Heart to Heart with Leigh.

We lay there I rubbed the hair out of her face as that one eye kept watching what I was doing, I kissed and stroked the side of her face and slowly the eye started to close overcome with tiredness, I made a move covered Liz's beautiful body with blankets picked up my clothes and tip-toed out closing the door as I went. Dressed I made a coffee, went to the office and decided I'd catch some on-line news. An hour later I heard the outside door open and close, I walked to the kitchen, “Hi Dad, how's things been tonight? Is mum gone to bed?”

“Yes, she's been in bed over an hour and yes honey, we've been good, we've worked through a lot tonight?”

“Yeah, I'd say you two must have worked it all out in bed, by the looks of things.”

“LEIGH! Be nice, anyway what would give you that idea?”

“You're tee-shirt's inside out and back to front.”

Oh shit. Change of subject. “I talked to Grandad today he said you went and saw him and Grandma last weekend? He said they met Paul. Leigh, they're very impressed with him, mind you so am I.”

“Yes, I'm glad, I know Paul liked Grandad but I told him that Grandma was a bit of a pain, the old bigot.”

“Leigh, be nice.”

“WELL, Dad you know what she's like she can be so nasty and she is a bigot! You want to hear her go on about some of her neighbours!”

“Anyways Dad, have you made your mind up about Mum and You.”

“I think we're going to stay together but we've got a lot to talk about and some things need to change before I think we can work everything out the way we need to.”

“But will YOU be happy Dad?”

“Yes, honey I think I will be honey.”

“Okay, then so will I.”

“Ah look that's great Leigh, I think that's what was worrying me most.”

“So I guess you want to know how my meeting Paul's Mum, Virginia went then, or is she going to ring you and tell you herself.”

There's my girl, don't dilly-dally around, mark that line in the sand. “Well she's going to ring me soon, but feel free to tell me if you want, I'm fine either way, whatever you're comfortable with hun.”

“Well, from my point it went well, I think she was surprised to find out how much I knew about you guys, you know being an item once and all. And she tried to deflect a lot, but Paul and I have spent a lot of time working out a lot of the details and think we've got a good idea of what went on, you know back in the olden days when you and Virginia were young, well youngish.”

“Be careful how you tread young lady, we are neither of us, that old. So, Ok, what did you think of Paul's Mum?”

“Dad, I love her, she is just real nice. Paul's told me about what a loser his Dad is and how his Mum has had to bring him up, juggle everything and also deal with her divorce and I can't believe she looks so young and pretty you know for an old person. In a lot of way's she is the complete opposite of Mum in looks and build but then she is much like Mum in her ways and her beliefs and such, Dad we got on real well. Oh she told us about being Mum's new friend and that Mum doesn't know about your two guy's history or that we've told you about us so we have to pretend somewhere to do all this again with her so she doesn't get left out Ok Dad.”

“Honey can I ask you how you found out about Ginia and me?”

“What Dad, what did you call her?”

“Sorry Leigh, It was my nickname for Virginia, it was Ginia or Gin and her nickname for me was M.”

“Its sounds good that Dad, Ginia and M. Good. I gotta tell Paul that.”

“OK, so the story about how you found out?”

“Yeah, well Paul found one of his Mum's old photo albums that she threw out when she found out that her husband was cheating. There weren't that many photo's left in it most of them she had slashed with a knife, she had removed all of the ones with pictures of Paul, her and any of the photo's before she got married, Paul knew she had bought a new photo album for their photo's, he didn't know about the ones before the marriage, they hadn't reappeared. Anyway there was a pocket in the inside cover of the album and in there he found an old photo of a lot of the staff from yours and mums work. It showed a young and very pretty Virginia, sorry Dad, Ginia and she was standing with a young man with a goatee and 'stache, I hadn't seen that photo before, but I knew who the young man was Dad, I'd seen the same man in a picture that Grandad had hanging in his den when he got some big literary award.”

I knew it too, It was an award from the New York Literary Guild, Randolph had been peer-nominated for the award, 'The Fellowship Literary Award of Excellence' as recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of literature in education. It was a very proud day for us all, it was also the day I had seen Elizabeth Parker as more than my Friend and Mentor's sixteen-year-old daughter.

“I never told Paul about who it was in the photo and Paul hadn't made the connection even though he'd met you, and I really had to make sure I was right, so yes that is the main reason I went with Paul to see the Grand's Dad, not the only reason, I did want them to meet Paul though, I knew Grandad would like him. I thought Grandad would ask Paul what his last name was, but he didn't and I made sure I was round them while they talked, Grandma was being Grandma so she didn't really pay us a lot of attention.”

“What would you have done if Grandad had asked Paul his surname?”

“Don't know, not lied, did he know Vir ...Ginia?”

“Yeah, yeah they've met again since she has started working back at Uni, mind you I don't know whether she has told him anything about her life, or even that she has Paul. He does remember Gin from when we were an item because he was there when we split, We, I, never took it hard, Gin leaving, I just felt she was lucky finding someone that could give her a lot more than I could so ..... anyway it's ancient history honey, as you said before, from the olden day's.”

“Yeah well believe that if you want, and I know I'm young but that Lady is still crazy in love with my old Dad, you do know that don't ya Dad?”

Just in principle I wasn't going to answer that, the thought that a discussion like that was going to happen between me and my fourteen-going-on-thirty-five-year-old daughter did not bear thinking about. It didn't stop her musings though, she weren't done by any stretch of the imagination, she must have read the annoyed look on my face and I was about to jump in and end any more talk about this subject when she quickly interjected, “DAD, just listen OKAY, look I know you look after or try to look after everyone else in your life, your my Dad and that's your job, and I know I'm young and maybe you think I don't know a lot about life, but this thing with Mum, I suspected it about two month's ago, she changed and I was waiting for you to notice but you didn't seem to see it, she just changed her habits and I started to worry. So I'm saying Dad I know you and Mum are cool right now, and that's great, just don't be too unhappy if things don't completely go back to what they were, Dad, promise, Okay.”

“Okay honey, I can do that, I promise.”

There was a pause and then she started again hesitating, trying to find the right words, “Dad, You know after we worked out that it was you in the photo, Paul went really,really quite, we'd gone to 'Wedges' in the mall and he just sat looking at it and I asked him what was wrong and he just said, 'He's the one,' and when I asked he started telling me about how over the last couple of years, his Mum spoke about someone she used to know, she would start talking about the person then she would stop, he thought because she was embarrassed but I said it was because it was the past and she didn't want it interfering in the future, anyway he just kept staring at it and finally he said, 'He's the one my Mum said should have been my Dad.'”