Mr. Norman’s Visit

It’s surreal.  I mean Sur-Fucking-Real!

The lawyer I told you about Friday, Mr. “Norman”, turned my world up-side-down and sideways and I’m just now getting my mind to wrap around everything he told me!

It seems my scumbag Dad died (I was kind of expecting that from the phone call) and made me the executor of his estate.  Now get this, it’s worth roughly three and a half million dollars!  It seems my father had gotten involved in real estate and owned several properties. 

Not only that, but. . .

I have a little brother! 

His name is Thomas and he’s not quite 16 yet.

I never knew why my Dad ran out on me and Mom when I was seven.  All I remember is one day he was there and the next he wasn’t.  I have an image stuck in the back of my mind of me holding my baseball and my glove looking out the window waiting for him to come back so we could play catch.  I cried for days when he didn’t.

Now I know why he left – he had been having an affair with one of the secretaries where he worked and got her pregnant.  Big surprise there!  He moved in with this woman but a few weeks after, she miscarried and he found himself trapped – he didn’t think he could come back to my Mom and he didn’t want to stay with this woman, so he left and moved to Hackensack of all places!

Anyway, he settled into a life there.  Got a job doing something, eventually met someone, fell in love and moved in with her.  Within the year, she got pregnant and had a little boy – my half-brother. 

I always wondered if my Dad ever had any other kids; now I know. 

When I asked Mr. Norman why he was telling me this, he told me that my Dad had died recently from a very aggressive form of prostate cancer and that my half-brother’s mother had died a few years earlier in an auto accident on the New Jersey Turnpike.  To make a long story short, it seems that I was this kid’s only living relative and if I didn’t take him in, he would be placed in foster care until he turned 18.

When I heard that, I knew what I had to do, and I knew just what my Grandma would want me to do.  I told Mr. Norman I had plenty of room for my brother; that he would have his own room and there were decent schools nearby, so if my brother wanted to come and live with me and my fiancé, I was happy to take him in.

Mr. Norman congratulated me on my engagement and asked me the name of “the lucky lady” for his records.

I explained that my fiancé’s name was Ian and that I was the lucky man, since he has asked me to marry him.

As soon he understood that I was gay, Mr. Norman’s attitude changed a little.  He said that since Thomas was still a minor, Child Services would have come and do a survey of my house and ask me some questions in order to verify that the “environment” is “suitable” for him, but that my being gay should not affect their decision one way or the other.

I’m not sure I believed him, but I let his statement slide.

Mr. Norman then gave me a small package containing a copy of the will, the deeds to my father’s house and other real estate holdings, tax records, other important papers and a set of keys, each one marked with the address it belonged to.  There was also a set of car keys for a Ford of some kind.  Since I already have a car and so does Ian, I guess I’ll either sell it or hold on to it for my half-brother (still not quite used to that).

During the week, I’ll head over to Hackensack to look at the properties and try to make heads or tails out of all this paperwork.  Maybe I should call my lawyer and see what he thinks of everything.

And I need to get the house ready for my visit from Child Services.  I don’t know when the social worker will be coming, but Ian and I better put all our toys and porn in the attic.  And I have no clue what to do with the playroom in the basement!