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THE BLIZZARD
By Donald Sullivan
Jerry did not hate Jesse. He was envious of Jesse, and was sometimes jealous of his identical twin brother, but he didn't hate him. Jesse was the extrovert; he was the more sociable and the more popular of the two. Jesse was always the life of the party while Jerry remained in the background. Needless to say, the girls always flocked around Jesse; Jerry might as well have been invisible.
Jerry, though not shy, was not exactly the outgoing type, either. He found that he fared better when Jesse was not around. He was liked well enough, got along fairly well with people, and girls showed an interest in him. But Jesse's personality just seemed to shine much brighter when the two were together. Jesse had a way of pushing Jerry into the background.
But in spite of all this, Jerry remained close to his twin brother. The two finished college together, left the farm in Iowa to go to the big city together, and both got a job with the same company. They worked their way up the ladder, and before long they were in middle management positions. Jesse, naturally, was a rung higher on the ladder. Jerry suspected this was because their boss, Nancy Henderson, seemed to take a liking to Jesse.
Jerry's suspicions were affirmed when the two announced their engagement to be married.
It was the twin's custom to visit their folks on the farm each year at Christmas time. This year, in spite of travel warnings due to an approaching storm, they decided they could make it home before the blizzard hit. They rented a car and set out.
They didn't make it. Somewhere along the way, they made a wrong turn and ended up on a country road. The storm hit, and it wasn't long before their rental car was stalled in the deep snow. But fortunately, they were near a driveway leading to a large house.
As they approached the house, Jerry was impressed. "This is no farmhouse," he said. "Looks to be a country manor. Must be rich folks."
"Well, whoever they are," said Jesse, "maybe they'll give us shelter until the roads are cleared."
They walked up to the door and rang the bell. A very attractive young woman answered the door. "Yes?"
"Sorry to bother you," said Jesse, "but we're stranded and wondered whether we could find shelter here until the roads are cleared."
"I'm terribly sorry, but my father died recently, and my help is gone for the day leaving me here alone. I'm expecting a few friends--if they make it through the weather. Some of them would just love to find me here alone with strange gentlemen--they'd go out of their way to make a scandal of it." She smiled apologetically. "I regret that I can't invite you in, but I wouldn't object to your staying in Dad's hobby shop in back. It has a heater, and should provide comfortable shelter for you."
She gave them a thermos of hot coffee, blankets and pillows. They thanked her and found their way to the hobby shop. Jesse crawled on a table and Jerry found a bench, and they settled in for the night. The next morning, they found that snowplows had cleared the road, and they went on their way.
Months later, Jesse married Nancy Henderson. And months after that, the company went bankrupt. Nancy found work with another company, but at a lower position with lower pay, while Jerry and Jesse collected unemployment.
About nine months from the time he and Jesse had spent the night in the hobby shop, Jerry received a letter from the attractive young woman's lawyer. Puzzled, he opened the letter and read it. As he read the letter, his puzzlement changed to shock and disbelief.
After reading the letter, he immediately called Jesse.
"You were sure her friends wouldn't show up, and you sneaked into her house that night, didn't you?"
"Well, I..."
"And you gave her my name, didn't you?"
"Well, I..."
"Jesse, I just got a letter from her lawyer."
"Look, Jerry, I'd rather Nancy didn't find out about this. If you say anything, I'll deny it. We're identical twins, so I don't think a DNA test would prove anything." He laughed. "Besides, why would you want to deny it? You should boast about it--it'd probably boost your image. Why fight it, you're named as the father."
"Neither of us is named as the father, Jesse. The girl was killed in an automobile accident recently. You really impressed her that night. Her lawyer tells me that she was in the process of trying to find me when she died. The private investigator she hired didn't report that he'd found me until after her accident.
"Such was 'my' impression on her that she left me a sizeable chunk of her fortune. And that, no doubt, will boost my image considerably."
***THE END***
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