HANNAH
It's just gone 8am when I wake, the house is peaceful. I shower quickly and dress and then make my way downstairs to get breakfast. Carrick is sat at the kitchen table, it looks like he's already had breakfast as he sips a coffee.
"Morning Carrick, can I get you anything else?" I ask.
"Morning Hannah, I'm fine thanks. Matt asked me to say goodbye to you." Carrick says and smiles at me. "And I have to make sure you eat."
"He was worrying about me?" I ask and he nods. "I wish he wouldn't, I'm stronger than he thinks I am and sometimes he needs to concentrate on himself more."
"I know but he's always been the same, he's worried about everything, I don't think he'll change." Carrick says.
"But then there's the other times where he doesn't give two hoots about what anyone thinks and he just does stuff despite the consequences." I say with a smile.
"I know." Carrick says as he smiles back at me. "Hannah, please don't take this the wrong way and I don't want to speak out of turn but Matt talked very briefly about the prenup and..."
"I hope you don't think I was only marrying him for his money. I love him, even if he had nothing I would still love him. l...l..." I start to stutter as I don't really know what to say now. I'm upset, angry, emotional.
"Hannah." Carrick says gently and I look at him with tears in my eyes. He grins at me and continues "Matt is going to be cross with me, firstly for upsetting you and secondly because you haven't had breakfast yet."
"I'll eat soon." I mutter though suddenly I don't feel hungry.
"The reason I brought the prenup up is that I want to make sure that your interests are covered and protected as best as they can be. Matt told me the basics about how you will only split anything you bought together after you were married and his future earnings but if you both go to university then he won't be earning a salary for a few years." Carrick says gently.
"There was a bit more to it than that. It lists things like custody of children depending on circumstances and a house for me up to a certain value, we looked at houses that I liked in Bellevue and I picked one on the gated community near our school and we wrote down the current value, I think it was about six hundred thousand which I thought was expensive but Matt said he was happy with it." I say. "Would you like to take a look at the paperwork?"
"Talk to Matt first about it and see if he's happy for me to look at it or if you prefer one of my partners can look through it. I don't want to upset either of you." Carrick says.
"Thanks. Well I suppose I'd better have something to eat so my husband doesn't get upset and then I need to get on with my schoolwork." I say.
"I have some calls to make so will use Matt's study and leave you in peace." Carrick says as he stands and leaves the kitchen and I start to make my breakfast.
CARRICK
As I sit down at Matt's desk I check my phone. Grace has texted to say that she arrived at work ok after dropping Mia at her apartment. I phone Christian but have to leave a message, he's probably already in a meeting. Next on the list is Rob and he answers straight away.
"Morning Carrick."
"Morning Rob. How are you and Louise? I ask.
"Not too bad. I've not told her all the details yet. How was Jack this morning?" he asks.
"Worried about going to the station but I've told him to concentrate on the exam. I think we could probably keep his name off the report and he might not have to appear in court. I'm sure there must be others and I've left a message for Christian and I'm hoping he'll update me this morning." I say.
"Thanks Carrick, I appreciate everything you're doing to help Jack." Rob says.
"You're welcome. I'll keep you updated with any new information and as soon as we've finished at the station I'll bring Jack home." I say. "I also spoke to Matt about where he stayed, he didn't realise who Mark was."
"Did he mention how close they are?" Rob asks.
"No, he just said how he was in the army and spoke lots of languages and he still visits the Rose Harbor Inn, oh and how Mark helped you build the new garage." I say.
"You do know Matt speaks lots of languages as well." Rob says.
"Well yes, French and Spanish and a little bit of Italian and German, he seems to just pick them up easily." I say thinking back to holidays abroad where he would happily converse with the locals.
"How about Russian and Iraqi?" Rob asks and I gulp, where the hell did he learn those? "I can tell from your silence you didn't know about those two but when Mark was helping with the garage the two of them would often speak in different languages, some I could understand as I did a few tours in Europe but the Russian and Iraqi I didn't have a clue."
"Thanks for the info, sometimes I think I don't know my own son." I say.
"Likewise." Rob mutters.
"Would you still like me to contact Helen and try and find out the lay of the land?" I ask.
"Yes please. I'm happy for you to pass my details to her or ask if I could contact her, whatever she would be happy with, hopefully she will want to see me on Saturday." he says.
"Great, I'll phone her now and again will keep you updated." I say. "Speak to you later."
"Thanks Carrick." he says and I click off the phone. I sit for a few moments and think about the latest news on Matt who has always been full of surprises and wonder where he found the time to learn languages on top of everything else he's done. Next I call Helen and know it will be an interesting conversation.
"Hi Carrick, how are you?" Helen says when she answers.
"Good thanks Helen, how's things with you?" I ask to be polite.
"Good. I'm home as I've got my assistant working this morning. How's Hannah doing? Is she keeping up with her school work?" Helen asks.
"Yes, she been working really hard and non stop. She's way ahead of where she needs to be right now and is aiming to be complete by the end of January." I say.
"That's good news, I do wonder how she's going to cope when the babies arrive." she says.
"That's one of the reasons why I'm calling. We found Matt." I say.
"Oh." she says with disappointment and I do wonder why she has a dislike for my son. OK so he led Hannah astray when they were younger at school and then he got her pregnant but he did pay off her mortgage and sorted out all the accounts at the florists so now she's getting a healthy profit. "Well that's good news for you and Grace, she must be relieved to have him home."
"Actually he's not returned home. He has a house in Port Orchard and is at school there." I say.
"Port Orchard." she mutters.
"Yes, it's a lovely small town, Matt's happy and Hannah has visited and likes it as well." I say, I don't want to give too much away.
"Will they stay there or will they still go to university?" Helen asks.
"At the moment the plan is university. Hannah has received a scholarship to Pullman and even though Hannah seemed reluctant at first to accept Matt has encouraged her and is keen for her to go." I say trying to paint Matt in a good light.
"So he doesn't want to totally screw up her life." Helen says.I breathe in sharply and want to explode.
"Helen, what is your problem with Matt?" I say calmly.
"He's always led a charmed life, totally spoilt and he seemed to get away with everything he got up to at school. Anyone else would have been expelled. He always dragged Hannah into whatever he was up to and she was on a scholarship and had to prove herself every year and yet he still finished top of the class above her." Helen says. Is she jealous? I'm baffled.
"Helen, we're probably going to disagree on this but Matt has led a very sheltered life and been over protected by us to the point where he didn't have the same liberties as most kids his age. We kept him on a tight leash and he certainly didn't get away with things. He was always punished for the things he got up to at school but none of it was serious enough for an expulsion, in fact most of it was harmless pranks due to boredom. He is naturally very clever and could have skipped grades and finished school a couple of years ago but we kept him with his age group as he was firm friends with both Hannah and Jonty and we just wanted him to be happy after his parents accident. Every year we were offered a scholarship for him but we turned it down so that it could go to parents who couldn't afford to send their children to the school. We tried not to spoil him but he didn't go without things that he needed. He registered himself at the state funded community school in Port Orchard and is doing extremely well and will hopefully get his diploma at the end of January so that he can take care of Hannah and the babies. He won't totally screw up her life and he will provide her with everything that she needs and wants and more on top. Both Grace and I are very proud of the young man he has become and are looking forward to welcoming the twins when they arrive and we will do everything we can to fully support Matt and Hannah with their new family." I tell her as calmly as I can though I feel a burning rage inside. Where did all that come from? I didn't even call her to discuss Matt.
"I'm sorry Carrick, I didn't realise." Helen says.
"Most people don't know how difficult it was and still is for him." I say. "Anyway I didn't call to discuss Matt. Sorry if this sounds personal but do you have any siblings?"
"No." she says and I sigh, Rob must have been wrong. "But I did have a brother, he passed away when I was about ten, my mother never got over it, my father moved us from one place to another, we even changed our surname about three times but I was never sure why, dad said it was something to do with unwanted attention from the press."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you know the circumstances of your brother's passing?" I ask.
"No not really, I know he argued with dad about joining the navy, dad was against it for some reason but Robert was adamant, he hadn't been gone long, a couple of months maybe and apparently he fell from a ship and his body was never found." Helen says. So part of the story matches, the name, the Navy but not the passing. How am I going to break this to her that her brother might still be alive?
"Helen, are you sitting down?" I ask.
"Yes." she says but sounds puzzled.
"There's no easy way of saying this but I think there might be a chance that your brother is still alive." I say gently.
"No." she says in shock. "How? Why.? I don't understand?"
"Rob is living in Port Orchard with his family. Jack his son is friendly with Matt, we had dinner last night and Rob said Hannah is the spitting image of your mother though we haven't said anything to Hannah yet."
"Jack was my grandfather's name." she whispers. "Are there any other children?"
"A twin sister called Lola." I say and I hear a sharp intake of breath.
"My mom's name. It must be him." she says quietly.
"Surname Briant."
"Yes."
"He's coming to Bellevue on Saturday afternoon and would like to meet you if that's ok." I say.
"Yes of course. I can't believe it. Oh my, this is going to be a huge shock for my mom, my dad passed away last year but my mom is now living in the assisted living apartments near the Bravern Centre." Helen says.
"Let's take this one step at a time, where would you like to meet Rob on Saturday? It will probably be about 4pm, I can give him your address or would you prefer somewhere neutral?" I ask.
"My house is good. Thank you Carrick." Helen says.
"It's probably Matt you should be thanking." I say. "Helen before I go I need to ask a favour, Matt is coming back to Bellevue this evening and he needs some flowers in the morning, he's always got them from your florists, would it be ok for him to still come to you?"
"Yes of course, I will see him first thing." Helen says. We both say goodbye and I switch off the phone. There's a brief message from Christian.
"Hi dad, between meetings but there are others. At least four. Welch still searching. Will call later."
I call Rob and wait for the phone to connect. "Briant."
"Can you speak?" I ask.
"Yes."
"There are other's, at least four. I don't know any more details as Christian is in meetings but Welch is still searching." I say.
"Fuck. This could just be the tip of the iceberg." Rob says.
"Yes that's what I thought." I say. "I've also spoken to Helen, she is your sister. Apparently your father said you'd fallen from a ship, body never found."
"Bastard."
"They then moved around, changed their surname a few times. He passed away last year. Your mom is still alive, living in Bellevue and has never gotten over your passing." I say.
"What a mess." he mutters. "Will Helen see me?"
"Yes, her house on Saturday afternoon. You're probably best meeting and having a chat together before deciding what's the best way to approach the visit to your mom." I say.
"Thanks Carrick. I'd like to see mom as soon as possible but will let Helen take the lead with what we should do and of course I would love Jack and Lola to meet their Grandmother." Rob says.
"Very good. And you met your niece last night but you've also got three nephews who are all married with eight kids between them." I say with smile.
"Jeez, my family is huge." he says and I can tell he's grinning.
"I know. I'll see you later." I say and as he says goodbye I click off the phone again. I stand and head to the kitchen, I need a coffee.