by Wilde, Ora
“He’s a missing person,” I told him sternly. “Shouldn’t the authorities know?”
“He’s not a missing person... at least not not in the next twenty-three and a half hours, Ma’am.”
“But he just came from an operation...”
“There is no danger of death, Ma’am. It would hurt very much, I can imagine, but it shouldn’t be fatal.”
I sat on the bed... his bed... in total exasperation. There’s just been so much that has happened since last night, and Hayden’s most recent stunt just made things even worse.
“I understand your frustration, Ma’am,” the staff member said, “but believe it or not, this kind of thing happens all the time. Some escape to avoid paying their bills. Some simply can’t stand being in a hospital. And a few... well... they just wanted to know if they can get away with it, just like in the movies.”
He was a jovial fellow, but I was in no mood for humor. He probably saw that, so he led himself out of the room, leaving me alone to ponder about what to do next.
Where could he be? Where would he go? More importantly, why would he leave just like that when his father was fighting for his life?
Then I saw some torn pieces of paper on the floor.
Surely, they weren’t of the nurses’ doing. Did Hayden tear them up? But why? What could be there that would make him that angry? The last time he did something like that was when I gave him the letter from Dr. Scott’s clinic.
Oh no...
I grabbed each and every ripped bit of paper I could find. I placed them over the bed and tried to piece them back together, much like a jigsaw puzzle. Thankfully, there weren’t that many tears on the document. I was able to assemble it quickly.
What I managed to read from it broke my heart.
Bill wasn’t Hayden’s biological dad.
It was very hard to believe at first, but everything came together. Dr. Scott’s words... Bill is a good, good man... one of the kindest people I’ve ever known... he did something that made me respect him so much... if Hayden knew what kind of a man he is, he’ll know how truly blessed his life has been....
Bill treated Hayden like his own son.
Bill loved Hayden like his own son.
These, despite the fact that he wasn’t of his own flesh and blood.
I tried to snap out of the sorrow that enveloped my soul. If I allowed myself to be engulfed by emotions, I wouldn’t be able to do what should be done. Hayden was missing, and he was in no shape to take care of himself. But where could he be? Where could he have gone?
I entertained the idea of telling my mom about Hayden’s disappearance, but she was dealing with so much already. I didn’t want to burden her with more worries. Besides, if I did tell her, she might share the same with Bill, and that wouldn’t be helpful given his current condition.
I was all alone.
Think, Phoebe, think...
I wished I knew him better so that I could predict what he would do next. But I didn’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. He was too distant. He enchanted people with his charming ways, but that was all a facade to hide the pained person that he was beneath his mantle of arrogance and self-centeredness. He made people believe that he didn’t give a damn about anything, but deep inside, he cared... he cared a lot.
I doubt that I was the only one who noticed that.
I firmly believed that everyone around him knew who the real Hayden was... everyone except him.
He just has to accept himself as... himself, instead of hiding behind an armor of hubris and hatred.
If only...
If only I could make him realize that.
But I didn’t even know where he was.
Chapter 43
HAYDEN
The black circles around my swollen eyes, which my dark glasses failed to completely conceal, made the florist suspicious about my intent. After much scrutiny, she finally allowed me to buy a bouquet of white tulips. She had to ask for an ID though. Somehow, she didn’t want to believe that the credit card I used was really mine.
Hollywood Forever, along Santa Monica Boulevard, was supposed to be a few minutes drive from the hospital. But I didn’t bring my Hummer. I left it there, together with the life that I knew. I didn’t want any part of his riches. I didn’t want any part of him.
How could I?
I wasn’t even a part of him.
The cemetery was very peaceful that afternoon... even more serene than how it usually was. I only saw two people on my way to my mother’s tomb. Was that how the dead were honored? By forgetting their memory so that they wouldn’t live on through the pain their loss has caused?
That wasn’t how I wanted to remember my mother.
As I reached the concrete vault that housed her remains, I read the epitaph that was engraved on her headstone... something which I always did whenever I visited her.
A wonderful wife. A loving mother. Forever.
Simple words that never failed to give me a semblance of comfort. When I was younger, those writings made the agony a little less difficult to bear. They reminded me of how she was... doting, beautiful and kind.
But at that moment, the first line caused some disquietude: a wonderful wife.
They always fought. Up to the evening before I found her dead, they still fought. They disagreed about the simplest things. I could hear them from my room. I could hear them from downstairs. One time, they were shouting at each other at the living room. I hid near the stairs and listened. I didn’t understand what they were discussing. All I could remember were words that, as a kid, I wasn’t supposed to hear.
A wonderful wife.
Yeah right!
He gave her hell. For no reason at all, he treated my mother like dirt. He verbally abused her, and I believe - with all my heart - that that’s what drove her to take her life.
I laid down the flowers over her grave.
I remembered the time, a few years after her death, when the shrink who my father - or the man whom I thought was my father - hired talked to him in her clinic, unaware that I remained near the door, listening to every word they said to each other.
Bill, he needs your love, she said. His wounds are too deep. He’s broken.
Broken?
Thousands of dollars for her services and that’s the best she could say? That I’m fucking broken?
If I was broken then, how would she describe me now?
The man she thought could help me isn’t even my real father.
There’s only one person in the entire world who can makes things right for me. Only one person who can show me what I should do with my life. Only one person who truly loved me.
And she’s buried beneath the earth in front of me.
“Mom,” I began to say, without caring about anyone who might hear. “I need you. I’ve always needed you. I feel so alone... so lost without you.”
There was no doubt in my mind that she was my real mother. I knew her that much. She treated me with so much love... so much affection... that made me know... with all sureness... that I came from her womb.
But that certainty has now caused a question that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Who is my father?
I did the math in the cab on the way to Hollywood Forever. Bill and her... they got married a year and a half before I was born. So... if Bill isn’t my father... the only logical conclusion is that my mom had an affair.
But with whom?
And why?
Heh. Should I even ask?
Bill forced him to look for someone else. The way he treated her... she had no recourse but to find the love that she needed from another man.
And I was the product of her infidelity.
What does that make me?
My mother’s bastard? An outcast? A fraud?
And it’s all because of him... my so-called father...
I hate him! I fucking hate him!
I kicked the dirt at the foot of my mother’s grave, in anger and frust
ration over the things that I have discovered and how they have turned my life upside down.
“Don’t do that,” someone said from behind me. A familiar voice. Gentle. Tranquil. Soothing.
I didn’t have to turn around to know who she was.
“How did you find me?”
“Well Mr. Summersmith,” she started to answer, “if you’re planning to go incognito, you might as well stop using a company-issued credit card.”
Chapter 44
PHOEBE
He probably thought that I was being a smart-ass, that my reply was belittling the weight of his despair. But I only wanted to lighten up the mood... to make him feel that he was in the company of someone he could trust.
That, and because I was happy to find him. He was missing no longer.
“Give me a fucking break, will you?” he said angrily. “I need to be alone.”
“How much time do you need?”
“A lot!”
“How much is a lot?”
“Weeks... months... forever... how the fuck do I know? I just want to be alone, okay?”
He didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want me to see him. But judging from how his voice broke while he was speaking, he has been crying. Or perhaps, he still was crying, and being the proud, arrogant man that he is, he didn’t want anyone to witness him at his worst.
But I had to be there. I didn’t know why... but I just knew I had to be there for him.
“I know how you’re feeling,” I started to say but he cut me off.
“Really? How would you know? A mongrel would have a better chance of understanding me than you ever will.”
“He loves you, you know.”
Finally, he turned to face me. I was correct in my suspicion. Tears were dribbling down his sunglasses. He was crying.
“I don’t want to hear anything about him ever again,” he told me, trying his best to keep his emotions in check.
“Hayden... I know... I saw the papers you tore up...”
“You know that I’m my mother’s bastard? Big deal, right? Big fucking deal...”
“More than that, I know that he treated you like his own son despite... despite... despite everything...”
“His own son? How do you know that? He always treated me like a damn stranger, and now I know why!”
He was so angry. He hated his father. And now, he probably hated him even more. How could I ever make him see what’s right, when deep in his heart, he strongly felt that he was wronged... that his entire identity was one big lie?
Then it struck me.
A memory.
Of our first date.
Questions.
Answers.
Realizations.
Enlightenment.
“How did he treat you like a stranger?” I asked him, as calmly as I could.
It took him a few seconds before he delivered his reply.
“You wouldn’t understand...”
“Try me. How did he treat you like a stranger?”
“By not being a father to me!” he ferociously shot back.
“And how is he not a father to you?”
“He never talked to me,” he said, his voice started to simmer down. “Not as a father would to his son. He was always busy with his work... and whenever he had to talk to me, he’d do it through his secretary or some other emissary.”
“And that’s enough reason for you to believe that he hasn’t been a father to you?”
He gave me a dagger look.
“What the fuck is this? 20 Questions?”
“Just answer me, please,” I pleaded. “Is that enough reason to believe that he failed being a father to you?”
“Yes, if you’d consider the fact that he killed my mother!” His anger came back, more fiery than before.
I swallowed some air before continuing.
“Did he really kill your mother?” I questioned him.
He didn’t answer. He was taken aback by my query. And for the first time since I’ve known him, I actually saw him yield his stance.
“Did he really kill your mother, Hayden?” I asked again, more firmly.
He looked at his mother’s grave before turning away and focusing his gaze on the distant horizon. I guessed he wanted to be somewhere else... anywhere... far, far away from my prying mouth. But I wouldn’t give him that chance. It was something he had to confront, and it couldn’t wait for another time.
“Answer me, Hayden, please,” I begged. “Did he really kill your mother?”
He bowed his head to hide the look of resignation on his face. He seemed like he got weak all of a sudden that he took a seat on his mother’s tomb. He then covered his face with his hands, dryly washing its surface. Perhaps it was his way of mustering enough courage to face the truth. I could only hope.
“He... didn’t,” he finally confessed. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t cause her death...”
“How did he cause her death?” I continued to press.
“They... they were always arguing... quarreling... she looked so sad... so depressed... then one day... she just...” His voice was breaking intermittently. He was struggling to say what he wanted to share. It was something that he wasn’t ready to address... but I couldn’t give him the luxury of burying the truth even deeper.
“Hayden, I want you to remember those days,” I told him as I sat by his side and held his hand. “What were they fighting about? What did you hear?”
“Words...” he still floundered to speak. “I could just remember some words... I don’t know the context... I don’t know what they were about...”
“What were these words?”
“Just meaningless words. Questions. Why? Did I deserve this? What have I done wrong? And...”
“And?”
He began to cry... mildly at first, but it quickly escalated into an uncontrollable sob. The cocky, arrogant man I have come to adore has opened up to himself... fragmented memories were starting to take shape... and the agony of remembering has began to pulverize his heart.
But I couldn’t stop. I shouldn’t. I had to ask. He needed to say it. He needed to accept the truth.
“And?” I asked once more, desperate for an answer.
“And... do you still love me?”
With that memory, he completely broke down. He became so inconsolable that, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t able to ease the pain he was feeling... a kind of pain forged from years of aggressive denial and misguided detestation, from years of unnecessary hostility and unjustified animosity towards the one person who accepted and loved him.
His parents weren’t fighting over the simplest of things. His father wasn’t unduly arguing with his mom.
She betrayed him. And he found out.
Yet, he didn’t leave her. He wanted to know why she did it. He wanted to know if there was still a chance for their marriage can be saved. He wanted to know if she still loved him.
And when Hayden’s mother died, he took care of a child who wasn’t his and treated him like his own son. He groomed him to be his successor. He gave his son everything that he needed. He went through great lengths just make sure that Hayden would have the best that life could possibly offer.
And despite all those, Hayden chose to hate him...
All because he never wanted to accept the fact that his mother was the one who committed a wrong.
I held the side of his face as he wept and drew his head towards my shoulder. I was expecting him to resist, that his pride would just consider my gesture as an act of mercy, one which he would never allow.
But he didn’t oppose my motion. His head went straight to my shoulder, willingly, and he continued to cry like a child lost in the rain.
I caressed his hair and kissed his forehead. I wanted to tell him that everything will be alright... because that was the truth. He just had to accept the things he has long denied.
“You’re right,” I softly said with a slight smile.
“What’re y
ou talking about?” he asked while sniffing.
“Socratic method. A series of continuous questions that will never end until a definite conclusion is arrived at.”