* * *
The man wore a kind of military sweatshirt atop camouflage pants and jungle boots. Elderly looking, he had graying hair, although he still looked energetic and his eyes were sharp and alert.
Dad was as unsure of himself as every other person in that room, but he still moved to shake hands with the captain as Gavin started barking. “Pleased to see you again, sir,” he mumbled under his breath and the older man warmly took his hands.
“Pleased to see you, too, John. Glad you’re putting up a nice family here.”
The children were seriously puzzling over this new development. Their father chased Gavin out of the room.
“Kids, this is your . . . grandfather,” their mother anxiously introduced, but didn’t move to take her father’s hand. “Captain R. J. Hayfield.”
“Captain what?” her children chorused, visibly surprised.
“Holy cow,” Nora mouthed, dazedly staring at the man now standing before them.
“Hello, kids,” the captain said, shaking Nora’s hand before shaking Stephanie’s and Matthew’s. “And you must be Matthew,” he said, smiling at the boy, who was unsure of how to respond.
“How come I don’t know you?” Stephanie demanded. Nora sat down beside her on Matthew’s bed.
“It’s a long story, Steph,” her father told her. “I guess it’s not yet time to . . .”
“It’s okay, John,” Mr. Quentin’s wife stopped him, taking his hand.
The captain cleared his throat. He turned away towards Matthew’s window. His daughter drew closer to her husband. “It’s—It’s a very long story,” he borrowed from Mr. Quentin. The sun had disappeared into dark clouds outside and it looked like it would start drizzling. “You must know by now that you were adopted, Matthew,” he told the boy, still staring out of the window. Then he turned back to them in the room. “You mustn’t blame your parents—I made them believe you were.”
“WHAT?” Nora exclaimed. Her mother could only mouth an ‘o’ to cover this letter with her hands, wide-eyed.
Lora turned to her husband and hugged him even more tightly as her father sadly looked straight into her eyes.
“I know what you’re asking me now, Lora. How and Why? Why? Because you were my only child, because you fell in love with John instead of the man I wanted you to marry, because I could not confront the fear that . . . that I was losing you.” The captain looked away again. “So, when I got word that you’ve given birth to a boy in the hospital and he wasn’t doing well, I saw an opportunity to get back at you after finding out from his doctor that he was okay.”
“Oh,” Lora cried, resting her head on John’s shoulder. “Oh, my God!”
“I was driven by the devil, Lora,” her father apologized. “I paid a nurse and the doctor to declare him dead and I—I took him away and placed him in an orphanage.”
“Now we know why we never heard about you from Mom and Dad!” Stephanie screamed and Nora hugged her.
“You’re right, my dear,” Captain Hayfield agreed, looking lost and outside at the drizzling rain. “Your mom and I got angry with each other and tried to hurt each other.”
Matthew could only stare at this man whose strange tale was yet to sink into his head. The revelations were too sudden and it was all about him. “How did Mom hurt you?” he asked. “You said she did.”
“She never invited me to her wedding,” was the reply. “I never got the chance to hand over my baby girl on her wedding day.” The old man had tears in his eyes and cleared it with the back of his right hand. “After you turned three, Matthew, I realized I was wrong and must bring you all together again. I knew my actions were stupid, but by then I couldn’t just walk into your front door with you, ‘cause it’s been long since I last met your mother, and she’ll never forgive me for what I had done, so . . . since I was in the army and a high-ranking officer, I . . . got info from the CIA that . . . that she was . . . still looking for a son and I made the orphanage set you up for adoption while directing her attention to you using proxies.”
“FATHER, HOW COULD YOU?” his daughter shouted, drawing Matthew to herself.
“I have suffered too, Lora,” the captain told his daughter. “You didn’t invite me to your wedding and I’ve been a very lonely man ever since I lost you.”
“But—But you never lost me,” Lora cried and her husband held her closer to him. “I’m the one who lost you.”
“Okay, okay,” Nora suddenly intruded in exasperation. “Okay, Mom . . . enough with the emotions. Let’s get something straight here. Grandpa, how come your name’s in . . . em . . . you-know-what?”
“Yeah, Grandpa,” Stephanie agreed, “how come your name’s in the book?” Her elder siblings were glaring at her. “I meant the black book, em—you-know-what?”
And Matthew submitted his head to both hands in exasperated defeat. “Sorry,” his younger sister whispered in a small voice.
The Black Book Page 72