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I nod a little. “Start talking,” I spit out in my gruff grumble, looking out to the water. I can’t look directly at him, because I know he is about to say things that are going to hurt more than I have ever experienced. Flynn takes a spot on the other side of me.
“Where do you want me to start?” the man asks quietly, trying to soften the moment.
Where I want him to start is a very hard question to answer. All I can think to say is probably the most logical.
“How did you know it was me?”
“I knew the moment I saw you that you were Richard’s son. You look just like him. Just a little older, of course.”
My heart sinks. Did he know him, my father? Or just from photos? Where the hell do I even go with my questions? I don’t know what to ask first or if I will even make any sense.
“Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out. You’ve got one chance of talking to me, and then from tonight on… I decide if you get to speak to me or my mother again.” I know my mother will tell me I can’t speak for her, but anyone who is here to hurt her must get through me first. End of story!
“I will tell you as much as I know, which I’m sure is going to fill in the initial blanks you have right now. But after that, you will need to talk to your grandfather. He will be the one to tell you who your father really was. He knew him the best.”
I beg to differ on that. I’m starting to think my mother may have known the real him, even though I had doubted that for so many years, but I’m holding my judgment on that until I hear more from this guy.
“Mhmm,” is all I can answer, and before Broderick starts again, Flynn speaks up.
“I think I should leave you two to talk. This sounds like it’s private and something you need to do on your own.” As he starts to stand, I grab his forearm and reef him back down on the step next to me.
“Stay,” I growl at him. I hope he understands the gruffness is not directed at him and more at how much I need him here right now. He is like a brother to me, the only person I trust in this world to hold me together tonight.
He reaches for my shoulder and gives it a slight squeeze, letting me know he’s got me, and that’s all I need.
“You mother told me that you know about your father and that he was going home to the UK, with plans to return quickly to her side.” My blood is already racing at the words that have fueled my anger all my life. “But sadly, he never made it back.”
My heart feels like there is a vice squeezing it tighter and tighter with every word he speaks.
“Richard arrived in London on a miserable rainy day, with no one knowing he was coming. So instead of his parents arranging to pick him up, he caught a cab to head home, and there was a car accident on the way. He bore the brunt of a lorry hitting the side of his cab that had lost control and was sliding sideways in the water, across into the path of the lorry. Both Richard and the cab driver were killed on impact, in what was a very sad and terrible tragedy.”
The tears are building in my eyes for a man I never knew, yet for the first time in my entire life, I wish I could have had that chance.
“Did he suffer?” I suddenly feel desperate to know if the man who gave me life felt any pain.
“All reports to your grandparents at the time said it was instantaneous, and he wouldn’t have felt anything.” He reached out to put his hand on my knee to comfort me. I don’t want him to touch me, but I don’t have the energy to push him away. He understands the message, though, when I flinch, so he slowly removes it again. I’ve never been a man to show emotion, so I’m so far off kilter at the moment, and luckily, he sees that.
“He was an only child, so you can understand how devastated your grandparents were. So, to find out that he had a son has given your grandfather the greatest joy.”
“But how did he find me, and why now? Why after all these years?” There are so many questions now rushing into my head.
“You need to remember that the internet and social media didn’t exist then, like it does now. Your grandfather never knew about your mother because he didn’t get to speak to Richard at all about his travels in Australia.”
“You keep saying grandfather. What about my grandmother?” Seeing the look on his face, I know the answer.
“Sadly, Aileen passed away five years ago, and that was when Charles found a letter in her treasure box from Richard, that he had posted to them both before he left Australia. She had opened it all those years ago but never shared it, and Charles didn’t even know it existed. I’m guessing it was too painful for your grandmother to read his words, and she wanted to spare Charles. But I guess we will never really know why she kept it a secret.”
“What did it say? He wouldn’t have said anything about me, he didn’t even know I existed. Mum didn’t find out until he was gone.” My head hangs low as the words I just said sink in. My father never knew he had a child. That pain in my chest is getting harder to bear.
“No, you’re right, but your father did talk a lot about your mother and how much he loved her. He had every intention of going back to live in Australia and marry her.”
“Fuck!” I can’t stay sitting any longer, and I stand abruptly and storm toward the water’s edge. Everything I had doubted for all these years was just as she told me it was. They had fallen in love in such a short time frame, but their happily ever after that they both were dreaming of was never meant to be.
I don’t know how long I stand staring out at the ripples of the harbor water catching the city lights on it. Broderick and Flynn just leave me to take all the time I need to digest the bomb that has just been dropped on me.
I take a big deep breath to try to get some oxygen into my lungs because I feel like I currently have an elephant sitting on my chest, then I turn back to my best friend and the man who just blew up my world.
“But he didn’t know her surname, so how did you find her? There must be thousands and thousands of women named Sally living in Australia.” Slowly walking back to my seat, some of the anger from earlier is overtaken by such sadness.
