The Black Book

by George Shadow

  * * *

  Still stunned by Nora’s biting words when he got up to prepare for school the next morning, Matthew went through his normal routine like a self-conscious robot, which had just lost the will to exist. None of the comforting words and hugs his adopted parents had given him after Nora’s outburst could vanquish this sad feeling and he somehow knew that this was not a good sign.

  How she got to know what she had told him he could not tell, but despite the pleas from his foster parents to ignore all that she did say, he knew she must have heard about his real mother from them, because when he pressed harder for answers from her mother, she tried to make him forget those questions he’d asked. To erase them completely from his memory.

  But could he do that? He just wanted to know who and where his real mother was. Why he must find out, he didn’t know. Why he never thought of his real father he could not tell, although that question could actually be lurking deep within his subconscious, probably waiting for that particular yearning he was yet to know he harbored all this while.

  “Matthew, come on down, honey, we’ll be late for school,” his foster mother called out from the garage and he hastened up.

  Nora he had tried to avoid since last night, even though he shouldn’t have bothered. She cared less, or so it seemed. Since her room was next to his, he knew when she woke up that morning and tiptoed into the bathroom, because he woke up before everyone and heard her quietly close her door behind her. Later that morning, she’d met him as she came down the steps and had simply ignored him, her car key making loud music with the side rail.

  “Matthew,” Stephanie yelled. “We’re gonna be late.”

  “Coming,” he called back and slipped into his Spider-Man T-shirt. He heard Nora’s BMW purr like a wild cat as he hurried down the steps and met his adopted Dad preparing to leave for work in the living room. “Going, Dad,” he called out.

  “Hey.”

  He turned.

  “Whatever happens out there, Matt, never break,” a smiling Mr. Quentin said.

  Matthew thought the man could do without the ‘adopted’ part of the name. Only a true Dad could stand by his son in such a way, even if this son was adopted. “Thanks . . . Dad,” he said, grinning and blushing, and stepped out into the waiting arms of his foster mother.