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The boy nodded.
"Okay, let's start with being a bastard."
"Carlos!" Svetlana said warningly.
"My parents were not married. That makes me a bastard. You learn to live with it. My mother loved me deeply and I deeply loved her. I am sure that my father would have--but he never knew about me. He was killed before I was born."
Charley looked at Svetlana.
"He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Svet. And Randy's grandfather was his co-pilot."
"At Fort Rucker," Randy said, "there's a picture of them in a building they named for Colonel Castillo's father--or should I say 'my other grandfather'? He won the Medal of Honor. I look just like him. Did you really think nobody would ever know?"
"Well, I didn't know until we flew down to see the Mastersons and the Lorimers--yeah, Svet, our Ambassador Lorimer--right after Hurricane Katrina."
He met Randy's eyes.
"I honest to God didn't know about you, Randy. Worse, in Mississippi, after Ambassador Lorimer told me, 'Your son has eyes just like yours,' I told him I didn't have a son."
"My God!" Svetlana said. "You really didn't know!"
"So he says," Randy said more than a little sarcastically.
"I'm getting off the track here," Castillo said. "One point I was trying to make, Randy, is that I can't work up a hell of a lot of sympathy for you. You have a loving mother, and she's still around. Mine died when I was twelve. I never knew my father, and you've had a good man all of your life who thinks he's your father and who loves you."
"You sonofabitch!"
"No," Castillo replied more calmly than he expected. "I am not a sonofabitch, and neither are you. My mother was the antithesis of a bitch, and so is yours. Think what you like of me, but never ever apply that term to me. And never allow anyone to apply it to you."
The boy glared at him but didn't reply.
"Clear, Randy? Say, 'Yes, sir.'"
After a long moment, the boy nodded. "Yes, sir."
"This is not to suggest that I am a man of principle and sterling character," Castillo went on. "The opposite is true, as a great many people, including your mother, have learned from painful experience.
"And that's the reason that your mother, when she found out that you were on the way . . ."
Castillo paused. He made a face as he visibly gathered his thoughts.
"Did I lie to your mother? Yes, I did. Did I feed her martinis knowing full well how they would affect her? You bet your ass I did. Did I take advantage of her naive notion that because I was a West Pointer I had the same moral attributes as her father and Lieutenant Randolph Richardson III--and that I would not lie, cheat, or steal to get what I wanted from her? You can bet your naive little ass I did.
"Getting the picture?"
Randy stood stone-faced.
"Your mother had a tough call to make. She had to decide between who would be the better father to the child she was carrying--a thoroughly decent man who loved her or . . ."
"You," Randy said.
". . . or a man who would lie, cheat, and steal to get whatever he wanted, and never lose a moment's sleep over it. And it is now self-evident that she made the right decision."
The boy just looked at him.
"So now you have a decision to make, Randy. You can wallow in self-pity--'poor little me'--and tell everybody how everyone--your mother, your grandfather, me, Abuela, the man you call Uncle Fernando--has abused you. And if you do, the result of that will be that you will hurt, deeply hurt, not only all of them but also the only man who's absolutely innocent in all of this--the man who has been de facto your father all of your life. You owe him better than that."
Castillo let that sink in a moment.
