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ChapterSeventeen
Bryson entered his father’s room at the care facility and managed to force a smile.“Hey, Dad.How you doing?”
“Bryson!Well, I’m happy to see you again so soon.You usually wait until Sunday.”
Bryson made a show of turning.“I can come back then—”
“Get on in here,” John ordered, chuckling.“But you can come back on Sunday, too.”
“I’ll do my best,” Bryson said, leaning over his father’s chair to hug him.
His father pounded Bryson on the back several times before releasing him.
“So?What’s the special occasion?Is that pretty girl with you today?”
“No, she’s not.It’s just me—and some highly illegal fried chicken from Bo’s,” Bryson added, pulling it out of the bag.“I only brought you two small pieces, though, so no complaining.”
“Ah, better than nothing.You know how much I love it.”
Bryson chuckled and got his father set up for the snack before settling into the chair opposite.
“Something bothering you?”his dad asked.“You look like you’re chewing on something awfully hard over there and it ain’t my chicken.”
Bryson stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles, hands linked over his stomach.“I got quite a surprise this week.”
“Oh?”
Bryson stared at his father, hoping the news wouldn’t upset him.“I heard from my birth mother.”
His father paused with the chicken leg halfway to his mouth before lowering it to the plate and fumbling for a napkin.
“Really?What’d she, uh, say when she called?”
“She didn’t call.She’s… She’s actually a friend of Hadley’s.”
“What’s that?”
Bryson could see his father’s confusion and felt much the same himself.“A couple of weeks ago I walked into Hadley’s house and the woman… She recognized me because she says I look like my biological father.She was so surprised she dropped a tray of dishes.”
“Son, you can’t base paternity on looks.”
“I know.And so did she—that’s why she managed to finagle a DNA test,” he said, explaining how his free haircut had come about.“The results were conclusive.”
John sat back in his chair, the forbidden chicken forgotten on his plate.
“I don’t know what to say,” his father said.
“I’m not sure either.Did you know the girl—my mother?Ma always said no, but—”
“No, no, we never met her.The doctor came in to talk to us the morning after we lost our baby.An older man was with him, but he didn’t speak much.Just said he would pay for the lawyer to draw up the adoption papers, and if we agreed, it would all be taken care of.When we left the hospital, though, the man had also paid your mama’s medical bills, and since the adoption was closed and we didn’t know any names, we couldn’t return the money.”
“So you took me home, straight from the hospital?Just like that?”
His father nodded.“We were surprised, too, but once we signed the paperwork, the nurses brought you in and gave you to us.From that moment on, you were ours, and that’s how they referred to you.”
Bryson shook his head, unable to believe a person—a life—could be given away so easily.“She… The woman said she was fifteen.And that she was told her baby died at birth.”
“Ah, poor girl.I don’t know anything about that.The doctor said, if we weren’t interested, that you’d go into an orphanage until someone could be found, but since they knew we’d lost a child, they thought we might want you.We were shocked that they thought they could just replace the baby we lost, but Clara couldn’t bear the thought of you in some ward somewhere.Neither could I.”
