GOING TO MEET THE FOLKS

For a second time, Jasmine Wilson carefully read the letter she had opened by mistake.  It was a form letter, but yet it was a “personal” form letter.  She had brought in the mail, and after sorting it, had sat down and started opening hers as she usually did.  Randy’s mail was set aside for when he got home from work.  Jasmine only worked half days at this point in her career, so she usually took care of a lot of the domestic chores during her afternoons.

The letter had been addressed:               

               Randall Michael Johnson

                    2150 First Street

                    Madison, WI  53704

Jasmine had mistakenly put the letter addressed to Michael on her pile and had been half way through it before she realized it wasn’t hers.  The paragraph that had caught her attention read:  “The Social Security Number that has been assigned to you is already in use.  The parents of Randall Michael Johnson, deceased in 1980, applied for and received that number for their son at the time of his birth.  In that Randall Michael Johnson died at the age of 2 years and 11 months, no wages were ever reported for him.  You are ordered to make an appointment with the local SSA office in Madison, Wisconsin, to discuss this matter.  Office hours are yada, yada, yada….”

In reading the letter again, Jasmine was looking for a hint of some sort of bureaucratic screw-up to lift some of the dread that had been settling upon her.  She and Randy had met six months ago and had moved in together three months after that.  Randy was a really great guy; kind, considerate, and had a good job as a programmer with one of the most well thought of companies in the city.

But what did she really know about him?  He had told her that his family wasn’t from around here and in the six months that she had known him, she didn’t think that he had had any contact with them.  Hadn’t she read an article once that said that people who wanted to change their identity to start a new life, sometimes used the Social Security Number of someone who had died very young.  There was something about getting a copy of their birth certificate and applying for a Social Security Number with it.  Had Randy done this?

Later that evening when Jasmine heard the key turn in the lock, she had still not decided on how to confront Randy about the letter.  She was in the kitchen making dinner and Randy came up and kissed her as he usually did.  

He must have felt something was wrong.  “Everything okay, hon?”  he asked.

“I opened a letter of yours by mistake today and it kinda freaked me out.  We need to talk about it.  I hope that it’s all mistake, but if it isn’t, well …., here; just read it, okay?”

Randy sat at the kitchen table and read the letter.  When he had finished it, he sat there thinking for a bit.  He then seemed to have come to some sort of decision and walked over to Jasmine.  “Put you head against my chest right here, Jasmine.  Tell me what you hear.”

“What? What do you mean?  What am I supposed to hear?”

“Do you hear anything?” asked Randy as Jasmine held her ear to his chest.

“No…, I don’t.  Please tell me what this all about.”

“Come with me; let’s go outside and I’ll show you something.”

Jasmine let herself be led outside into their backyard.  “Look up there.   Can you see that bright star to the left of those other two bright stars?”

“Yes, I see them.”

“Well, if you look about an inch to the right of that star, you’ll see a blank space between that star and the others in the area.  About two hundred light years into space from that space is home.  If you have enough vacation built up to take next week off, I thought that maybe we could go and visit the folks.”

© 2015 Roy Dorman

E-mail: Roy Dorman

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