All I Want to Know is Where She Is

Darleen never wavered or looked away as she placed her hand on the bible.

"I swear to All Mighty God that what I dolt you that happened between me and Ray is the God's honest truth. The baby is his. He is the only one that came near me and I never gave him permission..." she was crying by then. "God forgive me for letting my guard down Jake."

Jake saw still trying to process it all. But she did swear on the bible. Darleen was many things, and one of them was she was devout Christian. They had both grown up going to the same church. Would she lie to him about this in the name of the All Mighty?

"Jake, I was lonely. I had not gone dancing or to dinner with anyone since you left. I figured your brother was safe. He had to be. He was your best man. We all grew up together. You and he were always so close. I trusted him."

Jake reluctantly stayed quiet. He wanted to scream at her for being weak and going out with his brother. His brother! His own brother! Inside him he was torn. He wanted to be understanding. Yes, had nothing happened and his bother had just brought her back to her house, he would have been grateful for Ray doing the right thing. But something HAD happened. Ray had sex with Darleen and got her pregnant. His mind was going to explode.

He got up and paced down the steps. Darleen thought to give him space to think but chose to follow him. They walked in silence for a while away from the house, then abruptly, Jake turned and walked back. Darleen near panicked. Was he taking her back and then dumping her? She had come to terms with that being a possibility, but after seeing her husband she wanted him to stay and love her. She needed him. Loved him.

"Jake you have to believe me. I didn't... I didn't want that to happen."

"Did you fight him? Try to fight him off?"

"I scratched his face Jake. But he is as big as you are and strong. What chance did I have with him already over me?"

Jake nodded. It wasn't just anger, but the shame that he had not been there to defend his wife. To be the one to plant that baby in her. Instead his brother of all people had taken advantage and raped Darleen. There was no sugar coating it. If this was all true, Ray had done just that.

"What happened after?" Jake asked.

"He got off me and left the room. I sat there crying and in shock, but he was gone. I ran Jake and went home. I told my mom and took a hot shower. I thought I could wash him off me, but it was too late Jake."

'My own brother!'

"Jake talk to me... please." Darleen asked reaching out to hold his hand. "Please forgive me for this. I am so so sorry."

Jake just stared at her, still in shock.

"So your parents and your aunt and uncle know?" he asked her.

They sat back down on the porch chairs.

"They are the only ones who do Jake. But I figure by now some others may. People talk."

"Does Ray know?"

"I wrote to him and told him I was pregnant," Darleen replied defiantly. "But he sent me a letter saying so what?"

"So what!" Jake repeated shaking his head.

"Let me get it for you," she said and ran inside. She was back out in minutes.

The letter was in military stationary. Jake read the response shacking his head. The most pertinent and damning portion was this one passage.

"...so what? It's a Linden baby. Does it matter whose?"

Jake recognized his brother's handwriting. He knew it by heart.

'My own brother!' He thought yet again. The stark reality of it hurt more than anything. Deep down he understood. Lonely after close to two years with out her man, Darleen had gone to dinner with his twin brother. The brother she had known as much as Jake. Had Ray asked Jake to take her to diner, Jake would have probably said yes. He would have trusted his brother as much as Darleen had. The thought of it still angered him. His own brother had betrayed him in a way he could never get over.

Jake eventually settled back as Darleen held his hand.

"Come meet little Anna," she said.

"You named her after my mom?"

"We had talked names before you left. What else would I have called her?"

Jake nodded as she took him inside and showed him the beautiful little baby sleeping. Jake's hand tightened around Darleen's and she let out a whimper of joy leaning on him.

----------------------------------------

Two weeks later, Jake had to report to Ft. Knox, which was south of Louisville, Kentucky; not far from Cincinnati. Before he left, he sent a letter to his brother. In it was just once sentence.

"I know what you did asshole. Never talk to me again."

Jake was discharged in two months. Albert got Jake a job at Ford, and he chose to stay with Darleen in Cincinnati. They had three more children. Two boys and another girl that looked just like Anna. Jake and Darleen had a full and happy life. And they watched after one another.

At a company dance some years later, some drunk wife put her hands on Jake and Darleen decked her; daring her husband to do something if he "had the balls."

Ray Linden never came home. He got in a brawl outside a bar in San Diego and was stabbed to death in 1952 right after he returned from fighting in Korea. No one from the family went to his funeral. He was known to all as the evil twin. It got out that he had hit on other married women. One was a cousin in the Marines. That he was based in California at the time and so was Ray, some may say was a coincidence. But Jake knew better.

Jake and Darleen's oldest son Jeff served in the Marines in Vietnam. He returned to have a career in the Cincinnati PD; married and had three kids. His oldest boy and daughter served in the Army. The son in Dessert Storm and Afghanistan. The girl as an officer in Iraq.

Jake and Darleen's other son Greg was a navy officer in submarines. His wife disappeared with her mailman and showed up pregnant hoping her hubby would take her back. He spit in her face and had her served with divorce papers. He got married two years later and still is very happy.

Jake and Darleen's youngest daughter Margie married a local guy who cheated on her constantly. She hired a local PI to catch him and served him papers at a nasty motel he was screwing her "best friend." She joined the Navy afterwards and saw the world. Margie met her next and current husband when she ran in to him at a ball game in Baltimore and spilled all his and his date food on the floor. It took one look and they were in lust. The love, marriage and kids came after.

Anna Linden was Jake's favorite, and everyone could tell. She was daddy's girl. Anna was the intellectual in the family. A math and physics major in college she stayed at Cincinnati University to get her masters. She turned down marriage twice to work on her PHD. After a few years out west doing research for a secret government lab, she came home. University of Cincinnati was all too glad to take her on as a professor where she stayed until she retired at age seventy. She married a younger physicist, but they never had children. Jake was proud of her and her achievements; always bragging about her.

Darleen and Jake never told Anna who her father was. Anna found out somehow, but never let on. In her mind, Jake was her daddy. The man who had raised her, loved her, taught her how to ride a bike and bought her a junior science kit instead of dolls when she was young. Jake had been the one to encourage her to follow her dream of studying science. When the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, Anna had been one of the scientists that had done the calculations for the trip there and back.

Jake's parents found out about Ray and it about killed them. Not only had their son raped his brother's wife, but they had lost both their sons in the process. Ray never returned to visit, and Jake refused to come back and be in the same house or town that his brother had defiled Darleen. Jake had stayed in Cincinnati and never returned to New York. His parents visited him and Darleen in Cincinnati a few times, but there was always a strain between them all.

After Jake's sister got divorced in the late fifties, she moved to Cincinnati where Jake got her a job at Ford. She married her boss who accepted her two older children. He worshiped the ground she walked on. And he and Jake got along great as they had both been tankers in the war.

Neither Jake or Darleen never thought of leaving each other or straying. They both had opportunities, and both had the feelings people go through in their late thirties and early forties. But somehow, neither could bring themselves to cheat. Instead they gave themselves fake names of Rhonda and Brett and went on dates calling each other that before going to a motel room for sex. They made love at home.

Darleen/Rhonda picked up a book called the Kama Sutra where she learned all kind of things to do with Jake/Brett. Jake read it too and did everything in the book with her she let him. After years of being afraid of it, Darleen/Rhonda gave in and let Jake/Brett have her ass. She got mad at herself for not doing it years ago as she loved it. Then she crossed her last line and let him cum in her mouth. Again, she was surprised that it did not taste as bad as she thought it would. It only took her twenty-seven years to figure that out, but better late than never.

Unfortunately for them, the blue pills to help ED did not come out until 1998. Jake could not perform for close to twelve years. He was seventy five years old and Darleen seventy four when they had sex again. During that time, Darleen never strayed to another man or even thought of it. In her mind, Jake was her man, her hero. No one could replace him. And Jake never thought of offering her to go screw another man. He knew better. Darleen slept with a German P-38 Jake had found on a dead German officer; and knew how to use it.

Jake developed Alzheimer's in 2006 and died in 2008. Darleen cared for him until the end with the help of his four children and eleven grandchildren. He died holding Darleen's hand.

Darleen passed away in her sleep six months later. She was smiling when they found her and had a picture of Jake and her taken while he was in uniform just outside her aunt's house with baby Anna in her arms. They were both smiling as they stared at the camera.

When their children went through their things, they found a letter Jake had left for his kids and written at the beginning stages of his affliction.

"Dear kids,

I love you and your mother more than life itself. Please take care of her for me as well as each other. I could say many things to you about life and what is important. But a few stand out.

One, is the importance of family. Love each other and never betray each other.

Two, is learn to forgive. It will set you free of a lot of pain.

Three, choose good over evil every time. We all have choices.

I love you all and will put in a word with the Big Guy for you.

Your loving dad.

Jake Linden

Husband, father, US Army soldier.

His kids made sure it was on his gravestone. Darleen and he are buried together. The family visits them not on the anniversary of their deaths, but on their wedding anniversary.

No one has ever visited Ray's grave in the military cemetery in California.