My Timothy

2

Sten and Ken Matthiason were twins who farmed the land adjacent to the Roach place. The twins, like June, had spent their entire lives working acreage, and having shared the same dark, watery womb for the first nine months of their lives, they saw nothing wrong with sharing everything else – food, clothes, the occasional gumball from Picket's General Store, good looks, and chromosomes.

Melanie Edgewood had wandered into their lives over a decade ago. She, too, shared the Matthiason homestead. A young runaway, the girl was thankful to have a roof covering her sparse, and always greasy, redhead. Within a year, the caterwauls of a baby shattered the peaceful quiet of the little white clapboard house.

The newly-minted little soul was aptly named Sten Ken Edgewood, after the two kind and gentle benefactors who had rescued Melanie from hunger and homelessness. Everyone gossiped, of course, conjectured, and flat-out lied about what was obviously none of their business.

But it was understandable because the union of Melanie to one of the twins had never, as far as anyone knew, been made legal in the eyes of God or the law by any preacher.

So which man was the baby's dad?

It was a question that even the Sphinx could not answer, for all those involved would take that secret to their respective graves.