“Hello?” Payton picked up the receiver of the telephone to hear an excited and exasperated voice on the phone.

“PAYTON I KNOW WHO MY DAD IS!” She yelled in a hushed whisper.

“WHO?!?!” Payton didn’t know whether to be excited or sad.

“TAYLOR FREAKIN’ HANSON!”

“No way, that can’t be true.”

“I looked in the box, articles of the deaths of my mom’s friends, the ones graves she visits every year in May, and Taylor is the name and it says they died in a car crash and everything!” She spat out.

“Oh my gosh.” Payton was stunned. “Are you gonna talk to your mother?”

“I dunno, I think I should. Right now.” Alex decided suddenly.

“Okay, good luck, bye.” Payton heard a “bye” and a dial tone.

“Mom, I have to talk to you.”

“Not now, I’m on the phone with Tim.”

“MOM! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU, TIM CAN LISTEN!”

“Okay, all right, what do you need?”

“I found the box in the attic, I put it all together. WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME MY FATHER WAS TAYLOR HANSON?” Alex yelled, tears beginning to well up. Her mom dropped the phone, horrified. You could hear Tim calling to Joey on the phone after it hit the floor. Tears were now streaming down Alex’s face, in anger and sadness. “Why couldn’t you just explain? Tell me he was famous and you were the only survivor? HMM?” She asked, pressing for the answers she had never received. Joey just shook her head, crying so hysterically she almost couldn’t talk.

“..sorry...” was the only audible word Alex heard. She had never seen her mom cry this much, ever. She felt it was no excuse though.

“Sorry isn’t good enough, you deprived me of so much by not telling me. When my friends asked me about my dad as a child, I use to make up stories like he was a pilot and his plane crashed, and that he was a spy and for another country and got caught. I was so determined to find out what really happened, I just made different things up to satisfy myself and my friends. I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me!” Alex was now very confused, but her crying had ceased. Then the door flew opened and in walked Tim. Tim was a very old friend of her mother’s and had been there the time the crash had occured. He had been there for Joey ever since. When Alex was little, Tim was like a father to her, he’d been there all her life, or at least as long as Alex could remember, but now, he seemed strange. Alex wanted nothing to do with her mother or Tim at this moment, but they were the only ones that could give her answers. Tim helped Joey into a chair and asked Alex to sit down at the table. Tim looked at Joey, and knowingly, Joey nodded.

“Where is it?” Tim asked softly.

“I’ll get it.” Joey said through sobs. Tim just bowed his head as Joey retrieved, whatever it was. A few minutes later, Joey returned, with a book in her hand.

“No one but Tim, Kat, Zac, Taylor, Isaac, and I knew about this.” Joey set a thick book with the name “Love Under Construction” printed in ink neatly on the front.

“What’s this?” Alex asked, picking the book up.

“The life story. We decided one day to write everything we had felt, seen or done since we met.” Joey explained. Alex opened the first page and began to read.

“I think you are mature enough to handle the content and all the answers to all the questions I can’t find the answers to, will be in there.” Joey walked off up stairs and Tim said goodbye. Alex took the book into her room and began to read.

“Yeah, so they have this whole book about their lives that one year, and its really good.” Alex rambled to Payton about the book.

“Really, why don’t we read it togther?”

“Well, I dunno, I guess we could, but whatever I read you, I’ll probably be past it anyway, I am going to be up full nights reading into this thing. It has 500-600 pages, big pages...filled with writting.”

“Okay, why don’t you just let me read it after you’re done, you are a fast reader.”

“Sure, I’ll have to ask my mom though.”

“All right.” They split and went to class.

A week later, Alex had finished the book.

“Man, mom, that book was great. I think you should publish it.”

“I don’t think so. I have something to tell you. This weekend, don’t make any plans, we are going about two miles down the road to meet your grandparents. Then, we are going to a Hanson family reunion. I went to one exactly 15 years ago Saturday. You will be able to see your relatives, as well as I. And you see this ring? This is the one Taylor gave me, before he,” she paused, “died.”

“Okay.” Alex had no idea what to think. She was gonna meet her relatives that were her relatives, but weren’t. Her mom and dad never actually got married, but by DNA, they are her relatives.

“I’m scared to death and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ve kept you from these people so many years. I’m deathly afraid of how they will react to me. I did let them see you once in awhile, and send you things, but that was it. Your Uncle Peter was the last addition to the Hanson clan. Out of all the kids, including Ike, Tay and Zac, he would have been the eighth, but since they died, he is the youngest of five. He is almost exactly a year older than you cause he was born at the end of 98 and you were born in December 99. Your Aunt Zoë was the second youngest, she was born in January of 98. Then there’s your Uncle Mackenzie, Aunt Avery, and Aunt Jessica. That’s it. If you include the three lost, it went Jessie, then Zac, then Taylor, then Isaac.”

“Oh.” Everytime they talked about Hanson or the year 97-98, it saddened Alex. Now that she read the book, she had all the details.

“Do you remember Bill Salerson, his wife and daughter? Well, that’s Kat’s half sister that she never even knew about; Kat’s step-dad and Kat’s mom.” They had come over many times, but hadn’t come in the last three years or so. Now Alex was being explained to all the people she had known for years that knew about the accident or were one of her mom’s good friends from that time period. She found out a lot.

“My gosh, I had all these connections to my dad and his family and everyone, but I never knew it. Oh, I just remembered, can Payton borrow the book?”

“Um, I guess so.” Joey didn’t think that much about it.

“Great.” Alex hopped upstairs and retrieved the book from her desk. Then she darted over to Payton’s house.

“Hi!” Payton answered the door to find Alex with the thick book in her hand.

“I got it, its so great. MAN WERE THEY SOME SICK KIDS SOMETIMES! I mean, they did half the stuff that’s against the law for kids to do now. And they even thought about abortion and stuff. That is so illegal, well, now it is. I’m glad, I don’t like that people use to even consider that abortion was an option.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty sad.”

“It’ll really play with your emotions, its like every great love story, but ends in tragedy. I cried for almost three hours straight, and you know, like my mom, I don’t cry much. So, you can imagine..”

“Wow, three full hours? That isn’ t like you at all. Usually I’m the decently sentimental one.”

“Yeah, its really sad. It’s such a strange bind, you’d think someone made it up in their heads, but every word of it is true. I even found some secrets out. And Payton, please don’ t tell anyone about the book. I’m trying to get my mom to publish it, but if she doesn’t, I don’t want people knowing anything they shouldn’t.

“Okay, um, wanna come in?”

“Sure.” Alex walked in. The girls spent the rest of the day, reading the story. Even though Alex had finished, she gladly read it again. They only got to chapter 13 when Joey called over at Payton’s, asking Alex to come home.

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