Chapter : 2
The Kimball 2
Copyright © 2020, by Art West. All Rights Reserved.


Published: 27 May 2021


The girl had been so distraught, she had intended to kill herself, but had “come to her senses”, but she had decided to rest a bit before climbing back down the fire escape. Unfortunately the cold got to her.

It had been learned that the girl(19) and her boyfriend(20) had both been in State Care and had aged out of the system, met and fallen in love. The girl had worked at a local restaurant and had met the father of her baby there.

Ted was getting kind of emotional, as both Tommy and I were, and he told the nurse that he and his wife would cover all the girl’s, and the baby’s, hospital expenses. The nurse took him to the desk and they began to fill out forms, as the policewoman told Tommy and me about what was going on now in the delivery room. The girl, Mary, was going through a normal labor and everything was going well.

It was just then that Chris and Joey came into the emergency room entrance and they came rushing over to us. Between Tommy, me, and the police woman we brought them up to date and then we sat and waited as Ted finished with the nurse and the police woman left. Once Ted was with us again we filled him in as well, and we waited. An hour later we received the news that mother and baby boy were doing well and would be available for visitors later that evening.

Once home Chris and I sat with Tommy and told him how proud of him we were. If not for him telling me there was someone outside on the fire escape, Mary might have succumbed to hypothermia, and her baby along with her. About an hour and a half later Ted and Irma were at our door. Once inside we found out that they were going to attempt to have Mary and her baby come to live with them, and once the both of them were deemed healthy, Ted was going to offer her a job at one of his restaurants, or maybe with the banquet facilities here at the Kimball.

That evening, at the hospital visiting hours we actually got to meet Mary, and her new son Peter. Tommy and Joey spent a lot of time cooing at the baby in his bassinet as we adults got to talk to a vary grateful Mary. Ted and Irma made a convincing argument and received assurances that Mary would welcome a chance to rebuild her life from their home. They assured Mary that they would arrange for her possessions to be moved from the apartment she had shared with her deceased boyfriend to their roomy home before the week was out. A few days later we all celebrated Christmas together. Chris and I and the boys hosted the new family at our place and Mary got to see where she would be working in the banquet rooms after the doctor said she could return to work, most likely at the end of January or in February. The boys soon realized that the baby Peter was too young to play games with, but they did spend a lot of time with him regardless.

Our lives settled once again after the holidays, only now we once a week spent time with Ted, Irene, Mary, and baby Peter either at their home or they came into the city and shared a meal at our place or at Irma’s mother’s condo down on the fourth floor. Around about Valentines

Day Tommy asked us if we were going to adopt him, like we did Joey. Chris hugged him and asked if that was what he really wanted and Tommy told us both that he really wanted to be a real member of our family. I told him that we had felt like he was already, but if he was sure we would let our lawyer know and eventually there would be a hearing in front of a judge and we would make our arrangement permanent, and that would make him our son, just like Joey was, and make Joey his brother. Both boys were pleased with that.

In March we received a court date for our adoption hearing. The date wasn’t until the first of April and Chris and I decided not to tell the boys yet, we didn’t want them to get all excited until a little closer to the actual date of the hearing. We couldn’t see anything that would hinder our prospects, but two ten year olds can find a lot to worry about over a sure thing, not that Chris and I didn’t worry enough for the four of us. But on the night before our hearing we told the boys at dinner and they seemed pretty at ease with it and they co-operated as we made sure they both had appropriate clothing ready for them in the morning. As we made our way to the parking lot to drive to the courthouse in the morning the boys were greeted by some of the staff and co-workers of Chris and I as we left the Kimball and when we got to court Ted and Irene were there to accompany us into the hearing room.

The hearing lasted about forty minutes and when Tommy’s new full name was read out by the judge Joey started to giggle, and the friendly judge asked “Jared, just what is so funny?” and Joey replied that his new brother’s initials spelled TOWED!!!, Thomas Owen Wilkins Edwards Dunn!!! The judge just chuckled and banged his gavel and said “And so it shall be”. The boys hugged and then Chris and I each had arms full of our sons.

Tommy was very pleased he could keep his birth father’s name, but even more pleased he could add both Chris and my last names to his as well. We repeated the adoption party we had held for Joey when we all returned to the Kimball and the boys were thrilled that their little buddy Peter and his mom Mary could join us for dinner.

As the months passed the boys became even closer, if that was possible. It was only at the end of the school year when the report cards were passed out that both boys came home from school that last day kind of upset. They both produced great report cards when Chris and I came upstairs to start dinner and the boys showed us their excellent grades, then Joey told us the reason they were not too happy; and it turned out that they would not be sharing the same classroom during the next school year. I tried to explain that they were brothers now and that it was rare that a school would place two brothers in the same classes.

The boys remained kind of upset for the rest of the evening and once I was in my office the next day I called the school and spoke with the guidance councilor and explained that Chris and I would like the two of our boys to remain in the same classrooms as much as possible for their remaining school years, as having the same teachers and the same work to do made them equals in their eyes and it made them both study harder and they could answer each others questions about what the teacher had covered in class when they did their homework. The councilor told me he agreed with all that, but in another year when they went to middle school they would most likely be separated into different groups, as they would in high school. He did change one of the boys teacher assignments so they would be in the same class for the next school year.

The boys were very pleased with this when I told them this at lunch when Chris and I went up to have lunch with the boys as this was their first day of Summer vacation. We had given them the big chore of cleaning their bedroom and bathroom when we went to our offices in the morning and apparently they had spent their free time playing with Lucky out on the patio, that is until they realized it was close to lunch time and then they went in and made us all sandwiches for our lunch. They told us that they would continue to study together and try to get the same grades so that next year they might be assigned the same courses, and maybe be in the same classes.

Life moved on and the boys were quite happy in school and out. They were both good students and kept up their grades all through grade school and in intermediate school (grades 7 and 8). In intermediate school they did share about 3 classes a semester. They each made other friends, but mostly they ended up sharing the same friends all through out their school years. They played seasonal sports in intermediate and high school, although neither was exceptional they did enjoy the physical activities. They had both done very well in swimming and diving and they enjoyed their time on the high school soccer team. For some reason these two boys without a yard or swimming pool at home loved those two sports as well as tennis, where they played doubles and did very well in their matches. Their coach once asked Chris and I if they were fraternal twins because they synced better than any of the pairs players he had ever seen.

By the time the boys were Juniors in high school Chris and I were approaching our 40’s and we encouraged the boys to begin to think about what they wanted to do after their senior year in high school. We wanted them to begin to make plans so that if they choose a career that would require more education they would be ready and if they choose a career that required a college education they could begin the application process once they narrowed down which college would offer them the courses they would need.

There came a time that shook us all up that year the boys were Juniors in high school, well, two things actually. In early November Irma’s mother, Celeste died as the result of a massive stroke that there was no coming back from. Irma was crushed and Ted too as she had been his only parent figure for many, many years. We all got through the whole ordeal of the wake and the funeral and seemed to be on track to the recovery from the shock when Clarissa’s lawyer called. She had left the bulk of her sizable estate to Irma and Ted, but she had left a very sizable legacy to our family as well. There was enough in her legacy to us that the boys’ college fees would be totally covered, and then some.

But right after the new year Irma herself had a very bad car accident on her way to the Kimball and was killed in the crash. Ted was near inconsolable and took several months off away from all his business dealings. Chris and I were designated to run both the facility in Agawam and the business of running the Kimball. We were worried about Ted during this time. We tried to keep him occupied and up to date on all the happenings at the businesses, but he only seemed to perk up around the kids, Joey and Tom, and of course Mary and her John.

Around the middle of April he began to take an interest in what Chris and I were doing, regarding his businesses. At first we were encouraged that he was taking an interest, but he kept saying things like; we were acting on things like he would, his accountants reported that business was up as well as the profits and we were operating with better results than he would have achieved,……. and then the really bad news.

Ted’s housekeeper reported one morning that she couldn’t gain access to his house, or rouse him on her phone. I immediately called the police department and asked for a welfare check on him, as his housekeeper was waiting right in his driveway. Ted had passed away in his sleep. He just couldn’t continue on without the love of his life, Irma. Death was classified as due to natural causes.

Ted’s will left everything he owned to Chris and I, with specific bequests to Mary and her son, John, several long time employees at his establishments, and Joey and Tommy. We held services for him as soon as the coroner released his body and had him buried alongside his beloved Irma. The mood around the businesses was pretty down those first few weeks, but the strength of the management teams, and the determination of the hourly staffs overcame that gloominess. They all realized that their incomes came from providing a pleasant, if not happy, experience for all our patrons. Chris and I felt we had to do well for our sons’ sake, and to prove that Ted had made the right decision in leaving his businesses in our hands. By now Mary had completed her business management degree and we brought her into the management team. She had been working for Ted and Irma in different departments, even waitressing in both establishments during her college years. She ended up proving invaluable to Chris and I over the next several years.

Those years saw our boys graduating from high school with top honors and completing their own college careers, both taking double majors in business education and accounting. The boys had remained a “team” all through high school and college and we were not totally caught by surprise when they announced in their college senior year that they would marry after their graduation. Mary had married and chose from several suitors a young man from our booking department, a man quite adept at booking large parties, as well as smaller functions for our meeting rooms. He was very taken with Mary, and was a great father figure to young John, the three of them got along just great.

As Chris and I approached our fifties, Joe and Tom made us grandfathers. It was done by them first becoming foster fathers, and then adopting first one, and then another young boy. They lived in one of the bigger condo units, on the floor below us. They had made their unit the only three bedroom unit in the entire building by taking over the storage room that was adjacent to their unit and incorporating it into the third bedroom of their unit. All it really took was to close off the former storage room’s door in the hallway and cutting a new door opening that connected that room to the hallway inside their home. A little decorating and painting and a rug and they were all set. As it turned out their boys were very much like them, in that they too preferred to share a room together. The old storage room became a home office where the boys did their homework, and Joe and Tom could do theirs as they worked on reports and budgets for the accounting division of the business of running the Kimball.

Chris and I still oversaw the running of the Agawam facility, but left the actual management of the Kimball up to our sons. We were in our mid fifties now and healthy. Joe and Tom were happy running the Kimball and raising their sons, who loved coming up the big wooden staircase to visit their Grandpas, and Chris and I thrived with the new family around us.

The End


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The Kimball 2

By Art West

Completed

Chapters: 1 2