Niece update: she's gonna visit my parents (and, by extension, Ricky) for a few days next week, up in W-ville. Mid-week, so it's not really feasible for me to attend, but she might swing by Boston going to or from; I hope she gets a chance to do so!
Unfortunately, my mom says she still hasn't told her about her father, beyond a vague "he's not in good health". The truth is, he's under a tremendous of self-induced stress over this suddenly impending reunion (as anyone would be), and his reactions will be unpredictable. Already, my mom had to talk him out of dropping ~$200 (way more than he can afford to spend on anything) to hold a "high tea" event in her honor, after he saw an ad for that sort of thing somewhere. Yikes, that would have been... awkward.
Well... I hope whatever happens doesn't turn into a total freakout that scares her permanently away from this side of the family. I think about going up anyway to see if I can serve as a grounding force, but... mmf. Best to wait it out. Maybe maybe. It's just that I have bad visions of never getting to meet this sudden possibility of a sane, young & clueful relative. (I love my parents very much and think my brothers are OK most of the time. But they're all so irrational, as well as between one and two generations older than me, and generally not inhabitants of the same world as I, even though we're all adults now. I know, not a unique situation at all, with family. Still very frustrating.) But: it'll probably work out fine, because my parents are magic at all things social.
We'll see.