Insurrection

I had my bags packed and my ticket in my jacket pocket when I sat down at the restaurant. They showed up in about ten minutes and slid into the booth, Amber beside me and the girls across from me. I had my briefcase and all the documents I needed in it.

They wanted to begin talking right away, but I made them wait until after we ordered. We tyrants are grouchy before our morning coffee. Our food came and we talked while we ate. Dacy spoke first.

"Daddy, you've been almost impossible to live with lately. You're such a control freak. You made me so mad that I just went over the top. I'm sorry. I do respect you and I'm grateful for everything you do for us. I'm just not a baby anymore and you've got to let me make my own decisions."

"Me, too," Tobe chimed in. "I feel the same way. We love you, Daddy, but we're growing up and you just can't control our lives anymore. I'm sorry I didn't speak to you."

"Alrighty then," I smiled at them. "Thank you for the apology."

"I want to apologize, too," Amber said. "I should have told you about the girls nights. It was just some harmless girl's fun. I didn't think you'd care."

"Well, it's very nice of you to apologize, Amber," I said. "The problem is, that balloon is out of air."

"What... what do you mean?" she stammered. "I told you what it was and I'm sorry I didn't tell you when it started."

I opened my briefcase and slid the pictures over in front of her. They were nice pictures, very graphic. They showed Amber and two of her girlfriends being gang banged at one of the girlfriend's houses. Amber had one cock in her from behind and another one in her mouth. It was hard to tell if the cock behind her was in her ass or in her pussy.

"It might have been harmless to you," I told her. "Unless, of course, you have some social disease. I'm clean, by the way. The doctor was positive. Maybe you should think about getting checked. It doesn't look like your fuck buddies were wearing condoms. I don't think it was harmless to me."

Her jaw dropped. I saw Dacy and Tobe crane their necks around to get a look. Amber snatched the pictures up and turned them face down.

"How... oh God... you weren't supposed... how did you get those pictures Kabrick?"

"Do you really think that matters?" I asked. "If it helps you, I told you I was going to speak to an attorney. The attorney hired a detective. He followed you last Friday."

"I'm sorry... you weren't supposed to know, Kab." She was crying now. "It was just some excitement. You know I was a virgin when we got married. I just didn't want to wonder the rest of my life if I was missing out. It was never supposed to affect us. It didn't hurt you if you didn't know. I didn't want to live my life and regret never knowing. I never meant for you to know. I was only going to do it once. You've got to believe me, Kab."

"No, I don't," I said. "Where do people come up with the idea that what you don't know doesn't hurt you? If your coronary arteries are blocked and you don't know, does the heart attack hurt you? If you have cancer and you don't know; is it hurting you? Your little escapades were a cancer, eating away at the vitals of our marriage, Amber. The cancer doesn't hurt you until you die from it. That's what you did to our marriage. You killed it. You didn't want to live with not knowing what it was like to fuck other men? Well, I don't want to live my life not knowing what it would be like to have 100 million dollars. Does that make it okay to rob Fort Knox? You wouldn't mind helping me with that, would you, Amber? That's the biggest load of shit I've ever seen shoveled."

She got up and ran sobbing from the restaurant. Tobe looked over at me. "I can't believe you did that," she said.

"I guess you don't have enough faith," I told her. "How disappointing. Faith will set you free. No, wait; it's the truth that sets you free. Forgive my mangling of the metaphor."

They looked at me as if I was nuts. Well, we tyrants aren't known for our mental stability. They just sat there. Dacy opened her mouth but nothing came out. She cleared her throat. "That was so mean," she said.

"I think your ride is leaving," I told them. "I wouldn't want you to be stuck here with someone mean. You better scoot."

They scooted. I paid the check and drove to the airport. An hour later, I was flying the friendly skies on my way to the rest of my life. I had many regrets. I couldn't see how I could have stopped anything that had happened, though. I'd been happy, satisfied and proud for 16 years. It had all gone to shit. I felt lonely and depressed. I did what I always do when I feel depressed. I took a nap. It was a long nap and by the time I woke up, we were an hour out of Heroica Vera Cruz.

I sat and ruminated. Amber was on her own. She'd made her bed of lies and she'd have to sleep in it. The girls, well, they were just girls. I'd see to it that they got what they needed. My attorney would take care of money arrangements. If they wanted to see me, I'd make that happen. If they didn't, they had their mother, for what she was worth.

It took about six months for Tobe to try to get in touch with me. My attorney called me and I called the house. Dacy answered and I asked to speak to Tobe. I don't think Dacy recognized my voice.

"Hi, baby," I said when I heard Tobe's voice.

"Daddy? Is that you?" she began to cry. "Daddy, I'm so, so sorry. Please, Daddy, I'm so sorry. I need you. Mom is a mess. She drinks all the time and she spends all her time running around with men and her friends from work. I think she's doing drugs. The only good thing that's happened to us since you left, no, since we drove you away, was when you paid for me to go to band camp. Dacy is being a slut and I can't stand it here anymore. Please, Daddy, I need you. Do you still love me? I was so mean to you, but I hope you still love me. I'm so sorry I treated you like that. I know it was all Mom's fault. Well, it was partly mine, too. I need you, Dad. I know I didn't have your back, but I'm praying that you still love me."

"Of course I still love you, Tobe," I said. "I just don't know what I can do. I can't come there. Your mother would probably have me arrested."

"Can I come to you?" she asked.

"I don't see how," I said. "Your mother won't let you come here. I'd be glad to see you, but I just don't see how."

"If you send me the money I'll run away," she said. "She'll never notice until I'm with you. I hardly see her and when I do, she's mean to me. She hates me, Dad."

"I can't believe she hates you," I told her. "She'll wise up, eventually. Why do you say she hates you?"

"I got a bad grade at school and she yelled at me." Her voice was shaking. "I told her she had no room to say anything to me after she drove the only good thing in our lives away," she sobbed. "She slapped me and told me I was a brat and she wasn't going to put up with any shit from me. She was drunk or high, I think. Daddy, I'm so sorry. I just let them convince me that you were some kind of evil dictator. I see how wrong I was. Please, help me."

"Okay, baby, calm down," I said. "I'll work something out. Minors can't travel alone without their parent's permission, especially out of the country. Let me see if I can work something out. Call me tomorrow and I'll see what's possible, okay?"

I gave her my phone number and she calmed down. She told me she loved me and we ended the call. I called my attorney and he told me she needed a passport, but that was it as far as the Mexican authorities were concerned. It might be useful for her to have a signed letter of consent from me, allowing her to travel unaccompanied. I knew she had a passport because we had gone to France the year before. I faxed him the letter and made the travel arrangements.

Somehow, my benevolent dictatorship now seemed attractive to Tobe. I was being rehabilitated, and Amber had taken my place as chief tyrant. One of her oppressed subjects was about to vote with her feet. I felt positively benign.

When Tobe called the next day, I had it all in hand. She was going to tell her mother and sister that she was spending the weekend with a friend. She was going to catch a cab to the airport and board her flight. I would pick her up at the airport and we'd see where we went from there. I'd thought about having my attorney pick her up, but that would have made him an accessory and I didn't want to expose him to that. I was sure that Amber would be very vindictive if she got the chance.

When Tobe came down the ramp, I was waiting for her. She flew across the tarmac and threw herself on me, sobbing and laughing at the same time. I swung her around and set her down.

"Let me look at you, baby," I said. "God, you've grown like a weed. You're more beautiful than ever!" She was, too. She had her mother's dark skin and huge brown eyes. She was starting to fill out in some woman curves and she was gorgeous. She was mine, too, and I could see that shining in the wet pools of her eyes.

"You look good, Daddy," she said. "You've lost some weight and you have a great tan. She pressed herself against me. "I've missed you so much. Do you still love me?"

"Of course I do," I said. "I never stopped. I hoped someday I'd have the chance to show you. You kind of weren't letting me do that."

"I know, and I'm so sorry," she said. "If you let me, I'm going to show you how much you mean to me. I was wrong, Dad. I don't know what was wrong with me."

"It's okay," I told her. "We're going to be fine. Is Dacy okay?"

She was very sober. "I don't think so. She's sort of acting like Mom. I think she's having sex with that assh... that jerk she's dating." She looked at me to see how I was going to react to her slip of the tongue.

I laughed. "He is an asshole. I don't mind you using descriptive words, Tobe. Girls shouldn't use a lot of bad language, though. It just makes you seem vulgar and cheap. You can say anything you want to if it's just us, okay?"

She hugged me again. I took her hand and we walked to the car. She loved the house. I showed her her bedroom and she loved that, too. We sat and talked until two AM. She caught me up on her life and I caught her up on mine. We talked about what she wanted to do and she wanted to stay with me permanently. That made my year. I had no idea what to expect from Amber, but I knew there wasn't a lot she would be able to do. She didn't know where I was and things are a bit different in Mexico. There's very little of the spying and locating that the US government is able to do. As long as you keep your nose clean, there is really very little that you can't do. Money buys nearly everything. Short of me committing a major crime and being caught, Amber would never find us.

I don't think she even tried. Tobe had mailed her a letter from the airport, explaining why and where she was going. I never heard anything from her. It took another year before we heard anything at all from either Amber or Dacy. Tobe was in school and doing well. She was speaking Spanish like a native and with her coloring, she really fit in.

Then, my attorney sent me an email. Dacy wanted to speak to me. I had him get her one of those cheap phones with prepaid minutes on it. I arranged a time when she could talk without Amber knowing, and I called her.

She knew who it was when she answered. No one else had that number. Our conversation didn't begin well. She was crying so much I couldn't understand a word she was saying. That went on for a while. Finally, she calmed down enough that I could understand her and the words came tumbling out. She was pregnant. When she told me that, we went through the crying thing again. I was uncertain what a tyrant's response should be. I knew what a father's response was. The little girl that I had loved all her life was in trouble. There was no way I was going to let her face that alone.

"What are you going to do, Dacy?" I asked her. "What does your mom think?"

"She thinks I'm an idiot," she said bitterly. "She wouldn't let me get on birth control. I always used condoms, Dad. I guess one must have broken or something. I was stupid."

"What about the baby's father?" I asked her.

"He bailed on me the minute I told him," she said. "Dad, I don't even have health insurance. Mom never bothered to sign me up. I'm seventeen years old, I'm pregnant and my life is over."

"Your life isn't over," I told her. "It's complicated, but you're going to be okay. Do you want the baby, Dacy?"

"No, Dad, I don't," she wept. "I don't want to bring a baby into this world with that douche bag's genes."

"Are you going to get an abortion?" I asked.

"I want to," she said. "I don't have a clue how to go about it and I can't afford it anyway. Dad, can I come to you? I know Tobe is with you. Will you give me another chance?"

"Yes, baby," I said. "You're my little girl and I'll always give you another chance. All you have to do is ask."

"I'm asking, Dad," she said. "I'm begging. God, I've been so stupid and such a child. I'm having to grow up really fast. I know what I did to you was wrong, Daddy. I'm so sorry... I should have listened to you and not Mom. I just wanted my way and she let me have it for a while. I realize now that she was just using me against you. She's totally about her. I don't know why I didn't see that."

"You're very young," I told her. "It's okay, Dacy. Let's concentrate on the future. Let's fix this problem and then we can tackle everything else, okay?"

She sniffled and cried a little more and I promised to call her the next day to give her the details of what I came up with. Then I had to tell Tobe what was going on. She was a little miffed.

"Why does she have to come here and ruin everything," she said. "We're perfect, Dad. I don't want her here."

"Tobe, she's your sister, she's my daughter and she's in trouble. Don't you love her? Don't you think we should help her?"

"I used to love her," she said. "When we were all a family, I loved her. She turned into someone else. She treated me like crap and... and... oh, my God! That's what I did to you, isn't it Daddy? She's just like me!" She threw herself on me and clung to me. I just hugged her and stroked that midnight black hair.

"We're over that, baby," I said. "Yes, she's like you and we need to help her, just like I needed to help you. I think we'll find out that we have your sister back, just like I found out with you that I had my baby girl back."

"Dad, you're amazing," she squeezed me even tighter. "I'm fifteen, you know. I'll always be your baby girl, though."

We made the same arrangements for Dacy that I'd made for Tobe. Sunday night we picked her up at the airport. It was very emotional and the two girls spent a long time mending fences. Dacy didn't look pregnant. I asked her and it turned out she was only six weeks along. She was insistent that she wanted an abortion so I arranged it at the clinic in Houston. Abortion is mostly illegal in Mexico, so we took a chance and flew to Houston. I'm totally opposed to abortion, but that wasn't my decision to make. If there was ever a case for one, this was it. She was sixteen-years-old, unmarried, dumped by the tool that had knocked her up and not ready for the responsibility of motherhood. I'd have felt very uncomfortable if the pregnancy had been farther along. We took her in on Friday, and in a week, she was back to her old beautiful, cheerful self.

Dacy was the polar opposite of Tobe in looks. She was taller and more willowy and she has blonde hair. There were a lot of blondes on my side of the family. It took them a week to get their problems worked out and they were back to the duo that had me wrapped around their fingers since they were babies. My life as the tyrant was over. I never really cared for it, anyway. I had been replaced. Amber was now the villain in our piece. I hoped she enjoyed her new role. The insurrection was over.

My attorney contacted me and told me that Amber had been harassing him. She wanted to know where the girls were, where I was, what I wanted to do about the divorce and to let me know she was selling the house before she lost it. I didn't care. We had a good bit of equity in it and as far as I was concerned, she could keep it. I wasn't looking to punish her, just get away from her.

There comes a point in life where you have trouble mustering the energy to be angry and hurt. You just want to be left alone, get on with your life and put the past in the past. I was at that point. She wanted to talk to me and she wanted to talk to the girls. She was a deceitful bitch, but I knew she loved her daughters. She had at one point, anyway. Now that they weren't objects she could use to hurt me, I hoped they could have some kind of relationship. At first, they wanted nothing to do with her and no part of any plan to speak to her.

She wrote them long letters, forwarded to us by our attorney, and she wrote to me, too. I threw mine away, but I know the girls read theirs. It was very hard for me not to open those letters and read them. I guess I have a masochistic streak or something, but I dug the first one out of the trash a dozen times before I finally burnt it. You don't just watch a 17-year marriage go down in flames without wondering how it happened. I tortured myself with those letters the first four I got before I realized what I was doing. I got the girls to pick up the mail after that with instructions to just get rid of anything Amber sent to me and not tell me about it.

Life was good for me. I had my babies; they were doing well and more loving toward me than they'd ever been. They took care of me. I dated some and even found a few of those dusky maidens that were interested enough in me to become friends with benefits.

Amber wrote to the girls once a month for a while and then it became every week, and even several times a week. She wore them down and finally they sat me down and had a talk with me. They wanted to call her and talk to her. I didn't object. They wondered if I would listen to the conversation. I had absolutely no desire to do that, but they begged until I agreed. I made them promise not to include me or mention that I was there or listening. They also had to promise not to ask me again. This was a one-time thing, just to make sure everything was on the up and up, and she wasn't trying to manipulate them in any way.

They set it up through the attorney to call her on a Thursday night. They had the phone set up on speaker and I made them block the number so Amber wouldn't have it. If they wanted to speak to her, it was up to them. I didn't want her calling them.

Evidently she had done a lot of crow eating in her letters, because they seemed fairly comfortable talking to her. She still apologized a million times. Apparently, she had been in a drug and alcohol treatment facility for a while and she was in therapy. I hadn't known that. I guess if I had read my letters I would have, but I just didn't have the heart. She wanted to see them and she begged them to come and visit her. Tobe nixed that idea right away.

"There's no way we're ever coming there," she said.

"Why not, baby?" Amber asked. "I need to see you."

"We don't trust you, Mom," Dacy said. "You'd probably try to kidnap us and make us stay there."

We could hear the sobs over the phone. "I guess I deserved that," Amber finally managed to say. "I brought that all on myself. It hurts so bad to hear you say that, but I know it's my fault. If you won't come here, can I come there? I need to see you so desperately. I need to hold you and make sure you're okay."

"No!" Tobe said. "You should have thought of that before you decided to drop a bomb on our family! We don't want you to know where we are. What part of, 'We don't trust you, Mom,' do you not understand?"

There was more crying. "Tobe, you're killing me," Amber finally managed to say. "I know what a bitch I've been. I swear to God I won't make any trouble. My therapist has helped me realize that everything is my fault. I don't blame you or your father. I just want a chance to make it up to you. I'll do anything, make any promise, sign any paper, do whatever it takes just to get one chance to see you and show you how sorry I am. Please, girls, I'm begging you."