Evelyn’s Family

Crime Fiction by Mary Jo Rabe

Mosquitoes buzzed around her head making her ears ring and the late-afternoon, hot, humid air felt so heavy, it was hard for her to breathe. Evelyn stood up from Hermann’s grave, her knees creaking loudly in protest as the black dirt fell off her neat, gray dress.

She nervously rearranged the red roses yet one more time and wiped the dust and dirt off the huge, marble gravestone, engraved not only with Hermann’s birth and death dates but also with a sketch of him as a young man. Her husband had died a year ago, and she had kept his grave looking tidy and clean ever since.

With her longish, thin, graying hair drawn back in a bright blue ribbon ─ blue had been Hermann’s favorite color ─ she was alone as she looked around the village cemetery in her little home town of Oberherzoghausen. The cemetery was well kept-up, actually a pretty place with the dark mountains of the Black Forest in the background. The grass got mowed at least once a week, and someone always removed dead flowers or plants regularly. It was good to know that Hermann was at peace in this lovely place.

People had warned her about the age difference all those years ago, but Evelyn had always been stubborn. She was only hesitant and felt helpless when she didn’t know what to do. When her feelings were strong, she didn’t let anyone or anything stop her, not even German laws or regulations.

At the age of sixteen, she had met and married Hermann, the great love of her life, also a good fourteen years older than she was. Unlike what gossips and even her own family claimed, it wasn’t the case of a dysfunctional, older man taking advantage of a silly teenager. Hermann had just always been painfully shy and Evelyn never was. Just as her instinct told her, it was a perfect match for both of them.

She had her children quickly and perhaps at too young an age. At twenty-two, she already had her four small children, all of whom left home at an early age and married, also having their children at a relatively young age. Whatever her deficits as a mother, she became a youthful, active, and much-loved grandmother.

She and Hermann were well-suited to each other and happy. He worked hard and provided well for his family. She managed the household brilliantly, even if she did say so herself, and later took a part-time job in a bookstore to get her out of the pristine house once the grandchildren were older.

Hermann’s dementia started when he was in his mid seventies, and it almost killed Evelyn to see how her strong and intelligent hero, the man who had made all the decisions, and whose decisions had always been right, turn into a petulant, irrational, and helpless child.

But she stood by him, cared for him day and night, even after he no longer recognized her. Evelyn simply saw past the changes in him and took care of the man she loved so much. It was truly the least she could do for this good man. Her children couldn’t deal with the changes in their father, and her grandchildren became afraid of him, so the task fell to Evelyn alone anyway.

Now she was in her late-sixties. Hermann was dead, her children were middle-aged, and her grandchildren were teenagers, busy making lives for themselves.

Evelyn was alone, with nothing to do and no one who needed her. Her house was always immaculately clean and tidy, and Hermann’s grave was always adorned with fresh flowers and healthy plants.

More and more often, Evelyn wondered what she could or should do with her life. She didn’t have the stamina of a young woman any more, but she was reasonably healthy and as stubborn as ever.

“Good morning, Evelyn,” a woman’s cheerful voice called out. It belonged to Lydia, the gossipy, not-quite friend Evelyn generally had little tolerance for, even though they had known each other for decades. She and Lydia were about the same age, but Lydia kept her short hair dyed a bright reddish purple and joined in every new exercise fad, at the moment apparently Nordic walking, to stay firmly anorexic. Evelyn had long since made her peace with accruing additional kilos as the years went by.

But, of course, Evelyn had been brought up to treat people politely and show good manners, and so she answered, “Good morning, Lydia.”

Lydia’s walking poles made a loud, annoying clicking noise on the sidewalk outside the cemetery. “Do you still go to Hermann’s grave every day?” she yelled over to Evelyn as she clicked on by. “You need to find something to do.”

“You have a good day, too,” Evelyn said. She was relieved that Lydia continued her Nordic march. Lydia was an unbearable gossip. Evelyn sighed, picked up her basket of gardening equipment, walked to the cemetery gate, and made her way back home.

She was a little lost in thought along the way. The bike and pedestrian path from the cemetery to the church was made of red bricks and had high, green hedges on both sides, making her feel like the cemetery was directly connected to the center of the village.

She and Hermann had built their house, surrounded by tall pine trees, a few blocks from the center of town and a short distance up the local mountain when a plot became available. From the living room window, she could see the entire village, and with this view, she often felt that she was in heaven looking down at petty, earthly squabbles that were none of her concern. Today though, on her way home, she reflected on how lonely this perfect house had become. And still, she hurried home, getting out of breath in the process.

To her amazement, her fifteen-year-old granddaughter Lisa was waiting at the door. “Grandma,” she said. “Where have you been?”

Evelyn opened the door and motioned for Lisa to come in. Evelyn had never considered herself good-looking what with her receding chin. Even Hermann had called her his sweet, little parrot because he thought her face looked like a parrot. But Lisa, tall, blonde, and trim, was breathtakingly beautiful, as well as smart and kind. And Evelyn didn’t think that just because Lisa was her granddaughter. Everyone said that. Actually, everyone said that about all her grandchildren.

Lisa stood in the door as Evelyn plopped down on a stool at the kitchen table, breathing heavily. “Did you forget, Grandma?” she asked.

“Probably,” Evelyn said. “What did I forget?”

“There’s an event at the library,” Lisa said. “You said you’d like to go listen to local writers read from their works, and I said I’d like to go with you.” Evelyn noticed that Lisa was dressed more conservatively than usual, wearing long, gray pants, a light-blue sweater, low-heeled shoes. She looked beautiful.

“Yes, I forgot,” Evelyn admitted. “When is it, and do you still want to go?”

“We can still make it if we leave right away,” Lisa said. “And I’d like to go. I’m a little curious about people who write.”

“Then let’s go,” Evelyn said. “I just need five minutes to make myself presentable.” And she stumbled off to the bathroom to wipe the sweat and dust off her face and comb her thin hair.

The event at the library, a massive stone building that had once belonged to minor royalty in the village, was in fact quite interesting and fairly well attended. Evelyn counted over fifty library users in the audience, most of them her age. Three local historians talked about their histories of the people and events in Oberherzoghausen, and one woman talked about researching her family tree.

That sounded like a lot of work, but it was fascinating to hear how much information an ordinary person could gather from local courthouses and from church records.

Afterwards walking back to Evelyn’s house, Lisa said, “Why don’t you do that, Grandma?”

“Oh, I could never write a book,” Evelyn said and looked up at her. “I’m not an educated woman.”

“But you worked in a bookstore and you read more books than anyone I know,” Lisa said. “Besides, now you have enough time to research your family. You always said there was some mystery about your grandpa, your father’s father. Why don’t you solve the mystery and write about him?”

Evelyn walked more slowly; the sidewalk was getting a little steep. “You know what,” Evelyn said. “I just might try to research my family tree. Unfortunately, it’s a little late for my father’s side of the family. My father died a long time ago, and I never knew his parents. Actually, he never talked about them, not even to my mother.”

“I did know his grandmother. She raised my father and she used to invite me to visit her for a few weeks every summer when I was a little girl.” Evelyn had to stop to catch her breath. By now, they were up the mountain almost at her house.

“Well,” Lisa said. “You probably can’t ask her anything either. She can’t possibly still be alive.”

“No,” Evelyn said. “Maybe the whole idea is hopeless.” Soon they found themselves at her house.

Lisa opened the door for her and said, “Grandma, if you really want to do this, you’ll find a way. Why don’t you start by asking Lydia? She knows everything about everybody in the whole state.”

“Maybe,” Evelyn said, shuddering. “Thank you for reminding me about this event in the library. It was the best thing I’ve done all week.”

“I’ve got to run home,” Lisa said. “My parents will want to know where I am. They aren’t nearly as laid back as my cool Grandma. Keep me up on whatever you find, Okay?” And she ran back down the mountain.

Evelyn slept better than she had in weeks. The next morning, she woke up and started thinking about how she could begin her genealogical research. She quickly fixed herself a bowl of cereal and pulled some lined paper out the desk drawer.

While she ate her cereal, she started jotting down what she knew about her father and her mysterious grandfather. Instead of cleaning the kitchen and living room after breakfast as usual, she just put the bowl in the sink, came back to the table, and read what she had written so far.

It wasn’t much.

Her father, Oskar Schmidt, had been an only child. Evelyn didn’t even remember the names of his parents, if indeed she had ever known them. But her father’s grandmother was Martina Gerber, and she had lived in Karlsruhe.

Well, that gave Evelyn a place to begin. She could visit her great-grandmother’s grave in Karlsruhe and see if she found any information there. Many of the nineteenth century records were easily accessible in county courthouses. And the state archives in Karlsruhe would have microforms of nineteenth century newspapers.

So, she decided to plan a trip to Karlsruhe. Giving it more thought, she decided she should first access sources closer by, and so she walked down the mountain and over to Lydia’s house. Loud “oompah-pah” music boomed out of the window, but Evelyn rang the doorbell anyway. Lydia came to the door sweating and dressed in some ghastly pink elastic clothing that emphasized the bones beneath her skin.

“Evelyn,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m visiting a friend,” Evelyn said dryly. “What are you doing?”

“My daily aerobic exercises,” Lydia said. “The music helps me do them vigorously enough. But come in. I can take a short break.”

Faced with the prospect of hiking back up to her house without having accomplished anything, Evelyn went in. Mercifully, Lydia did turn off the music and waved Evelyn toward her messy kitchen. Evelyn suspected the dirty dishes hadn’t been washed for days.

Lydia dabbed a towel indifferently around her sweaty clothes and sat down across the table from Evelyn. “So, can I do something for you?” Lydia asked.

“Sorry to bother you,” Evelyn said. “I was thinking of doing some research into my family tree, but as soon as I started writing down what I already know, I saw that I really don’t know much at all about my own family. After Hermann and I got married, I sort of focused on our little family.”

“Yes,” Lydia said.

“So,” Evelyn continued. “Then I wondered if you knew anything about my parents, especially about my father. Your family has lived in this village for literally centuries. You could know more than I do.”

“Your parents moved here before you were born,” Lydia said. “So no one knows that much about them. Do you really want to hear the gossip that went around about them?”

“I want to do a thorough job of this,” Evelyn said firmly. “I would be grateful if you told me everything you know. I can always discard information that turns out not to be true.”

“Good,” Lydia said. “I really don’t know if the gossip was based on facts at all. But the rumor was that your father was illegitimate, that his father was a Catholic priest. That’s all I ever heard.”

“Oh,” Evelyn said, taken aback. “Well, that does give me a place to start.” She looked around Lydia’s messy kitchen to hide her embarrassment, but all she really wanted to do was escape.

“Thanks, I guess,” Evelyn said. “Go back to your exercising. I’m sorry to interrupt you. I should have called first. But you know me; as soon as I get an idea in my head, I can’t wait.”

“Just like your father, or maybe even your grandfather,” Lydia said as she stood up and somehow turned the loud music back on. Evelyn fled.

She didn’t spend as much time rearranging the flowers at Hermann’s grave. Instead, she talked to him. While he couldn’t answer, of course, she had the feeling that he was encouraging her to find out more about her family tree. She decided to visit some archives.

Her trip to state archives of Baden-Württemberg in Karlsruhe did provide her with additional information. The newspaper microforms archives were especially helpful. Her mysterious grandfather, Father Aloysius Schmidt, had indeed been a Catholic priest. He died after Christmas in Le Havre at the age of sixty-two. He jumped off a passenger ship into the freezing water of the harbor. He had previously purchased a ticket to the United States.

Evelyn’s grandmother gave birth to Evelyn’s father in Strasbourg, France, which was registered as an illegitimate birth. She then entered a convent, ended up in a mental hospital, and died there at the age of twenty-three.

So Evelyn tried to remember the French she had learned in her trade school and sent off requests for information to Strasbourg and Le Havre. But it was obvious where she now had to look for more information about her grandfather.

It was time to ask the Catholic Church for help. The friendly archivists in Karlsruhe informed her that the Catholic Church kept personnel files on all their priests that included detailed information about their lives. However, they warned her that the church authorities often didn’t give out information that they wanted to keep secret.

Hoping for the best, Evelyn wrote a polite letter to the archbishop of Fredburg, saying that she discovered that her grandfather had been a parish priest in the archdiocese of Fredburg and that she would like to learn more about him.

A letter came back four days later, not from the archbishop but from a priest who said he was the administrator in charge of the diocesan priests. In exactly one line, the letter said that the archdiocese didn’t divulge information about its priests.

Evelyn wrote back saying that she already knew the basics about her grandfather, that he had obviously not taken his vows of celibacy that seriously, but that she just wanted to know more about him, to get some details about what kind of man he was.

This time she got an official response from the archbishop’s vicar general saying that her request had been forwarded to the archdiocesan archives and she should get in touch with the archivist in charge, Dr. Bernhard Weidenau.

Evelyn wrote to Dr. Weidenau and got a letter back full of bureaucratese listing the conditions under which the archivist would be willing to let her see her grandfather’s personnel file. She would only be allowed to read the file while supervised by Dr. Weidenau in his office. She wouldn’t be allowed to make any copies, would not be allowed to take notes, and she would have to sign a legally binding agreement promising to keep all information from the file secret.

That made Evelyn hopping mad. She didn’t know what to do exactly, but she knew she had to do something. Obviously, it was a waste of her time to write any more polite letters.

Instead, she took a train to Fredburg and made her way to the archdiocesan chancery office there, a huge, red, sandstone castle of a building just behind the cathedral. She told the receptionist that she had business in the archives and marched in the direction the woman pointed her toward. Down a long hall and then a half flight of stairs, she knocked loudly on the green, metal door next to the sign “archdiocesan archives”. After a few minutes a short, little man about her age with two huge hearing aids and not much hair limped to the door, let her in, smiled, and said, “How can I help you?”

Evelyn dug the letters out of her purse, handed them to him, and said, “Dr. Weidenau? The vicar general said I had to deal with you if I wanted information about my grandfather.”

The little man laughed out loud, letting his paunch jiggle freely under his sweater vest. “No,” he said loudly. “I am still the director of these archives. The youthful Dr. Weidenau is the coadjutor the archbishop has forced on me. He’ll be my successor here in the archives in two years and in the meantime has been tasked with watching over me to make sure I don’t do anything the archbishop wouldn’t approve of.”

“I don’t mind. He’s a nice kid, even if he is still too much of an apple-polisher trying to get in good with the higher-ups. And to be fair, I have been the unpredictable loose cannon here in the archdiocesan chancery office for years. The archbishop and vicar general can hardly wait until I retire, but with my permanent civil service status they can’t force me to retire sooner.”

Evelyn looked at him. “Then who are you?” she asked.

He smiled again and held out his hand. “Dr. Frank Wetzel, director of the archdiocesan archives of Fredburg, at your service.”

Evelyn shook his hand gratefully and smiled back. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. Whenever she felt really discouraged, when it seemed like the whole universe was against her, she suddenly encountered people who were willing to help.

“Come into my office,” Dr. Wetzel said. “The youthful Dr. Weidenau is out inspecting parish archives in Neckarpfarrersheim. He’ll be gone all day. So, no one can stop me from helping you.”

Evelyn spent the next hour telling Dr. Wetzel what she knew so far and explained that she would be grateful for any additional information about Father Aloysius Schmidt. Dr. Wetzel read her correspondence from the chancery office and snorted.

Then he looked thoughtful, pushing his reading glasses down on his nose. “I can help you and I will. But you might want to think about whether you really want to know everything there is to know. Knowledge about people’s family trees doesn’t always make them happy.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Evelyn said. “I’ve decided I want to write about my family’s history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Other people do it, so why shouldn’t I?”

She looked at him. “I need something useful to do at this point in my life,” Evelyn said, rubbing her hands together.

“And as my granddaughter reminded me, I have always wondered off and on what the big secret was about Grandpa. Now I know he was a Catholic priest who had at least one child.”

“Well,” Dr. Wetzel said. “As far as I can tell, you’ll need the personnel file for your grandfather and the other files from all the parishes he ever was a priest in. Naturally these are the files the archbishop doesn’t want you to have access to or that you should only have reading access to.”

“But I’m still the director of the archives here, and I can make use of any files I want to.”

“I’ll give you my telephone number here in the archives and my home mailing address, but you should only call me here after we have set a time for it so that my youthful successor doesn’t take the call. I’ll make copies of the files you need and send them to you, but you should only send your letters to my home address.”

“Would that be acceptable to you? I don’t see any other practical way to do this,” Dr. Wetzel said.

“Ordinarily I would think it a little strange,” Evelyn said. “But after the letters I got from the chancery office so far, now this seems quite sensible. I can’t thank you enough for helping me.”

“This is only the beginning, though,” Dr. Wetzel said. “First you have to see if you can even read the copies. Nineteenth century handwriting isn’t always legible, and many of the entries may be in Latin. That happened a lot when officials discussed priest scandals. They wanted to make sure no one else would understand their comments.”

“I don’t know any Latin,” Evelyn admitted sadly.

“That’s why I would suggest that you mark the sentences or paragraphs on the copies that you can’t read, and when you’re finished, I’ll come and help you decipher the rest.”

“Thank you,” Evelyn said. “But I don’t want you to get into trouble for helping me.”

Dr. Wetzel laughed. “The archbishop can’t fire me, and I really think I am doing him a favor. This whole system of secrecy creates more problems than it solves. You have a right to know about your grandfather. If anything about his activity as a priest embarrasses the church, the higher-ups should admit that mistakes were made and explain how these mistakes won’t ever be made again.”

He stood up and looked out the window of his office into the courtyard with its well-tended lawn surrounded by high trees. Beyond the courtyard the downtown mountain of Fredburg, the “Stadtberg” rose up and dominated the scene.

“You have a nice view from your window,” Evelyn said.

“It helps,” Dr. Wetzel admitted. “Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the stupidity I encounter, I look out at the “Stadtberg” and that helps put everything into perspective. Human foibles are pretty small and insignificant compared to the wonders of nature.”

Evelyn stood up and shook his hand. “Thank you again, and I’ll write to your home address as soon as I have read the copies you send me.”

“Try to keep some critical distance to what you discover,” he said. “If the archbishop is making such a big deal about keeping your grandfather’s activities secret, there might be more bad than good.” And he walked her to the door.

Evelyn enjoyed a very pleasant train ride home. Dr. Wetzel was a wonderful source, just the help she needed. Now all she had to do was wait for the copies he promised to send her.

The first package arrived two days later, the second package two days after that, and the third package a week later. Evelyn cleared off the dining room table and laid out the copies in organized piles. Then she started reading. It didn’t take long before she had to invest in some red marker pens to start underlining the things she didn’t understand.

Weeks later, there were also things she thought she understood, but hoped she misunderstood because they were just unbearably sad. It was time to write Dr. Wetzel and set a time for a telephone call.

He called her two days later. “How is it going?” he asked.

“I’ve been reading day and night, and now I have read everything you’ve sent me,” Evelyn said.

“And you have questions,” he said.

“I think I deciphered the handwriting well enough, but there are comments in Latin and three pages in French that I can’t understand at all. And then there are some things I’m not sure I understood correctly.”

“Then it would probably be best if I came and went through the copies with you. We can’t do that here in the archives because someone might ask questions. Would you like me to meet you somewhere in Oberherzoghausen?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, come to my house,” Evelyn said. “I have all the copies spread out on my dining room table.”

“No, that would be fine,” Dr. Wetzel said. “I just didn’t want to impose on you. When should I come?”

Two days later a taxi drove up to Evelyn’s house and Dr. Wetzel limped to the door. “Come in,” Evelyn said as she opened the door. “I should have asked when I was in Fredburg. Are you injured? I shouldn’t have asked you to come all this way.”

“No, no,” Dr. Wetzel said as he made his way to her dining room and sat down gingerly. “Both of my hips are wearing out and I will probably have to have the joints replaced. However, I don’t feel like having the operation yet.”

Evelyn shut the door and followed him into her spotless dining room. She sat down and looked at him. “I’m not sure I understood everything,” she began.

“Did you read all the files?” Dr. Wetzel asked. “Especially the files from the parishes your grandfather worked at? His parishioners all had nothing but good things to say about him. He worked his heart out for them. He built churches; he organized food banks and visiting nurses for the poor; he started church choirs and projects for the children. In many ways he was the perfect pastor.”

“And the comments in Latin?” Evelyn asked.

“Those were the comments from the archdiocesan inspectors who came to the parish every year. They noticed his live-in housekeepers and the children of the housekeepers.”

“A perfect pastor except for the vow of celibacy,” Evelyn said. “He fathered eight children.”

“With four different women,” Dr. Wetzel added. “Three of whom were his nieces, the daughters of his sister Gertrud.”

“And the fourth?” Evelyn asked.

“The fourth was his daughter with one of the nieces.” Dr. Wetzel said.

“But how was that even possible?” Evelyn asked.

“The nieces were all his housekeepers,” Dr. Wetzel said. “And it seems he was quite a charming man. There is no evidence or even gossip that he forced himself on them. The first two nieces each had one child with him and then accepted marriage proposals from other men to get financial security for themselves and their children.”

“Yet in the parish files the archdiocesan inspector specifically mentions how pleasant the atmosphere in the rectory was, how popular the housekeepers were with the parishioners, and how henpecked Father Schmidt seemed with respect to the housekeepers. They were devoted to him, but they ruled the roost, so to speak.”

“The third niece had five children with him before she also decided to accept a marriage proposal from a man in Father Schmidt’s last parish. This third niece was your great-grandmother, Martina, who took the name Martina Gerber after she married. One of her children was Angelika. Aloysius Schmidt impregnated Angelika when she was fourteen, and their son was your father.”

“Aloysius had charmed an order of nuns in Strasbourg, France. They thought he was quite a holy man who paid for poor, unwed mothers to have their children in the order’s hospital. So, for the first seven children it was no problem. But by the time he brought Angelika there to have her child, it was a new generation of nuns who were immediately suspicious. Angelika had a long, painful delivery and the nuns told her she might die and would go straight to hell if she didn’t tell them who the father of her child was.”

“That’s what the three pages in French are about then,” Evelyn said.

“Yes, that’s the police report. Incest was a crime, and the police immediately informed the church officials. Then they started looking for Aloysius. Someone let him know that the police were looking for him, and he headed for Le Havre and bought a ticket for the next ship to the United States. But the police hat a tip and they showed up before the ship left. The theory is that Aloysius saw the police in the harbor and in an act of panic jumped into the cold water.”

“They fished him out of the water and brought him to a hospital. But he never regained consciousness and died a few days later. His death certificate lists a heart attack as the cause of death.”

Evelyn asked, “And what happened to Angelika exactly?”

Dr. Wetzel said, “We can only speculate. The facts are that she was a thin, sickly girl and had a very difficult birth. She died in a mental hospital at the age of twenty-three, but the death certificate states that she died of heart failure. That’s why your great-grandmother raised your father.”

Evelyn laid her head in her hands. “Then I didn’t misunderstand anything. My father is the result of double incest. His father impregnated his own daughter who was also his great-niece. What kind of monster was my father’s father?”

“He seems to have had his good qualities; he was a priest who truly cared about his parishioners. Maybe today they would diagnose him as a sex addict. He also seems to have treated his nieces well. They were very loyal and devoted to him.”

Evelyn shook her head. “I wanted to write a book about my mysterious grandfather, but how can I want everyone to know that I am the next generation of double incest?”

Dr. Wetzel patted her hand and said, “It’s your decision, of course. I would suggest that you take some time to get used to this new information. You can always write the book. To make sure the Catholic Church doesn’t make any trouble for you, I would suggest that you just change the names. That way the Church can claim that there never was a priest with the name you choose, and you can say that it is a work of fiction. Just add an introduction explaining that the novel is based on a real person.”

“I don’t know,” Evelyn said. “The more I think about it, I am glad I know the whole story. It does explain a lot. I just don’t know if I want anyone else to know. I couldn’t have discovered the whole truth without your help; how can I ever thank you?”

Dr. Wetzel smiled. “Just another day in the life of an archivist. At least I can tell my wife that the story has a somewhat happy ending. Could you call me a taxi? I’ll take the next train back to Fredburg.”

And he was gone and Evelyn was alone with her thoughts. Double incest. Her father was always so sickly and moody. She herself had a funny-looking face, like a parrot. Over the years, she had heard comments now and then about her children being odd in one way or another.

Lydia would have a field day with this. Did Evelyn really want the whole village to gossip about how they had always suspected that there was something wrong with her family, that double incest explained all their quirks? Probably she should forget the whole book idea and burn the copies Dr. Wetzel sent her so that no one else ever found out about the family’s secret.

A week later, Lisa came to visit. “How is your book coming, Grandma? What did you find out about your grandpa?” she asked as she ran in and plopped down on the pristine couch in the living room.

Evelyn walked over to a comfortable, leather recliner chair, sat down, sighed, and then told Lisa the whole story, ending with her decision to forget the whole thing.

“You’re giving up your book?” Lisa said. “Why? Now that you know what happened!”

“I feel ashamed. I hate what my grandfather did. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m the next generation from double incest. I don’t think I could stand how people would look at me or talk about me behind my back.”

Lisa shook her head impatiently. “You’re not thinking this through, Grandma. If your grandpa hadn’t done what he did, I wouldn’t be here. I’m glad to be alive. I like who I am. I’m happy; I have a good life. I can’t be mad or ashamed about what my great-great-grandfather did.”

That thought overwhelmed Evelyn. What had she been thinking? Maybe her father was damaged by the incest; maybe she and her children were a little odd, but her grandchildren were absolutely perfect in every way. Whatever damage there was from incest, it obviously disappeared after three generations.

Why not write her book? It would give her an opportunity to criticize church secrecy and celibacy policies. Lydia’s gossip could roll off Evelyn’s shoulders like dust off furniture. But Evelyn wouldn’t have time for dusting in the near future. She had a book to write.

---

Bio: Mary Jo Rabe writes science fiction, modern fantasy, historical fiction, and crime or mystery stories, generally displaying a preference for what she defines as happy endings. Ideas for her fiction come from the magnificent, expanding universe, the rural environment of eastern Iowa where she grew up, the beautiful Michigan State University campus where she got her first degree, and the Black Forest area of Germany with its center in Freiburg where she worked as a librarian for 41 years before retiring to Titisee-Neustadt. News about her published stories is posted regularly on her blog, found HERE.

Cover photo by: pexels/MuffinLand

Read More Mystery Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

Follow us On:

Looking for a book to read? Try our Bookstore, or True Crime Library