“Well, that is kind of hard to say, Eleanor, because my family is weird. Grandma is my grandfather's first and last wife, and my mom is my dad's first and last wife, so obviously the divorces didn't stick there because I don't think anybody wanted to divorce … so I don't know how Henry VIII of England did all that with six wives.”
“I don't get it either,” eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow said to her best friend eleven-year-old Velma Trent. “I mean, Grandma is Papa's last wife, but my biological grandmother is actually dead, and I never knew her. My parents never bothered to get married, and are also dead, but then my grandparents just went on and adopted me, my sister Edwina, and my baby brother Robert along with my first cousins because the same thing happened to them. So, I'm thinking, why does Henry VIII get all the way to the last wife? He just should have adopted a few sons, because Catherine of Aragon loved him the most.”
“I somehow think it didn't have anything to do with Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anne no. 2, Catherine no. 2, and Catherine no. 3, the last wife,” Velma said. “I think some people are just really restless about people and about being committed to them, and the more important they think they are, the most restless they get.”
“Well, Henry was king,” Eleanor said. “But I don't know if that has anything to do with it, because your grandfather is about as close to a king as most people get as a billionaire.”
“Not really,” Velma said. “Pop-Pop was on the phone talking about how Grandma was living proof that money does not put you in charge of anyone else. She left him, and came back when he took care of some things and she was ready.”
“Well, that's definitely different, because King Henry would have flipped out and done something dumb,” Eleanor said.
“You know who we need to ask?” Velma said. “Isn't your cousin's name Henry?”
“Yes, his full name and title is Col. Henry Fitzhugh Lee,” Eleanor said. “Let's go ask a Henry about a Henry – good idea, Velma, especially since Cousin Maggie is his last wife. His first wife died.”
Col. Henry Fitzhugh Lee, just Cousin Harry to Eleanor and Col. Lee to Velma, considered the two girls' thoughts carefully, and then spoke just as carefully.
“From being a Henry who is a soldier and police officer, transitioning into full civilian life, I cannot say I much about why a King Henry would have six wives. I find loving the wife I have so fulfilling that I don't know if I could do that a third time if something happened to her, to say nothing of six wives.”
“That's kinda how I think my parents and grandparents feel about each other,” Velma said.
“Same here about my Ludlow grandparents,” Eleanor said. “I guess the thing is, it's good to be here, and not living way back when in King Henry's house.”