Forbidden Son

by Loretta C. Rogers

  She stared up at him, wide-eyed. “What’s done is done, Tripp. We can’t go back and change any of it. I know you don’t want to believe the Judge’s role in this. It was difficult for me to tell you. Honestly.”

  “We’ll work through this, Honey Belle. We will. I promise.”

  She reached up and brushed his hair away from his forehead. He felt her fingers tremble against his skin. His body seemed to pull toward hers. More than anything in this world, he wanted to give in to that pull and kiss her.

  The time wasn’t right.

  He had a son, and he wanted to know the boy. Before he could do that, he had to confront his own father.

  He rubbed his thumb over her fingers. “Go back to Valdosta, Honey Belle. Let me work this out with my father in my own way.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I can’t go through this again, Tripp. He will only deny it. The question is—will you believe him? Frankly, I don’t care, as long as I don’t lose my son.”

  Tripp leaned close, touching her cheek. “He’s my son, too, remember? And it’s my job to protect his mother. Good night, Honey Belle. I’ll contact you when the time is right.”

  And then he was gone.

  Honey Belle sighed. She pressed against the closed door and strained to hear the rhythmic thump of the cane and the footsteps in the hall.

  ****

  A son.

  The news filled Tripp with a myriad of emotions.

  Elation.

  He reveled at the idea of having a son. Nearing forty, he had feared his days of being a father were over. What woman wanted to make love to a one-legged gimp? He tossed that emotion aside. Pity parties weren’t his style.

  Anger.

  Definitely. But at whom? His father or Honey Belle? Honey Belle’s explanation sounded plausible. Part of him believed her story. His father? The same gnawing question he’d felt years ago had returned. Oh, yeah, his father had denied a role in Honey Belle’s disappearance. Who to believe—that was the enigma.

  Frustration.

  As much as he desired to hop the first plane to South Carolina to confront his father, Tripp’s first obligation was making certain the wording of the bill regarding the arms regulations for the military had no holes the opposing members could punch through.

  He slowed his pace a little. Maybe this wasn’t the hornet’s nest he wanted to walk into. It was times like this he missed the counsel of his mother and Pearlie Mae. Both gone.

  Honey Belle’s face floated before his eyes, standing in the middle of the hotel room, her arms wrapped around herself, hugging her middle tight, she’d looked angry, sad, and about a dozen other female emotions he didn’t have a name for. He didn’t like seeing her that way, hurt. She seemed as fragile as an eggshell.

  He shook his head, chasing off memories that would more than likely spell trouble. He would keep his promise to Honey Belle and not make contact with young Jack Tripp Garrett. At least, not yet.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Tripp leaned over, planting both palms on the conference table. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a long eight weeks. A few subtle details, and we’ll have a bill that neither the House nor the Senate can afford to shoot down.”

  Senator Eleanor Whipple lamented, “And then we can go home. Hopefully, we can wrap this up by the end of the week. I’d like to spend time with my twins before school starts.”

  Minutes later, Tripp and the committee members bent to the silent task of rereading sections from the lofty pyramid of documents.

  Intent on the page he was reading, the voice bending to whisper in his ear startled him. “My apologies for interrupting, Senator Hartwell, but you have an urgent phone call.”

  Tripp looked at the fretful expression on his secretary’s face. “Who is it?”

  “It’s your uncle. He says it’s about your father.”

  Tripp pushed back his chair and excused himself. Moments later he returned to the meeting room. “My father is seriously ill. Senators Clarksdale and Whipple will fill my stead.”

  His eyes shifted around the table as he bid the committee members good luck.

  ****

  A few hours later, Tripp landed at Charleston’s airport and collected a rental car for the drive to the hospital. Usually a cautious driver, he changed lanes frequently and bore down on the accelerator when the lights turned yellow, feeling the weight of every passing moment.

  When he arrived, the scene in the hospital reminded him of the time when Kathryn had fallen down the stairs and miscarried their baby. It was as if nothing had changed. The same ammonia and antiseptic odors filled the air, the same fluorescent lights in the same fiberboard dropped ceilings, and more people than the waiting room had chairs.

  Jake Hartwell looked every bit the lawyer in his navy blue suit and shiny black shoes. At the age of seventy, he was still a robust man. Tripp reached out to grip his uncle’s hand in a hearty shake. “How is he, Uncle Jake?”

  “Dr. Chapman is running tests. He thinks the fall may have triggered a stroke.”

  “Not down the stairs?”

  “No. It appears Harlan was trying to change a light bulb in the bathroom, fell off the stepladder, and hit his head on the tub. He was barely conscious when the nurse heard the crash and ran upstairs to investigate. She called the ambulance. I called you.”

  “Waiting is the worst part, Uncle Jake. Brings back painful memories of another time when the waiting seemed to last forever.”

  “Kathryn?”

  Tripp nodded. “Father is eighty-one. Even with a certified nursing assistant with him night and day, he has no business rambling around inside that big old house all by himself.”

  “Are you suggesting an assisted living facility?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t disagree. Convincing my brother is a horse of another color. Let’s see what Dr. Chapman tells us about Harlan’s condition.”

  Tripp hadn’t finished his coffee when a nurse entered the waiting room and called for a Tripp Hartwell.

  He stood. “That would be me.”

  “Dr. Chapman wanted me to let you know he’d be out shortly.”

  Tripp thanked the nurse and sat back down.

  Thirty minutes passed and the nurse emerged again. “Your father is a little disoriented. His vital signs are good. He’s been moved to a room. Dr. Chapman said he’d talk to you when you arrived there.”

  Tripp felt his uncle’s eyes drift toward him. “You go on. The two of us might wear Harlan out.”

  The nurse shook her head. “If you’re Jake, then Mr. Hartwell wants to see you and his son, together. He insisted. Room 402.”

  ****

  “The news isn’t good, Senator Hartwell. As I suspected, the fall triggered a mild stroke. However, that isn’t my major concern. The x-ray shows a large mass on the temporal lobe. I’ve sent the reports to a neurosurgeon for a second opinion. All indications suggest a malignancy.”

  For a moment, Tripp stood without speaking. “What does that mean in terms of time, Dr. Chapman?”

  The doctor patted him on the shoulder. “I can’t tell you that until I hear from the neurosurgeon. I’ll let you know as soon as I get his report.”

  Tripp and his uncle traded handshakes with the doctor. As he entered the room, Tripp thought his father looked small in the bed, his face paper white. Tripp pulled a chair close to the bed and sat. His uncle did the same.

  “Hello, Father.”

  “Hello, son,” the Judge said shakily.

  “Uncle Jake said you fell off a ladder.”

  “Got a little dizzy and lost my balance.”

  His father’s eyes had grown curiously misty. He said, “Jake, I want you to bear witness to what I have to say to my son.”

  Jake Hartwell said, “Your will is in place, Harlan. Did you want to add a codicil?”

  The elder man waved his hand in the air as if popping invisible bubbles. “Hell, no. I’ve got a confession to make. Somebody ought to hear it bes
ides Tripp.”

  The heart machine beat steadily, soothing in its monotony. His curiosity piqued, Tripp had no idea what deep dark secret his father harbored. “What do you have to confess, Father?”

  A coughing spasm caused pain to constrict the Judge’s face. Tripp poured a glass of water. While his uncle assisted in lifting the Judge to a sitting position, Tripp held the glass so his father could drink. Water dribbled down the wrinkled chin to stain the white sheet. As if exhausted by the mere act of swallowing a few sips, Harlan Hartwell leaned back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Tripp exchanged glances with his uncle, and waited.

  Harlan rolled his head to the side of the pillow. His eyes snapped open. “I’ve known about the brain tumor for quite some time. It was confirmed at the Mayo Clinic. I told that idiot Chapman.” Harlan’s laugh was short and unpleasant. “I told him to send for the medical records. Young upstart. Thinks he knows more than me, the retired governor of South Carolina. What does he think I am, stupid?”

  Tripp tried to calm his father. “Dr. Chapman is doing what any good doctor would do. He’s covering all the bases. Why didn’t you tell me or Uncle Jake about the tumor?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I have other things on my mind.”

  Not wishing to agitate his father, Tripp smiled. “All right, Father. Uncle Jake and I are listening.”

  Tripp saw pain mirrored in his father’s eyes, saw infinite sadness dwelling there. The small black clock on the wall told him it was almost three-thirty. Tired from his flight and the drive through Charleston, Tripp felt impatient. He wanted to pace around the room, to stretch his long legs. Instead, he remained seated.

  The Judge coughed, cleared his throat. “When I met your mother, she was so beautiful, so warm and loving. I knew the moment I laid eyes on her she was the woman I would wed. The cruelest thing your mother ever did in her entire life was to die and leave me alone.”

  Tripp envisioned his mother in her old gardening clothes and floppy hat, wearing a smile that could brighten the dreariest day. He, too, missed her.

  His father’s voice broke through Tripp’s musing.

  “Kathryn was a mistake. I should never have insisted you marry the girl. She was shallow, selfish, and greedy. Not at all like my Mary Alice.” Harlan’s eyes closed and he seemed to drift off. His eyes looked wide and startled when he opened them.

  “My fault for your unhappiness…all my fault. My fault you went off to war. I could have used my power to keep you home. My fault you lost your leg. All of it…my fault.”

  “You’re not making sense, Father. I chose to join the Army. Vietnam happened without your help. As for my leg, I was a casualty of war. It’s over and done. In the past. What does this have to do with Mother, Kathryn, and a confession?”

  As his father toyed with the edge of the blanket, the mist continued to cloud the Judge’s eyes. “That girl, Honey Belle Garrett—you remember her?”

  Tripp laced his fingers together in a tight grip. His stomach clenched. “What about her?”

  “There’s no easy way to say this, son. I paid her to leave South Carolina. Oh, she tried to get feisty, but I had Charlie Nichols take pictures of her. When I showed them to her, I said you would believe whatever I told you. I misused my power. I did it because I was afraid she’d ruin your chances at a successful political career.”

  Oh, God, he thought, if he’d ever had any doubts about Honey Belle’s confession—Tripp shook his head, eager to leave the hospital, and his father. “Did you tell her to abort the child if she was pregnant? The truth, Father.”

  “I…well… I didn’t want the Hartwell-Calhoun bloodlines tainted. That girl was white trash from the seediest section of Charleston. I did it for you. But I need to make my peace before I die.”

  “Oh, I get it. Confession is good for the soul. Is that it, Father?”

  Tripp felt as if he’d stepped into the hottest depths of hell. In spite of the hospital room’s frigid temperature, sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. Fingers of fire gripped his stomach. Bile burned the back of his throat. As much as he wanted to hate the shriveled shell his father had become, instead he pitied him. He fought to keep his voice calm. “I found out eight weeks ago that I have a son. His name is Jack Tripp Garrett. He is sixteen years old, and he served as a congressional junior page this term. His mother kept him a secret because she was afraid you would make good on your threat to harm the child. I refrained from meeting the boy to protect his mother’s privacy.” Tripp rubbed his brow as he paced about the room in agitation. “All these years, because of your self-righteous spitefulness, you denied me the right to know my son, and my son the right to know his father…and a grandfather.” He stopped pacing to stand at the edge of the hospital bed. “I should hate you. If you weren’t a sick old man, maybe I would.”

  Judge Hartwell blinked fast as if to hold back the tears. “I can never make amends for what I’ve done. Your mother, God rest her soul, always wanted a grandchild. In a sense, I denied her, too.” He struggled to prop up on his elbows. “I’ve changed my mind, Jake. Write this down and let me sign it. Add a codicil to my will stating that a trust fund in the amount of one million dollars be set aside for Tripp’s son…m-my grandson.”

  Tripp felt his chest constrict. He couldn’t breathe. His son. The words sounded so foreign to him, he couldn’t grasp the true meaning.

  “Tripp, do you suppose I could meet my grandson before I die?”

  Tripp’s heart slammed against his chest. “JT doesn’t know about me, or you, Father. I think the odds are impossible that either of us will ever know him.”

  ****

  Honey Belle felt like a trapped rabbit. Trapped in a lie by omission. Moving her gaze from each passenger to the next exiting the gangway at the Albany airport, she searched until she spotted JT waving at her.

  After the initial hugs and loading his luggage inside the car, Honey Belle still wrestled with how to tell her son about the father he’d never known. “So, did serving as a junior page and hobnobbing with politicians help you to decide if you’d like to major in political science when you go to college?” She knew it was a lame way to begin a conversation. Still, with a hundred-and-ten-mile drive to Valdosta, she had plenty of time to get to the dreaded topic.

  “Being in D.C. was a cool experience. I mean, like, man, it was really rad. You know? But that scene’s not for me.”

  Honey Belle laughed at the typical teenage lingo. She decided to do a little fishing. “Did you meet any particular congressman who impressed you?”

  “They were all pretty cool, some more than others. I didn’t get to meet my original mentor. Senator Tripp Hartwell. He was in a special session the entire summer. I really wanted to meet him, especially since he’s a war hero and we both have the same name, Tripp. Pretty cool, huh? I heard he was a real stand-up guy. Say, Mom, did you deliberately name me after such a famous person?”

  She loved the way her son prattled on and, without knowing, had opened the door for her big reveal. Sidestepping the question, she asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “You know it. I could go for a bacon cheeseburger, extra pickles, hold the onions.”

  Hold the onions. A laugh escaped her. She knew another Tripp who loved hamburgers with extra pickles, hold the onions. She wondered if taste buds were genetic.

  An hour later she removed the scrapbook from the briefcase on the back seat, slammed the car door, and slid behind the steering wheel. Her pulse raced out of control. Was she so conditioned to accept the worst out of life that she feared her son would reject her once she told him the truth about his parentage? She frowned, hating to admit it was true. Life had dealt Honey Belle her share of blows, but that was no excuse for hiding the truth. Was it?

  “JT, earlier you asked if I’d deliberately named you after a famous person. The truth is I knew Tripp Hartwell long before he was a senator.” She held the thick blue album toward her son. “I created this scrapbook while I was pregnant with you.
I knew one day you would want to know about…about—”

  Honey Belle held her breath. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She tried to remain cool and calm.

  “What is it, Mom? I can tell by the look on your face something has upset you.”

  Her voice was husky when she spoke. “I never expected to choose a Hardee’s parking lot on the outskirts of Albany, Georgia, to make my grand confession. I hope when I finish, you won’t judge me too harshly.”

  “Am I the reason you’re upset? Did I do something wrong?”

  She did her best to smile. “No…never. I just need you to understand there are times when people don’t always use good judgment in the decisions they make. I also want you to know that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and that I’ve always loved you and always will.”

  “Oh, man, Mom, you’re freaking me out. Please don’t tell me you’ve got cancer. You’re not gonna die, are you?”

  Honey Belle reached out and cradled JT’s cheeks in her hands. “No. I’m not sick, and I don’t mean to frighten you.”

  “I’m sixteen, Mom. Whatever it is you’re afraid to tell me, I can handle it. Okay?”

  She drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Okay. Here goes. I lived with my parents in Charleston, South Carolina. I met Tripp Harlan Hartwell the Third on my nineteenth birthday. He was twenty-two years old, drove a fancy white BMW convertible, and he was everything I wasn’t. He was on his way to Harvard Law School, and I was a high school dropout flipping hamburgers.”

  She spent the next two hours explaining about her life, Tripp’s marriage proposal, his father’s threats, the blackmail money, and the reason for keeping her pregnancy a secret.

  “One evening, when you were six years old, you and I and Aunt Tess were watching the news. On the television screen names were listed of the soldiers in Vietnam who were missing in action. You asked if your daddy had been killed in the war and was that the reason he didn’t live with us. I always intended to tell you the truth. At that moment, when you looked up at me with such sorrow in your big wide eyes, it was easier to simply say yes.