Arlissa - Day 208

"Well, that is the other news I wanted to share with you. I just found out recently that you all are my half-brothers and half-sister. Rosie was my twin sister. Thanks to your mother, I was able to verify it. She loaned me the family photo album with Savannah's photo and also it had a letter tucked in between two of the back pages that told me a lot, too. It was from our father."

They all stared at her, hearing her words, but having great difficulty believing them. 

Their father and her father were the same man. 

"But, when, how? What happened?" 

The siblings turned to their mother. 

Zeb asked, as their spokesman, "Mom. Would you explain to us, please? How could something like this happen? You've never said anything to us to indicate that Rosie wasn't yours."

"Oh, Zeb! She was mine! Not by birth, but I couldn't have loved her more if she had been born by me. When Seamus brought her to me, he said the mother didn't want her. I knew she was his, and I believed him. She became mine, too. I wanted no difference made between you all, so I never said anything otherwise. Please believe me."

Jake looked at his wife. 

"How come you've never shared that information with me?"

"It just never seemed important enough to say anything. Rosie was my child in every sense of the word that mattered to me. It broke my heart when she left a few years ago and we never heard from her."

Arlissa sat there, wondering how they were going to receive her into the family...or if they even were. 

Zeb turned to her again, and asked, "You never suspected that we were related to you? Did you know that our Pa was your father, too?"

"No, my Granny never let on. She promised my Ma on her deathbed that she'd never tell me that your Pa was mine. My Ma didn't want me to know. I don't know why. Maybe it was because she found out he had married since they broke up. There is so very much I still am not sure of." 

The suspense of whether they were going to welcome her into their family was beginning to wear on her nerves. So far they had not been making any overtures of being glad. 

Should she just leave and let them discuss the whole thing? Common sense was telling her not to hang around any longer.

"Well, I just wanted you all to know. Er...ah..."

(To be continued)