Randy settled down and the three officers took Marcus and put him in the back of the car. Our detective got out with a video camera and handed a SD card to the police. He and Randy walked back to us and Syndy was wrenching her door open. She leaped out, ran around the car and threw herself sobbing into Randy’s arms. I got out and we had a big group hug.
“Marcus is going away for a long time,” the detective told us. “They found an unregistered gun in his car. I don’t think he’ll be bothering anyone again for a long time.”
We didn’t know what the long-term solution would be, but he was back inside for the remainder of his term for violating parole, with 10 additional years for assault and the weapons charge.
Luckily, there was never any need to deal with the problem again. Marcus got hepatitis and died while he was in prison. Syndy was reborn when he went back to jail, and when we learned of his death it was like a cloud lifted from her life. She was normally bouncy and happy, and after his death that just became more pronounced than ever.
They never went back home after the incident with Marcus. We moved their things into our house and we became a real family. We experienced some difficulty when Andie grew old enough to ask questions, but we had been preparing for that for years. Our arrangement became so routine for her that she never really thought much about it. I asked her once what she told her friends and she said that she told them it wasn’t any of their business.
Andie graduated from high school last week. Cat had finally succumbed to old age two years earlier and for her graduation, we got her a kitten. This one doesn’t look like a bobcat, it looks like a leopard! He’s a Savannah cat and he’s even weirder than Cat was. His name? Savannah, of course. I guess Syndy is the only weird name we’ll have in our family.
Added by blackrandl