It was a slow morning, but it was always a slow morning on Wednesday for Captain Kenneth Ford in his small office that was decorated sparsely minus a few old maps, and some plaques on the wall. There was one family photo on his desk from a Christmas past of him and his sister with his mom and Dad on what would have been their 30th wedding anniversary.
There was a plain mug filled with coffee, black since he trained himself to drink it like that back in his early twenties and at thirty-four he kept up with it. Then again at thirty-four, he didn't expect his life to be as it was. He didn't expect to be separated, divorce pending, or to be where he was in his career. He definitely didn't think he would still be in the Army that was sure, but he was and he did enjoy it most days.
Once his emails were sent out he really didn't have much left to do until the afternoon. As as it was the junior officers had the morning off. Sometimes he would hit up the gym or walk around the block if it was nice out.
Something other than sitting in his office if he could help it. He was just on his way out when his phone rang with the familiar number of his sister.
"Captain Ford," Ken says picking up the phone despite knowing it was his sister. He turned it on speaker before setting the phone back down
"Ken, it's Persis," says and Ken smiles to himself
"I know, what's up is mom and dad all right?" Ken replies back, clicking away on his computer before shutting the program. "I was just heading to the gym."
"Oh yea of course, sorry I didn't mean to bother you at work but I have a rather urgent question for you,"
"Okay?" Ken said rather intrigued by his sister.
"Why is this ancestry DNA site telling me that I have a blood relative, it is potentially a niece or nephew?"
"Excuse me?" Ken says flabbergasted.
"I feel like it is saying that you have a kid," Persis tells him rather redundantly.
"I think I would know if I had a kid," Ken tells his sister sarcastically. "I can count on one hand all the women I've been with and none of them had a kid nine months after breaking up. Also, I never wanted to do that damn DNA thing that was all Odette and we know how she felt about children." Ken says.
It was one of the reasons why they broke up in the first place. Well sort of, it was when he realized she had been cheating on him and when the nurse corrected her dates Ken realized it was impossible that the child was his. He had been gone for work in another country and when he confronted her about it, it all came tumbling out. She didn't mean it, it was a mistake.
She miscarried a few weeks later and he found himself much too relieved that he asked for a divorce he didn't have to worry about that anymore.
"Plus wouldn't it notify me if it popped up?" Ken.
"I don't know you rarely check your email on a good day if it's not for work, plus didn't Odette start this?" Persis reminded him. "Who knows what email she used?"
"Persis it's obviously a mistake, even if it was true. Most of my exes are on Facebook these days married to other people and no one has kids old enough." Ken stresses to her.
"What about the green fairy girl?" Persis asks. "The one who got away? I mean theoretically, there would be a possibility? I mean if you didn't know each other and if she got pregnant, she wouldn't know how to find you?"
"Pers, I tried to figure out who she was and it was like she disappeared into thin air. No one knew who she was, probably some friend of a friend who came for the night." Ken says holding his head in his hands.
"Just go check out this damn site then," Persis growls at her brother getting impatient. The last thing I need is for it to pop up in there and for them to email me as well if they did email you."
"Let me sign into this blasted site," Ken says with a sigh and grabs his personal tablet and not his work computer. Email? Username? He doesn't get emails so it must be the one she had created for the two of them?
"What the hell did That witch use?" He groans thinking about his ex-wife.
It takes him a good moment before he cracks the login and password. It's not like she used anything hard. KFord82 he remembers requesting like a bunch of his other things.
"So where the blasted am I going?" He asks already tired of this process to prove his sister wrong. Really was there a way to erase this from the site?
He clicks on the leaf that tells him that he has a biological sister in the network. Well, that was Persis obviously, and it says so when he accepts it. Then the page loads, there are no other people on it yet.
But there it is, a small icon.
Child.
It's been there for a while at this point it feels like.
He goes to the mail section and waits for it to load. Then he sees an opened mail.
Halloween, 2006, Someone you need to know about.
Odette had seen this, this was over three months old, just about the time they separated for good. God, he wanted to call and scream at her for hiding this and not telling him! They hadn't even been together in 2006!
2006
Halloween.
He actually potentially had a child he didn't know about for almost ten years? Did she ever try and find him?"
"Persis, I'm going to let you go." He says into the phone before he ends the call on his sister.
He doesn't even know how to process but First, he goes into settings and changes his log-in information quickly to his own private email before shutting the tablet.
He needs a walk, a run, anything for him to process such news.
He barely processes as he walks out the building, his dark wool peacoat flapping in the wind. He only stops to nod to the officers who salute to him outside of the building. He walked around the small airport over to the park across the way.
Does he have a child?
He has a child he knew nothing about. For almost ten years!
He had been prepared to raise a child that wasn't his last year because he couldn't fathom leaving a pregnant woman. Even though neither of them had wanted children really, but it had hit him like a ton of bricks. How much that child has meant to him in such a short time.
Of course, he was worried, he's been deployed before, it was their main reason when they decided on the topic of children.
Now, this just happened and fell into his life? He didn't know how to make sense of things.
He thought back to the date of the email. Five months ago, it must have come through at the height of the separation. Odette not telling him to spite him for leaving despite she was the one who ruined their marriage.
If he had any contact that wasn't through a lawyer, he might yell at her, but what did was done and he was done with all of that.
He had his new apartment, closer to the armoury that housed his branch of #2 Intelligence Branch. Life was settling into a pattern, or it was until this bombshell dropped into his lap, he wasn't sure which he preferred, metaphorical or real in this moment of time.
The walk clears his head enough that he can form a formal reply to this mystery person. Part of him wants to call his family, but there is no use in getting them excited for a potential grandchild when it might be all a mistake. It also brings him back to that night, she disappeared in the early morning, the only reminder was green makeup and glitter that was all over the room he was staying in.
No name, no number, the green fairy just flew away.
Yes, it was best to keep this to himself and tell Persis to keep it to herself as well. He hadn't heard of his parents doing the ancestry thing yet. So he shouldn't have to worry about such things yet.
Another cup of coffee, a touch of cream this time. Because he needs something different to compose this email. His lunch pushed off to the side of his desk, nothing seemed appetizing to him at this moment.
Hello
Apologies for the late reply. I did not see this until my sister today alerted me of this. The account was created on an old email of mine.
I was at a Halloween party in 2006, in London Ontario. Feel free to call me at this number, for a quick reply. It is my work number, but I have it on me always.
He finished with Ford and paused for a second before hitting send.
Now he would wait.