Daddy Dearest -- Part Four

I dunno how long it's gonna take for me to tell this story, but my dad's tale is so compelling that I figure I'm gonna take my time to tell it.

For starters, my dad was not born to wealth, as I've said before. In fact, he actually was born to poverty as my grandpa was an immigrant farmer. My grandma being a doctor was a little better off but not that much.

And my dad will be the first to tell you that he's done things that he's not particularly proud of. Aunt Margaret said that when dad was a young man, he got romantically involved -- really romantically involved -- with an older woman. A much older woman. A woman old enough to be his mother. And to top everything off -- she was rich!

Her name was Holly Alto and the Altos had a lot of money. Since his mom was dead, Aunt Margaret had kinda taken her place, and boy when she found out about dad's relationship with Holly Alto, was she pissed. She was so angry that she went over there herself and asked if the rumors were true.

Once she found out they were -- and that she was pregnant on top of that -- she then confronted my dad.

Dad was humming some tune he had in his head, as usual, when Aunt Margaret asked him to confirm what this woman had told her. Not only had they gotten involved, they'd been so for some time. The town newspaper, which at that time was as bad as a gossip rag, sung about the affair for many simweeks, filling entire columns of ink on the subject.

A few simdays later, my older brother Noah was born, and his mom had just become an elder. When she should have been ready for the rocking chair, she was going through potty training.

Meanwhile, dad, who, my brother Noah says, had been living with them at the time, left their house to go through with his audition. Dad 'killed' at his audition, in showbiz parlance, so he was hired on the spot. He'd disappear to the hobby room in the mansion and practice his guitar at all hours of the night, giving both Noah and Holly trouble sleeping.