Another Tracy business meeting over.
Virg and I stopped by reception on our way out of the building to pick up mail and chat awhile with Monica, who already looked harassed even though it was only early. She handed me a pile of letters and manila envelopes and gave the eye to Virgil who leaned his elbow on her desk and told her she looked beautiful.
I riffled idly through the stack as Mon and my brother flirted.
"You want him? He's yours," I said wryly, "but he's a bear first thing in the mornings."
On the way out to the car, Virgil punched me on the arm. "I think it's you she really wants," he grinned good-naturedly. "She only flirts with me to show you what you're missing."
"Get outta here," I snorted. But you know, it's always flattering to know that women like you.
In the airplane on the way home, with Virgil piloting, I took the opportunity to open some letters and get a little business out the way. It was mainly bills and invoices.
"Boring...boring...boring..."
An envelope completely different from the others caught my eye.
"What's this?" I asked, holding it up. It was pale yellow, A4 size, and had my name care of the Tracy Corporation building handwritten on the front in small, neat capital letters.
"Beats me, Scott," my brother shrugged. "Why don't you open it?"
I tore carefully along the flap, peered inside at the contents.
"Anything exciting?" Virgil wondered, peering with me.
I shook the contents out. A folded piece of stationary and two photographs landed in my lap.
The photographs were of a little boy, about three years old. One of him on his own, grinning toothily at the camera. One of him with a beaming woman holding him in her slender arms.
I knew her face.
"What the...?" I muttered softly, feeling something tear inside my chest .
I opened up the folded piece of paper, noticed that my fingers had started shaking.
"What's it say, Scott? What is it?" Virgil, sensing danger, was impatient.
I read the letter aloud, trying hard to keep my voice calm and steady. But half way through I couldn't hold it in, I felt my throat constrict and choke.
"Dear Scott," it read. "It's been over three years, so I don't even know if you remember me, but every day I think of you and wonder where you are. I've thought long and hard about contacting you over the years, but every time I put pen to paper I couldn't think of the right words to say. However, the time has come to let you know the reason why you're always in my thoughts, even though we weren't together very long.
The reason is here in this envelope, my beautiful, blond haired boy, Joshua. He has your eyes, he has your smile. He's so like you it hurts to think he'll never know his daddy.
My contact number and email are at the bottom of this letter.
Please contact me, Scott, so that you can get to know your baby boy.
Love, Siobhan Michaels, nee O'Donnell."
Virgil stared, shocked into silence. I held the photo of the little boy with trembling fingers and looked hard at all his features. He had soft, white-blond hair, hanks of it falling over his eyes. His studious little eyes were deep-sea blue, his eyebrows darker blond and quite defined. His nose was a little button in the centre of his face, but his mouth was so like mine it made me catch my breath.
"Virgil, this is not happening," I shook my head from side to side, aware of rising panic. "This is not happening."
"Okay, Scott, well, it pretty much looks like it is happening, so take a deep breath and try to relax. We'll get you home and think about where we go from here."
Virgil kept me calm and steady all the way home, but even for him it took some doing. My skin was cold with dread, my tongue a swollen lump inside my mouth. I stared out the window, unblinking, dazed and fearful.
What the hell was going to happen now?
Chapter 2
Virgil helped me with the first hurdle, getting past dad without him noticing something was badly wrong. Clutching that damned envelope we hurried to my room, and once inside I locked the door and went straight over to the computer.
"I'm getting to the bottom of this," I said angrily. "I'll find out what the hell is going on."
Virgil stood behind me as I logged into my account. With the piece of paper on my desk I activated my free calls network and jabbed the numbers in with a clammy finger.
The call connected and a phone somewhere in LA started ringing.
Virgil placed his hand on my shoulder, squeezed lightly.
Someone answered just as I was thinking of disconnecting. A woman, sounding breathless. In the background the sound was unmistakeable, a child crying hard, bawling its eyes out.
A child?
My child?
"Hello?" the woman sighed, then broke off before I could speak. "Joshua, no honey, leave the cat. She's already scratched you once."
I glanced at Virgil. Dammit, if the guy wasn't smirking. I frowned hard at him, which only made him break out into a big, wide grin.
"Is this Siobhan Michaels?" I asked, tentatively.
"Yes, this is she. Who is this?" the child cried harder, and a cat yowled.
"This is Scott. Scott Tracy," I informed her.
There was silence from her end, bar the child and the cat.
"Scott," she said at last, her voice subdued and small. "I didn't think you'd get in touch. And certainly not this soon."
"Well, you know, I kind of figured it was important. It's not every day I get told I have a secret kid."
Virgil squeezed my shoulder harder. "Be nice, buddy," he whispered.
"I'm sorry, Siobhan," I said. "It's turning into one of those days."
"I never found the right time to tell you, Scott. I still didn't know what I was doing even after I mailed the letter off. But I just wanted you to know, I just thought, Joshua is the most beautiful little boy, he's so like you, he reminds me so much..."
She broke off. She started to cry. With her and the little boy still in tears, they sounded like a bad karaoke duet. My heart softened, though. I'm not a total ass.
"I remember you, Siobhan," I said, trying to soothe her pain. "I do remember you, of course I do."
Siobhan O'Donnell briefly worked in the advertising department at Tracy Corps in New York. One day I took her for a drink to discuss a billboard campaign for a new piece of green technology. The drink turned into dinner, and the dinner turned into a weekend spent in bed at her apartment. We saw each other on and off for just a few months, before she got headhunted by a rival advertising firm and moved out to LA. We knew it'd never work anyway. I told her from the start it couldn't get serious. She'd seemed okay with that. At least she was on my wavelength.
Which made this all the more unbelievable.
"It wasn't supposed to happen, Scott," she sniffed. "I was on protection, if you know what I mean. I just don't know what happened. I only found out after I'd moved to LA and we'd already agreed it was over."
"How did you manage with work?" I asked. Getting pregnant just as you started a new job had got to be a no-no, I thought.
"I had to quit in the end. There was no way I was going to...you know, not keep it. It was bad enough that I used protection, with my Catholic upbringing." She managed a small rueful laugh. "Not that it did me any good. Must have been God having the last laugh, eh?"
"So you became a single mom?"
"At first. I'm married now, though. Darren came along and I figured Joshua needed a daddy. Or at least, if he couldn't have a daddy, then an Uncle."
"Siobhan?" I asked gently, trying to be as tactful as I could. "Are you certain he's my son?"
There was another lonely pause before she spoke.
"Yes, Scott, I'm certain he's your son. You were the only man I slept with that whole year. After you, there was no-one else until I met Darren, and Joshua had already been born."
Virgil released the breath he'd been holding. It whooshed past my ear, strong enough to ruffle my hair.
"Put your webcam on," I said. I leaned forward and switched on mine.
In moments she was on the screen, and she looked the same as I remembered- thick chestnut hair and soulful green eyes. But she also looked tired, forlorn, and slightly lost.
I looked past her, and there he was, sitting in the middle of the front room floor.
"Joshua," I whispered.
She fetched him, held him up to the camera. He twisted in her arms, shying away.
"Say hello to Scott," she crooned. "Say hello, you big, brave boy."
He pulled a bashful face, put his hands over his eyes.
"My God, he looks like Alan when Alan was that age," Virgil said with wonder in his voice.
I swallowed, hard. There was no doubt on God's earth the little boy had Tracy genes.
Chapter 3
What the hell was I supposed to tell dad?
"Hey, dad! Guess what, you're a grandfather! Pass the beans!"
"Hey, dad! Guess what, your firstborn doesn't fire blanks!"
"Hey, dad. Sit down, take a very deep breath."
I had to get dad on his own for this. I wanted Virgil there, but it wasn't fair on him. Dad was going to blow his top and I didn't want Virgil caught up in the middle. He's enough of a peacemaker round here as it is.
Dad was in his study, where he takes time out to relax. Not that he relaxes that often, but sometimes he likes to listen to a little music and put his feet up.
I knocked on the door. "Dad, it's me, Scott. I need a word with you."
"Okay, Scott, come in," he said, in that deep, measured tone of his.
I stood in front of him feeling small and stupid. He leaned back in his leather relaxer and gave me the once-over, seeing immediately that something was up.
"What is it, son?" he asked. "Something on your mind?"
"Er, well, kind of, yes." I shuffled on my feet like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Actually, dad, it's a biggie. I'm kind of glad you're already sitting down."
"Looks like you'd better sit down too, Scott," my father said. "You've gone a slightly worrying shade of grey."
I sat opposite him on a leather armchair. I clasped my hands nervously in my lap. If only he wouldn't look at me like a fourth grade teacher, I thought.
"Dad," I started, and began to hesitate already. "Dad..."
"Spit it out, son. I want to hear it."
I took a very large breath, and began to speak. "Dad, three years ago, maybe a little over that, I was seeing someone from Tracy Corp. It didn't last very long, and when it was over I thought that was the last of it." I cleared my throat, fingered the photo in my back pocket. "That is, until I got this."
I pulled out the photo and gave it to dad. He looked at it for long, silent moments, only his eyebrows raised. His eyes moved slowly over the image, his brain taking in what he saw. Finally he raised his eyes and looked directly at me. My throat was as dry as the Sahara in dry season.
"And who is this?" he asked.
"Um, dad, that's Joshua." I cleared my throat. "He's mine, by all accounts. His mom wanted me to know I had a son. It's not for purposes of blackmail, or anything like that."
Dad's eyebrows climbed so high, they were nearly halfway up his head.
"Yours, Scott?" He said loudly, colour creeping into his cheeks. "your son?"
"Mine." I tried a rueful aw-shucks grin. My father wasn't too impressed.
He dropped his gaze to the photo again, studied it harder than ever. He held it to the light, held it further away, peered at it up close.
"He does have your eyes," he said at last. "And Alan's hair. And your mother's nose."
"And something of Siobhan," I added. "I think he's got her chin."
"Siobhan?" My father asked, looking at me quizzically.
"The mother. Er, the woman I was seeing. She worked in the ads department. Like I said, it was kind of just a fling, but..." I trailed off. I'm good at that.
My father sighed so deeply that his shoulders almost seemed to slump.
"To be truthful with you, Scott, I'm surprised that something like this hasn't already happened- to any one of you boys."
I chewed my lip. Cast my eyes down at the patterned carpet. I wasn't looking for excuses. What happened had happened. And it had happened to me.
"Are you angry, dad?" I ventured.
"How can I be?" he said. "He's a Tracy, and he looks so much like you."
"it means that you're a granddad," I told him. "How do you feel about that?"
"Well, I..."
"It's kind of unreal, huh. He's already three years old, too. All this time I've been a dad, and I didn't even know."
It hit me then, what I'd just said.
I'm a dad.
And dammit, if my eyes didn't fill with tears.
Chapter 4
You can imagine the stir it caused when everyone found out I had a son. Apart from Virgil, and dad, who already knew, the others swarmed around me like honey bees on a mission.
Gordon was wide-eyed with wonder, staring at all the pictures downloaded from Siobhan's website. Alan whooped with laughter and clapped me heartily on the back. Tin-Tin burst into tears, and John gave me a knowing wink from his portrait on the wall.
Siobhan and I talked all through the night, glued to the glow from our computer screens, staring at each other via webcam. Joshua played happily on her lap until it was time for him to go to bed, and I sighed gently when he disappeared from view, cradled in her arms in his Tigger romper suit.
She sent me photos right from when he was born, and in the mail she sent a lock of his hair. I took it out of its plastic envelope and held it to my nose, smelled its baby smell, brushed it over my lips. My heart swelled and surged, and grew protective like a lion's.
He was mine. My boy, my baby, my cub.
Joshua.
She said he liked airplanes, that he got that from me. I parcelled up a scaled down model of the type of fighter jet I used to fly, and sent it out to LA with my love.
Money wasn't an issue, she wasn't after that. Her husband had a steady job and worked all hours to give my boy the things he needed. All she wanted was my involvement in his life. She knew I couldn't tell her what I did, she knew I had my secrets and I couldn't make commitments. we'd discussed all that in bed one night while she lay wrapped around me like a vine.
Was that the night it happened?
Joshua will find out one day that I'm his real father, and that he has four precious uncles and an aunty and a granddad who are already madly in love with him.
One day he'll meet us all. Before dad gets too old. When he's old enough to understand what we do, and why our identities must never be known. I'll show him Thunderbird One. I'll sit him in the pilot's seat. I'll show him how it works, I'll take him on a flight.
I'll train him up, I'll be there for him, I'll never let him go.
I'm already picking out a colour for his sash.
END