The Proverb Stories: No Man Can Serve Two Masters

"I asked you both to find a suitable au pair, Peter found one first, so I brought Margaret Chin home first. As I did not have enough milk to feed them both I had to supplement with formula. I went to the clinic to Madeleine Joo during the days waiting for John to find an au pair for her as well. I was exhausted for several weeks until we got everything streamlined, au pairs in both homes organizing the double life so I could start 'working' again, that is, going between the homes again. I have never been so tired in my life as I was in that period. I was utterly exhausted. Going back to 'work' was almost like a continuous holiday by comparison."

"I named Margaret after Peter's mother and Madeleine after John's mother. I did not take the risk of slipping up and saying the wrong name, so I call them Maggie and Maddie, it's so similar that if I say the wrong name you would hopefully not notice. They do have different Korean middle names, Chin which means precious and Joo meaning jewel, that's what they are to me."

I could see John had a problem accepting her tale as I did. This was just too outrageous. She made a pause, drying the tears rolling down her cheek, she had to understand that what she had done was an enormous shock for us, something we most likely would not be able to handle. When she saw John and I looking at each other shaking our heads, she reached over the table and grabbed our hands hard, saying, "Please Peter and John, I love you both so much it hurts, just as I do love my girls. Can't we find a way out of this so we still can be together, - - - please?"

John said immediately, "No way can things be as before, I have to think about it for some time, there's too much to digest in just an hour. What about you, Peter?"

"Too many questions are still unresolved, is what I think," was my comment.

I continued, "Is my wife living with her sister's husband half the time?"

"Or, am I a widower and living with the sister of my late wife, half the time?"

"Who died in the plane crash? What happened to her remains? Who collected the insurance and compensation paid at the time?"

"The question about the children and who might be their father, do I want to know? I am not sure about that. My Maggie is my child whoever the seed donor was, -- I think."

"John, can you live on without the answers to these questions?"

"No Peter, I don't think I can. At least I need some time to digest this and evaluate the options if there are any."

"One thing I feel we need to address," he continued, "the girls, do they get to meet each other or not? Without thinking it through, my first reaction is that we cannot keep them apart. They need to be siblings. That particular experience was taken away for Amy and Mandy."

Amy/Mandy looked at us and said: "I will not answer the two first questions just yet, I had hoped you will be able to let me continue to be John's Mandy and Peter's Amy, -- please. The next question regarding my sister's remains and the compensation, I have my sister's ashes in an urn and I collected the insurance and compensation. It is in an offshore bank and the beneficiary is the true widower and it is untouched. The next question which Peter said he maybe didn't want the answer to, as he considered Maggie to be his child anyway, I hope John feels the same. Please do not go for DNA tests, consider both girls as your children, both of you."

At this point she collapsed, she cried with her head in her arms lying half over the table, shaking. It was too much for her, eleven years of living a double life with two homes and families, knowing one day the secrecy had to be revealed - sooner or later. John and I both had to hug her and we both tried to convince her life wasn't over, we would try to find a solution. After a while, she calmed down and I said to her, "Amy, I call you Amy for that is who you are to me, at least for now, John and I need to talk alone, you have to stay away from us a few days. You cannot go home to either of your homes just yet." I turned towards John, "Do you agree?"

"Yes," he replied, " I do." He then asked my Amy, but his Mandy, "Do you have a personal friend you can stay with for a few days?"

"No, not here I think. I have many friends, one set as Amy and another as Mandy. Peter and you know one set each, I'm sorry, it's so complicated."

After a short pause she said, "I was a very good friend with one of the stewardesses from my time as a flight attendant. I have kept contact with her for all these years, - as Amy. She married a doctor and lives in New Jersey. But, I could book myself into a hotel here, I would then be available for talks with you on short notice."

"No," John said, "you should not be alone. You need to be able to talk to somebody you trust, somebody you could tell the truth to and unburden what has been storing up these years. Do you think this friend in New Jersey is such a friend?"

"Yes, I believe she is. I think she wouldn't condemn me. She is a good person and if she is able to accommodate me for two or three days I believe she will listen without judgment."

"Call her, Amy," I told her.

"I don't have her number, it's on my 'Amy' phone which is in my bag in the airport."

"John and I will drive you to the airport. You pick up your bag from the locker you have there. Then we stay with you until contact with your friend is made. If she says you can visit, buy a ticket to New Jersey and off you go."

That's what we did. She contacted her friend and after a few pleasantries, I asked for the phone and she told her friend that I wanted to speak with her.

"Hi, Susan, this is Peter speaking. You may be surprised by this sudden phone call from Amy. She has a big problem and she needs a good friend she can talk to and have a good shoulder to cry on. To you it may sound dramatic, but she needs to unload her troubles to somebody outside her family and close friends here in Saint Paul. Can you be that person for her for a couple of days? If you can, I will be very grateful."

"This is urgent, isn't it?" she replied.

"Yes it is, it is not a conflict between husband and wife in its normal sense, it is far more complicated and Amy will tell you all. Please support her, she will need it."

"Ok, when you have booked a flight for her please send the flight number and arrival time. I will collect her at the airport."

"Thank you, very kind of you, I don't want her to be alone at this point. One more thing, I understand your husband is a general practitioner. Could you please ask him to give her a full check up so that we are sure she is in good physical health? She will pay him of course, she is financially very well off. But she has been at a very high level of stress for many years and I just want to be sure all is in order."

"Of course, will do. I'm looking forward to seeing her and I will take good care of her."

"Thank you, goodbye."

An hour later, she checked in on her plane and she was on her way to New Jersey.

John and I made arrangement for meeting the next day; we had a lot to talk about and also needed to get to know each other.

There is no need to go through our conversations, they were long, heated and filled with anger, desperation and more, but also memories of happy moments with Amy/Mandy. One thing we did agree on at an early stage, the girls had to meet. We decided it would probably be best to let them meet without any of us present so as not to confuse them. We told our au pairs about the problem we were facing and arranged for them to go with the girls together in the park. They would hopefully bond without our interference and slowly find the truth by themselves.

After a couple days, Susan called from New Jersey, "Peter, Amy is in great turmoil and three days here is not enough. She has told me everything and clearly lives in a fantasy world believing she can keep you both. Is that remotely possible, Peter?"

"No, I don't think so. At least from my point of view that is not possible. She should be happy if she can keep one of us; that is the very best she can ever hope for, in my opinion. But even that is not certain."

"I thought so. We need to bring her back to earth. My husband has checked her health; there is nothing physical to worry about. But she needs therapy. In my husband's practice there is a 'grandmother type' therapist who has agreed to see her for an hour each day for a few days. I think she should stay with us at least until end next week. Are you OK with that?"

"Yes, of course. It will be better for John and I to have additional time to sort out our own thoughts. Maybe an extra week will be good and we will be able to cool down a bit and take a more pragmatic approach to the problems we are facing. The thing is, we both love this woman, but it is hard to live with the fact that the wife of one of us has been having a love affair with another man for about eleven years. How to get past that is our big question. Add to the fact that one of us is a widower without knowing, that is huge by any standards."

"I understand, and Amy or Mandy, whoever she really is, will also have to understand that before going home. But whatever you two do, do not crucify that poor woman. She did what she did out of love for you both, not out of malice. Please remember that. I will phone John and say the same to him as I have told you. In the end I hope all will turn out to something all of you can live with.

Goodbye Peter, it was good to talk to you."

We got some updates from Susan every other day. Maggie and Maddie met and played together. They bonded surprisingly fast. It was awesome to watch how quickly they became best of friends. It was like they had never been apart at all.

Friday afternoon, almost two weeks after our first confrontation, Susan called and said she was setting up a conference call at six for her, John and me.

The telephone service set it up as arranged and Susan came on the line: "Peter and John, I hope you are both listening?" Both of us confirmed that we were.

"I have Amy or Mandy here and she wants to talk to you both at the same time. I believe she is ready to come home and face the music. Please understand she is fragile, so please promise me you will not be too hard on her, she understands the situation now and she is so sorry, you have to believe me. So, here she is."

"Peter and John, I love you both," we heard her low subdued voice, "I had hoped I would be able to continue to do that. But Susan has shot that idea down, but please don't say anything now, I will ask again when I meet you face to face. I don't expect anything, but please let me ask when I see you." After a short pause she continued, "I have booked a flight tomorrow to Minneapolis and I have booked a suite for one night at one of the airport hotels. I will not say which flight and I will not be met by any of you. I will take a taxi to the hotel and have arranged an early check in. I cannot take anything for granted, I do not know if either of you will take me home so that's why the suite. We need to meet on neutral ground and a hotel suite should be both private and neutral. I have one very big favor to ask you. I miss my girls something fiercely and I need to tell them a simple version of my story myself. I am their mother and I need to hug them and tell them I love them equally. Could you please let Linda and Karen bring the girls to me around noon tomorrow?"

"Of course," both of us confirmed.

"Thank you, give me an hour with them and I will meet you both face to face and you can tell me what I can do for you, or what you do not want me to do. Whether I have a home to go to or not, I only hope you do not hate me and that we at least can go on being friends."

"We will be there and we will not be aggressive or mad. There is nothing to be gained by that. The girls will be with you at noon, they miss you too. Have a good flight back."

Saturday afternoon we were at the hotel with the girls. While Linda and Karen took our daughters to their mother we spent the time together in the coffee shop next to the lobby. About an hour later two small hurricanes hurled themselves at us shouting excitedly, "We have the same Mum!"

They were ecstatic and wanted to tell us all about it. "Later dear Maggie and Maddie, now it is our turn to meet your mother and talk to her," we told them. I gave Linda a fifty-dollar note and asked her and Karen to take the girls out to a café for some ice cream or whatever they wanted and be back in about an hour. Then we took the elevator to her suite.

Upon entering her suite, we met a very subdued but composed woman. We both gave her a hug, somehow a kiss seemed to be improper, the situation being what it was.

"It was nice to see the girls again, I have missed them the last two weeks," she said, "I have also missed you two. Please sit down and let us talk. As I said on the phone, I would like to ask you again, is it even a remote chance that we can continue as we have since 1988?"

John and I both looked at her and said, "Sorry, but no." Then I continued, "I at least have thought a lot about it. I am not a religious person, but I think that what is said in the Bible, that 'No man can serve two masters', is rather relevant here. (Matthew 6:24). As long we didn't know; nobody got hurt. But now that we both know, it is impossible for us. John and I have talked and talked about it, but it is a firm no." To this John just gave an affirmative nod.

"What are we going to do, I love you both, are you both going to reject me?"

"Not outright, we need to know who you are. We need to know which one of us is a widower. The question is, will we believe you when you tell us. We have both discussed this, to be frank with you we simply are unable to tell after so many years. Had this question come up in 1988, we might have, but now we simply cannot tell."

"I understand your problem, but I can prove my identity."

"How?"

"In your home, John, there is a box with all Mandy's personal documents. Certificates such as school records etc. There are also both birth certificate and a set of adoption papers, in Korean, but with a certified English translation. In your home, Peter, there is a similar box with the same set of documents. In the adoption papers there is a line saying 'Special peculiarities'. In Amy's document this says 'none', in Mandy's it says 'small birthmark shaped as a half moon on neck'."

When she told us this she rose up from her chair, kneeled on the floor then bowed her head and lifted her hair away from her neck. And there, just at the nape of her neck was a small but very clear half moon shaped birthmark, then she started to shake and she cried.

John went over to her, folded his arms around her, trying to comfort her. I was for a moment a spectator to their anguish and told them, "I'll leave you alone for a few moments" and went to the bathroom where I stayed for some time.

We both had mentally prepared ourselves for this, but to be honest, it something nobody can prepare themselves for and be unaffected. I now knew I have been a widower for nine years, now my grieving can start. To be honest, a few tears fell when sitting in the bathroom waiting for them to collect themselves for the next important question, which incidentally I knew the answer to. Who is the twins' father?

I went back to the living room to Mandy and John.

"Before I leave you two for the day, I assume you need more time both of you. But we need to settle the question of fatherhood once and for all. Before I say more, I would like to emphasize that I consider Maggie as my child, whoever was the seed donor. I didn't listen to Mandy, I sent off Maggie's and my own swabs to a DNA lab. John, it seems proper since you are Mandy's husband that you in fact are the biological father to the twins. But please, I will not give up my fatherhood of Maggie."

When saying all this I noticed John go pale, then he said, "I did the same Peter, Maddie and I are not related."

None of us said anything, you could hear a pin drop, both looked at Mandy like she was a ghost.

Mandy almost collapsed in her chair, then tried to compose herself and straightened her back and looked at us and said: "That was my great fear, I knew it could happen but hoped that one of you was the biological father. Please understand I did not have time or energy for an affair. You two were more than enough for me. It was seven years ago that I had been to my shrink, she had again said with harsh words that I had to be straight with you two. I was mentally at a very low level, went to a hotel so I could find a toilette and clean myself up and be presentable. I was resting in the lobby when Mike, my college boyfriend, saw me. He noticed I was distressed and wanted to lighten me up and talk about old days. He invited me to lunch. We had a nice lunch, shared a bottle of wine and I ended up in his room. I had an affair and I did cheat on you that day, I admit that. However, I do not regret this because as you now have told me, he did contribute to Maggie and Maddie. He was married with three children, lived in Fargo with them and his very pretty wife. I have never seen him or spoken to him since that day."

"After the encounter with him, I went home to Peter and made love to him the whole weekend. On Monday I went to John and made love to him until I was sore. The reason for not being altogether shocked is that both Amy and I never used any protection after we married. We both found out that you both have a low sperm count and chances of you making us pregnant were slim. We did not say anything to you but agreed to let luck decide."

"I don't know what to say anymore," was my comment. "I do not wish you any harm Mandy, I want to help and assist you in the future, I would like to be a father to Maggie and Maddie as well if you like. But I will not be there for you to marry if John divorces you. I need to grieve for the loss of Amy and build myself a new life. But I will not abandon you Mandy."

"Thank you Peter," she gave me a hug, "I love you Peter, and I want to be in your life the way you will allow me to be."

John cleared his throat and said, "The same goes for me Mandy, I will not abandon you either. I would like to think about our situation before I decide what to do. I might ask for a divorce, I hope you understand that the situation is rather strange. So my suggestion is that you stay in this hotel for a week, you will have access to your daughters as much as you want, but they stay at night in their homes. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Yes."

"Look for a house, but do not commit to anything before we have spoken again, OK?"

"Yes."

"Can you manage on your own for a few day without doing anything stupid?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"We love you Mandy, both of us, you understand that, don't you?"

"Yes."

"We have to go now Mandy, are you OK with that?"

"No, but I understand."

This should in normal circumstances be: The End.

However, I know that my readers will skin me alive if I do not give them an

Epilogue.

Mandy and John started counseling. After a few weeks they went together to a couple's camp where intensive counseling was given. They moved back in together and we all agreed that Mandy and John should have the daily care of the two girls, and that I could have them every second weekend and at least a holiday each year.

Linda moved in with Mandy and John and stayed with them a short while until everything settled down, then she moved back to Sweden and started her medicine studies there.

Karen, being about ten years Linda's senior had used her spare time in the Stevenson household to study Law at the Minnesota University. She had one year left when all this happened. I invited her to stay in my house; free of any rent provided she would help with the girls every second weekend and share the domestic duties with me. She accepted enthusiastically, she could then use almost all her time to study.