Allan's Happy Ending, Part Ii
...Years passed and Allan tried dating once more,
but soon gave up, as it didn’t feel right.
How could he when he still loved his Janet?
This caused him to take up drinking at night.
The drinking, of course, screwed up his judgment,
and one night went to bed with his nanny.
This continued until he realized
she only really cared for him money.
Then firing her upset the children,
his daughter took it particularly hard,
started acting out in her teenage years,
she was pushing him, taking things too far.
He hired help at work, and took more time
to spend with her, help her make sense of things,
but she seemed to resent him more when he did,
his sister said, “Be patient, she’s growing.”
But then, when he tried to take her advice,
his daughter went out and got herself pregnant,
and she was only sixteen-years old then,
all of that ‘space’ had been to her detriment.
He tried to help her through the pregnancy,
and set up things for an easy adoption,
but about this time, he began to notice
disturbing tendencies within his son.
The boy just had no interest in college,
or in much beyond going out at night.
When sober he was angry or resentful,
it was an increasingly worrisome sight.
Whenever he tried to talk to his son,
the boy just snapped at him and stalked away.
Allan figured this had to do with their loss,
but how to fix it, he just couldn’t say.
But when his son got too drunk and drove home,
then side-swiped his car against a small tree,
Allan told him that he’d either leave home
or agree to go to real therapy.
Of course then his daughter decided that she
didn’t really want to give up the child,
which meant to Allan he couldn’t retire,
that he would still be working for a while.
As he reached his sixties Allan noticed
that it was more of a struggle to breathe,
and sometimes his chest felt locked up real tight,
so much that it was hard to find relief.
His doctor told him that he had to slow down,
wasn’t a young man, had to manage stress,
that he couldn’t keep going at this pace,
he needed to relax, and take on less.
But his granddaughter would need a nest-egg,
to help both her and his daughter survive,
and his son was in a pricey rehab,
wouldn’t speak to him, but at least was alive.
He wondered if he should have remarried,
found another mother for both his kids,
if that could have saved them all this hardship,
often regretted that he never did...
CONCLUDES IN PART III.
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