Summer on the Isle Ch. 02

"We were going to tell you all last year when you were all 18." Aunt Sophia said.

"Why wait until then? You should have told us this years ago." Melissa said.

"We agreed that it would not be right to tell you the story until you were adults."

"You thought we couldn't handle it." accused Penny. "You lied to me. You lied to all of us."

John's mother took the floor. "We knew this conversation would never be easy. So we waited. We were not going to tell under aged teens that their father was a monster who raped us."

John stood up and put his hands in the air to stop his mother and the other moms from speaking of anything else.

"You need to go." John said. "Thank you for telling us but now you need to go. We teenagers have things we need to talk about amongst ourselves."

"Penny, honey, ..." Aunt Martha had finally gotten herself to the point where she could speak but Penny cut her off.

"John's right. You need to go, mom."

In silence all the moms left. Susan looked like she was about to say something but John felt self conscious about the other people who might be able to hear them in the dining area. The siblings walked together to one of the conference rooms. Without thinking about it John sat at the head of the table like he was the leader. Carol and Susan were sitting on one side while Melissa and Penny were on the other.

"Ok, first things first." John began. "I know I have questions I want my mom to answer and I'm sure some of them are the exact same things you all want to ask. Let's write them all down so we can all get it all done at the same time."

Penny got up and grabbed paper and a pencil from the desk in the corner. Good old Penny, she was always the most resourceful one.

They went a few rounds of each one of them adding a question to the list. When that was done it seemed like they might be ready to go deliver the list to their moms but Carol wanted to address the other thing.

"Susan, John's your brother." Carol said.

"I know."

"What are you guys going to do?"

Melissa chastised her sister. "Don't ask them that."

"Why not?"

"It's none of our business."

"If she's my sister then it is my business."

"What they do is between them."

Carol did not accept this. "If we're all family then we're all going to have to be a lot more open with each other. Susan, you don't have to feel bad." Carol said to Susan. "Melissa and I ..."

"Carol. Shut it. I forbid you to say any more." said Melissa.

"You can't stop me."

"She lies." Melissa said to everyone there. "She's a liar."

"I haven't even told them yet."

Penny, Susan, and John were all just sitting there wondering what the twins were even talking about.

"We've done the same thing." Carol said.

"You two had sex with John!" Susan accused with surprise.

"No." John answered for himself.

"Don't say it." Melissa warned.

"We don't have to hide it anymore. They're just like us." Carol said.

"Please." Melissa begged. "They won't understand."

"They're going to want us to keep their secret. They can keep ours."

John put his hand out as a way to let them know to stop. "I think I see."

"It's not how it sounds." Melissa said.

John tried not to look at Penny. She was just sitting there looking down at the questions that were on the list. John figured he'd have to make everything official. "Everyone here knows that I had sex with Susan. And now we've been told that we're brother and sister. Carol, you're saying that you had sex with Melissa."

Carol nodded but Melissa was shaking her head and hiding her face.

"Fine." John continued. "We all have secrets and we need to all depend on each other to protect the family. If we are family then we all need to start acting like it. We all have to promise each other that we will not tell. We have to promise right here, right now. I'll go first. I promise."

Each of his sisters said the words in turn with Penny going last and looking directly at John when she said it.

"I'm sorry, John." Susan said. "I didn't know."

"We didn't know." John added.

"You guys don't have to feel bad about it. We do it all the time and it's no big deal." Carol added.

"Would you stop talking about it." Melissa interrupted.

"Oh, are you feeling a bit jealous? I have another sister giving you competition."

"Stop." Susan said. "John and I will work out what happened between us later."

"I'm just saying it isn't as gross as some people make it out to be."

"Regardless," John said; "people outside the family don't need to know and we've all promised to keep the secret."

They all nodded to him and then John continued.

"So, I figure we should start seeing more of each other. Summer isn't really enough. We better start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. How are we going to keep in touch?"

They agreed to form a group on social media for just themselves and they made tentative plans to visit each other through the year. They also agreed that they wouldn't introduce each other to people as a sibling since that might raise questions they didn't want to answer. Keeping with their usual tradition of calling the moms aunt, they would call each other cousins if they needed to establish a family connection.

"So, did you guys really have sex?" Susan asked Carol when it seemed the meeting might be at the point where it could come to an end.

"All the time." Carol said at the same time Melissa uttered that it never happened.

"Penny, you're quiet." Susan said. "What do you think of all this?"

"It's just another reason I don't agree with." Penny said. Only John understood what she meant but no one asked her to explain.

The meeting broke and they marched down the hall to the rooms and found the moms all drinking again. They read the list of questions off to them and then got their answers about their father one by one. After that the moms seemed wiped out and they didn't feel like doing anything else that day. They told the kids it would just be free time until the next day.

There were lots of things John could have been doing that only required him to go there and do it but he found himself alone, still wondering where Jill was, looking at the brochure of activities sponsored by the hotel. John noticed that there was a camp ground up on the mountain where it was peaceful. John felt like he needed to think by himself for a bit. He told the girl at the counter that he wanted to go and so she rented him a tent and sold him some of the other gear he'd need. She said it was very important to bring lots of water up there.

John went back to his room and found his mother in bed with Aunt Martha, both of them drunk and holding onto each other. John mentioned that he was going camping. His mother put her hand in the air but John wasn't sure she really understood what he said.

As John rode the hotel bus up to the camp grounds he thought again that life was strange. He'd been so worried that he'd fucked up his chance to be with Penny the right way and then this happened. And where was Jill. He didn't really care, not enough to go looking for her anyway but he hoped she hadn't gotten lost.

Just then he felt like he wanted to call Tony and see how he was doing and maybe drop the hint that he needed to look for a better girl than Jill. But he was out of wifi range so that call would have to wait.