Writing Challenge Thursday July 3

I can’t go into this right now, but if I could, I’d tell you this…

“There is a code to live by, family, honesty, truth, society, without your chosen code you are nothing.  I don’t mean to scare you dear, but it is time you pick one.  You are not getting any younger and things are changing.”  Papa DeTouri, smiled and turned to walk away.

         Our family has always been strong and had a code to live by that is what has made it work generation after generation.  Being one of the only females born into the family my expectations are different than my brothers and cousins.  The only reason I have gotten so much freedom and power in the family is because of my grandfather. 

Papa DeTouri said that I have looked like his beloved mother from birth and took to me right away.  Even though girls are reguarded as second class, worker bees in the family, Papa decided that I should one day take over the family dynasty of business.  As my brothers and cousins grew up around me they did not receive the same treatment as I did from him.  It always made them angry and often hateful towards me.  The only other female cousin in the family was very typical and grandfather treated her like a second-class citizen, she was only there to cook, clean, and have children.  That’s what she did.  I never could get a handle on that, it seemed like such an awful life.  Tina didn’t seem to mind it too much.  She seemed happy with her four kids and very fat, wealthy, husband.  I guess there is always something for everyone.

When Papa DeTouri died a year ago he left everything to me.  I mean everything.  It was like having a boatload of shrimp that are offloaded into the dock in a huge gaping pile on top of you suffocating you all at once.  As an understatement the other members of the family were not happy.  I knew over the years that I was Papa’s favorite, even more than my mother his daughter, but still.  Really Papa! Really!  Now I had multi-million dollar business to run and half the family gunning for me. I did the only thing that I though would work at the time and I went underground.  

Disappearing in the night and taking many different forms of transportation I changed everything about myself, jumped on a bus and decided to see where I landed.  I ended up in a quaint little artsy town of Nashville, Indiana.  I didn’t plan on staying but then I cut my foot on a nail and went to see Dr. Allwood.

 My time in the area changed me and my code became clear.  To be continued...