This Idea That I Had

“Sure, I‘ll check it out for you,” I said as I opened up my laptop. I took a seat and leaned back as I waited for the slow machine to boot up.

“Okay, thanks,” he yelled back from the other room.

When the snail of a computer finished its thing, I hopped onto the Internet and took a look at the county website. I never really searched for property records before, but I figured that it was the best place to start.

My dad had been hearing some kids rustling around in the lot next to our property. He wanted to notify the owners; so, to find out who owned it, he asked me to do a quick search.

I keyed in the address of the lot and found the deed. “Richard Kieler? Who the heck is he?” Doing a mental search of my own, a vague memory cropped up. “Didn‘t we buy our house from a Kieler fellow?”

Curious, I typed in my dad‘s name to find the property deed. Sure enough, a slough of documents were retrieved. Scanning through the results, one caught my eye. It was filed under “DIVORCE”. I re-checked to make sure I keyed in the right name.

In disbelief, I opened the document.

The marriage of Caroline M. Sharp, Petitioner, and Michael B. Sharp, is dissolved

“What the heck? This is impossible.” My dad had married before my mom, and he never told us?

I swiftly got up from my chair and called, “Papa!”

His heavy step made its way to the room.

“Yup?”

I brusquely pointed to the laptop. “You owe me an explanation.”

“Hmm? Why, what‘s wrong?” Brow knitted with confusion, he leaned forward to the screen. Slowly, his face tensed with worry as he muttered in the air.

“What the hell…”