(8/8) “Nancy doesn’t want to go. She’s freaked out. The whole...

(8/8) “Nancy doesn’t want to go. She’s freaked out. The whole thing feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone. But we get in the car and follow Vicky back to her house. And it’s getting weirder and weirder. Because we’re turning down all the same roads that we take to our country house. And we arrive at a driveway right down the street from where we live. My daughter has been growing up 1.5 miles from our house. That’s like your next-door neighbor when you’re living in the country. We walk in the door and this beautiful, beaming twelve year old girl comes running down the stairs. She looks like me. She has my personality. Right away we hit it off. Vicky lets me take her ice skating one afternoon, and after that we start spending a lot of time together. She comes over to the house almost every weekend. She meets her little brothers. And she becomes a big part of our lives. She still is. But the whole time I never really confronted Vicky. I never asked the hard questions. Because I was too afraid of losing my daughter again. But over the years I slowly figured it out. First, Vicky is a little bit crazy. No explanation works without that fact. But other than that, it wasn’t some grand thing. It wasn’t some blue blood conspiracy to keep a Jew out of the family. Vicky just didn’t want me. Or need me. And she had the power and the money to keep me away. But what about Blanche? Why did she play along? That one took me a lot longer to figure out. But remember that Blanche could see the future. She knew that Vicky was a control freak. Why else would she be dating a 21 year old kid? She chose me because I was weak. Blanche knew I would have spent my entire life under Vicky’s thumb. I wouldn’t have grown up. I wouldn’t have become my own man. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with my wife or had my kids. Blanche knew I needed to break away, but didn’t have the strength to do it on my own. At least that’s the story I’m telling myself. That’s the version that helps me sleep at night. Blanche and Jesus and The Universe were working together for the greatest possible good. But who knows? Maybe I was bamboozled. Maybe the whole thing was a con job from the very beginning.”