooking, meditation and peaceful reflection, his best and most dear friends consisted mostly of his Baby Boomer-aged co-workers, who shared his crunchy new-age sensibilities now that their children were grown and out of the house. He walked back to his desk, his body aligned from a morning workout consisting of some light yoga, tai chi, meditation and a brisk walk on the treadmill, as he sat back down in his chair. On the way down he noticed the red light on his phone, which was a strange occurrence because he preferred talking face to face with people instead of impersonal communications of the phone.

Thanks to a sticky note on his desk, he entered a password that he had forgotten only moments after initiating it months earlier. The automated voice revealed a 516 number that he was unfamiliar with, but he thought it was definitely intriguing that someone from Long Island was trying to reach him. David pressed the number one on his phone and waited for the following message to play:

"Good morning, Mr. Strauss, David, this is Sidney Lerman, your parent's long-time friend and I am also their attorney. There is a matter I have to discuss with you that requires your immediate attention. Please call me at your earliest convenience at 516-555-1212."

A frozen David was then offered an opportunity to delete the message, but he chose to play it again in the event that he missed part of the message during a bout of temporary brain blackout. He hung up the phone, took a deep breath and then surged into action in order to alleviate the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Sid Lerman," the elderly gentleman stated as if the general public needed to be notified of his identity. Normally his secretary Harriett would answer his phone, but she had broken her hip and was recovering from its replacement. Sid looked over at the empty chair just outside his office and wondered when his backbone would return, as he was strongly opposed to filling that chair until she returned.

"Mr. Lerman, this is David Strauss," David said as he gazed on the Great Lawn in Central Park. The company might have taken its transparency policy a bit too far by removing all doors from the offices, but David didn't hesitate to have an open personal conversation because he was already in denial about what the call might be about.

"David! It's good to hear your voice. How have you been?" the 77 year-old widower who worked to live asked.

David was familiar with Sid Lerman and especially his wife Bunny, but before he asked how she was—because she used to make him the best chocolate egg cream drink—he remembered seeing her obituary in the New York Times only months earlier.

"I am fine. I was sorry to read about your wife's passing. She was a really nice lady."

"Thank you," Sid replied. "If you life long enough, you feel fortunate to have been around such special people that enriched your life."

There was a brief silence and Sid jumped into the breach wearing his professional attire.

"My call is of a professional nature this morning. I have a letter in my possession that I would like to deliver to you. In fact, the courier is waiting in your lobby to receive the go ahead."

This version of David Straus was ever confused or flustered. He was even cool-headed during the financial crisis when he saved the company billions by moving most of the firm's funds to cash and then he jumped back in and bought stocks on the cheap at the ground floor before they subsequently jumped in price. David was not in an adventurous mood. He did not like to be surprised and was hesitant to see what personal horror was lurking behind door number one.

"I'm not sure that I have time for this today."

Sid did not have the luxury of time to be met with any hesitation on David's part, so he got right to the point like a typical New Yorker.

"Do you still bank at Citibank?"

"Yes, why?" David inquired.

"Is that the same account that your mother opened up for you with your paper route money when you were a teenager?"

David wasn't sure that he was supposed to reveal such personal details, but he figured he would play on.

"Yes, it is."

"Okay, give me 10 minutes, check the account and then call me back," Sid stated and then hung up the phone.

David heard a dial tone and looked at the phone and then hung it up. He glared at the phone and realized yet again why he was loath to ever pick it up. Since he didn't like to use his work computer for personal matters and his iPhone had a bevy of aps to handle most of his needs, David reached for his cell phone at the edge of his desk and gained access to his bank account. He tried to divert his attention away from this intrusion by continuing to look at the action starting to light up on his desktop computer screens. Four minutes went by and he looked down and refreshed the view to his checking account, which was currently in six digits not including cents. He looked up at the screens in front of him and then back down to the small pane of his iPhone and thought nothing of what he saw at first until the utter absurdity of the situation sunk in. His head swiveled up in slow motion and then back down as the number in his checking account had swelled by one million dollars in the blink of an eye and was now occupying two lines.

"What the..." he muttered, and he was instantly worried that someone was trying to administer a bribe in some kind of insider trading scheme. He picked up the phone and dialed Sid's number that he had scribbled on a small notebook, and just before Sid answered he came to the realization of the yin and yang of the situation: If money had come in then something would have had to gone out.

"I'm assuming this isn't a bribe," a numb David said to Sid before he could speak up.

"You assume correctly," Sid replied.

David let his guard down, "What would you like me to do?"

It was a Monday morning and the quarter-end rush would not begin in earnest for a few weeks.

"You're going to need to take some time off from work. There are some things that only you can deal with," Sid stated.

"Okay, Sid. Thanks for calling," David replied and then hung up the phone.

He walked out of his office and next door to his best friend, and bosses, corner office.

"Morning, Dave!" a chipper Steve Rogers chirped at the site if his buddy.

It had been a while since he had seen Dave look so confused and forlorn, so he stood up and walked toward David. "Is everything okay?"

David looked Steve in the eyes and said in a somewhat confused tone, "I think my mother died."

"Think?" Steve thought.

"No, my mother died," he said quietly but emphatically as the two men hugged.

"Take the week off," Steve said. "Are you going to be at your mom's house in Dunes Point?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"I'll have some food sent to you and we'll stop by later in the week," Steve added, referring to him and his wife Brenda.

"Okay thanks," Dave said and then floated out of the office and down the elevator to the main floor where he walked to the other side of the security barrier, where he was met by a courier. He nodded to the courier as if he was the guy he was looking for.

"Can I see your ID please, Mr. Strauss?"

"Sure," David said as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and extracted his driver's license and handed it to the 20-something man.

They guy looked at the driver's license and then up at the extremely tall Strauss and handed him a courier envelope.

"Have a good day, Mr. Strauss."

David nodded as he took possession of the envelope, "Thanks," and then put his license back into his wallet and made his way to his car parked in the garage, which was located under the building.

Bridge

David was so numb and confused that he didn't think to stop to think about picking up a change of clothes at his apartment downtown facing the Hudson River. While most people had jettisoned the areas surrounding Wall Street following September 11, David's life was in such turmoil that he walked right into the confusion only nine months later and bought an apartment at a discounted price. The value investor always looked for bargains and this was one he couldn't pass up, as his investment had grown three-fold since purchase. The place had grown crowded in recent years and he was thinking of putting it on the market, witnessed by a recent meeting he had with a realtor acquaintance.

"I can definitely get you over a million for this," Gerry Abrahamson said to David while the two sat in his two-bedroom, top-floor loft with private roof access, which was a rarity in this part of the city.

David wasn't sure what his next move was so he stroked the stubble on his face and replied, "I'll let you know, Gerry."

Back in the car, David crossed the 59th Street Bridge in the Tesla Model 3 sedan he had picked up just weeks earlier. He purchased the affordable electric car after passing on previous models that would have been outside of his comfort range price wise. While he wasn't sure if he would find another charging station on Long Island, the trip was less than 30 miles from door to door, which left him with significant capacity to get around. It was even strange that his car was at work, since he usually took the subway uptown to work every morning. He had been visiting a company in Portland, Oregon at the end of the previous week and left his car at the airport and then drove it straight to work when he got in early in the morning after spending the weekend on the West Coast.

All of the things in his life that had caused him stress came flooding back as he progressed through the filth passageway that is Queens. David had suffered mightily after the turn of the century and was rocked by a series of happenings and discoveries that nearly led him to check out prematurely. Once the PTSD highlight reel concluded, he looked over at the passenger seat and the envelope that was now his passenger. Time had passed as he was now driving by muscle memory as the events of his life paraded by we he viewed as a spectator that could directly feel pain. As he hit the Belt Parkway, he knew that Long Island and the Southern State Parkway was a stone's throw away and there would be no turning away.

David looked up at the mileage he had remaining and was somewhat disappointed to see the number 162 holding firm. The rest of the drive was a blur until he hit Beach Avenue in Dunes Point with a specific destination in mind. He usually wore a suit without a tie on most days unless there was a client meeting or a reason to be more formal. While he had a fresh white shirt on, the blue suit he was wearing was a recycled item from his business trip and was probably closer to a trip to the cleaner's than a prominent spot in his closet.

He parked his car in an empty lot adjacent to the beach. Since it was the first day of spring and a chill was still bighting the air at 9:15 a.m., David emerged from the car with his suit jacket still on and his sunglasses blocking the golden sun on this cloudless day. The restaurant adjacent to the beach was closed until noon when it would open for lunch, so David opened the passenger side door and picked up the envelope, opening it and removing the letter from inside and then dropping it in his inside left suit pocket.

David closed the door and then clicked the key in his right pants pocket to lock the door, although he knew the car would be safe even if the doors were left wide open. He strode toward the boardwalk next to the restaurant and buttoned his jacket at the hint of at the enhanced breeze near the ocean. David walked halfway down the mile-long boardwalk and then spotted a bench to his left, a spot he and his mother had occupied together while his older sister roller-skated ahead of them and his younger sister was in a stroller being driven by his father. He virtually witnessed them eating ice cream together as his mother wiped the liquid ice cream dripping down his arm as she playfully implored him to eat faster, but the brain freeze deterred him from picking up the pace.

He sat down on the worn wooded bench and looked behind him to make sure that he could comfortably sit back without dirtying his suit jacket. When he deemed the coast to be clear, David sat back and removed his sunglasses as he closed his eyes and surrendered to the warmth and healing powers of the sun. Every subsequent action delayed inevitable, heightening the suspenseful stroll towards his awakening. When he had absorbed enough sun and slowed his breathing to the point that he could now process information calmly, he opened his eyes and put his glasses back on while reaching into his pocket and pulling out a letter-sized envelope with "David" written a familiar cursive on the front in navy blue ink. He had become familiar with his mother's handwriting in middle school when he forged a few failure notices during some particularly difficult years in his life when he found it difficult to concentrate.

It had been more than 10 years since he had contact with the most influential person in his formative development after his grandfather, her father, passed away. While grandpa' still watched over his boy and pulled him from the fire when the temperature proved too hot, it was mom that had receded into the shadows after a family dirty secret was uncovered by the resident truth seeker, who happened to be sitting on a bench at the beach. David thought for sure that his mom would contact him after his father passed away a few years earlier. In fact, he was also wrong that he and his sisters would have some sort breakthrough after the chains of their oppression were unshackled. But it appeared that old habits were harder to break than expected.

He unsealed the envelope and pulled out the two pages of front-and-back writing that had probably written over and over again until there were no flaws in her penmanship. He often thought that it was more important for anything she produced to look good, rather than to sound good, but evidently that was his department, being a New York Times bestselling author of fiction multiple times in the last decade. Every familiar party that read his books new the familiarity of what he wrote and acknowledged the attempts of fiction as convenient ways to therapeutically vent his spleen while changing people's and town's names enough to obscure the involved parties. David's life finally had the half-full balance between numbers and creativity that he searched for his entire life, only the absence of family always left him struggling to obscure his view from the half-empty glass in front of him.

He started reading the letter and imagined that his mother was sitting next to him on the bench reading the letter to him.

"My dearest David. You must know by now that the impossible has happened: I have taken my last breath in this life. But in my death I have realized the error of my ways in protecting a secret that should never have been sealed, and for that I am eternally sorry." She puts down the papers and looks at David in her most loving gaze, mouthing, "I'm sorry." His eyes start tearing as he nods in acknowledgement of her bridge to forgiveness. She started reading again, "I should never have protected him. It was selfish and self-serving and I wish I hadn't wasted so much time. Enough of that noise, now let's get down to business, which you are obviously a master at! I always knew you had it in you, even when you forged my name to those failure notices in seventh grade." She put the letter down again and said to David, "I knew. I always knew." He shrugged his shoulders and put his palms up in a "got me" pose. She continued, "Your were not in the will until the day after your father died, at which point I reinstated your equal participation in the split of my monies and instated you as the executive of my will and estate. I may be dead, but I still don't trust your sister to do the right thing. Her anger is still running so hot, so if you have occasion to run into that fireball good luck with that! Also, it was one of the happiest days of my father's life when you were born. In fact, it was probably the best day of my marriage even though it hurt like hell when you finally came out! In any event, your grandfather had a large sum of money he put aside for you, and I believe Sid either has or will transfer that to you. While money can never replace time, my hope for you is that it will ease any burdens you have and enrich both your and your beautiful boy's life (although I realize he looks like a lot more like a man than a boy these days by his pictures on Facebook)."

David out the letter down for a moment and his mother disappeared at her mention of keeping tabs on his life from afar. All he had wanted all of these years was to have a civil conversation with her so that there could be some closure amid such dysfunction. But, as is the wobbly proposition that is dysfunction, things don't actually work out, shoelaces remained untied and the overwhelming question of WHY? eternally remains unanswered.

He had learned from his own life experiences that wasting time was 11th commandment and potentially the worst crime you could commit in life. It took him a few minutes to regain his focus and return to the letter, closing his eyes and righting his breath just as the monks had taught him years earlier. David picked the letter back up again, but this time he read the words and his voice emanated out of his thoughts.

"Please take care of Lori. She was placed in a group home following your father's death so I could (frankly) die in peace, but we both know she doesn't belong there. I wish I could say that I dropped her on her head a few too many times, but that just wasn't the case. Some people are equipped to handle the stresses of life, while others hide in a dark closet to avoid the monster that is lurking on the other side of the door. While Lori was hiding Melanie was always out front and center yelling as hard as she could. She hated your father with a passion and made my life a living hell, although, in hindsight, I probably deserved it for relinquishing my motherly duties at some point."

Then he read the last page, "You know, you were right when we last talked when you said my father would be disappointed when he saw me next. I'll take it if that means I get to see him again. And, the next time we see each other I'm sure we will be in a beautiful garden, but until that time keep writing those amazing books and don't forget to water the flowers. Love, Mom."

David took a deep breath and wiped the tears away from his eyes before putting the letter back in its envelope. He then slid it in the pocket from where it came and closes his eyes, listening to the comforting sound of the rolling waves.

Will

Being near the beach calmed David enough to set a plan of action for his immediate future, which was probably the next hour or two. He got back into his car and waited for his phone to reconnect to his auto brain.

"Call Gerry Abrahamson."

The phone dialed and then Gerry answered, "Gerry Abrahamson."

"Hey Gerry, it's Dave. Dave Strauss."

"Dave!" the realtor said in an excited tone as the smell of money permeated from one end of the line to the other.

"Sell the apartment and get me a million dollars," David stated and then hung up before Gerry could even reply.

"Hello," Gerry said, as he was surprised that the call dropped off. But, instead of calling back to reestablish contact, Gerry simply took the directive and listed the property instead of leaving the door open for his client to change his mind.

David kept moving forward "Call Sidney Lerman at his office."

The phone dialed and then rang, "Sidney Lerman."

"Sid, I'm coming over," David said and then hung up, "Driving directions to Sidney Lerman's office."

Sid was used to having full conversations with people, and as a lawyer it was his duty to bolster his billable hours by all means necessary. He looked at the caller id, which read, "David Strauss," and had anticipated the client's needs by having a copy of his mother's will right in front of him in a file on his desk. Three minutes later, David walked through the door and then through the barren reception area, into Sid's office.

"I assume you want to see a copy of the will," said stated as he stood up and handed the document to David, who said, "Thanks" and then sat down and started reading the document, which appeared to be a standard will with an equitable division of property and assets in thirds to be split evenly amongst David and his siblings. Also, he was to be the executor of the will as his mother previously disclosed. He read the four-page document in less than five minutes and then offered a few observations.

"First, thanks for this," David said as Sid sat next to him in area to the right of his desk. They shook hands as David continued, "It's good to see you."

Sid smiled, "After all of these years, I tell you, it's good to be seen."

"Do you know where my sister is?" David asked in a serious tone after a brief chuckle.

Sid handed him a piece of paper with the address, "It's just down the road from here."

"Will I be able to bust her out today?"

"For the day?" Sid asked.

"No, for good," David replied in a level of determination that impressed the aged attorney. He used to have that level of commitment and conviction years earlier, but the years had worn him down.

"Well, there's nothing clinically or legally that would bind her to that property. The only thing she might lose is the security deposit."

"How much was that?" David questioned.

"Five hundred dollars, but you could get that back with cause."

Sid had just deposited a million dollars in his bank account and he had another million ready to flow into his account from the sale of his apartment, so $500 was akin to currency-printed toilet paper.

"Do you have to name me her custodian for me to spring her?"

"No, she is there on her own volition."

David knew where this was headed, "So, I can just walk in there and scoop her up?"

"Yes," Sid replied.

"Next question. Do we all have to agree to sell the house?"

David would have stopped at the ammunition store and bought some dynamite to blow up the house and all of it's creepy, haunting memories if he could. While it would have been easier to dump his sister, there was no way he was going to have that memory hovering for an extended period of time even though he didn't yet have an alternate plan. "Do you know of a good realtor?"

Sid handed him a card for a realtor that was the daughter of a family friend. "She is the top seller of houses in the town."

"Are there any other things that you anticipated that I would ask you?" David asked since he felt fairly inadequate.

Sid reached into his pocket, "Here are the keys to the house," and then handed David the keys. "And, here are the three checks that evenly distribute your mom's estate."

David looked down at the checks and saw the identical number of $166,666.67 written on all of the checks. "Gee, that can't be a good omen. Why couldn't she have had $600,000 or $400,000?"

"Is that it?" David asked. "Although she didn't address personal property in the will.

"Your mother always said you would make a great lawyer and she was right, you don't miss a beat," Sid stated. David nodded in appreciation and then Sid continued, "Her wish was that you all work it out.

David couldn't believe what he was hearing, "Have you met my sister, Melanie?"

"Yes I have, and I wish you luck with all of that," Sid replied.

"Is there anything legally I can do? What I mean to say as executor, can I make decisions on behalf of the group?"

Sid replied, "No, the executor just makes sure that all of your mother's wishes in the will are carried out to the letter. What you're talking about is more power of attorney actions."

"Can I get that?" David asked.

"That's impossible, unless your mom posthumously grants you that power," Sid stated.

"Fair enough," David said. "How much is left in the mortgage?"

"She paid it off after your father died. And the taxes have been paid for the year and aren't' due for another nine months.

David's first thought was, "If she paid the house off, then why would she still live there?" But then a sobering thought hit him so he switched gears, "Does my sister know I'm the executor?"

Sid put his hands up like "I don't need that headache," so David intervened, "You know she's going to call you the minute she sees me."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. In the meantime, try to work it out amongst you."

David knew that road would be littered with craters, but he had looked forward to facing Melanie down for years.

"Thanks for all of your help, Sid," David said as the two shook hands and met in a hug. They broke the hug and David said, "I might have some more business for you if you're interested?"

Sid nodded, "The worst thing you can say is no in life. Be open to new things and it will help you continue to grow. So, the long answer is yes, I will be happy to accept any business you throw my way."

Sprung

David left Sid's office with his business card and other parting gifts, comforted in the thought that he had the law on his side for a change. He figured that it would take a legal brick wall and some divine intervention to get past the most impenetrable object in his life: his older sister. He was on his way to a potential rescue mission and needed to refuel his personal gas tank, so he stopped at a CVS store and grabbed some his favorite unsalted peanuts.

While his Type 2 Diabetes was well under control after kicking his ass when first detected the previous year, it was still unforgiving if he didn't keep feeding the beast. David had dropped 30 pounds during the transition from a carb-rich life full of pasta, rice and assorted other carbs, to a narrowed scope of lean meats, low-carb bread, egg whites and other protein rich foods. He had all-but given up red meat prior to the onset of the disease, which the doctor blamed on his father passing it on through genes, but had rediscovered the protein benefits of such foods.

The weight loss reduced David's body from a 40 waist to 36, a size he hadn't worn since the beginning of college some 30 years earlier. His streamlined frame also seemed to make working out and getting around easier. He had since dropped the doctor, since he found doctors basically useless in most situations. The doctor's advice was, "Get on a low-card diet," a gem he could have gleaned from a basic Google search on "how to combat diabetes." He was also living with diabetes without taking pills due to his insistence of being out of the medical system and off the man's radar.

David open the plastic jar of peanuts and realized he was getting light headed. He emptied a palm-full of peanuts and then threw him down his throat, chewing the nuts until they had more of a peanut butter consistency. David reached to his left, grabbed a bottle of water and then washed down the peanuts before taking a deep breath on completing the compulsory portion of the morning's activities, which would serve as a warm-up for the rest of the day.

"Get Lori," he said as he followed directions until he pulled up to a fairly nice house at the end of a tree-lined street. He emerged from the car and buttoned his jacket, thinking that this look would aid his cause of presenting in a more official capacity.

He approached the front door and was unsure how he should proceed. A knock might seem too confrontational, while just walking in could be presumptuous and disrupt some of the fragile people inside the house, so he rang the bell. When no one answered out of fear of confrontation, David decided to explore option two and just walk in.

The smartly decorated on the inside as if decorated from the inside of a Pottery Barn catalogue. While he wasn't sure how much his mother paid for such a place and what it was actually doing for his sister, he felt that he always knew how to get through to her. Since her last conversation with David, which involved land mine and then atomic bomb level subject matter, she had sequentially regressed as the distance between her and her brother expanded.

"You must be David," a woman with gray hair in her fifties said as she popped up from behind a pillar like a target in an arcade game. "She said you would come," the woman added and then muttered as she walked away, "But she's been saying that every day, so the likelihood of that happened decreased with each passing day."

David put his hand up and jumped into the pool of sarcasm, "Hi, nice talking to you."

Now that he had become more familiar with his surroundings and wasn't really looking forward to more empty conversations, David walked through the kitchen and started to sense where his younger sibling was located. He hung a left out the kitchen and then a right toward the sunroom/porch, where Lori could often be found. She lived on the outskirts of life and used the fringes of her abode as a shield against confrontation and anxiety, which always seemed to be ever-present. After her brother was taken out of the picture and her mother grew ill, she had little defense to deal with anything of substance, so she sat on the porch day and night staring into a bank of trees outside of an unfamiliar house.

David spied his younger sister, who he hadn't seen in more than a decade, wearing a pair of outdated headphones around her ears. He doubted if the ear-covering devices were even hooked up to a music player of some sort. He walked behind her chair and instinct took over as he put his hands on her shoulders at first, the warmth of his hands melting the layers of ice around her being, as he bent down and put his arms around her and hugged her. She smiled as tear streamed down her eyes.

He whispered, "Don't cry. I've got you."

Lori stood up, her long, slender frame brittle from lack of use and malnutrition, and she hugged her brother.

"We have to go back to the house now," he said.

"I'll get my stuff," she said as she broke the hug and was embarrassed she didn't have the strength all of these years to reach out to him. The world was different for Lori when David was around, since at least she had a chance when swimming amongst a sea of sharks.

David stood in the kitchen, expecting Lori to take some time gathering her stuff, but when she returned 30 seconds later with a black garbage bag, he took it from her and they left the house without saying a word to anyone. He was about to ask if her if they had to alert the person in charge that they would not be returning, but he surmised that it wasn't that type of house with those type of set rules.

He threw her stuff in the trunk, although he had a thought about just hurling it to the curb and then helped her in the car, the lack of passenger door handle leaving the former honor student cold and confused. He started driving and realized that an early lunch would probably be the best thing before heading to the house, which was something he was subliminally putting off as long as possible.

"Let's get something to eat," he said as she didn't acknowledge his statement, "Car is quiet."

"It's electric," he replied, "Runs on a battery, not gas."

David knew exactly where he was going when he pulled into the Dunes Point Diner, which had a menu as thick as a phone book and you could get breakfast, lunch or dinner at any time during the day or night, as the Greek diner was open 24 hours a day. The female maître di greeted them and David said, "Could we please sit in that booth?"

The woman agreed and grabbed a couple of menus, sitting David and Lori at a table near the window so she wouldn't feel trapped. She hadn't eaten much in the last two months and he became concerned that the pressure of being around food would get to her.

"Now, before the waitress comes over and you order half the menu and then excuse yourself to get rid of it in the bathroom, order something you're comfortable with," he stated.

Neither one of them even opened the menu, preferring to order on memory from being at the diner so many times over the years. The waitress with extremely high hair and comfortable white shoes and apron walked over with a couple of waters and asked, "What can I get you today?"

David nodded at his sister that she should order first, but there was a moment of awkwardness as the waitress waited, pencil and pad in hand, for some sort of response.

"She'll have a vanilla shake with chocolate syrup."

"One chocolate shake," the waitress stated as David's eyes widened as he repeated in a more forceful tone so the waitress would not rock the boat again.

"A shake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup."

The waitress got the message as she repeated, "Vanilla shake with chocolate syrup," as Lori relaxed for the moment.

"How about you, Hun?" the aged waitress asked David, as she had experienced multiple tours of duty on the diner circuit over the years.

"I'll have an egg white omelet with bacon and American cheese. Do you have sourdough toast?"

"Yes."

"Okay, I'll have that but no hash browns," David added.

Lori made a high-pitched sound, so David amended his amendment, "Hash browns on the side, please."

"You got it. Anything else to drink?"

"Can I have some hot water, please?" David asked.

"Any tea or coffee with that?" she asked.

David reached into his suit pocket and replied, "No, I brought my own tea," which he placed on the table.

Two minutes later, the waitress dropped off Lori's shake and the hash browns, breaking the silence of two people looking out into a busy street. David wasn't about to start a conversation he couldn't finish in a public place. He figured there would be plenty of time to have more serious conversations as the week progressed. Besides, even though he couldn't help but protect his sister, part of him was still hurt that he stood with the rest of the family in shunning him once the truth came out.

A few more minutes passed as Lori slurped her shake and had to pause when actual brain freeze took hold. She passed the time by nibbling on the hash browns with her fingers like a primitive being in the days before utensils. He looked at her like an infant in a high chair shoveling food in her mouth and wondered how this person could have recorded a 3.8 in undergrad and 4.0 in graduate school?

David's omelet cam out with his hot water and opened his tea bag and dropped it in as he sectioned off pieces of the omelet and boarding it on pieces of toast, a process he had followed since his teens. They ate the meal without incident and Barb came over and dropped the check off, which David paid at the from register and then dropped off a $10 bill on the table and said to Lori, "It's time to go home."

Home (PART I)

No matter how much time and space person has away from the place they grew up, the place they called home, memories that were buried tend to flood back in instant upon a return to the original space.

"This is messed up," David muttered under his breath as he and Lori rolled into the driveway.

A previously dormant Lori temporarily woke up and bounced out of the car, "I'll open the garage."

She walked over to the side of the garage and punched in the code on a keypad and the garage opened. Lori didn't acknowledge the rolling car as she bounded into the house, apparently elated to be back in the familiar setting she had been since birth. David was happy to see his sister show some life, although he was still miffed at her disturbing level of ignorance in not talking to him all of these years.

David quietly pulled into the one-car garage and then extracted his large frame from his car, the collective pain of generation still weighing on his shoulders. While his mom did what she could as far as getting rid of stuff in the last years of her life, her physical and mental illness obstructed her from completely a complete purge of the past. Mom also knew that her son would have to work with his sisters and mend fences in the middle of what amounted to a suburban war zone.

David entered the house and inhaled, taking in a treasure trove of familiar scents mixed with musky inactivity. Lori made a beeline for her room, which was the only place in the house that she ever felt safe. A sign on the outside of her room that was made for her when she was seven, stuck to the door and appeared that it would be fastened in perpetuity. While everyone knew where Lori was, the identifier of "Lori's Room" left no doubt of who would be on the other side of the door.

The first place David walked into was the kitchen, so he looked around to see if there was any food in the house. A box of baking soda was the only thing left in a cleaned-out fridge, and there were only a few sparse remnants in the cabinets, meaning that a shopping trip would be one of the things on the immediate agenda. David looked down at his outfit and realized that these were not the kind of clothes he should be wearing the cleaning a house. He walked upstairs and was about to enter his room, but he turned to his right and asked Lori, "I'm going to Costco and Marshall's, you wanna' come?"

While David was able to recognize his room, all of the things that were in there the last times he was in the house were gone. It appeared that his parents wanted nothing to do with his memory and had wiped their internal slate clean of everything that either could remind them of him or lead them to have a human thought and want to contact him. Although David had buried and thought he had dealt with much of the pain and hurt of being abandoned, a fresh coat of mental injury was being applied from seeing his sister and just being in the house.

Lori tagged along as David filled a cart at Marshalls with clothing and some food items, while his sister grabbed a pair of gloves that were on sale.

"You do know that it's spring," he said to Lori as he emptied the contents of the cart in front of the cashier.

"My hands get cold,' she said as the cashier scanned the gloves in and then asked, "Would you like to put the on?"

Lori nodded and the cashier found a scissor, removed the tags and then handed the gloves to Lori, who quickly put the gloves on like it was freezing inside of the store.

Once the transaction was completed, Lori and David rolled out of the store, David still having an edge about him, "You really got to start taking care of yourself better." But what he really meant was, "You would have been healthier if I was around all of this time, and go fuck yourself!"

Costco was just down the street from Marshall's, but David had another idea, "Trader Joe's," he said out loud and his car routed directions five minutes away. He looked over at his sister, but she had no reaction to the deviation of plans. He was about to get into it with her, but something always stopped him from probing too far with his baby sister. Her capacity for dealing with anything was nonexistent. She was the person who went away to school and then lived in the freshman dorm all four years. Excuses were made about her aversion to change, but David always felt like it was a cop-out and his mother always enabled Lori to live within the tight confines of her apparent insanity.

Healthier options were found a Trader Joe's and David was game to keep shopping if it would keep him out of the house and all of those contrasting feelings for a little longer. David stopped at a gas station and asked the attendant, "Do you know where I can find an electric charging station?"

"There is one by the beach," the man answered.

Since he had bought some items that needed refrigeration, they stopped back at the house and David was going to leave his sister behind but she mumbled, "Don't want to be alone."

It had been a while since David had taken care a small child and also dealt with his sister, so they got back into the car and headed to the beach so the Tesla could be recharged. While he could have driven around town for the rest of the week on the remaining charge, he figured the beach could be a good neutral starting point to open a dialogue.

"Can I do it?" Lori asked after they parked and David was about to plug in.

"Sure," David replied. "Just don't force it. It goes it rather easily if you line it up correctly."

Lori gently plugged the cord in and was proud she got it on the first try.

"You wanna' take a walk or sit?" he asked.

She didn't answer, so David said, "Let's take a little walk and then sit."

They walked for a half-mile and David could sense that his frail sister was running low on energy. He surmised that she hadn't moved much since their mom became ill and her bones were always frail from malnourishment. They sat down and looked ahead at the beach with little expression.

"What happened back there?" he asked.

"Back where?" she countered, trying to avoid serious subjects as usual.

"Why do you do that every time? Any time I've ever tried to engage you in a serious discussion you hide behind either ignorance or your mommy. I often wonder how you not only got through school, but also got a perfect grade point average. Someone had to engage you in an intelligent adult conversation at some point."

She didn't respond again, which made David even more agitated so he stood up and faced her.

"I tried to help you and you abandoned me. You chose them over me even though I was the only one that always protected you and had your back. And, worst of all, I confronted you in good faith and you lied to me repeatedly about what happened to you. What happened to us? My son grew up and my wife died and where was Aunt Lori? Nowhere! That's where!"

All Lori could muster was a shoulder shrug and David would have nothing to do with it. He walked away back toward the car and Lori trailed far behind as usual, playing the downtrodden role of the perpetual victim.

Digging

David was furious! If he could have walked from the beach to the house then that's what he would have done. He had always toed the line between confronting Lori and trying to protect her frail sensibilities, and often wondered if the whole thing was an act perpetrated by a protective mother. The cushion between reality and the sanctity of her room was rarely ever breached, and no one ever pushed her to be anything but a hamstrung and limited personality.

It wouldn't be the last time that week that David wondered how he would stand another minute in the town he had stayed away from for years. All of the training with the Tibetan monks was pushed aside in times like these, as his calm and center were nowhere to be found. He walked into the house, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, some peanuts her had just bought from the cabinet and then walked upstairs to his room before shutting the door behind him.

Everything about the room had the stamp of his mother staging the room to give the appearance of wiping all vestiges of him for his father's consumption. His mother would do anything to avoid his attention and rage. He looked into the first closet that was situated closest to the door and the sports where his clothes hung and shoes sat were now replaced by other people's stuff. David then looked at the other closet to the left and there were no traces of his magazines with women wearing no clothes, an outcome he predicted since he had cleared them out after returning from college. There was a desk near the window, but its drawers were filled with office supplies, not his stuff.

He swung the door open and glared into his sister's room to the left as he glided down the stairs into the kitchen and opened the doors under the sink to get some garbage bags. And just as his rage and anxiety reached a crescendo, he started to calm down and rational thought returned for a moment. David tossed the bags on the table and vaulted back upstairs toward Lori's room.

"What did she do with all of my stuff?" he confronted her without a buffer for a change.

Lori usually didn't like confrontation and she hesitated enough to keep him moving forward.

"Did she donate it, put it in the basement? What?"

Lori again shrugged her shoulders, so David became more aggressive.

"She's dead!!!!" he screamed. "Is dad still alive?" he asked.

Lori never had no sense of humor, "No, he died a few years ago."

David looked at her like he wasn't that out of the loop, "Really? Although you never contacted me to tell me that my father passed away, I heard third hand from our Cousin Allison who had heard from her brother Sam!"

"Did anyone even talk about me all these years, or was it like I never existed?" David asked.

"Not in here," she said, which gave David a ray of hope that the rest of the world had noticed he was missing. "People always asked where you were and how you were doing."

David couldn't believe his sister had finally been able to string a complete sentence together. Like everything else in his life, the fact that he wasn't forgotten was a bittersweet mix of irony and extremely bad karma. He always felt there was never a good answer they could provide for such questions, although he surmised that his mother would print pictures of David and his family from Facebook and put them on her fridge like they were given directly to her. She often did things for show and had to be especially diligent to keep the questions from pointing to any wrongdoing on behalf of her and her husband.

"Why didn't you ever contact me? You knew I was hurting!" he said after a brief moment of calm.

When she sat in silence on her bed he continued, "Did it matter to you that I was hurting? I had just buried my wife and discovered some crazy stuff in therapy!"

Lori never knew how her brother had come to realize that the chain of events that constantly tangled their lives.

"Nobody told you?" she said in a more confused tone than usual.

"Told me?" an incensed David replied. "She abused me! Why would anyone have to tell me about that?"

David saw the look of horror in his sister's eyes. She felt less bad over the years because she thought David had been left out of their little club, which included the two girls and two parents. But, only three of them were aware of the secret, while Benjamin Strauss remained the perpetrator and the being in the house that was consistently living outside of his own head.

"What did you think I was saying that day I called the house?" he asked, knowing that he wouldn't be given much to work with in return.

"I asked you years earlier what was wrong with you and you told me that Corey Henry had abused you. And then when I uncovered the truth in therapy and asked you who really abused you, you told me it was Uncle Burt. Really? Uncle Burt? The dude was barely alive and didn't have a creepy vibe in his body. I think he slept with Aunt Jenny twice to have their kids."

"Evelyn died last year," she said.

"Finally, she had an illness worth documenting!" a frustrated David yelled.

"She choked on a shrimp while on a cruise."

"Wow! Natural causes, who would have figured."

"She's never going to admit to doing to doing it to you," Lori said in a confident tone.

David leaned over and made his famous game face, which was ever-present in his hall of fame high school career, earned him a full college scholarship and then propelled him through a successful professional career.

He pointed to his face, "Have you seen look on my face before?"

Her eyes widened, "Yes!" she gushed.

"What does it mean?"

She nodded, "It usually means the other team is in big trouble!"

David nodded, "The minute she steps foot in this house, she might not realize at the time, but this is MY turf now! This is my house!"

He knew he had gone too far and backpedaled, "Actually, it's all of our house. I just meant it metaphorically."

"I knew that," she said, as the days of being exposed to the vicious elements present in the Strauss family without her big brother to protect her appeared to be over and she was feeling great relief. Although it remained to be seen if she had enough gumption to stand up to her older sister, a stance she had been unable to forge in all of her years on the planet. The eight-year gap always felt like a distance she could never make up, even when they were both fully grown.

"Do you have my back?" he asked Lori.

She nodded and said, "Yes."

He stuck out his right pinkie, "Together until the death."

She wrapped her long right pinkie around his and replied, "'Till the death."

Arrival

David realized there was really nothing they could do until Melanie arrived, and he was sure she would arrive, so they went back to the diner for dinner. He had a cheeseburger with cheddar and bacon and no fries, while Lori ordered chicken francesse with linguini and a piece of garlic bread.

"How did you lose so much weight?" she asked.

"I got Type 2 diabetes and stopped eating so many carbs. I think I've lost about 60 pounds since my wedding, and about 35 pounds since I got diabetes a few years ago. Had to buy a whole new wardrobe."

"Mom commented to me how thin you looked."

David rolled her eyes, "She always did like me in slim pants before my carb explosion at the age of five."

They ate the meal and went back to the house, David fully expecting to see another car in the driveway.

"Did you tell her I was here?" David asked Lori as he turned into the vacant driveway.

"No, I don't even have a phone," she replied.

"Good, keep it that way. I'm sure she will be here soon enough," he countered as Lori exited the car before he pulled into the garage.

Sid Lerman had called Melanie to tell her that her mother had died and there wouldn't be a funeral, but she predictably didn't answer the phone and decided the listen to the message instead so she continued to pretend that she was still in control of the situation.

"Melissa, this is Sidney Lerman, your mother's attorney, calling. I've would have preferred have conferred with you directly, but after several attempts it has become clear that the message trumps the delivery. I am sorry to tell you that your mother passed away yesterday and she has left instructions for the scattering of her ashes in lieu of a public funeral."

Sid had struggled with how he should end the call since Francine Strauss had basically left the keys to the castle to her son, not the power-hungry daughter who felt she was entitled to control everything that went on in the family. Instead of ending on a controversial note, he chose to make a graceful exit.

"Your mother was a special person and I am sorry for your loss."

He realized that Melissa would hunt him down if she needed to, although he hoped to stay out of family drama that apparently spanned many decades.

David could feel the earth shift once he entered the house, which coincided with his sister listening to the message from Sid Lerman. Melissa saw the Caller ID and waited until 11:30 p.m. before listening to a message she knew would spring her into action. She had always been a little possessive with money, especially her family's money, telling her brother the finance guru years earlier, "I should be executor of the will because I am the best with money."

He looked at his sister and did not outwardly react to her misguided chutzpah, keeping his internal belly laughing as a release. David always realized that life was a marathon, not a sprint, so her words would only fuel the heinous karma that surrounded her existence.

"I have to go home," Melanie said to emasculated husband Walter, who was half-asleep while she poured over her phone deep into the night.

"Do you want me to come with?" a groggy and squinty Walter suggested, trying to figure out what was going on.

"My mom's dead, so, no, I don't want you to come with me," she shot back.

She neither wanted to be consoled nor left the opportunity for Walter to comfort her physically or mentally. "Be back in a day or two," she added as she got out of the bed, jumped in the shower, reapplied a complete set of makeup that she had washed off only hours earlier, changed her clothes a few dozen times until she felt moderately uncomfortable, packed a few things in a gym bag that had gathered dust in the back of her closet form years and then jumped into her Range Rover at about 3:00 am.

The two-hour drive would be less painful at the pre-rush hour time, although that was the furthest thing from Melanie's mind. She was so locked into the task at hand—dump the ashes and pick up the cash—that everything else that could have entered her mind was just an afterthought. Melanie plowed through some light traffic and arrived in Dunes Point at 5:15 a.m., the first time she had been back to the town in a couple of years since her father's death. She made her mother drive to Westchester for Thanksgiving the year after her father died, and they skipped the festivities all together only months earlier, as Melanie didn't want to expose her family to impending death. She and Walter had argued for days about supporting Fran, and he even had Thanksgiving dinner sent to her even though her lack of appetite precluded her from partaking in the solo celebration.

Instead of heading straight to the house, Melanie decided to stop at the diner for some breakfast. Two hours and half the breakfast menu later, she emerged from the eatery with a toothpick in her mouth and a belly-full of food. She had struggled over the years with her weight, which fluctuated in leaner days at 120 pounds to present days at nearly 300 pounds. At 5'9" she managed to fill all of the space from her neck down to her toes suggesting the misery she towed around was self-evident.

David woke up at 7:00 a.m. and went through his usual paces upon awakening, including a compilation of tai chi, yoga, meditation and walking. Without a treadmill, he resorted to walking around the neighborhood once he stretched and centered his chi, believing this would be one of the more difficult days in recent memory to maintain his equilibrium.

Since the locks hadn't been changed, Melanie rolled into the driveway and walked up to the front door with a key she had in her possession. Since she didn't have a garage door opener, the thought of parking inside wasn't a possibility at the moment, although she would have preferred to roll in and then leave without anyone knowing she was even there. That would obviously prove difficult for an in-your-face woman that did everything in a very public way with pain as her intention.

Melanie walked into the sleepy house and went right to her room after looking into the darkened kitchen. If she had looked closer, she would have spied a bowl and spoon in the sink from David eating some cereal before exiting for his walk. She dumped her bag on her bed, which remained in the upper expanses of the house even though she hadn't lived there in 35 years. Her parents had moved from a house with all of the bedrooms on one floor into another house just around the corner with a finished attic room once Melanie approached puberty. She had her own shower and bathroom and, most importantly, distance from all other human beings in the abode. However, her dark presence could be felt when she was around even when she there was no byplay.

She wasn't sure if Lori was in the house, since she had heard rumblings that she was carted off to the loony bin months earlier. She looked at the "Lori's Room" sign and shook her head in disbelief as she crashed open the door. Lori wasn't a morning person, although it was debatable whether she had a time of the day that she deemed preferable. Instinctively, she knew only one person could be that disruptive without accident. Of all the stupid luck, she had to be stuck with the sibling that she absolutely despised over the one that, for a better term, was sent away.

At that moment, Melanie transitioned from splitting all of her mother's money to having confidence that she could bully and outwitting her little sister out of her share of the money.

"What are you doing back here?!" Melanie grunted. "I thought you weren't living her anymore."

"What?" a confused Lori said weakly not wanting to take on the angry bear without a suitable weapon, which amounted to the set of balls that her older sister always so prominently dangled for everyone to see.

Melanie took another step into the room and Lori sat up against the wall under her covers like she was cowering in advance of a beat down. David had walked quietly back into the house moments earlier when he saw the heard his sister talking once he opened the closed front door. All of the calm breathing and exercise was focused on protection as he heard the horror in an already beaten Lori's voice. Years of frustration had built up and all of David's thoughts of handling the sticky situation in a calm manner were burning like the fire that was building inside of him.

"Leave her alone!" he shouted from the bottom of the stairwell.

The familiar voice drew a sadistic smile from Melanie, which made Lori feel queasier if possible.

"What the hell is he doing here!" she shouted into Lori's room as if they were having a conversation of allies.

Lori could hear her brother walking up the stairs and new whatever happened next it wouldn't be good at all.

Shattered

Lori felt both petrified and braver for the first time in years as Melanie turned around and sought to get the first, second and every word in as usual.

"Nobody invited you here!" she bellowed and turned back into Lori's room, "Do you tell him about mom?"

Lori sat up in her bed, "No!" and then slinked back down after her sister threw her the look of death if she raised her voice again.

At almost six and-a-half feet tall, David was an imposing figure and cast a shadow over most people, giving them pause about coming at him either physically or mentally. But, Melanie Sam McNulty wasn't most people. She had changed her middle name from Sarah to Sam after her marriage, because Samuel would have been her name if she were born a male instead of a female. That should have been an immense red flag to her husband Walter, who had just come off a messy divorce from his first wife and, from all accounts, really wasn't paying much attention to the details the second time around. He simply wanted to be told what to do by someone that reminded him of his mother, who had passed away shortly after he met Melanie at work and they had an affair.

The extramarital affair was a staple of Melanie's relationships with her work bosses, both male and female. It was her mechanism to control people without the love and commitment it would take for a real relationship. All of these people were married at the time they connected, but subsequently filed for divorces after Melanie poisoned the well. The confusion of a personal relationship usually gave her career a boost in the short-term and left her looking for a new place to work when things went south in the long-term. Walter was the lone exception because he had finally found an equal to his hellion of a Scottish mother in Melanie, and she figured at 38 years old that is was a good a time as any to produce and offspring that could potentially continue her reign of terror.

"Sid called me!" he yelled after taking a deep breath that he was sure would have a minimal impact on his calm, if any.

"Sid called you?" the surprisingly nimble Melanie replied as she spun back around toward David. This was the first good look she got at David in years and wanted to ring his fit neck! He had obviously lost all of the weight that she had found, proving that there was indeed balance in everything that had to do with their lives.

While David lived in a world of absolute truths and facts, his sister preferred to kick the gray areas of life in the teeth and get what she wanted.

"What did he say to you?"

David preferred to speak directly and cut through all of the bull, "He said we are splitting everything evenly."

"Who cares about what that moron says!" she yelled.

"Do you want to see her will?" he shot back.

Facts were Melanie's kryptonite, as she started to lose strength, "Whatever!" she replied, as David knew by the tone in her voice that whatever he was doing was working.

"I have it in the kitchen," he explained and then started walking down the stairs and she followed. Lori waited until they both were out of range and then tiptoed out of her room and into the hallway so she could listen to the daytime drama.

David handed Melanie the will and said, "He has extra copies," anticipating that the person who would never let him win at anything when they were growing up would once again try to game the system in her favor.

She perused what needed to read and then ripped up the document anyway with her strong, meaty hands.

"This isn't worth the paper it's printed on," she said and then shifted gears with intent to injure. She leaned over and looked at David squarely in his eyes, "I was glad when I heard your wife died. I hope she suffered."

Melanie basically waved a red flag in front of a now raging bull and wanted him to charge so he would be the bad person in the equation, a moved that she had mastered over the years: the old bait and switch.

The Dalai llama must have felt the global tremor that erupted from David's sonic boom of anger. While Melanie had seen that look of rage in her own eyes on many occasions, she had never seen quite that angry of a blaze in her brother's eyes. And since she was a chicken at heart, she instinctively ran for the hills, motoring toward the back door and picking up speed with each thud. She unlocked the main door and then pushed through the screen door with David now just behind her in hot pursuit. Melanie cleared the doorway and the screen door recoiled and was coming back toward closed when David reached out his right arm to keep it open, but what he did was crash his arm through the thick piece of glass in the top of the door.

Lori heard the huge crash and ran downstairs, representing one of the few times in her life that she had a genuine, spontaneous reaction. By the time she arrived in the kitchen, David turned around with a huge piece of shattered glass sticking out of his forearm. He had finally calmed down enough to say, "Could you drive me to the doctor?" as he walked over the counter, grabbed a towel and then gritted his teeth as he slid the glass out of his arm. David tossed the bloody glass into the sink and then put the towel around his arm to stem the flow of blood.

"Let's go," he said to Lori as they headed out to the garage and then peered outside as he saw Melanie alone, looking upset and trying to catch her breath.

Stitches

Lori hadn't driven in about a year, so when she got behind the wheel David looked over at her in horror and suggested, "Do you want me to drive?"

She breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Yes!"

They switched places and in the process David thought about leaving Lori behind because she would provide little support. But, his relationship with his little sister was never about what she could do for him, anyway, it was about him protecting her. So, leaving her behind would have put her in unnecessary danger and that was inacceptable. The towel was wrapped around his right forearm, so David drove out of the driveway with his left hand.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Dr. Martin," she replied.

"You still go to Dr. Martin?" he asked.

"Yes," she countered, as she hadn't been comfortable enough with anyone else to graduate from the family's pediatrician.

"He's still alive?" David asked.

"He's 92 and he has a practice with some other doctors in the new outpatient medical center just down the block."

David looked at the blood soaking the towel and figured the gash in his arm would leave a prominent scar that would serve as a reminder of the dangers of anger. He rolled down the street past the diner and then another 800 yards to the new medical center on the left hand side of the street. Luckily, there was a space up front and David parked the car. They walked into the center and he held the door for his sister who was enthusiastically greeted by the receptionist, "Lori! So good to see you!"

And then David walked in holding the towel over his arm. Even though David hadn't seen Dr. Martin since he was 12 years old, Marge Partridge remembered his face, and she had seen him on TV a few times.

"David Strauss! What happened to you?"

This was the one place on earth that Lori Strauss felt at home. After all, she had been a cash cow for the practice for decades as Dr. Martin had both run and ordered a multitude of tests to figure out what ailed Lori. The doctor always sensed there was something bigger at work in the Strauss house, especially when David disappeared from the landscape and Lori stopped talking about her big brother.

"He got some glass stuck in his arm after the back door shattered," Lori explained.

The secretary got up and opened the door, "Come right in, David. Do you want to come in too, Lori?"

Lori looked around the waiting room at a few sick people and a guy who she didn't know and, although she became squeamish at the sight of blood and related things, now that her brother was back she didn't want to let him out of her sight.

She got up, "I'm coming," as she followed into exam room #2.

"I like this room," she said as David sat on the exam seat and Lori parked in the mommy seat to his right.

David looked at Lori and couldn't believe her life had been reduced to exam room preferences and special needs living quarters. He always had higher hopes that she could function outside of the limiting family dynamic, but it seemed that she could never break free of the paralyzing grip of her past.

A younger Asian women nurse walked in and said, "Hello, doctor wants me to prep your wound."

David looked at his sister and she had never met the woman, causing her some anxiety even though she wasn't the patient for a change. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out his phones, unlocking it with his password and offering it to his sister, who eagerly jumped up and grabbed the phone so she didn't have to watch.

Nurse Kaiko removed the towel and asked, "I throw this away?"

"Please," he replied.

She examined the three-inch gash and then said, "I have to shave area so doctor can stitch."

Kaiko put on a pair of surgical gloved and then cleaned the area before awkwardly holding a razor in his hands. This was her first week as a nurse after receiving only minimal training. Dr. Martin always hired nice people, and this was a trait he valued in employees even more than experience. Maintaining a positive work environment kept him working all these years and helped him look forward to coming into work every day.

"We don't have a lot of experience with shaving," she said to David. "We are hairless," she said placing her smooth left arm next to hairy right arm.

David thought of the possibilities and smiled at Kaiko before letting her off the hook. "Do you want me to do it?"

He looked over at his sister, who was squirming in her seat.

"Please," she replied as David took hold of the razor and asked, "All of the hair around the wound?"

She replied, "Yes, let me clean first."

Kaiko grabbed a can of foam disinfectant and sprayed it right into the wound before using another can of air to clear the area of all obstructions. She then handed him a small can of shaving cream and he carefully lathered the band outside of the open wound. He then calmly shaved in the oval area just like he would his face on a normal day. Less than a minute later, he was done, much to the satisfaction of his assistant, "Very good. I do next time."

David thought, "There was going to be no next time for him."

Kaiko left and Dr. Martin came in a few minutes later, grayer and as happy as ever.

"The prodigal son has returned!" he exclaimed as he walked into the room and blew a kiss at Lori before walking over to David and hugging him gently, kissing him on the cheek an whispering, "You're going to make this all of this right."

David nodded in affirmation and the doctor who always lessened his anxiety, even when he had a shot he had to administer in his hand. He thought back to the time when he started crying at the sight of a needle and how masterful the doctor was at distracting him.

"Did you know that I gave all of the New York Knicks shots the other day," the younger doctor said to little David, his legs dangling off the end of the table. "See, I have a picture with the team over on that wall."

David looked at the picture and Dr. Martin quickly and accurately administered the shot on a meaty part of David's upper arm that he barely felt. David looked over at a picture of his heroes and then came back to reality, "But I don't want a shot!"

Dr. Martin smiled at David as he slid the needle into a protective sleeve and held a piece of alcohol on the injection spot, "All done!"

David looked at the doctor in amazement, wondered if the doctor had actual given him the shot and then didn't want to hang around for anyone to reconsider. Dr. Martin held a jar of lollipops and David scooped up a purple one and said, "Thanks," as he dashed out of the exam room and stood in front of the exit door for his mother, only steps away from freedom.

Current-day Dr. Martin smiled and said, "Glass means no shots today."

David laughed, "Do I still get a lollipop?" And then he looked at Lori and said, "I'll give it to you." She smiled as David said to the good doctor, "Type 2 diabetes."

Dr. Martin nodded and said, "All good boys and girls get lollipops," he replied and then sprayed the area with an anesthetic, "This won't take but a few minutes and then you'll be as good as new, David."

David marveled at the skill level of and ease of the doctor as he closed 10 stitches and said, "This should heal nicely with a little scar as a reminder that glass is not our friend."

"Thanks," David said as he got up from the table.

The doctor turned to Lori, "Why don't you go out and Margie will give you some stickers. I have to talk to your brother about caring for his wound."

Lori was happy not to have to hear about the gory details while also getting goodies from Dr. Martin's receptionist. The doctor waited for the door the close and then said to David, "Sit back down. I'm not done with you yet," in a tone that David had never heard from the cheery practitioner. David complied and Dr. Martin continued, "When did Melanie get home?"

David replied, "A few minutes before I chased her through the kitchen and put my hand through the back storm door."

"I thought I read in an article about you that you do transcendental meditation."

"Yes, that's true, but she is anything but calm," David stated.

"Listen, you're all going through a tough time right now and you can use a little help. God, I don't know where I would be without the dispensary."

The word "dispensary" hovered in David's mind like it had shoved its way into a sentence that was headed in a different direction.

The doctor continued, "I'm going to write a prescription from a few healthy doses of medical marijuana to combat your anxiety."

"I don't smoke," David replied.

"You'll be amazed at the variety of options they have, including gluten-free and diabetic food options."

David's eyebrow rose as he had been so tightly wound for so many years and probably could use a little natural relaxation, especially if he had to deal with things that were buried for years. The doctor handed wrote out a script and handed him the white slip with black writing, "There is a dispensary right across the street from the back entrance of Lewis Avenue Park."

David scanned his memory of the years he spent playing basketball and tennis in the park and then replied, "The only businesses back there were International Deli and Bob's Ass Works."

Dr. Martin laughed at the reference to Bob's Glass Works, which was now by the slang name because some kids painted over the "Gl" and Bob never bothered to correct the side of his building.

"Bob retired after the local government bought him out, and they paid extra to keep the name intact on the side of the building as sort of a town landmark," Dr. Martin explained. "People are so stoned in this town that they don't even realize the glass place is not there anymore."

"So, who do I call to get the glass replaced on the storm door?" David asked as they walked toward the exam room door.

"Bob has a son named Gary and he has a small place just down the road from there," the doctor explained.

David smiled, as his sense of humor was making a dramatic comeback, "Does his ass work?"

Dr. Martin replied, "From what I can see, I believe it does," as he patted David on the back.

Repair

David called Bob's Glass to see if he could get a replacement window installed and was told, "A technician has already been dispatched to that address."

While he never liked his sister to beat him at anything, being that she never let him win when they were growing up, he was content for the moment knowing she had actually done something. David also knew that he and Melanie were a long way from being civil, as she had caused much of his anxiety in his formative years and she continued to hammer away at him even when he was not longer around.

David always wanted to protect Lori and he often sacrificed his own lifestyle so that she could remain undamaged. They got back into the car and David got behind the wheel a white bandage over his stitched forearm, which was covered by his long sleeve Life is Good t-shirt. He turned to his sister and asked, "You wanna' go see a movie?"

Her eyes lit up until he looked over at her and suggested with his eyes that they would not be going to see the movie together. She was disappointed at first and then realized that David had some work to do that would that she probably would be happier to avoid. The house she grew up in and then lived in her entire life was always one of stress, anger and anxiety, and, at 50 years of age, she had wasted away her allotment of years in an environment of dysfunctional corrosion.

"Movies at the metroplex," David said to his car and the car instantly corrected him, "The AMC Stadium is the only movie theater in town, is that the one you want me to research?"

"I want one of those," Melanie stated.

David thought, "What, a friend?" and then he said out loud, " Yes, and Margaret, this is my sister Lori. Lori this is Margaret."

"Hello," and flushed and happy Lori said.

Margaret could adjust her personality, depending on the biorhythms of people in the car, "How you doing, girl?"

Lori replied, "Pretty good. How are you doing?"

David rolled his eyes, not sure if his sister was now a lesbian or had just fallen in love with a virtual woman, the latter makes more sense than the former, "Movies times, please."

"The next movie is in 10 minutes. It's the new Lego movie."

David was ready to scrap the movie idea since it was a kid's movie, but he should have known better. Perhaps he was a little rusty after so many years of detachment.

"Oh, I love Lego's!" Lori gushed as David pulled up in from of the theater. She delayed her exit out of the car, so he reached into his pocket handed her $40, which produced a smile. He reached into her pocket and handed her another $20. "Go see a few movies."

"Can I see the Lego movie a few times?"

"Fandango. Please buy Lori tickets for the first two showings of the Lego movie today at the AMC Theater." David and his sister walked out of the car after he parked and then he presented his phone with the bar code once an attendant greeted them. The pimple-faced guy printed out two tickets and handed them to Lori. "They'll be shown back to back in the same theater. You can order food from your seat and we will bring it to you."

"Cool!" she gushed as David handed her another $20 and said, "Knock yourself out." He then turned to the guy and asked, "When does the second movie end?"

"Four fifteen."

David nodded, "I'll be back to pick you up then," David said and then rubbed his sister's arm in a gesture of solidarity steeped in years of pain. She nodded and then made it to her reclining princess seat, where she excitedly ordered a tub of popcorn and a cherry squishy.

Her brother, however, wasn't as lucky. He stopped at Trader Joe's and grabbed a loaf of multigrain sourdough bread, a jar of natural chunky peanut butter and a bottle of cold water. If he were going back to war with his sister it would be with a clear head and a full stomach of peanut butter. While talking to Melanie was never easy, arguing with her was an art form that required a deft touch in order to navigate the minefield.

David used a plastic knife and spread a glob of peanut butter evenly across one slice of bread. He curled the bread up and folded it shut before talking the first bite of the sandwich that had sustained him most of his life. And with each chew, equilibrium, calm and focus was first restored and then gradually refined with each chew. He was nearly full after finishing the first piece of bread as he washed down the peanut butter clog with a big swig of water. David drove to the house and was going to park in the garage until he saw his sister's Range Rover blocking his path in the middle of the driveway. Something told him to park on the street, just in case he needed his getaway car to be in prime position.

He walked into the house and figured that he's have a few seconds to adjust to his surroundings before the fireworks began, but that wasn't the case."

"Why would she leave you anything?" Melanie angrily muttered from her seat in the kitchen. She sensed he was alone and in prime position to be taken down. Melanie stood up to confront her brother in an aggressive position, but time had dulled her memory to her brother's size and, more importantly, stature, and she regretted the move almost immediately.

"Why wouldn't she leave me something? Was I a bad person? Did I do something wrong?" David asked in succession as he moved toward his sister, who no longer scared him, but held the key to his mental freedom.

Melanie's go-to moves in these types of situations were to either get really loud and aggressive, or start crying to through people off the scent and invoke sympathy for all that she had been through. Strangely, she did neither. Melanie refused to engage her brother as she backed up as he continued to pursue, both physically and mentally.

"What happened to us? What did he do to you and what did you do to me?"

She reached the back door and held her hand out and screamed, "I didn't do shit to you!" as she opened the back storm door to escape.

David, although enraged, had a moment of clarity as he tried to learn from his unsuccessful exit earlier in the day. He stopped short as his sister slammed the door shut. The glass repairmen must have forgotten to reengage the chain that slowed the door's closing, because the glass shattered on impact. David thought he was out of range until he looked down and a large shard of glass remained in his left forearm, at almost the identical spot his right forearm had been injured a few hours before.

He yelled, "You gotta' be kidding me!" as he stared at his sister, who was about to laugh until she realized that she wasn't eight years old and there was no scenario in which she could outrun her brother.

David pulled the glass out of his arm after he located another towel that he again wrapped tightly to stem the flow of blood. He shook off excess glass and got back into his getaway car for another trip to the doctor's office. David parked the car and walked into the office, displaying his left arm to the Marge and she shook her head in disbelief, "Go right into exam room 2, David."

He kept walking into exam room 2 where Kaiko met him again, who suggested, "Maybe you try another door next time."

David nodded as she handed him a razor and some shave cream, "Sounds like a good idea."

"You working on things?" she asked.

He smiled and nodded, "Always."

"The door is winning but so are you," she replied before smiling and then leaving the room.

Dr. Martin walked in shaking his head, "I remember making a house call to a little boy's house one Friday night when it was told me that he had dropped a glass ashtray on his feet. You had two bloody feet covered by socks your sister said you put on to hide your guilt. You might have been all of four or five years old at the time, but all I saw in your eyes was innocence. You didn't even blink when I stitched both of your feet up back then."

"If I told on her she would have pounded me," David replied.

"How about now?" the doctor asked.

David replied as Dr. Martin stitched his left forearm up with 14 stitches, "I need to get past all of this." He then elevated his point, "We need to get past all of this as a family."

The Doctor looked down and focused on his work, "Good. But might I suggest an alternative means of exit. It looks like you've run out of forearms, chief."

Bridge

To say that Melanie escaped through drugs in her teens, 20s and 30s would have an accurate statement of fact. While she fluctuated in weight for much of this period, the one thing that was always present was artificial influences in her life. Not that any of these supposed mind-altering elixirs had any real affect on her abrasive temperament... at least not around her family.

David walked back out of the doctor's office to his car and for some reason reached into his pocket with his right hand and pulled out a few pieces of paper. It was the scripts that Dr. Martin had given him previously for the medical marijuana dispensary. The word "dispensary" floated in his head for a few seconds and then when he struggled to settle into his driver's seat, since both of his arms had been impaired by the result of angry exchanges, he figured it might be time to approach the problem from a slightly different angle.

Since David had never been inside of a marijuana dispensary before, and had only tried pot twice in college with little result, he was thinking less of himself and more of his sister when he walked into a storefront named "Wavy Gravy Bakery," an obvious ode to the bakery that in that spot for years before it went out of business. He expected a bunch of potheads to be lingering around but was surprised to see a setup similar to a jewelry store or even a bakery, where people waited to service customers behind large glass cases.

"Can I help you?" the 40-something with the look for a Wall Street analyst asked. It was if this particular person was picked out for David so that he would feel more comfortable with his surroundings and eventually his purchase.

David again reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the scripts that Dr. Martin wrote for him. "I have this script from my doctor. This is supposed to help with my anxiety," David explained.

"So, you are looking for something to take the edge off," the man stated. "On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being mild anxiety to 10, being severe anxiety, how would you rate your level?"

While David's personal level of anxiety averaged out to about a 4 on normal days, he was thinking more of his sister and how to completely neutralize her. "Think of if you needed to take down an elephant or a rhino with anger issues."

The guy knew that David was not talking about himself and replied, "The old ball and chain. I hear you," the guy replied, thinking that it was David's wife that needed to be neutralized.

David thought, "No, my wife has already been neutralized. This is for my bitch of a sister." He simply nodded and avoided a conversation that never had to happen in the first place.

"Ahh," the guy said as he walked to the other side of the counter, David following his journey, "what you need is some Chillin' Babar. It taps into the most peaceful and positive elements of the brain and you also don't forget anything that happened." He reached down and picked up a small bag of weed.

"I don't smoke," David interjected. "And I have diabetes."

The dude nodded his head and let the new information swirl around his cannabis machine of a head. He walked a few steps to his left and then turned around to the case behind him, pulling at three small ball-shaped edible items.

"I'm going to give you three of these, but make sure that you only eat one at a time." He put the balls in a bag and then added, "It will take about 10 minutes to kick in, so don't give up trying too soon."

David paid for the items and looked at the balls on the way to his car. Normally he would have asked the ingredients of anything he was putting into his body, but he decided to forego the process after looking down at his bandaged arms. He had endured enough physical pain for one day and mental pain for a lifetime, and he surmised that it wouldn't be the worst thing to escape from life for a little while.

Melanie had pulled her car into the street so the glass guy could pull into the driveway. He had just left a few moments earlier after replacing the same glass for the second time in only a few hours.

"Would you like me to leave another one just in case?" Gary the glass guy asked in the kind of a sarcastic tone only a New Yorker could deliver.

Melanie thought about the proposition since the replacements were starting to become expensive. "Yeah, why don't you go ahead and do that," she replied.

David pulled into the garage this time and then entered the house as his sister continued to clean small pieces of glass not visible to the human eye. She would always clean when she got upset, which meant that she usually did a lot of cleaning. He walked into the kitchen and Melanie was about to run out of the back door again until she noticed that he was carrying a bag with some kind of food in it. David and his sister both had a weakness for any food containing peanuts, so he grabbed a couple of paper towels and placed one on one side of he table and another on the other side of the round kitchen table. He removed one of the balls and placed it on the towel across from him and then another on the towel in front of him, and then left the third ball in its bag and placed it on the bench seat next to him, out of sight and hopefully out of reach of his sister.

Melanie was curious and a little hungry, despite destroying a bag of Hershey's chocolates she had found in her mother's hiding place in one of the cabinets. It was unknown how long those chocolates had been in the cabinet, although availability definitely took precedence over freshness and flavor.

David was doing all he could not to eat the magic ball on the way home, as the intoxicating scent of peanut butter was playing with his senses. He sat down at the table, almost daring his sister to put down the vacuum and sit across from him.

"What is that?" she asked, even though it really didn't matter.

"It's something I picked up on my way home from the doctor," he replied.

She sat down and acted like he was trying to poison her, "You go first."

While David thought he had picked up the balls for Melanie, he had probably wanted the natural vacation more than he was willing to admit. He picked up the ball, which was the size of a standard gumball, and took a small bite at first. Melanie waited for his reaction, hoping that he wouldn't keel over and die so she could eat the mystery ball.

David nodded his head and said, "Hey, that's pretty good," as he continue to consume the ball in only a few more bites. Melanie popped the ball into her mouth like a seagull consuming a fish.

"You got any more of those?" he asked like an addict back on the take.

He thought about looking down at the other ball, but then heard the guy in the dispensary say, "Only eat one at a time," so he looked straight ahead and replied, "No, that's all I have."

Since David had 10 minutes to burn before Babar would come out and Melanie would go away, he decided to get the ball rolling.

"Are there any other doors in the house you want to slam on my arms?" he asked as he got two bottles of water from the fridge and gave her one.

"You deserved that!" he countered and then took a huge swig of water.

"I deserved that?" David said in an indignant tone. "I deserved that? Do you mind telling me what I did to deserve that?"

She was vague and evasive as usual, "You know what you did!"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing, "Why don't you explain to me what I did, because for some reason the victim has become the perpetrator here!"

She was in a reply loop, "You know what you did!

David was thinking the one ball wasn't enough to take down the ornery beast, but he decided to ride it out and see what would happen next without the added help.

"So, you never would have talked to me again if I hadn't come back?"

She wouldn't budge, "No. Why would I?"

"Because I'm your brother!" he shot back.

"So?" she countered

"So, it means nothing to you that we're related?" he asked.

"No," she replied as David could tell his line of questioning was starting to make an impact, although he wasn't sure if it was the junk or his spunk.

He decided to cut the small talk and go for the jugular, "Why didn't you ever tell me what was going on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" she replied.

"If you don't know what I'm talking about, then why did you all scatter like scared mice into a hole when I called Lori that day?"

Melanie fought to keep her guard up but the calming power of Chillin' Babar was way too strong.

"What did you put in this thing?" she asked.

"Nothing you can't handle," he said. "Doc Martin wrote me a prescription for some medical marijuana, but I don't smoke and have Type 2 Diabetes."

"We didn't deserve it," Melanie stated.

"Didn't deserve what?" David asked as he could feel the impact of the drugs kicking in, but he didn't want to lose his train of thought.

"Any of it," she said. And just as David was going to seek further clarification, his sister filled in the blanks for him instead. "Do you remember that night Dr. Miller came over and had to stitch up both of your feet because the glass ash tray fell on your foot?"

"Yeah, we were just talking about that," David replied.

"You know that was me, right?" she asked.

"Yes, you told me not to say anything," David said like he was still a small boy who looked up to his sister.

"Well, the reason I dropped the ash tray on your feet was because you were about to tell on me," she explained. The sodium pentathol, a.k.a. truth serum, in the ball was starting to kick in and there was no way for Melanie to stop the flow of information that he had dammed up for years. "I had been making you do things with me for a few years and you didn't want to do it anymore. You were really restless and I was so fucked up and didn't know how to stop. I thought you were going to tell on me, even though mom already knew what was going on because she walked in on us one day and wrote it off that we were playing doctor. "I never touched you again after that day."

David was steamed and wasn't sure if his sister was looking for a lack of participation medal for finally stopping abusing him. "But, you and mom let him do it to Lori!" And then Melanie's eyes widened, which led David to believe there was more to the story, "Were there other people?"

Melanie dropped her head and said, "Cousin Lauren, Cousin Brenda, Cousin Sarah, Cousin Sophie and Cousin Jessica."

"Cousin Jessica?!" David screamed in horror. "How did they all sit by and watch him do it again? How did you do nothing after all of these years?"

Melanie started crying, but this time her real tears supplanted her usual crocodile tears. "All these years, I just wanted him to die! I begged mom for years to leave him but she wouldn't do it! She was always worried about her image and what it would like if the secret came out."

"So, you all buried the secret with him but what good did it do?" he asked. "We lost years because of him that we can never get back!"

David stood up and his agitation overrode whatever the affect of the peanut butter ball. "This is bullshit! I looked up to you! I trusted you! I let you drop a heavy glass ashtray on my feet and then put white socks on to protect you! But, who was protecting me? Who was protecting me all of these years?! He might as well have molested me from all of the abuse I took from him! You never really cared about me! None of you really cared about me!" he yelled as he walked out of the house as his sister wailed, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, David!"

Ride

David wasn't listening to his sister's pleas as he opened the garage door from the outside with a code he had programmed years ago on the keypad. He got into the car and all he could think about was getting as far away from the house as he could. He sped out of the driveway and then zoomed around the block, which was a far stretch from what really happened. While David's mind was racing, he moved at about three miles per hour out of the garage and then closed the door as he barely cleared the pathway. The car stopped at the end of the driveway to yield for another motorist, as David then rolled around the block once in drive at 2 miles per hour until the car came to a stop in a shady spot and stopped itself.

He sat there for the better part of an hour until a teenage girl came home from high school and asked her mother, "Who's the creepy guy in the cool car parked outside?"

Grace Gold picked up her phone and was about to dial the police until she had a feeling that she should check this out for herself. "Okay, go do your homework."

She grabbed a baseball bat from the garage and walked slowly down the driveway as her daughter spied on her in the window of her bedroom. They had been a tight-knit unit after Grace's husband Bruce Porter filed for divorce and ran away with his girlfriend, giving up full custody without a fight. The women were so impacted by the move that they both changed their last names to Grace's surname of Gold to honor the parents and grandparents they both loved.

Grace was halfway down the driveway when she thought she had a positive ID on the perp.

"David?" she asked as she tossed the bat onto the lawn, much to the surprise of her daughter, who was about to pop outside to stand by her mother's side.

David waved back at Grace and smiled, "Gracie! What are you doing here?"

The car windows were open due to the car sensing a body inside and the temperature climbing beyond a comfortable limit.

Grace walked closer to the car and said in a softer tone so the neighbors wouldn't hear, "You are parked in front if my house," as she looked around and then jumped into the passenger seat.

Zoe shook her head and rolled her eyes and even cracked a little smile that her mother actually knew someone that was driving a Tesla. She moved away from the window and proceeded to pretend to do her homework just like any senior a few weeks from graduation.

Grace texted her daughter, "It's ok. Someone I went to high school with. Be back in a bit."

Zoe smiled more broadly because she wanted her mom to be happy, "K," was all she wrote back, which was pretty positive by teen standards.

Grace turned to David and said, "You are in no shape to drive. Switch places with me."

He started to climb over the center console and she said, "Wait!" as she exited the vehicle, unlocked his seat belt, escorted him to the passenger seat, put his seat belt on and then nodded at her daughter, who snuck one last peak and was giving her the thumbs up from her window. Grace sat in the driver's seat and moved the seat up a bit before buckling her seatbelt.

"We should go to Burnum Hills School," Grace said to herself but loud enough for the car's female CPU to hear. The car started talking, "We are going to Burnum Hills School, 1220 Burnum Hills Lane," which surprised Grace as the car started rolling.

"What should I do?" she asked David.

"Just let her drive," he replied.

Grace noticed that both of his arms were bleeding through his shirt and asked, "What happened to your arms? Are you okay?"

"Well, I was at work in the city and my phone rang, so I answered it," David started, about to recount the entire story. "It was my mother's lawyer, who told me that she had died and I'd better get home. You know, I haven't been back in a while."

"Yeah, it's pretty obvious when you're around because you're the tallest person in the town," she countered with a tinge of anger.

He smiled and then continued his story as the car rolled closer to the school, which had let its students free a few minutes earlier. "I went to the beach and then busted my sister Lori out of her group home..."

"Lori was in a group home?" Grace questioned. "I was wondering where she went," she said as they both stared at the kids and their unfiltered exuberance.

"We went to Marshall's and I got some clothes, because I can't stand wearing suits anymore." He then turned to Grace and said, "You are as pretty as the day we met on that playground."

She turned quickly as his words took her breath away. "There was nobody else on the playground that day but you. That was all I could see." He looked deeply into her blue eyes with his brown eyes, "Still can't see anyone else."

"What else happened today?" she asked, thinking she was on to something.

"We got food at Costco, my sister came back, we argued, I got glass stuck in my left arm, I saw Dr. Martin, he gave me a prescription, I dropped Lori off at the movies, went to Trader Joe's and then ate a peanut butter sandwich, went back to the house, battled with Melanie again, got some more glass in my left arm, went to get more stitches, stopped at the pot dispensary, went home and we both ate peanut butter balls, she finally admitted that she molested me and my dad had molested both of my sisters and a bunch of other family members. Then I got into my car and then drove until the car stopped in front of your house."

Back at the house, Melanie sat at the kitchen table and finally stopped yelling for her brother to come back. She then picked up her cell phone and dialed her husband Walter.

"Hello," Walter said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, silly pants!" she gushed, much to Walter's surprise. He had been so beaten down by Melanie that he always expected her to be charging, not playing. Walter looked around the wall of his office and wondered of he had entered an alternate dimension of time and space.

"David game me a peanut butter ball and now I feel all right," she stated as she tried to grab unicorns that were floating above her head.

Walter had witnessed the tail end of Melanie on drugs and helped her get clean so the two of them could have kids one day. But, now that they had a grown kid, the reintroduction of drugs into her life didn't seem like such a bad idea.

"Your brother, David?" Walter asked.

"Yes!" she replied. "Maybe you can talk to him. He won't forgive me."

"Forgive you for what?" Walter asked and then his boss knocked and then walked into his office. "I gotta' go," he said and then hung up the phone.

"Sorry, my wife's mother just passed," Walter said in an apologetic tone.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you need to take some time?" Martin Pressler asked.

Walter nodded in appreciation, "Probably, but I'll get back to you as soon as I know."

Melanie didn't realize that Walter had hung the phone up, so she went on to recount all of the things that had happened in her life that he was unaware of, like blaming her brother for the family's problems and poising everyone against him in order to divert attention way from the real issue. She went on for a good 20 minutes and then said, "Goodbye, Walter. Thanks for being so understanding of me being a lesbian! Talk to you later." She put the phone down and went back to chasing unicorns and Barbie, who had just joined the party.

Grace and David emerged from the car once all of the kids cleared out and walked toward the playground, David breathing in some fresh air that help him clear his head a bit.

"That was a lot of information you just dropped on me," Grace said. "I'm not sure what I should address first?"

David was digging deep beyond the effects of the drugs in an attempt to have a more serious conversation, "There was truth serum in those peanut butter balls."

"Are you saying that you at balls?" she joked.

David cocked his head, "They were made out of peanut butter."

"Good point," she countered. "Did all of that stuff really happen with your dad?"

"Yep," David replied.

"I always thought you two had such a special relationship."

"I did, too," David stated.

"When did you find out?" she asked as they sat on a couple of swings.

"When I was going through therapy as my wife was dying," he said as they started swinging.

"Oh, shit," she grunted. "I'm sorry you went through that."

Grace was swinging higher and higher due to all of the nervous energy she was harboring, while David was content in watching her swing at first. Then he got up and started helping her swing.

"I used to be really good at this," she said. "I used to be good at a lot of things. My husband cheated on me and left me!" she blurted out.

David smiled, "That's the best news I've heard all day!" as Grace smiled as well, figuring that David had always been the most honest and trustworthy person she had ever known and all the truth serum did was get him to talk about his feelings more.

Out

The sleeping was easy that night and Lori was the first person up the next morning. She had seen three movies and then David finally remembered he head to pick her up once the drugs wore off.

"Sorry about that," David said as Lori jumped into the car. She looked down and saw bloodstains from both of his arms and thought she was fortunate not to be in the middle of all that commotion.

It was quiet in the house as Lori grabbed a bowl, cereal and almond milk and sat on the bench seat of the kitchen table. She scooped some granola in her mouth with her right hand and let her left hand drop to the seat next to her, feeling a strange bag that was odd because of its location. Lori let her spoon rest in the bowl as she viewed the bag and the heavy ball it contained. She removed the ball and sniffed around it like an animal trying to get further detail on potential grub. Since she liked peanut butter, taking a bite didn't seem like a far stretch, even if it was a dog treat.

Lori took a bite out of the ball and instantly liked it. Then she kept eating until the ball was gone. Two hours later siblings Melanie and David rolled out of bed and were surprised, really shocked, at what they witnessed: the entire house, except for their rooms, had been organized and prepared for decisions on whether to keep or donate.

"How?" was all Melanie could muster.

David knew better. He walked into the kitchen and looked around the seat where he had left the last magic ball, but there was nothing there.

"Did you eat that peanut butter ball?" he asked Lori as his sisters followed him into the kitchen.

Lori showed no sense of panic in her countenance and replied, "What if I did? I'm tired of people just walking all over me and taking me for granted like I'm some kind of retard or something!"

Melanie looked at David and he returned the knowing glance that they could finally be on to something. "So, let me get this straight," Melanie said. "I eat that shit and I'm chasing unicorns and admitting to everything, and you take it and finally act like the rest of us sober?"

"Yeah, I was on the giant water slide and I think I might have told Grace Gold that I've loved her since we were kids, and your attention span becomes magnified and you finally stand up to us."

"He molested us!" Lori yelled then she turned to Melanie, "You molested him, beat the crap out of both of us both physically and mentally, dad died, mom died, and now we have to decide if we want to be around each other. And let's sell this fuckin' house and all of the freak show memories inside of it!"

Melanie didn't know what to say, so she looked at her brother for illumination.

"We gotta' get more of those balls," he stated.

"Yeah," Melanie concurred.

"A lifetime supply would be good," Lori added.

Once they ate and showered the trio was headed to Dr. Martin's office to get a trusted professional opinion on Lori's condition. Marge had seen her fill of David and Lori as of late, but was surprised to see older sister Melanie in tow as well. Her eyes widened to accommodate the increased size of the eldest Strauss.

Melanie recognized the look and said, "Yes honey, I gained a little weight. But take a good look, because I'm back."

She high-fived here siblings, who didn't know if that meant she was going to continue being a bitch or that she was simply going to lose weight, or both.

"We need to talk to the doctor about Lori," David explained.

Just then, Dr. Martin came out of an exam room after seeing his first patient of the day. There was no one in the waiting area, so the doctor said, "Come on into my office," and then mouthed, "I got this" to Marge.

Dr. Martin closed the door to his office and invited the three to sit on the couch in front of him. He sat on the edge of his desk and asked, "I don't see anyone bleeding or in need of stitches, so what can I do for you this morning?"

David took the lead, "Well, I took your advice and went to the pot dispensary yesterday after you stitched me up for the second time. So, thank you for that."

Dr. Martin smiled and then Melanie continued, "We ate the peanut butter balls and then had an honest and direct conversation for the first time... ever. The pot balls had some side effects, including making us tell the truth and seeing unicorns and Barbie..."

"And huge water slides," David added. "And then Lori woke up before us this morning and ate the last ball, and now, well, she's normal."

All of the energy in the room shifted to Lori as she couldn't believe what she was hearing, "Normal? I'm not normal, I'm extraordinary!"

Dr. Martin's mouth opened, as he had pampered and medicated the youngest Strauss with little impact over the years.

"Yeah, she went through the house and categorized and organized everything," David stated.
Dr. Martin stepped forward and asked Lori, "Do you mind if I take a look?"

"No, go right ahead," Lori replied.

The doctor shined a light in her eyes and then measured her heartbeat, all of which seemed to be normal. He then stepped back and said, "Many studies have found marijuana to be effective in treating PTSD and other trauma-related anxieties, but I have never seen it with my own eyes. How long have you been like this?" He then clarified his question, "When did you eat the peanut butter ball?"

"About 6:30 a.m.," Lori replied.

Dr. Martin looked down at his watch and it was nearly 10:00 a.m. "My only question is, will you need to take repeated doses, or can the cumulative multitude of the chemical reaction permanently alter your disorder and help you focus socially. Because you have always been an outstanding student unable to focus and adapt socially."

Melanie and David always smelled opportunity.

"We need to do more research," Melanie said to David.

"Yeah, but I want to try something different this time," he replied.

Lori jumped in, "Why do you to always exclude me from conversations like I'm not even in the room?"

"Now there are three of them," Dr. Martin mumbled as he wrote some new scripts. "Here, I have written three scripts that should last you for a while on the premise that you keep me posted on Lori's progress."

Lori took the lead this time, "I love you Dr. Martin, but I'd be happy to never step foot in this office ever again. That being said, you will be the first to know."

The Strauss family left the office and Dr. Martin, even at 92, felt as if the remaining years of his life would be his best if this breakthrough had legs.

Clean

The new Lori remained for a good 8 hours, but as she started to fade David flipped her another peanut butter ball and she was good to go. He then texted Dr. Martin, "8 hours on the first ball. Just gave her a 2nd." After visiting the dispensary and coming back with a decent supply, the siblings headed back home in David's car.

"This car is so quiet. What kind of gas mileage do you get?" Melanie asked like an ill-informed truck driver.

"This car doesn't take gas," David replied.

She looked around and saw the Tesla name and self-corrected, "I meant, how many miles can you go on a single charge. This car is nice."

"About 250 miles," David stated. "There's a charging station near the beach," he added as he looked over his shoulder at Lori. "I don't need anything extra to inform me of what you're going to ask me next."

Lori laughed at the familiarity that was missing from her life for the many years her brother had been banished for a crime he didn't commit. "You guys down with some stretching tomorrow morning followed by a walk?"

Melanie playfully punched David's upper arm with the back of her fist, "Yeah, I'm in!"

"Me, too," Lori added.

David pulled into the driveway and let his sisters out before parking in the garage. He walked out of the garage and punched the code in to close it. The three of them stood in the driveway looking at the house.

"Now the hard part," David said.

"Yeah, we gotta' clean this shit out," Melanie stated.

"I don't think we should go in there alone," Lori astutely suggested.

David turned to his left toward Melanie and said, "This is your area of expertise," and then he turned to right toward Lori, "and apparently you, too!"

"We need more people," Melanie surmised.

"Yeah, definitely more people. I can organize both of your rooms while you decide on the other things in the house," Lori plotted.

David added, "Let me text someone and see if they can send reinforcements. Do we need a dumpster?"

"No, I think we can get the junk guys to pick up the stuff we don't want," Melanie countered.

"What if we donate the salvageable stuff we don't want and toss the rest?" Lori asked.

"I like this Lori!" Melanie exclaimed with her hands of victory in the air.

David hugged his little sister and whispered, "I'll take whatever Lori I can get."

He fired off a text to Grace, "S.O.S., we need assistance!"

She responded, "On my way!"

A few minutes later, she walked through the front door after knocking with her daughter, who was interested to see who was driving the Tesla and had put her mother in such a good mood.

Lori was closest to the front door when she heard a knock, so she said, "Come in, it's open!"

Grace instinctively walked to David's room where Lori happened to be and Lori's smile lit up the whole house when she saw Grace, "Gracie!" They hugged and Lori whispered in Grace's ear, "You don't let him get away this time."

Grace pulled back and wondered when the child-like Lori had become so wise. "You remember my daughter Zoe," she said to Lori.

"Hey, Zoe! You must be a senior in high school. Where are you thinking of going to college?" Lori asked as Grace decided to leave the two of them alone to talk. For some reason, she believed a talk with Lori Strauss would help her daughter to focus, which was a thought that would have been nowhere on the radar... ever.

She walked through the kitchen and said, "David?"

"Down here, Gracie!" David reacted from the basement.

Grace walked down the stairs, which was just to the right of the back door, which she had the feeling was the reason for David's bleeding. She turned the corner and saw piles of stuff scattered throughout the basement. They were quite organized piles, which was impressive to Grace.

"Who organized all of this?" she asked.

"Holy shit, is that Gracie Gold!" Melanie shouted and then muttered to David, "Please tell me you nailed that," like they were now brothers scoping out chicks.

Melanie hugged and picked up Grace, who was an inch taller than the 5'9" Melanie, but decidedly more than half as light.

"Wow, I didn't expect that," Grace admitted. "Did you guys organize all of this?"

"No, it was Lori," David replied and then could see that Grace was confused. "Remember I told you about those peanut balls we ate yesterday?"

"Yeah," Grace replied.

"Well, Lori got her hands on one this morning and she has been like she always should have been ever since," David explained.

"Wow! Yeah, I just left her alone with Zoe because I thought she could help her. Go figure." Grace looked around, "I know a bunch of people from the neighborhood—people we went to high school with—that would be happy to come over and help. I'm sure if you order a bunch of pizzas that would do it."

"We are both diabetic," David said to Grace.

"Really? I am, too!" Grace said in an upbeat voice, 'Although, I'm not so sure why I found that so exciting?"

"No worries," Melanie said. "We can order some pizza and then get some grilled chicken, salad and low carb pitas and some hummus."

"That sounds good. And we also have some other edible items for dessert," David smirked.

Grace caught on and replied, "Let me send some texts out. Most people our age have kids either in college or out of college, so they are always looking for something to do besides going to the movies and out to eat."

Prom

As most gatherings of people from liker backgrounds, the list starts small with people in the immediate vicinity and then expands into an all-out rave. Not that many Baby Boomers had ever been to a rave, but they would probably tell you that it's a raging party with lots of loud music, alcohol and other mood enhancers.

Grace was sensitive to the actual events surrounding this gathering, so opened with a list of people she knew would be both supportive and aesthetically pleasing to the Strauss clan. This was the white-collar side of Dunes Point, where the people drank wine and watched their cholesterol, so the guest list probably needed a little messaging.

"Here is the list of people I was thinking about," Grace said to David as they sat next to each other on the porch in the backyard.

David took a little and needed a few seconds to be become reacquainted with the names. While he hat attended his high school class's 20th reunion, it had been almost another 20 years since that gathering and probably as long since he talked to anyone. David looked at Grace and gave her a hint of indifference.

"Who would you like to see?" he asked.

"One of us lives in this town and is on the board of the high school's P.T.A. board."

He smiled, "You're on the P.T.A. board?" and then he saw the stern look on her face that if he continued she would not be responsible for the carnage that followed. "That is quite admirable," he added.

"You still don't think before you talk," she said. Like that day we broke up!" she said in frustration.

He had little memory recall of the event other than they went to college and decided to see what happened once they got there. Grace had a very different take on the events that followed their exit from Dunes Point. She started talking and they went into flashback mode.

"That summer after we graduated high school went way too fast," she started detailing. "I remember I was a camp counselor at a local day camp and you went away from the summer as a counselor at a sleepaway camp. We had both made our plans for the summer before the prom and couldn't turn back once we made the commitments."

Prom was always a strange time of year for high school students. The awkward nature of trying to scrounge up a date from a pool of people you've already reviewed dozens of times seemed like an instant recipe for boredom. Grace and David had been friends since they were kids, but his early shyness and her insistence to wait for him to make the first move produced a complete stalemate. David felt uncomfortable around the opposite sex until he was 17, but even then he was extremely careful to exposing himself to any aggression or feelings that he wasn't at the very least an equal partner.

Grace watched as David really started dating their junior year. While he had showed little promise in the classroom, prompting his parents to label him as lazy and an underachiever, all that time he spent in the driveway shooting baskets was starting to pay off on the bigger stage. As his basketball team started winning games, students and teachers started attended games to the point that every square inch of the bleachers were filled and the gym was the place to be every time the Dunes Point Dolphins played a varsity basketball home game. What this meant for David was that girls started to pay more attention to him—any attention—and that seemed to be boosting his self esteem, much to Grace's consternation.

"You were so stuck up back then!" she interjected into her story.

David smirked, "Would you rather see me down and anchored to my house? I was the shit, wasn't I?"

She shoved him and smiled, "Yeah, you definitely were the shit."

While David's shot landing him a full athletic scholarship in college and enshrinement into to the high school's hall of fame, it did little to being him and Grace closer together, at least at first. David dated a cheerleader his junior year and a kickline member his senior year before they broke it off only days before the prom. His head was getting bigger by the day and Megan Triplett was trying to nail him down.

"What are we going to do when you go to college?" she asked one night as they sat in a fogged up parked car in front of her house.

David had visited his college months earlier before making his final decision and his head was spinning from the female talent. He walked into the campus cafeteria with his parents and future coach and was passed by a few women that gave him looks, the likes of which he had only seen in the pages of gentlemen's magazines. He took a deep breath and realized that the high school team jacket he was wearing made him look young and stupid, and he no longer had use for it anymore, so he took it off and gave it to Megan when he returned home. She was ecstatic to get at because she thought it signaled a deeper commitment, but his subsequent behavior and increased level of detachment indicated otherwise.

"What do you mean?" David asked, as he wanted to avoid the conversation and get back to making out.

"I mean, will we still be going out when you go to college?"

He really had no plan for anything beyond letting his fingers do the walking and talking, although he knew that once he left for college there would be no turning back.

"Well, you're going to college, too," he replied, trying to avoid giving a definitive answer.

"Yeah, but I'm going to be living at home. It's not the same thing as going away and having a new set of aggressive women fawn all over the basketball star."

David thought she as making some good points, not realizing there would be a period of massive adjustment vaulting from the high school to the college level.

His head grew a little larger and was now testing the upper limits of the atmosphere.

"No, really. I have to know what we're going to do," she insisted.

David never liked it when people pressed him on anything, as he preferred to have civilized conversations that always ended in some sort of agreement. But, this sounded like an ultimatum to him, not that it really would alter the inevitable anyway. David's mind worked quickly, as he assumed that Megan would hold on as long as she could. Their relationship seemed to work during his sports season, but once the ride was over he realized that they had little in common other than liking to be together. In later years he would realized that this element was one of the most critical traits in a successful long-term relationship. Although seeing her at the 20th reunion provided no spark or recognition at all for him at all, which reinforced his decision decades earlier.

As thoughts of continuing the makeout session abated, the blood from his lower brain traveled upstream to his upper brain and David was able to think clearly and objectively again. Megan had been hammering away it him for weeks with "I'm going to miss you sooooo much," and "We're going talk on the phone every day," that he signed up to go to a sleepaway camp for seven weeks that his school coach ran in the Pennsylvania Berkshires. He couldn't bare the thought of listening to that whining all summer, even if it meant she would be naked while doing it.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, or so he thought. "You know, I don't think a long-distance relationship can work."

The genius that David was... half of his relationships in college turned out to be long-distance relationships, proving that karma can be a real bitch to shake.

Megan thought she had a rebuttal to anything David was going to say, but the mention of the inefficacy of a long-distance relationship was not on the list for some reason. She expected the usually laid back baller to roll over and let the relationship continue with all that was at stake with the prom only days away and then graduation following shortly thereafter.

"But..." was all she could muster as the look of lust and love had been replaced in his countenance by unfamiliarity and indifference. The trail had gone cold and Megan was the one in the relationship for a change who was at a loss for words. "But we're still going to the prom, right?"

David might have been outwardly chilly, but inward he was rather disappointed that Megan gave up on him without a fight. This conformed his suspicions that she would jump to the next pony at the first hint of things not going well. That's what happened when they first met: she was seeing another guy and dumped him when she sensed an opportunity to catch the school's alpha. Things came full circle at the prom when David stood next to previous boyfriend Tom Caple and said, "She's all yours, Tom. I don't think she ever really got over you." David shrugged and falsely admitted defeat to alleviate any remaining tension between them, "I tried."

David and Megan walked into the prom together after David they took a limo ride with Grace and her date, George Simmons, and another random couple that no one ever talked to again after graduation. Word spread like wildfire that such a high profile couple had split, courtesy of Megan trying to act all mature and explaining, "We feel that college is a big step and we should take that on separately."

Grace stopped by David's house the day before the prom, a practice that she had suspended for the prior few years since he was romantically involved with other people.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Grace asked as she plopped down on the bed while David sat on the floor in a beanbag chair.

"Tell you what?" David said coyly.

Grace took the bait and then stopped herself, "That you and Megan... okay, I see what you're doing there.

"What do you care? You're going to the prom with Georgie Porgie."

It didn't take long for David to push his best friend's buttons, since he knew she wasn't so jazzed about going with him in the first place. He also knew that if he had more time, and a half-a-brain, he would have taken Grace instead.

They continued the banter for another half-hour until Grace decided to give up and go home.

"See you tomorrow," she said as they slapped hands like olds buddies until their hands intertwined and their eyes met. If David had learned one thing over the previous years, he knew the difference between really liking someone and not really liking a person. The only question was, did he have the emotional capacity to take his feelings to the next level and effectively sustain those feelings?

He tugged at her and she offered little resistance, as they both acted instead of putting the brakes on and thinking for a change. Grace almost jumped in David's lap as they kissed passionately on the floor for a few minutes. Once they pulled back their eyes met and forged a bond she thought would never be broken. A guy had never looked at Grace that way before and she liked the fact that it was David was the one doing the looking. They started going at it again and clothes would probably have been removed at that point until David's mother yelled, "Gracie, your mom wants you to come home for dinner, honey!"

It was a rare feat for two moms to be such blockers, but Grace stood up and looked down at David, and he looked up at her and whispered, "To be continued."

She smiled, turned red and then left the room, as the two now had a reason to attend the prom the following night. The heat between them was plausible in the limo ride to the venue on prom night. They had set the tone during a picture taking session where they were next to each other in every picture taken, probably so they could edit out there dates later on. It was so obvious that Megan and George scattered once they arrived at the prom and never talked to their dates for the rest of the school year.

"How long do we have to stay here?" Grace asked as they ate knishes and franks in blankets during the cocktail hour.

David was in hog heaven as he said, "Don't you remember all of those Bar and Bat Mitzvahs we went to and how I always loved this time of the events? Grace did a flashback to David asking her to hold a few extra bite-sized morsels for him each time the server came around with a fresh tray. He could never get enough of it and then he ignored the meal and waited for the awesome dessert.

"So, does that mean we have to stay for dessert?" she asked.

He moved in closer and replied, "Not tonight."

In those days, promgoers didn't stay in hotels, preferring to save the money and sleep at the beach until going to an amusement park or something of similar excitement the next day.

They left the prom and had the limo driver take them to David's house, where they took his mom's car as planned. Although the plan was for David to pick up his mom's car the next morning, his parents didn't even notice the car being taken that night. They changed out of their formal attire in the car and put her dress and his tuxedo back in their plastic protectors in the trunk after changing into less clothing. David took a few blankets from the limo and tossed them in the back seat.

They were scheduled to go to Great Adventure Amusement Park in New Jersey the next morning, but David figured that any time you didn't have to go to New Jersey was probably the appropriate call. Besides, he was thinking about any other ride but the one that was sitting next to him in the car. He was 18, full of confidence and about as horny as a jackrabbit, assuming that all rabbits were like teenage boys.

They arrived at the beach and parking lot five and a spot they had been a few times in earlier years and then walking on the boardwalk in recent years. David knew of a spot that wasn't so remote that it would put them in harm's way, but it also provided a level of privacy that would allow for the need to acknowledge that there were other human beings inhabiting the earth. To say that they did "everything, but" that whole night and next morning would be an accurate depiction of their time together. To say that they repeated slid into third base over and over again for the next two weeks until David left for camp would also be on the money. They were so hot for each other that the thought of turning third and heading for home was evident, but never actually explored.

"Why didn't you go for it?" she asked as the flashback concluded.

"I... " David started.

"What?" she insisted.

"I was scared!" she shot back. And before she asked what he was scared about he added, "I wasn't ready."

"But, didn't you have sex with Megan and the cheerleader?" she asked.

"Just Megan," he replied.

"Than why not me?" she insisted.

His eyes welled up as he explained, "I didn't like her the way I liked you. She was disposable and you were not. I wasn't ready to give you everything. I didn't have everything."

She thought about what he said about his discussion with his older sister and started putting the pieces together. He could sense her thought process so he continued. "I understand things, what love is, much better now."

She knew about the loss of his wife, "Do you remember when I cam over after your wife died?"

David nodded in remembrance of just sitting with Grace with his head on her shoulder. "I don't know how I let you go then? You were so crushed, so vulnerable, so raw, that I knew it wasn't the right time. Probably the same way you felt when we went to college."

David nodded, "Yeah."

"Now I understand," she stated.

"Good," David replied as he hugged Grace and gently kissed her neck, which got the party between them started again.

Ball

The amazing part of Grace's casual texts to a few people she thought could help clear away decades of debris was that everyone responded positively and showed up. There is something about death and other people's stuff that stokes the flames of interest in people. Even though everything around the house of a person who had died is morbid, somehow the hope of elevating life to a higher level than the expired person gives people hope.

The other interesting development of the fortnight was Lori's progression with the peanut butter balls. The first dose lasted in excess of 8 hours and the second was going strong at 12 hours, just as David reported to Dr. Singer.

"Do you think there is any chance that this could have a corrective impact on her and others?" David asked.

"That's the $64,000 question," Dr. Martin replied. "But, the real dilemma is if we will have to transform this into pill form, or simply keep it in its natural state?"

"From a financial standpoint, is there any way we can extract the formula from the dispensary and patent the product? Also, is the formula independent to just this dispensary, or is it a common recipe used by many outlets?"

"Why don't we go over there and ask," Dr. Martin replied.

"Okay, when are you available?" David asked, being respectful of his favorite doctor's business.

"Whenever that place opens," the doctor replied, highlighting his urgency to get this rolling before running out of time.

"I'll pick you up in 10 minutes," David stated.

Grace was in the front seat as Dr. Martin easily slid into the back seat of the Tesla, showing no signs of slowing down even after 92 years.

"Gracie Gold!" he said enthusiastically. "Have you kids finally realized what you were missing all these years?" the doctor added as if he was completely tapped into the community and who should be together.

Grace beamed, "Yes." And then David looked back and nodded with a smile.

"Good, now we can get to work," Dr. Martin stated. These medical marijuana dispensaries made millions over the past two years, even after giving back a percentage of their profits to local authorities.

"Are the things they're selling regulated, or are they monitored?" David asked.

"Regulated, no. Monitored, yes. But very loosely monitored at that," the doctor replied.

"What will happen if it legalized?" Grace asked.

"Ahhhh, that it the big question! Then there will be little restriction, but potentially more competition." Dr. Martin explained.

David put his business hat on, "What if you owned a chain of outlets? What if you had such a supply advantage when it becomes legal that it is difficult for others to catch up? First to market is a huge advantage. You could always establish the storefronts and then sell when the price skyrockets."

Dr. Martin laughed, "Always the value investor."

"'Till the day I die," David replied. "But your interest is in producing a drug that can help kids and adults focus better."

"Yes," Dr. Martin replied.

"Does a drug have to be in pill form distributed by huge multinational corporations?" David asked Dr. Martin. "I mean, what if we started our own niche natural remedies company?"

"You thinking of leaving your day job?" Grace asked, feeling comfortable talking about personal matters in front of a trusted person of interest.

David felt equally comfortable talking in front of the one person he trusted just as much as Grace in the world. "Yeah, I was thinking that stage of my life is over and I would sell my share."

Dr. Martin couldn't resist, "Excuse me for asking, curiosity killing me, what is your share worth?"

"Well, as long as we have all of our cards on the table, and what I say stays in this car," he said as he looked around. Both Grace and Dr. Martin agreed, so David continued, "I just put up my Manhattan apartment, my grandpa' left me a bunch of money, I had some money in savings, and my stake in the company as a founding and full partner is about $10 million, give or take a few million. So, all in, I'm probably worth enough to get into the dispensary game, start a small drug company, get a foundation to help abused people off the ground—and we can probably use some of those drugs to help people cope with the PTSD—and buy Sidney Lerman's beach house, which we have been talking about."

"So, you're staying?" an excited Grace asked.

"Yeah, where else would I want to be?" David replied.

"That' a nice beach house. It needs some work, but it has good bones," Dr. Martin suggested. He and Sid Lerman had been acquaintances for years, but the doctor had bigger fish to bake because frying was bad for your health. "He's asking $650,000 for the house, but I wouldn't pay a dollar more than $500,000. It's been on the market for a year without the hint of a bite."

David stopped his car and then said, "Sid Lerman's beach house," and pictures of the house and the listing were displayed on his center screen. "Yeah, that does need some work, but I like it." He looked at Grace for her opinion and she said, "Yeah, that's nice."

David then said, "Call Sid Lerman," as the other two people in the car became excited by his initiative."

"Sid Lerman," Sid said.

"Sid, it's David Strauss. "I'm in my car with Dr. Martin and Grace Gold, do you have a moment to talk to us? We are just outside of your office."

Sid looked around his empty office and wondered for a moment what David was getting him into. As he saw it he had two possible outcomes at this point in his life: One, he could do nothing and die lonely and bored. Two, he could take the meeting and chart a new course of adventure. "Sure, come in!" he said, opting for the outcome that would keep him with the living.

They walked in and everyone greeting Sid before they sat around the small round conference table in his office.

"So, what can I do for you?" Sid asked.

"Well, we're hear on several fronts," David explained. "Part personal, part professional, but both exciting opportunities. "Let's start with the personal issue. I see that your house is now off the market and there is no realtor of record."

Sid replied, "Yes, that is true, but..."

"Before you try selling me on the property, I'm already sold," David countered. "What is your bottom line number to sell it?" Sid was about to respond, because he had a specific number in mind, but David wasn't interested in any of that since he had an additional bargaining chip. "And before you respond, I have to discuss the other reason for our visit. "Are you familiar with the marijuana dispensary right near Lewis Park?"

Sid, in his legal capacity was loath to admit anything, but he was amongst friends and decided to speak his mind, "Yes, I have been there a few times thanks to Dr. Martin."

"Good, we need some legal advice..." David started and realized that his language was not strong enough. "No, we need more than just advice, we need an attorney, a legal partner, for the many ventures we plan to launch."

Sid was mulling the information, as was his privilege, so David stepped forward and knew he could close the deal, "Why don't you sell that house to me for four-fifty and I'll give you a two hundred thousand signing bonus," knowing that Sid has his heart set on $650,000 for the memories with his wife. It was a prideful stance, one that had turned off buyers because of the amount of work needed to modernize the dated house. But, David had been looking at the house for at least nine months and wasn't sure why. He didn't even know that it was Sid's house. Even though his career was flourishing, the rest of his life was stagnating and he knew that he was at the crossroads of change.

Sidney Lerman was generally a happy man who smiled often, but had been much more serious and lost since his wife passed. This was a new day for the attorney. He smiled broadly and stood up, extending his right arm in agreement, "You have a deal!"

Everyone hugged in celebration as Sid said, "I've had my eye on this apartment at the new Sunset Ridge complex near the beach!"

"I just got a place there!" Dr. Martin exclaimed. I'll take you over there and show you around after we're done here." They walked out of the door together after Grace and David, "We'll split the $500 referral fee..." the doctor said as the old friends who had drifted apart started to see a rosy future.

David and Dr. Martin briefed Sid in the car on the way to the dispensary until David had a brain blast, "Doc, you have been taking care of us all of these years and it's time we took care of you. What would you say to be our Chief Medical Officer not that we have a Chief Legal Officer? Also, we could infuse that business of yours with a dispensary business and a lucrative signing bonus."

David had seen Doc Martin's financials and realized that while the doctor lived a comfortable life, he had put profits second and his patients first for more than a half-a-century. It was time for the community to pay him back.

David and Grace cheered and Sid smiled and turned to the doctor and said, "This has been a good day!"

Dr. Martin replied, "Yes it has," realizing that positive energy is a healing and restorative loop.

The quartet emerged from the car not knowing what would happen once they entered the dispensary, but it really didn't matter since they were swimming with the tide. There were cameras all around the small building, which used to be a video store and more recently a mom and pop drug store before going out of business due to the proliferation of drug store chains.

The boss knew what he was seeing and said to one of his associates, "Buzz them back once they ask for me."

The thirty something woman was small in size but her aura was much bigger in stature. She stood tall as the group walked in and she smiled, "How can I help you today?" She focused on the elder gentleman of he group, assuming that they were in charge, but when they deferred to David by looking at him, she was surprised.

"Can we please talk to the owner of this establishment?" David asked.

"Sure," she replied, "I hope you don't mind, but I have to frisk you before you go back there. We also have a no cell phone policy. Here, you can put your phones in here," as she put a clear plastic bin on the glass counter.

Shira quickly frisked the elder gentlemen and David took a little longer because he had more surface area, and then she looked up at Grace with special interest. The two had never met, but when Shira got up in Grace's business and she rather enjoyed it, Grace asked, "Have we met?"

There bodies were meshed together as the three men started to sweat from the elevated heat in the room.

"They are quite thorough here," Sid stated.

"You can never be too careful," Dr. Martin added.

David looked at Grace and she returned the glance with an eyebrow raise, indicating maybe there were some things about her that he had yet to discover.

Shira replied, "No, I would have remembered that."

"Finding anything interesting," Grace asked.

"Yeah, but you're clean," Shira stated.

The two women continued to ogle each other as the group walked back to the office just off the main floor.

"I liked her," Grace said.

"Yeah, and I think she was into you, too," David added. "I think she got to second base."

They walked into the back room and the owner immediately recognized one of the most important people to his business that was also a loyal customer.

"Dr. Martin! What brings you and your friends here today?"

Dr. Martin stepped forward and shook the man's hand, a person he was familiar with but didn't know by name.

"We have never formerly been introduced, my name is Jeremy, Jeremy Hart."

He shook hands and was introduced to every other person in the room, but he especially connected with David, as they were both Wall Street veterans.

"Hey, are you David Strauss?" Jeremy asked.

David looked intently at the guy, who was wearing a three-piece suit without the jacket, an outfit befitting a financial professional, not a pot dispenser.

"Holy shit! Fuckin' Jeremy! I didn't recognize you with the beard. Sorry I didn't recognize you the other day. Been dealing with some heavy stuff."

They hugged and Jeremy said, "No, that was my fault. I knew who you were, but I didn't want to blow my cover with my employees."

The other three were wondering what the connection was between a wizard of Wall Street and a pot dispenser, so David filled in the blanks. "Jeremy was one of our first interns at the firm. He was going to Baruch College when he worked for us one summer."

Jeremy nodded, "And then I got my M.B.A. at Columbia and I worked for Goldman Sachs before I realized that I hated those assholes. So, I worked for a few other asset managers until a few years ago when I started reading about these medical dispensaries, and all I could see was dollar signs. I borrowed the money to buy this location three years ago and I've paid the loan back and made 20 times my investment since then."

"What is the potential for growth through expansion?" David asked, as the mentor was challenging the pupil again. While David had come into the dispensary to buy it out, now he had another plan in mind.

"I know the state limits individuals owning multiple sites, but I think the restrictions are looser for corporations, as long as you have space between the dispensaries," Jeremy replied.

"One per city, but no restrictions per county," Sid detailed, as he instantly elevated his standing in the group.

"We're forming a group, a corporation, that will have several intertwined initiatives," David stated. "One will be a dispensary business, whether at the medical or legal level; second, we have found significant efficacy in those peanut balls you sold me. My sister was lost until she started eating those, and now she finally found. And third, we want to help people impacted by abuse."

Sid anticipated the next question and was back functioning to full capacity, "We can set up a series of LLC's for tax purposes, where each business can feed the other from an extemporaneous standpoint."

Jeremy nodded, "Sorry to hear about your mother."

"Thanks," David replied.

Jeremy looked at Dr. Martin, "I have kept data from years of people taking various formulas," as he sensed a bigger opportunity than what he was involved with currently.

"Excellent. That will be very helpful," the doctor replied.

"So, what can I do for you, David?" Jeremy asked the open-ended question.

David looked at Grace and his other partners and then said, "Well, I came in here to see if I could buy you out, but I know this can be so much more. Tell me what you think of this," David suggested. "You hold on to the profits of this location as your compensation, and I will offer you the job of Chief Financial Officer of our new organization with a full board seat like the rest of us as well as stock options and other perks."

Grace was watching as other people were getting jobs while she was left somewhat empty-handed. David could feel her vibes and put his hand up before Jeremy could respond, "This is my girlfriend, and if I'm lucky she will do me the honor of being my wife one day when I can ask her in a more appropriate location than a pot dispensary. My sister Melanie is going to be our Chief Marketing Officer; my other sister Lori is going to be our Chief Operating Officer is her meds hold; and you..." he said, looking deep into Grace's light sparkling light blue eyes, "are going to be our Chief People Officer responsible for all hiring, volunteering and ecological initiatives."

Grace smiled, "That works, and you know it doesn't matter to me where you ask me, but we probably could do for some sand and surf as a backdrop."

The interlude gave Jeremy a moment to consider his options. He figured he could: (1) Turn down the offer and try to go it alone, where he would take on all of the risk once put became legalized and the market became saturated; (2) or, he could join forces with a group moving in a positive direction and offering a more holistic solution that could use his guidance.

"I'm in!" Jeremy exclaimed as everyone celebrated.

They walked out of the back room and Grace and Shira locked eyes again, "We're cleaning out David's mother's house and then having a big party. You guys should come," Grace suggested.

David agreed, "Yes, please come."

Both Shira and Jeremy agreed as Grace wrote the address on a post-it note and adhered it to Shira's left breast with her right hand.

Jeremy smiled and said, "I guess we won't misplace it there!" as everyone had a much-needed and joyous laugh.

Board

Surprisingly, Dr. Martin and Sidney Lerman decided to tag along as the group headed back to the Strauss residence. Martin skipped out of his remaining appointments for the day, letting the nurse practitioner he recently hired handle the responsibilities for the day. David looked at Messrs. Lerman and Martin as they emerged from the car and they all understood the quandary their careers had placed them in: they were all good at what they did, made a decent living, but had done it so long that their vocation no longer held the appeal or zeal necessary for a daily, repeatable activity. They were all running on fumes and the diversion from the straight line was definitely a welcomed change.

The group walked in the front door and was a welcomed sight for Melanie and Lori, who were working in the kitchen. It was a radical change for first born Melanie, who was such a fireball that it was impossible for her to be in the same room with anyone for more than a few minutes at a time. The sisters had been working and having a real conversation like they cared about each other for over an hour and had lost track of time. Strangely, it was Melanie who was happy to see Dr. Martin, not Lori, who had seen Dr. Martin more than his own kids during her lifetime.

"Dr. Martin!" Melanie exclaimed and everyone was in pleasant shock, especially the good doctor.

She broke the hug and said, "Hi, Sid!" and hugged him and then got real excited, "Gracie!" Melanie hugged Grace super tight and noticed the concerned look on her brother's face. She broke the hug and then hugged David, whispering, "She's hot, but she's not my type."

"What were you guys up to?" Melanie asked as everyone froze, up except for David, as they expected the nice Melanie to be short-lived and replaced by her usual visage of Satan.

"Why don't we take this conversation into the dining room and have our first unofficial board meeting," David stated.

Once everyone was seated, David looked at his sisters and said, "What I am proposing is that we form a company around our lives, instead of trying to work to live. He tossed a peanut butter ball to Lori and she caught in in her mouth and processed it until it was gone.

He continued as if the transaction did not happen, "We had discussions with Sid and Dr. Martin this morning, and we also went over to the local pot dispensary." The words "pot dispensary" were of special interest to Melanie and her addictive personality. He saw the look of urgency in Melanie's face and sought to feed the bear, "We can take a field trip there later if you want to."

She smiled and nodded in approval and David flipped her a peanut butter ball and she swallowed it without even chewing.

"Our company will have three initial priorities: we will seek to control the market and use economies of scale by opening a chain of dispensaries throughout New York State; second, we will use some of the formulas, such as the peanut butter ball, to help cure people with PTSD and other anxiety-based disorders; and third, we will start a non-profit organization that helps people that have been abused," David said and then addressed everyone on the board's titles. "Sid will be our Chief Legal Officer, Dr. Martin our Chief Medical Officer, Grace will be out Chief People Officer, Jeremy from the dispensary—who was also an intern with my company—will be our Chief Financial Officer, Lori will be our Chief Operating Officer, responsible for all of the extensive details of the company," and Lori smiled, I will be the Chairman of the board and Co-Chief Executive Officer, and Melanie will be our Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Melanie smiled, although it was unsure if she simply approved of the proposal, the ball had kicked in, or both. Either way, she didn't seem to oppose the idea.

Melanie was always percolating creatively, which was why David gave her the creative lead and left the name of the company open to her. Lori interjected, "We have to incorporate as an LLC for legal and tax purposes," as she smiled at Sid.

Sid smiled back and thought of two things: the first of which was that he wasn't going to live forever and he eventually needed to groom someone for his position, and Fran Strauss had always told him that her daughter Lori would have made a great lawyer, so he was going to try to check both boxes.

"You should take the bar," he said to her, referring to the New York Bar Exam to become licensed as a lawyer in New York State. Lori's life had been all about starts and stops. She finished at the top of her class in high school and college, and then went to law school and was the head of the law revue. But, as often happened with Lori, the heat became too severe for her and she became a paralegal instead of a lawyer when all she had to do was take the bar exam.

Lori nodded with confidence, "I already registered this morning."

Everyone nodded in appreciation of Lori fulfilling her promise as a human being and David said, "Excellent."

Melanie went through a hundred names for the company and finally stopped churning when she found the right one.

"Together, LLC."

It seemed to simple at first, bit as the people around the table gave it a few mental passes, there was no denying Melanie's gift and the deep meaning of the name.

"That is outstanding!" David exclaimed. "All in favor of our corporate name of Together, LLC raise your hand."

Everyone raised his or her hands.

"Then, our first order of business has passed." He then looked at Sid and then Lori and said, "I'll leave it to our legal team to file the appropriate paperwork and report back to us at our next meeting."

Lori and Sid nodded, happy to do an important task as part of such a high-functioning group.

Sold

Now that the group had a positive direction in which to gravitate, it was time to do the harder physical and mental work of cleaning out the house. David stopped briefly to make two calls, one to his New York broker and the other to his partners, who had gathered in a conference room for an impromptu meeting.

"The apartment sold in like 25 minutes," Gerry Abrahamson said as he started to envision how he would spend the $70,000 he made for minimal work. "That was the fastest and most furious bidding war I have ever witnessed! I listed the apartment for one million and it went for one-point-two million!"

While Gerry was excited, David barely blinked an eye. "Thanks. I'll go by there next week and clear my stuff out."

"Are you okay?" Gerry asked.

"Yeah, everything's great. Couldn't be better," David replied.

"I'm going to send the sale contracts over for you to sign. When you're done, just drop it in the FedEx overnight envelope and send it back to me."

"Why don't you come by," David suggested. I have a house full of people clearing out all of this stuff in my mom's house and then we're going to be celebrating for a while." David then remembered that his friend used to sell pot in college but had reformed once he got married and had a family.

"I don't know..." Gerry replied.

"We're gonna' open a chain of pot dispensaries and the guy who runs the first one is coming over with enough chiba to rock most of the island," David explained in a completely out of previous character boast.

Gerry couldn't believe his ears, "Will you let me manage the real estate on your transactions?"

"I don't know, I haven't even thought of it. Do you have experience with commercial real estate?"

Gerry laughed, "When I first asked, I was looking for a cover story to be able to go out there and crash. But, I was the top commercial real estate salesman in the city before it burned me out. My wife has been pushing me for years to get back in the game, so she will be happy when I tell her that I'm going to Long Island to get back in the commercial real estate game."

"Too bad you can't bring her with you," David said, preferring to live his life out in the open than lurking in the shadows fearful of being caught. 'We are also starting a foundation for people suffering from abuse, and a drug company to help people with PTSD."

"She would definitely be interested in the foundation!" Gerry exclaimed. "Are you trying to get me to move back to Long Island?"

"If the shoe fits, my brother!" David said as they ended the conversation.

David ended one call and started another as he strolled out to the backyard, as it seemed like all of the energy in the house shifted. Grace stopped what she was doing and looked through the kitchen window at David talking on the phone.

"What's going on?" Lori asked Grace.

"He's calling his company and telling them he wants out."

Melanie shook her head, "The only person I ever met that could get the best of me. I don't know where he learned to argue, but he's awesome at it."

Grace remembered where it all began, "Oh my god, I know! We were in the same debate class in high school. I remember the first time we had a debate and the class valedictorian, Emily Prentice, got to pick who she debated against because she was so the defending champion. She looked around the class and then focused on David, who was looking at the window probably wishing he were outside. She had this degrading tone in her voice when she said, 'I pick David Strauss!' I remember that because the teacher, Mr. Berg, smirked, which threw me off. He obviously knew something that the rest of us missed."

"What was the topic?" Lori asked as she joined the conversation midway.

"Gray areas," Grace replied. "Emily took the side that gray areas are part of life and David argued that there are no such thing as gray areas."

"Holy shit! My mother and I had that same argument with him after we saw a murder mystery movie. I was having an affair with a married man at the time and my mom was obviously covering up her own shit, but he kept saying that there was no substitute for the truth and honesty. Hell, we both knew he was right, but we weren't going to tell him that!"

"What happened in the debate?" Lori asked, unable to move on until the story was complete.

"David repeatedly asked Emily what she was hiding, probably not thinking it was anything but seeking to move Emily off her spot. The pressure had always been on Emily to be perfect and for some reason, maybe her period, she was vulnerable on this day. Out of nowhere she blurted, 'I cheated on a science quiz in third grade!' We were all cracking up as Mr. Berg had another student escort her down to the nurse after she started crying hysterically and was murmuring to herself. Once Emily cleared the doorway, Mr. Berg said to a stunned class, 'This proves once and for all, never underestimate your opponent.' And then we all looked at David with newfound respect and fear as he had that steely look on his face that always says, 'bring it!'

David continued to slowly pace back and forth like a lion about to released from a cage as he continued to tell the partners he would not be coming back.

The pot must have been kicking in for Melanie, "I used to keep score and do the books for his basketball games when he was like 11 or 12. Kids on the other teams would call him names and push him around, because he wasn't so tall at the time. My parents would always push him ahead and make him play against kids two and three years older than him. His facial expression would rarely change, just like now, as he always let his actions do his talking. I used to torture him and..." She turned to Lori, "you," as she started crying and so did Lori, as Grace continued to watch David until he hung up the phone and then sat in a chair while looking calmly out into the distance.

Grace walked outside and said, "Are you all right," as she slowly headed in his direction.

He broke the daze and said, "Yeah, I'm fine.

She approached him and cuddled on his lap, "Everything go okay?"

He smiled, leaving the past behind so he could focus on the present and future. "Yeah, they wanted to make sure that I was doing it for the right reason, and the minute I uttered the words 'pot dispensary' they made me an offer on the spot."

"Did you take it?" she asked.

He laughed, "The first offer? Hell, no! I didn't appreciate their reaction to someone that had made them all rich and will continue to keep them wealthy. They offered me 5 and I thought that was insulting, so I countered with 30, and they agreed to it. Shows how much I know. I thought that 10 was the upper limit. I think they gave me more so I would disappear. They probably didn't want their funds associated with drug dealers. So ignorant, but I probably would have come to the same conclusion when I was in that world."

Only days removed from being in the company of people who would make such judgements, David had rotated 180 degrees to more open pastures with the promise of new and exciting ventures.

Grace sat motionless and then innocently asked because she hadn't following his career so closely and was unaware of his business dealings, "So, what are we talking about here, thousands?" She had heard him talk earlier about millions, but the numbers were so big and beyond her struggling single parent grasp that she dismissed the talk as mere puffery.

"30 million. They're going to pay me 30 million to go away and completely disassociate myself with the firm. I have an appointment to go into the office next week and sign some papers and clear out my office. I'm also going that afternoon to clear out my apartment in the city. You wanna' come?"

David had talked about such lofty sums in a casual way, and this quiet confidence stunned Grace, just as it had when they were in debate class together. "You sold your apartment? When did that happen?"

"I put it up the other day and my broker, who I went to college with and will advise us on future commercial real estate deals in our venture, just told me that it sold for more than I was asking."

Grace thought a little levity was in order after grappling with such heavy sums, "What were you asking, a million dollars?"

And before she could start laughing, David responded, "Yes, but it sold for $1.2 million." She stood up and he asked, "Where are you going?"

"I need a little air."

"What's wrong?" David asked since pleasing Grace was his only directive.

Her life had not been easy. "I've spent the last few years trying to scrape by working two jobs and wondering if I'm gonna' run out of money at any single moment. I just don't know how to react when you talk so casually about such numbers."

David reset his focus and slowly stood up as he returned to his normal self, whatever that was. "Whoa. I didn't mean to trivialize the money, or make light of your struggle in any way." He stepped closer. "I bought the apartment with blood money. Money I got when my wife died. The apartment more than doubled in value, and I want to put that money into our foundation." David moved closer and hugged Grace. "What's mine is now yours. We don't have to be married for that to be the case."

Grace stepped back as she was feeling particularly low self-esteem, "You'll probably make me sign a pre-nup," as she started crying.

David shook his head "No" and then opened his arms for Grace to fill them. "No more struggling for you," he said as he kissed her forehead and she shed tears of relief and joy. "No more struggle for either of us," he added as they were comforted by each other's love.

Cleanup

Before the house was about to become a bit more crowded, David and his sister Lori took care of an important task.

"Where did she put it?" David asked.

"Down in the basement," Lori replied as they headed down the stairs. Lori had visited the deep recesses of the basement storage on occasion in the years when he brother was exiled and she felt there was no way she could contact him.

"It hurt all of those years you didn't contact me," David said, knowing that he could finally have a real conversation with his properly medicated sister.

They stopped in the middle of the finished in 1980s depressing brown fake paneling basement.

"I was so messed up that I couldn't get out of my own way, yet call you to see what was going on," she said.

"Bullshit!" David shot back. I had a three year-old son, a dead wife and nothing else! You could have come to live with us!"

The revelation stunned Lori, "What? I could have come to live with you?"

David shook his head in disbelief, "You are fuckin' retarded."

Normally, Lori would have become upset over such a derogatory comment.

"I can't argue with that, but what do you want me to do about it now? I was trapped at the times, and now I'm not. We could cry about it or just move one."

David couldn't argue with the kind of logic that he had become infamous for. He put his hands up in surrender and retreat and then hugged his sister, "I'm glad it's over."

Lori smiled, "Me, too."

They broke the hug and Lori said, "Your boxes are back here."

While David had taken most of the good stuff over the years before the disengagement, four boxes still remained in the shadows of the storage area. His father had gone through periods of being upset with David, which David realized at the time was the precursor to his mental breakthrough.

"Why aren't' you still playing basketball?" a manic Ben Strauss asked his son.

David could see the insanity electrifying his father's eyes. He had previously took this delusional behavior for passion or caring, but had known something was wrong as far back as his teens, but chose to not confront it like the rest of his family until that moment.

"What do you mean?" David asked. "I'm 40."

His father walked away in a huff, not satisfied by a negative answer. There was a time shortly after that when David sought the refuge of a basketball court when his wife was sick. It was also the point when he started to realize that something was incredibly wrong with his father and the family. While there was always a confusing triangle between Ben, Fran and Melanie Strauss—pedophile, enabler and victim—it wasn't until David brought Max to the park to play basketball with him one day that everything started to become clearer and he could sort things out ion therapy.

Max went running away from David when he saw his grandpa on the other side of the fence. At first, David thought it was nice that his father had come to the park, although he was focused at the time and didn't remember telling anyone of his plans. David rarely went down to these courts without the intention to play in a game or two, so he spotted a few people he knew and then a game of four-on-four ensued with his father watching Max on an adjacent court.

The relationship between David and his family had been most off-again since Max was born. David was now the big bear in his den and something was gnawing at him in regard to trusting Max with his family. He had one eye on the game and another on Max as he hit a few shots in a row and was starting to generate some fluidity and rhythm after years away from the game. David looked over and saw Max running toward him.

"Good shawt!" Max exclaimed in his best Long Island accent. "Grandpa's gonna' take me to the playground!"

Max loved being the center of attention at this age and didn't enjoy the lack of attention on the side court as his dad played. David's senses were tingling, "No, you stay here and wait for me! I'll be done in a few minutes!" He addressed his son, thinking he had more sense than his father.

David thought the he had addressed the situation and put it to bed, and then four shots later when he ended the game, the brief moment of positive adrenaline shifted to a prolonged period of anxious adrenaline.

"Where's Max?" he muttered as he scanned the entirety of the court inside of the fence. "My son is gone," David said out loud, and the guys he was playing with quickly scattered to look for the boy. He walked under the basket and picked up his car keys and wallet, sweat dripping off his head and body and then absorbed by the porous concrete. David's hustled out of the court and raced to the adjacent playground but it was empty, so he jumped in his Mustang convertible—which his dying wife had made him buy as a symbol of living and enjoying the things he really wanted—and raced out of the park in hot pursuit.

His first call was always to his mother, because somehow she was always a step or two ahead of him on things concerning his father.

"Have you seen Max with dad?" he asked frantically.

"No," his mother replied.

David thought that Max might have wrangled his father into taking him to get a Gatorade at the local deli, but that search came up empty, so David continued to probe his mother as he took the most likely walking route home to his parents' house.

"I was playing basketball at the park and he was there one minute and the next minute they were gone!" David yelled. "Did you tell dad I was going to the park today?"

"No, I had no idea you were going there," Fran Strauss replied.

"Then why was he there?" David questioned, as months of therapy him asking the right questions.

"He always walks up there."

David thought the statement was more healthy lifestyle-centric than reality-centric, so he probed on.

"What do you mean, he always walks up there?"

"He goes up there to see if you are playing," she said in a matter-of-fact way, suggesting that her son was getting closer to the atomic bomb shelter that had become her life.

"What?! David yelled. "I haven't played in years!"

"He still goes up there," she countered.

David spotted Max and his father walking next to the row of shops across the street from their neighborhood. "I see them! I gotta' go."

David stopped the car and yelled, "What the hell?! As he scooped Max up and hugged him, "I told you to wait for me! Don't leave me again."

Max was scared because he had never seen that look on his father's face before, or heard such a desperate tone of voice, and he didn't like it.

"Okay," Max said as he clung to David like a baby chimp.

David put Max in his back seat booster and then raced away without saying another word or acknowledging his father. It was the last time they ever saw each other despite living around the block from each other for the next year. Ben Strauss was so disturbed that day that he boxed up all of David's trophies and left them on David's doorstep. David woke up the next morning and received a call from his mom, "He wants the boxes back. He made a mistake."

David couldn't believe his left ear, "What? Who cares about those trophies? My wife is dying and he's talking about inanimate objects that mean nothing!"

Fran Strauss offered little resistance to the insanity, "Yes. Can you bring them back?"

"I could care less. Have Lori come back and get them. I don't need this anymore!"

Lori remembered the morning she drove around the corner in a pair of sweatpants and slippers and David put the boxes in her trunk.

"I never want to see these again," he said as he slammed the trunk closed and went back into the house. Little did he know that this would be the last time for over a decade that he would see his sister, since he discovered the truth about his family in a hypnotherapy session only days later.

They walked into the storage area and Lori simply nodded at the boxes. David looked over at them and knew exactly what was inside, propelling him to the flashback that was just described. He looked at Lori and said, "Let's donate these."

She nodded in agreement as David stacked three boxes and lifted them as Lori picked up the other box. They walked up to the den and garage level and then the main level as he spotted Melanie.

"Do we have a donation pile?"

Melanie looked at the boxes and was about to ask what he was giving away, but she knew exactly what he was giving away: nothing. She walked up to him and took one of the boxes off the top and replied, "Yeah, baggage and donations are over here."

The work really got rolling once Grace's invites started showing up.

"Wow, that was a well crafted list." David said to Grace as they worked in the dining room.

"Thanks," Grace replied, as she had focused on people that knew her sisters first. "Do you want any of your teammates to come over?"

David stopped boxing things for a moment and replied, "Do you want any of those guys to come over?"

Grace thought about the question and then replied, "Probably not. Those guys are jerks.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," David said. "I have everything I want right here," he added as they hugged.

"Oh my god! It took you two long enough!" Lauren Aaronson shrieked from behind them.

David and Grace opened their hug and Lauren jumped in, as David was proven wrong. He looked at the third leg of their Three Amigo's growing up and said, "Holy shit! Lauren, how have you been?"

Lauren was about half the size of her best elementary school friends but was twice as ferocious.

"Sorry to hear about Fran and all of the shit you've been through," Lauren stated as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

Then David did something completely out of character. "Fuck that depressing shit! We're gonna' burn this shit down by time we're done with it!"

Lauren's husband Mark was standing just outside of the conversation and smiled as Lauren pointed at him and said, "That's my husband, Mark."

David broke free as the two ladies hugged and mostly giggled like two little girls.

"David Strauss," he introduced himself.

"Mark Aaronson." They shook hands. ", Lauren said she knew you every time we saw you on TV, but I didn't believe it."

"Believe it! We would probably have been friends if I didn't leave town. "You guys still living on Richfield Lane?"

"Yep," Mark said.

"Good! We're gonna' stay," David explained as Lauren kissed Grace in the cheek. They had remained best friends throughout the years and had many conversations pertaining to David and his merry-go-round of a life.

Punkie Lauren then put her foot in her mouth, "You shouldn't have left the first time!"

Grace leered at Lauren, because she wasn't sure how David would react to such a challenge.

David smiled, but both ladies could see that it was strained joy at best. He started crying, balling, as Mark froze and looked to the ladies for reinforcements. David held all of his emotions in check since he heard about his mother's death and left the city, except when he fought with Melanie, and now the flood gates were finally open so that the real healing could begin.

The day wound up being part cleanup, part estate sale, as many people from the neighborhood stopped by and purchased various items in the house. All of the money was funneling through Melanie, as she was a master negotiator.

"How much?" David asked a few hours after he had recovered from his breakdown. Melanie never had emotional breakdowns... that's would food was for.

She counted and replied, "About $2,000."

"Why don't we put and order in for booze and food, and I can go pick it up," he suggested.

"Do you need money for anything else?" she asked, hinting at a trip to the dispensary.

David smirked, "No, the dispensary is coming to us tonight. This should be an epic party."

Melanie revealed the smile behind the devil, "Excellent. I could use a night when I'm off duty."

"I think we all can," David agreed.

Crush

Many of Grace's friends from the PTA stopped by to help, and David was familiar with some of them, while others knew his sisters. It was a steady stream of women coming and going, buying items and agreeing to take other things to donate.

"I think this will work better then us having to donate a bunch of stuff at the end," Grace said, as she took the lead in organizing the flow. "Are you keeping anything for yourself?" she asked David.

"Nah," David simply replied. "Probably not a healthy thing to be reminded of this shit all of the time."

Word of mouth was spreading fast as more and more people stopped by to look, although they're was a core group of people that were focused on helping clean. Melanie walked into her room after someone bought her bed and bedroom set, including night table and dresser. While she was amazed at the quality of the workmanship of the older piece of furniture, the mere sight and smell of it was enough to always put her in a bad mood. She had been stuck with the vision of her father coming into her room when she was real young, and had trouble shaking the imagery and anxiety all of her life.

"I'm glad that is over," she muttered to herself as she walked back in her room, eager to see what the space would feel like without much of its familiarity.

"So am I," a female voice said from within her room. "Now I can clean this room."

Melanie did not recognize the voice, but the sight of petite Charlotte Brown kneeling on the floor with her back to her was enough to erase all of the negative images with the power of a thousand soapy sponges. She instinctively knelt down net to Charlotte and they gazed into each other's eyes after Melanie asked, "Do you have another sponge?"

Charlotte handed Melanie a sponge from the bucket as Melanie said, "I'm Melanie Strauss Murray."

"I know," Charlotte replied as they touched sponges in lieu of shaking hands. "My sister Julie graduated high school with you and I was a sophomore when your sister graduated." She kept scrubbing the floor, "I was an oops baby. I also had a crush on your brother before I realized that I was a lesbian."

Melanie was always so out there with her brash way of speaking that it took her by surprise when someone else was brutally honest. She started coughing and Charlotte put down the sponge and patted Melanie on the back. The diminutive 5'4" fireball kept talking. "I was sorry to hear about your mom. She was a nice lady." And then she quickly shifted gears as Melanie somewhat regained her composure, "My name is Charlotte Brown, and I am really glad that I came over here today!"

They shook soapy hands and starry-eyed Melanie replied, "The pleasure is mine, Charlotte."

Just then, David walked into Melanie's room and saw his sister and a cute woman on the floor together holding hands. Well, actually they were shaking hands for a prolonged period of time.

"Oh, boy," he muttered and then asked, "Hello," he nodded at Charlotte and then got to what he came in there for after his sister shot him a look to get lost, Mel, can I use your truck to pick up some stuff for tonight?"

Melanie barely hesitated, as she reached into her pocket and then flipped the keys to her brother, who caught the keys and said, "Thanks, I'll leave you two to it," and then backed out of the hot room. Grace met him in the hallway and noticed his slightly flustered look.

"What's going on in there?" she asked as they walked toward the kitchen.

"Mel is on the floor in her room cleaning with another woman," David explained.

"Was she really cute?" Grace asked.

David wasn't sure how to answer that question, being that he was talking to the woman he was most attracted to in the world. "Yeah, she was much smaller than Mel, and I guess she was cute."

"That's Charlotte. She's my lesbian friend," Grace stated and then realized how awkward it might have sounded. "She's my friend who also happens to be a lesbian. She used to have a crush on you when she was a teenager before she realized she was gay."

David cocked his head in confusion, "I'm not sure what that says about me?"

They walked out of the front door, "It says that you are so attractive that even borderline lesbians have crushes on you." She kissed him and then started walking back in the house. "Can you see if Lori wants to go with me?"

"Sure!" Grace replied.

While David had spent many of the past few years by himself since his son Max went to the University of Michigan, he was glad to be surrounded by so many people he knew. The days of isolation appeared to be over and he was headed to an era of togetherness and collaboration.

Lori bounded out of the house with her newfound peppiness and yelled, "Shotgun!"

David waited until his sister sat in the passenger seat and said, "You know that you don't have to call shotgun when there are only two people in the car."

"I know!" Lori replied. "Do you know how many times I got stuck in the hump seat? I was like the third tallest person in the family and I always got stuck in that stupid seat!"

David nodded as he pulled away from the curb, "Well, now you're the second tallest person in the family, so you shouldn't have hat problem anymore." Lori smiled as joy had finally found a way into her life after so many years in the dark.

Their first stop was Beach Beverage, which David had frequented along the years. He opened the front door for Lori and the new owner could see him entering, so he stood up.

"Fuck you, Strauss!" the guy yelled, oblivious to the other shoppers in the large refrigerator he called a beverage store.

Lori spun around because she thought the guy was talking to her. It had been many years since she had been anywhere with her big brother. "Fuck you..." and then she recognized the guy, "Salty!" Lori shrieked and then jumped up and straddled the mountain of a man.

David smiled as his sister hugged former teammate and local enforcer, Dino Saltabaccio. "Hey, baby girl!" Salty said as he kissed Lori on the cheek like a long lost little sister. She jumped off and Salty said, "You look great! What have you been up to?"

"My mom died, David busted me out a group home and I've been eating these peanut butter pot balls that are doing wonders for my brain!"

Salty nodded and replied, "Sorry to hear about Fran, but really happy to see you doing so well!"

Then the two six-and-half-foot giants locked eyes, and then hands, arms and hugged. "What's up D-Money?"

"Hey, Salty!" David grunted.

Salty was David's bodyguard when they played in high school through the years they played after David graduated from college. If anyone touched the golden boy, then Dino would let people know through his physicality that I wasn't the best of ideas. Dino bounced around different jobs over the years, working for wise guys in his formative years before starting his own businesses once he had kids. Hey parleyed a successful boat fixing business into buying the business of his dreams, one that was not dependent on a single season, Beach Beverage. The owner of the popular Beach Beverage died after a 40-year run and his son had no interest in continuing the family business, "I've spent enough time in that place over the years!" So, he sold the business to his good friend, Dino, who also fixed his buddy's boat for no extra charge.

"This is my place," Dino explained.

"You bought this place?" David questioned.

The David Dino knew from years of playing basketball, while powerful, wasn't the David Dino was now talking to.

"Do you think it was a good investment?" Dino asked.

"Does it make money?" David asked.

"Every year since it opened," Dino replied.

"Are sales still increasing?" David asked.

"We booked a 10% increase last year," Dino said.

"That's impressive. This place is like a cash machine!" David stated.

Dino was happy, "Yes, it is. So, what can I do for you today?"

"We're having a party," Lori excitedly yelled.

David looked around to see if anyone heard her shouting and then said to Dino, "Yeah, what she said."

Dino rubbed his hands together, "What kind of party are we talking about?"

David nodded, "A big party."

"How big are we talking about?" Dino asked, since David was not known to be a big partier.

David reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills totaling $2,000 and dropped it on the front counter, "This big!"

Dino nodded, "Yeah, that's big! You want me to throw a bunch of stuff together and bring it over on my truck?"

David smiled, "Yeah, we'll be at our house. Make sure you bring the wife and your friends."

The exchanged goodbye greetings and Dino wondered what world he had slipped into that David Strauss was throwing an epic party and his sister was eating pot balls and thinking like an adult.

Transition

After stops at Miller's Chicken, Marvin's Deli and Pizza Czar, the truck was loaded up with food and Lori and David headed home. He pulled into the driveway and noticed a man walking around the house.

"What's his deal?" David asked his sister.

"Fuck if I know," Lori replied as David did a double take, as he was still getting used to this much stronger version of his sister.

"Why don't you go inside and see if you can get some people to help us with this stuff," he said and then walked toward the 30-something man.

"Can I help you?" David asked as the man broke his intense concentration for a moment.

"Oh, yes I hope you can. Do you know who owns this house?"

Normally, David would have been a little gruffer, but he was in a good mood, "Yeah, I own this house along with my sisters, but we are cleaning it out and getting it ready to sell it."

"Have you listed it yet?" the nervous man asked.

"No. Are you all right?" David asked as he moved closer the man, who was sweating.

"It's just that I lived in one of these houses as a kid and then my parents moved away. I've been looking to buy this type of house for over a year, but they don't come available very often, and when they do the price jumps out of my range."

Normally, David would have been grateful to receive such information about extremely tight supply and high demand, which would be excellent news for a return on investment. But, since money maximization was no longer the sole object of his daily pursuit and he needed to defray some of his tax gains, he decided to continue the conversation.

"You probably shouldn't tell a seller that they could get more from someone else," David said. But, I appreciate your honesty. Why don't you tell me about your situation and I'll show you around. My name is David Strauss."

The man cocked his head and replied, "Greg Wolf. Hey, you look familiar."

David was a modest recluse, so he wasn't about to toot his own horn, "People tell me I have a familiar face."

They started walking around the property and David said, "I always liked having the corner lot. I could see putting a fence around the property to keep the kids safe. Do you have kids, Greg?"

Greg nodded, "We have one daughter and another one on the way. I also have a dog that would love this yard."

"Do you want to take a look inside? David asked.

"Yes, that would be great!" Greg replied.

"You should tell your wife to come over," David suggested as he walked through the house and greeted people he hadn't seen when he left. He learned from his mother that the female influence in the house was usually the most important, because you could tell everything about a family from the mother/wife.

Greg texted his wife Sandra to come over with their daughter Ellie, and then he refocused his energy on the house tour.

"Most of these Meadow ranch houses had three bedrooms and two bathrooms," David said as they passed by Melanie's bedroom and she was still in there talking to Charlotte. She nodded at her and sis returned the gesture.

"The real beauty of these houses is the basements," David added, as the two men headed downstairs.

"Oh, wow!" Greg exclaimed as he saw a wooden bar and 60s-style bench seats that were built-ins on the other side of the room. "So many memories," Greg added.

"Where are you guys living now?" David asked.

"We live in the townhome community on Dolphin Lane, and I commute into the city for my job as a financial analyst for Standard & Poor's."

"That's interesting. I worked at S&P early on in my career as an equity analyst," David replied. "So, we're both familiar with the financial aspect associated with this house. If we were to list it, I assume it would be for $425,000, am I correct?"

"Yes, that's right on the money," Greg replied.

"But, the most recent appraisal done a few years ago came in at $300,000, as the appreciation of these properties has been fairly high in recent years," David stated, as Greg wasn't sure where David was headed.

"What do you make at S&P?" David asked in typical, no-holds-barred New York fashion."

Greg was willing to play along, "95 thousand."

"No bonus, right? That doesn't start kicking in until you get to the management level."

"Yeah, last year they gave us a book."

"Where did you go to college?"

"I'm going to Hofstra for my M.B.A. at night, and I went to Adelphi University undergrad," Greg stated.

That's what David wanted to hear. That Greg was making progress in his life and trying to do better for his family. "How close are you to graduating?"

"I'll be done next spring," Greg smirked.

"Yeah, I did that and it was a grind," David said. "It doesn't leave much on the bone after spending all of that money commuting into the city.

"No, it's tough," Greg replied. "But I have to find a way to get this house, or a house like this.

They walked over and sat on the orange bench seats together.

"You know, I wish I had someone like me in my life when I was your age," David said as he could hear a commotion upstairs.

"I was looking for my husband," a woman said. "He's 6'1" and very handsome."

David looked over at Greg and teased him, "I've been called worse."

Greg laughed and then yelled, "Down here, honey!"

Sandra held her young daughter as they walked down the stairs, little Ellie a bit apprehensive by all of the people in the unfamiliar house. She looked uncomfortable until she saw the basement, and then escaped her mother's clutches and ran toward her father, slapping his hand five and then slapping the hand of a smiling David. Sandra looked around and said, "Wow! Look at all of the space down here!"

She walked over to her husband and kissed him as the two men stood up.

"Sandra, this is David Strauss, who I have seen on TV and that's why he looked familiar. Mr. Strauss, this is my wife Sandra."

David smiled and shook Sandra's hand and said, "Mr. Strauss was my father and I respond better to Dave.

"Glad to meet you, Dave. Is this your house?" Sandra replied, getting to the heart of the matter.

"It was my parents house. We have all of these people to help us clear out all of the stuff," David countered, as he could tell she was wary of losing another opportunity. "I was thinking that we would put it up for sale," he said as he paused for a moment and then continued, "but I might have an alternative scenario if you two would be interested?"

David could see that Ellie was getting restless, so he turned around and opened the bench seat, hoping that some toys had remained. He pulled out a Barbie playhouse and some other girl's toys that Lori had stopped playing with at some point and set it up in the middle of the room so he could continue the adult dialogue.

"Thank you!" Sandra said and Greg nodded in appreciation.

"What do you do for a living?" David asked Sandra.

"I used to work in the accounting department at Macy's in their New York corporate office."

"Are you a C.P.A.?" David asked.

"Yes," Sandra replied, as the house hunting apparently had turned into an interview.

David nodded and then said, "Here's what I'm thinking, and I'll have to bounce this off my sisters, but since I'm bringing all of the money to the table, it shouldn't be a problem. My mom just past away recently..."

The Wolf's said in unison, "Sorry to hear that."

"Thank you," David replied. "And her death brought a number of things to light within this little family of ours. The bottom line is that we are starting three new businesses that were just formulated in the past few days as I saw a need for the opportunity. I am leaving my job as a portfolio manager and partner of a money management firm in Manhattan to run the businesses out of Dunes Point, and while it would be easy just to live in this house, I think we all have lived enough here and it's time for another family to make some good memories."

The Wolf's didn't know where this story was going, but they were captivated to hear how they would be weaved into the plot.

"I would like to sell the house to you for $400,000. Actually, the amount doesn't really matter because I'm going to give you the money to buy it."

Greg and Sandra were speechless as Ellie continued to play quietly, as the couple started to imagine the house filling up with their stuff.

"Also," David continued, "I want you both to come and work for us. Greg, you as a senior financial analyst at your current salary, and Sandra, for as many hours as you're comfortable with as our primary accountant, your salary to be determined after you deliver that baby. When are you due?"

"Next month," she blurted, as words had escaped her grasp for a change.

"David?! Lori screamed from the kitchen.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Your needed up here to make some decisions," Lori said.

"Okay, I'll be right up!"

David stood up said, "Well, as you can here, my services are needed upstairs by my little sister." The Wolf's stood up and shook David's hand. "Please feel free to stay as long as you want. We have a bunch of food upstairs and there is going to be a big party here tonight for anyone who wants to attend. Well, you know where I live for the time being, so I assume we will be talking about this some more."

He vaulted upstairs like he had done it a thousand times, when, in fact, he had. The Wolf's sat back down in astonishment as their daughter Ellie said, "Daddy, I like this house. Can we stay?"

Greg's eyes widened in excitement and so did Sandra's as he relied, "Yes honey, we can stay."

Rave

As day turned into night, news spread like wildfire about the goings on at 244 Franklin Lane. It was like old times... a basketball game broke out on the backyard court as some of David's high school friends stopped by to say hello. They played a bit, as Lori turned on the still-functioning back floodlight that always seemed be on during her adolescence, and drank and ate a bit more. It had been too long since she heard the familiar sound of a basketball thudding against the ground at their house. Lori seemed to be at the hub of the activity throughout the afternoon and early evening until a familiar face walked into the kitchen.

The sight of Matt Davies would have usually sent Lori into a schoolgirl blabbering session, but this time she was unusually calm, which seem to rattle Matt.

He tried to act all cool, "Hey, Lori. Long time."

She wasn't having any of that, "You know, it's just like you to ignore me for years and then walk in when you here we're having a party."

He was shocked at her candor, "I brought a bottle of wine. Sorry to hear about your mom. She was a nice lady," Matt replied.

Lori was caught in snow for a moment and then said, "Yeah, thanks. Put that down on the table next to the 20 other bottles of wine and follow me."

She grabbed the shirt of her 6'4" crush and almost dragged him down the hall to her room, which sort of rendered the command "Follow me" mute. Lori slammed him against the wall and kissed him passionately.

He tried to resist, "I'm married."

She kissed him again and he said, "I'm getting a divorce. I always had a crush on you."

Lori wasn't impressed, "We'll see about that!" she grunted as she kicked the door closed with the back of her heal and then tackled the boy she had been pursuing for years, but was now just going to use to finally get her groove on.

Dino made his beverage delivery with his wife Carmen, who was an Amazon in her own right. There was break in the action from the basketball game as David sat with Dino and Carmen on a few chairs on the patio facing the back door.

"You're in surprisingly good shape having so many stitches on both of your arms, " Carmen said to David.

Dino interjected in his deep bass voice, "That kid could hit a jumper in the dark on his death bed."

They laughed as David stood up at the sight of Jeremy Hart walking through the door.

"Now the party can begin," David said as Dino added, "What is Jeremy doing here."

Jeremy greeted everyone and then said to Dino, "Didn't Dave tell you, I'm going to work for him."

Dino was an honor student until he discovered pot as a 15 year-old, so he thought the extensive loss of brain cells caused him to fail to establish the connection between a pot dispensary owner and a squeaky clean dude with almost no substances in his past.

David explained, "We're starting a corporation with a chain of pot dispensaries in New York, a line of food products that will help people with various anxiety disorders and a foundation that helps people suffering from abuse."

Dino was flabbergasted, "And you didn't tell me, bro? I want in to that shit!"

"I thought it was your dream to own Beach Beverage?" David asked.

"It was before I heard this shit!" Dino shot back.

"I was surprised Dino bought Beach Beverage instead of sinking it into a dispensary," Jeremy stated. "The dude has a crazy amount of knowledge."

Dino stared down his wife, "What?! I thought you would sample too much product."

"I never dig into the shit I grow," Dino explained.

"This guy could be our grower," Jeremy said.

"How about Chief Product Officer?" David suggested.

"What about the beverage store?" Dino asked.

David joked, "Well, we could either find an Eskimo to stay in that ice box, sell it, or keep it and hire someone else to rake in the cash.

"I want to run it!" a forceful Carmen said. "The girls are going to college and I need something to do! Besides, you let those guys get away with too much there! I'll run a tight ship."

The guys looked at each other and David said, "Problem solved, Beach Beverage stays in the family." And then he turned to Dino and asked, "You taking the job?"

"How much does it pay?" Dino asked.

David smiled, "We're all gonna' make millions, my friend."

Dino nodded, "Okay, bro! Let's get rocked!"

Waves of people came through the house as the party shifted from overdrive to a natural coast. Classic rock music was being played as the party raged on well past midnight, which propelled Old Man Sherman and his wrinkly wife to call the police on an anonymous tip. Sherman was senile and his wife was partially deaf in both ears, which made it all the more probably that they didn't realize that there was Caller ID at the police station and they knew exactly where the call came from.

It was a nice, mild night. Nice enough for much of the partygoers to spill out into the backyard. A police car pulled up with its lights on, which was a welcomed sight for Old Man Sherman and his wasted tax dollars. The two cops walked around the property and into the backyard after turning their lights off and waving to the interested onlookers across the street. Sherman was satisfied that his gruff voice had been heard, so he went to sleep.

Officers McDonald and Heller strode confidentially near the party and the music quieted as Heller said, "We've had reports of a disturbance in the neighborhood."

McDonald waited a few seconds and then added, "Yeah, it was the old fuck across the street."

Heller smiled, "Yeah, fuck his old, wrinkly ass! Where's Dave at?"

David stood up and waved, as his old teammates walked over and gave him and Dino hugs. David was a little buzzed, but he knew what he was doing.

"Hey, do you guys need jobs?"

McDonald was the team's point guard and he was the biggest punk in the bunch.

"Does it look like we need jobs?"

"How does co-Heads of Security sound," David stated, jumping 5 steps ahead of his friends.

"For what?" Heller, the practical one, countered.

"We're opening up a chain of medical marijuana dispensaries, using some of the formulas to help people afflicted with anxiety disorders such as PTSD and also starting a foundation to help people that have been abused."

"Pot is illegal," Heller said.

"Yeah, but that shit you just talked about sounds like my life story. How much?" McDonald interjected.

David wasn't being very fiscally responsible, but then again, he really didn't have to anymore.

"We'll double your salary," David replied.

McDonald looked at Heller, who was tired of just scraping by every month. Heller said, "Well, pot is probably going to be legalized any day, which could triple the value of your business. Okay, we're in!" They would follow their leader anywhere because he never steered them wrong.

Normally, a party of such a size would have generated a big roar, but people were so chill that it never happened. People thought they were cheering, but all they were doing were raising their hands in the air and opening their mouths without any sound coming forth.

Jeremy walked outside and saw two familiar police officers. He was about to turn around and inconspicuously walk back into the house, but David motioned for him to come over, "Hey Jeremy, there's some people I want you to meet."

"I want you to meet our new heads of security, Scott McDonald and Bruce Heller."

They shook hands as David continued the introduction.

"Boys, I want you to meet our Chief Financial Officer, Jeremy Hart."

Heller was always paranoid, "Where do you know this guy?"

"I hired him as an intern at my investment company and then we crossed paths the other day when Dr. Martin wrote me a script to alleviate some tension at the marijuana dispensary."

"Hell, yeah!" Dr. Martin yelled from a pile of people sitting on the grass.

"Sorry about your mom, bro," McDonald said as he tapped David on the chest.

"Yeah, Mrs. S. was the salt of the earth, and should could make a mean peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. What do they call that?" Heller asked.

"Fluffernutter," Jeremy stated.

"Yeah, those were good!" McDonald interjected. "Yeah, you own the dispensary near Lewis Avenue Park."

"Yes," Jeremy respectfully replied.

"That's a clean place," Heller said.

"Yeah, you do things by the book there," McDonald added. "McDonald put his arm around Jeremy and said as they walked away, "I've been having some problems with my left arm and my neck..."

"We're off duty," Heller said and then followed his partner and new business associate into the house to get their relaxation on.

David followed them inside so he could find Grace. Jeremy had adjusted David's peanut butter ball so he could stay alert yet lose every ounce of tension in his body. He walked through the kitchen and then into the living room, where the lights were low and a series of people were making out on the couch. Grace and Shira Brooks from the dispensary were intertwined and were having a deep conversation. Normally, the sight of a significant other on the couch with another person would have blown up David's world, but now it almost seemed normal. He sat down at the end of the sofa next to the women and they integrated him into their group almost by instinct.

"My man knows how to use what he's got," Grace said, almost as if David was not really there and he was a figment of their imagination.

"David was about to say, "You know I'm sitting right here." But he decided to let things play out for a change.

"Wow, he is big," Shira said as she checked his package. "Do you think he'll be into a threesome?"

David nodded in the affirmative in the background as Grace replied, "I think he'll be into whatever I'm into."

They started making out and used David as sort of a couch for their session. He thought about how his life had changed so much over the week as he cupped each woman's butt and threw in some intermittent spanking. A week earlier he was sitting most nights by himself in his New York City apartment, he was running a successful multi-billion dollar mutual fund, he was estranged from his family and was struggling with a lack of personal satisfaction or closure.

The party continued through the early hours as most people just slept where they were. David opened his eyes and the two women were still attached to him like Velcro. He looked to his right and saw his friend Gerry Abrahamson with his wife Kyra sleeping on him. David nudged Gerry and Gerry struggled to open his eyes.

Gerry nodded and David asked through whisper, "When did you get here?"

Gerry thought and then replied, "Twelve thirty."

David nodded as Gerry motion with his head and the pile that was on top of his usually conservative friend. Although, once Gerry started recovering his faculties, he flashed back to a renegade in college that was much more fun and outgoing than the more recent reticent model of his friend.

"This was awesome!" Gerry mouthed. "Is the company going to be like this?"

David thought and then smiled, "I sure hope so."
Epilogue

Dan Billings, one of the top-rated Uber drivers in the tri-state area, noticed two identical destination addresses and quickly grouped them into one ride, believing that the two parties must know each other. He discounted the fair from LaGuardia Airport to 244 Franklin Avenue to $30 for each passenger, which is $15 more than he would have received for just one fare.

Both guys were college students and rarely had the need to be driven anywhere since they both had cars at school. Max Strauss for first in the car and was surprised to see another person get into the car on the other side of the back seat.

"Excuse me," Max said. "I thought you were picking me up as a single fare."

Grant Murray was even more perturbed, being that he had a quicker temper on account of who his mother was.

"Yeah, I didn't pay for this shit!"

Max didn't appreciate being referred to as "shit" being that he was the first person in the car.

21 year-old Max and 19 year-old Grant waited for the driver to answer.

Billings had truly earned his 5-star revue, and would be doing so again on this trip.

"Sorry, gentleman. I thought since you two were going to the same destination that you would like to ride together. I can have another car her in a minute if you want to split it up, but that will cost you both more."

Both kids were extremely cheap, preferring to let their parents foot the bill for anything and everything they did, except take this Uber ride. Lori Strauss had texted both guys and told them they had to come to their grandparents house for a big announcement. She got them both airline tickets, but did not pay for the Uber ride, so both boys were on the hook for the fare—Max coming from Michigan and Grant traveling from Duke.

"No, that's okay," Max said as he looked at Grant and attempted to figure out why the dude looked so familiar.

"I'm good," Grant replied, trying to maintain the illusion that he was cool riding with a stranger.

They were separated when Max was 7 and Grant was 5 and just trying to keep up with Max. Years later, Grant remembered little of their interaction, since Max had been out of the picture for so long.

They sat quietly and fidgeted with their phones for the first half-hour of the trip, which boggled driver Dan's mind. "Who is this gigantic person in my car?" Grant asked Lori, while Max texted his father and asked, "Who would be sharing a car with me and why am I headed back to Dunes Point?"

Both text messages went unanswered for the obvious reason being that no one was awake and coherent enough to respond. The suspense was killing Max a lot more than Grant, since he hadn't been back to the town he grew up in early in life since they left abruptly just before his mother passed away.

"Do I know you?" Max asked as he felt a chill down his spine when Dan transitioned to the Meadowbrook Parkway on Long Island.

"I don't think so," Grant replied, although as the minutes passed he was started to create a mental sketch of his long-lost cousin.

The older and more mature Max extended his hand and said, "I'm Max Strauss."

Grant's eyes widened as he replied, "Grant Murray."

Max smirked and said, "No shit!"

Grant was pleased that his suspicions were confirmed, "No shit! What are you doing here?"

Years of being excluded without an answer had Max a bit on edge, "What, I'm not allowed to go here anymore?"

Grant never usually backed down from anyone, but for some reason assumed his subservient role again to his older and much bigger cousin.

"No, it's just that I haven't seen you for a while."

"Why is that?" Max asked. "My dad never told me why we left and didn't see you guys anymore."

Driver Dan was fixed on the action as he exited the parkway and the beach was in sight.

"Beautiful," he mumbled as the boys continued to talk.

"My mom told me your dad did something wrong and we couldn't see you anymore," Grant stated.

Max countered, "My dad told me I was in danger and he had to protect me."

"Danger from what?" Grant inquired.

"My dad doesn't do wrong things," Max stated.

Dan pulled up in front of 244 Franklin Avenue and Grant said, "We're here!" although Max wasn't so sure at first.

Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a $10 bill for the tip, because he knew his dad would load him with cash once he heard about what he had laid out.

"I got it," Max said, as protocol called for him taking care of his younger cousin no matter the circumstance.

"Thanks," Grant said as they got out of the car and met in a thunderous hug just before fetching their bags.

"It's good to see you again," Grant said in a rare emotional moment in a life spent as the sole, yet longing, grandchild.

Dan closed the trunk, said, "Have a good day, gentlemen," and then pulled away, en route to his next 5-star transaction.

"What the hell went on in there with our parents?" Max asked as they stood in front of the house on the sidewalk.

"I don't know, but you gotta' hit me up with your digits," Grant said as they tapped phones and exchanged numbers.

The front door was open and the guys weren't sure what to expect. Grant looked at Max, who took the lead and entered the house first. It was unlike Grant to appear so passive and unsure of himself. Max felt nervous, but knew that his father would never put him in a position to suffer harm. The two guys walked into the foyer and Max said, "What the fuck?" at the sight of bodies strewn all over the living room.

"What is going on here, and how come we weren't invited?" Grant asked at the premise that he had missed an opportunity to party.

Right behind the guys was Grant's father, Walter, who saw the boys get out of the car and experienced a rush of adrenaline as he parked on the street and trailed the guys. Walter walked in the door and Grant turned around, "Dad! What's going on here?"

Walter looked around and replied, "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's a good thing after all of these years." Walter stepped up to Max and said, "It's good to see you, Max." And then he hugged Max and then motioned for Grant to join the hug as he whispered, "Your grandmother passed away."

Grant started crying, but Max was predictably dry, as the confusion of losing someone who had abandoned him was blocking an emotional release. Max broke free and instinctively walked toward the bedrooms in search of his father. He hot Melanie's room first, not really knowing the housing map of each kid's rooms. He saw a person who looked like his aunt in bed with another woman, so he was immediately stopped in his tracks over the imagery.

Grant was still crying as he searched for his mother with his father right behind. "Mom!" Grant yelled, which sent reverberations throughout the house.

David was in the shower with his girlfriend and her girlfriend, "Shit, is that my nephew?" He jumped out of the shower and grabbed a towel as Max held Grant back while looking over at him at Walter. He motioned for his uncle to go in there before them.

Melanie sat up in bed as Charlotte slept on her naked bosom. Walter walked in and was stopped in his tracks, although he was pleasantly surprised.

"Walter! Is that Grant?" she asked.

Walter nodded and waited for an explanation. She threw on a t-shirt and nudged Charlotte, "Go get some breakfast. I'll be there in a minute."

Charlotte threw on a t-shirt, which barely covered her body and the thing she was wearing. She walked out of the room and Max noticed her high beamers first before nudging his cousin, who stopped crying on the dime as Charlotte smiled at both of them as they started at her ass while she walked down the hallway into the kitchen.

Walter sat on the bed and was not admonished by Melanie for doing so for a change. She put her head on his chest and said, "It's been quite a week. I admitted to my brother that I had abused him, told him that my dad had abused me and Lori, he got stitches in both of his arms then came up with this brilliant idea for all of us to be in business together and we named you Head of Sales."

Walter took it all in as Melanie pulled back and finished her dialogue, "And that woman I was just in bed with is going to live with us."

Walter had few demands, "Do I get to stay?"

Melanie smiled, "Of course! Don't I seem happier?"

Walter nodded in agreement and realized that was all he ever wanted for Melanie was to be happy, even if she had to have her lesbian lover live with them.

"Dad?!" Max yelled, as he was growing impatient with the lack of presence of his father.

"Is that my nephew?" an exciting Melanie asked Walter.

"Yes, it's him, but you might want to give them a minute.

The two women that were in the shower with David threw some clothes on and walked past the flabbergasted cousins as they again smiled as Shira kept walking and then Grace stopped and said, "It's great to meet you Max, I'm Grace."

Max shook her hand and then remembered his father talking about Grace when they used to live together in his high school years.

"I've heard a lot about you from your father," Grace said and then kept moving toward the kitchen.

David came out of the bedroom in a pair of sweatpants, a Nike basketball t-shirt, a pair of sweatpants and a Mets baseball hat on backwards.

"Maxie!" he beamed and then hugged his son. "How did you get here?" he asked. Max hugged back and then said, "I came here with Grant."

Grant looked up at David, a man he had only heard bad things about and seen on TV, and acted on instinct, as he joined his uncle and cousin for a hug. Melanie then joined the party as both sons were looking for answers. "Boys!" Melanie yelled as she hugged them from behind and then sought to clarify, "I'm so glad we're all back together!' she exclaimed, which calmed her son down.

Max needed more, "Why were we apart all of those years?"

Melanie and David looked at each other and words were once again an unnecessary part of their communication. David put his arm around Max and they went in his room, and Melanie and Walter put their arms around Grant and they went in her room.

"There were some things that happened in my life that I realized made me take you from this place," David started.

"I am ashamed to say that I took all of my anger out on your uncle," Melanie said as Walter rolled his eyes in that he was a perennial target. "Oh, and your father," Melanie corrected.

"I realized in therapy that my father had abused my two sisters and Melanie had also acted on me," David said in the most direct way he could.

Melanie started crying, "My dad abused me and my sister, and I acted on my brother when he was really young."

Grant was devastated until his mother said, "But, we are starting a bunch of companies together. Your uncle is a brilliant businessman and we all bring skills to the table. So, we are started a chain of pot dispensaries, helping people with anxiety disorders through cannabis and also starting a foundation that helps abused people."

Grant stopped crying and asked, "Can you hire me?"

Walter smiled, "Well, I am head of sales and your mother is head if marketing, so I'm sure we can find a suitable place for you."

"We'll start with an internship this summer and see where you fit," Melanie added.

The news was a little hard to swallow for Max in the other room.

"What?" Max shouted, as much of the past decade or so started to make more sense. "Are you all right?"

David hugged his son, "Yeah, I'm fine. But, there have been a lot of changes since I talked to you last. I reconnected with Grace..."

"Nice woman. I met her in the hallway," Max said.

"I also quit my job," David stated.

"What, why did you do that?" Max asked, fearing that his father was suffering from some sort of emotional breakdown.

"I don't know, but they paid me $30 million."

Max's eyes widened, "Whoa!"

"I also sold the apartment and got $1.2 million for it," David said.

"Where are we going to live?" Max inquired, even though he was only a part-time resident.

"I bought a beach house down the road from here."

"Sweet!" Max exclaimed and then joked, "Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I am starting a company with my sisters and friends with the three businesses being a chain of pot dispensaries, using cannabis to help people overcome anxiety disorders and also starting a foundation to help people suffering from abuse."

Max didn't hesitate, "States are making billions off those things, and imagine how much you could make if it is legalized!"

David smiled, "I have. I want you to work under our Chief Financial Officer and me this summer. He was a guy I hired as an intern at my firm, and he also happens to own the medical dispensary I am going to buy in town."

"Will Grant be working at the company, too?" Max asked.

"I'm sure he will," David said as he hugged his son and then they emerged from his room to finally begin life again with their family as Zoe Gold, Grace's daughter, walked into the house and she and Max could now see their connected future.

