“Well, I guess that answers most of my other questions,” Randy said.
“What?” Castillo asked.
Randy looked him in the eyes. “Like why I look just like the pictures of your father, Colonel Castillo, sir. And why Abuela wanted me to call her Abuela. And—”
“He didn’t know?” Svetlana suddenly exclaimed. “Oh, Carlos!”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t know. I think everybody else knew. My Grandfather Wilson has known all the time. And, of course, I think it’s safe to assume Mom knows—”
“Randy!” Castillo said.
“Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me?” Randy asked.
Castillo saw that the boy was on the edge of tears.
“I don’t think your father knows,” Castillo said gently.
Which is true.
I don’t think Righteous Randolph would be able to believe his wife ever had been to bed with me.
Much less believe that their honeymoon child was mine.
“Is that an admission, Colonel Castillo, sir, that I am in fact your bastard son?”
“Oh, Randy!” Svetlana said.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Randy demanded, his voice cracking. “What kind of a man would—”
“Shut up!” Castillo ordered.
Both Svetlana and Randy looked at him in shock.
“I have a habit of saying—and, of course, thinking I’m clever when I say it—that when you don’t know what to say, try telling the truth. Are you able to handle the truth, Randy?”
The boy nodded.
“Okay, let’s start with being a bastard.”
“Carlos!” Svetlana said warningly.
“My parents were not married. That makes me a bastard. You learn to live with it. My mother loved me deeply and I deeply loved her. I am sure that my father would have—but he never knew about me. He was killed before I was born.”
Charley looked at Svetlana.
“He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Svet. And Randy’s grandfather was his co-pilot.”
“At Fort Rucker,” Randy said, “there’s a picture of them in a building they named for Colonel Castillo’s father—or should I say ‘my other grandfather’? He won the Medal of Honor. I look just like him. Did you really think nobody would ever know?”
“Well, I didn’t know until we flew down to see the Mastersons and the Lorimers—yeah, Svet, our Ambassador Lorimer—right after Hurricane Katrina.”
He met Randy’s eyes.
“I honest to God didn’t know about you, Randy. Worse, in Mississippi, after Ambassador Lorimer told me, ‘Your son has eyes just like yours,’ I told him I didn’t have a son.”
“My God!” Svetlana said. “You really didn’t know!”
“So he says,” Randy said more than a little sarcastically.
“I’m getting off the track here,” Castillo said. “One point I was trying to make, Randy, is that I can’t work up a hell of a lot of sympathy for you. You have a loving mother, and she’s still around. Mine died when I was twelve. I never knew my father, and you’ve had a good man all of your life who thinks he’s your father and who loves you.”
“You sonofabitch!”
“No,” Castillo replied more calmly than he expected. “I am not a sonofabitch, and neither are you. My mother was the antithesis of a bitch, and so is yours. Think what you like of me, but never ever apply that term to me. And never allow anyone to apply it to you.”
The boy glared at him but didn’t reply.
“Clear, Randy? Say, ‘Yes, sir.’”
After a long moment, the boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“This is not to suggest that I am a man of principle and sterling character,” Castillo went on. “The opposite is true, as a great many people, including your mother, have learned from painful experience.
“And that’s the reason that your mother, when she found out that you were on the way . . .”
Castillo paused. He made a face as he visibly gathered his thoughts.
“Did I lie to your mother? Yes, I did. Did I feed her martinis knowing full well how they would affect her? You bet your ass I did. Did I take advantage of her naïve notion that because I was a West Pointer I had the same moral attributes as her father and Lieutenant Randolph Richardson III—and that I would not lie, cheat, or steal to get what I wanted from her? You can bet your naïve little ass I did.
“Getting the picture?”
Randy stood stone-faced.
“Your mother had a tough call to make. She had to decide between who would be the better father to the child she was carrying—a thoroughly decent man who loved her or . . .”
“You,” Randy said.
“. . . or a man who would lie, cheat, and steal to get whatever he wanted, and never lose a moment’s sleep over it. And it is now self-evident that she made the right decision.”
The boy just looked at him.
“So now you have a decision to make, Randy. You can wallow in self-pity—‘poor little me’—and tell everybody how everyone—your mother, your grandfather, me, Abuela, the man you call Uncle Fernando—has abused you. And if you do, the result of that will be that you will hurt, deeply hurt, not only all of them but also the only man who’s absolutely innocent in all of this—the man who has been de facto your father all of your life. You owe him better than that.”
Castillo let that sink in a moment.
“Or . . . you can keep this secret a secret.”
After looking at Castillo for a full ten seconds, Randolph J. Richardson IV’s face contorted. He blurted, “I have to piss.”
Castillo pointed toward the bathroom door, and the boy ran to it.
They heard the door close, then the unmistakable sound of him being nauseated.
Castillo looked at Svet.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said softly.
“How much of what you said to him was true?” she replied as softly.
“I don’t know, baby. I don’t even know what I said, or where it came from; my mouth was on autopilot.”
She ran the balls of her fingers down his cheek.
They heard the sound of water running for a long time, and when Randy came out, his new T-shirt was almost soaking wet.
He didn’t make it to the john before he threw up; he fouled himself.
Then washed the shirt.
What have I done?
“Want to borrow a shirt?” Castillo asked.
“If I did that, my father would ask what happened to this one,” the boy replied logically. “If I keep it on, it will dry pretty quick.”
“Makes sense. Your call.”
The boy met his eyes.
“If you’re really such an all-around sonof—bastard, as you say you are, why should I believe anything you said?”
“I guess that’s your call, too, Randy,” Castillo said evenly.
Randy considered that, then nodded once.
“I guess, even after everything, I don’t think you’re a liar.”
“Well, counting Abuela, Max, and Svetlana, that’s three of you against the rest of the world.”
“Is that your real name? Svetlana?”
“Yes, it is.”
He looked back at Castillo. “You going to tell me what’s going on around here?”
“No.”
“I should have known that the story of you getting kicked out of the Army was bullshit.”
“Why?”
“Grandfather Wilson, when you started showing up at Abuela’s house when I was there, said I should never ask you what you do in the Army. He said you couldn’t talk about it, that you were an intelligence officer. He said that General McNab told him you were the best one he’d ever known.”
It took Castillo a good fifteen seconds to find his voice.