Brendan didn’t know what to think. He looked away from his parents’ faces to the cupboards and the stove and the pots hanging above the sink. This was his home. He had never even dreamed that he didn’t belong here.
Suddenly, his mind was filled with the voice of Deirdre D’Anaan: Now you will know your true nature! He couldn’t get his head around it.
“Does Delia know?” he said at last.
“No,” his father said. “She was very young when we got you. We have never told her. We decided you should know first.”
Brendan suddenly felt angry. “Now? Now I should know? You’ve kept it a secret this long and you think telling me will help me in some way?” He pushed his chair back and stood, jostling the table and spilling his milk across the tabletop.
“Brendan!” His father stood. “Do not speak to your mother in that tone.”
“I won’t,” Brendan sneered. “If I ever meet her.” He instantly regretted what he’d said. His mother covered her face with her hands and began to sob. His father was at her side in an instant, encircling her shoulders with his arms.
Brendan felt so ashamed of himself. Why had he said something so cruel? She was his mother. She had always been there for him and now he had repaid her with cruelty.
“I…” he stammered. “I’m sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean it. I-”
His father raised a hand and smiled sadly. “I know. She knows too. It’s all right. Just head on up the wooden hill now. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Brendan wanted to go and hold his mum and make her understand that he was sorry. Instead, he made his way to the loft and flung himself down on the bed.
“Who am I, really?” he murmured to the space marine in the poster on the ceiling. Talk about the worst week ever. Maybe if I’d never made it to the end of the Murderball game, all of this wouldn’t have happened. He thought it would take forever to get to sleep, but the concert, the bizarre dream, and the revelation had sapped him completely. He flung an arm over his eyes and fell almost instantly asleep, a sleep that was thankfully devoid of dreams.
^43 Surreptitiously. How do you like that for a word? It means discreetly or sneakily. I could have just said sneakily or discreetly, but I didn’t, did I? Deal with it.
PART 2
Freaking Out and Running
Another Note from the Narrator
Certainly, not an elegant name for the next section but it accurately describes the action. Accuracy is important in narration. What if I’d called the next section
BRENDAN PETS A LITTLE DOG AND EATS A COB OF CORN
Ridiculous, I think you’d agree! There is no petting of dogs (little or large) and no corn is present in the narrative. You would have been confused, angry, and upset. You might have come to my home with torches and pitchforks and taken your vengeance upon me. I wouldn’t enjoy that, to say the least. Especially since I just had some landscaping done on the front yard, and it would break my heart to have an angry mob trample my geraniums. (Or gerania? I’m not certain of the plural form of geranium. Still, it’s beside the point.) I don’t want you to wreak your revenge upon me for the inaccuracy of my section titles. (Of course, I doubt that you would be able to find my house, even should you raise a vengeful mob. I live in a subdivision of Helsinki and the streets are very windy. I’m sure you’d get lost and there’s nothing that takes the wind out of an angry mob’s sails like endlessly wandering around, searching for the object of their fury.)
Let’s move on. Brendan is on the verge of some big changes. He’s discovered some shocking facts about himself. These shocking facts are just the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid. It’s time to start freaking out and running.
SEEING THINGS
Breakfast was strained. Brendan’s parents tried to be hearty and upbeat, but he could tell they were worried. His sister was her usual sensitive self. Whenever his parents weren’t looking, she flipped him the loser sign on her forehead. His parents kept sneaking looks at him, as if they were expecting him to lose it at any moment.
His father was off early to the coffee shop. His sister also left for a volleyball practice before school. Brendan was relieved to have a chance to talk to his mother alone. He waited until she came downstairs in her work suit. She was gathering up her notes and stuffing them into her briefcase when he finally worked up the nerve to approach her.
“Mum?”
She stopped what she was doing but she didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I was mean last night,” he said softly.
She looked up at him then, her eyes bright with tears. “I know. It’s a lot to accept. Maybe, we shouldn’t have told you… but we were worried about you.”
“Mum, I know,” Brendan said. “I’m sorry I’ve been weird lately. I guess it’s just hormones or something. I want you to know that you are my mum. No one else. That will never change.”
She started to cry, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him tight. “I’m so glad you said that. I always want to be your mother. I don’t regret anything.” She pulled away and looked up into his face. “I know what you’re thinking-why tell you now? Well, there is another reason.”
Brendan felt a lump form in his stomach.
“While you were out last night, a woman came here asking for you,” his mother told him. “She said she was a relative of your father’s…” She paused and frowned slightly. “Your biological father. She wanted to see you.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her the truth,” his mother said. “You were out with your dad. She said she would wait. I told her that wasn’t acceptable. We would have to talk to you first before you had any contact with your biological relatives.”
“What did she say to that?”
“It was weird,” his mother said. “She didn’t say anything for a long time. She just stared at me. It was kind of scary. It felt like she was barely restraining herself from physically attacking me.”
“Did you call the police?” Brendan asked. “She sounds a little crazy.”
“Not yet,” his mother said. “Your father is going to talk to our lawyer today, to see what the legal implications might be. That’s why we felt we had to tell you. We didn’t want you to find out from anybody else.”
Brendan’s mouth hung open in shock. Strange people claiming to be his relatives? His dream? Greenleaf and Kim conspiring? There were so many strange things happening to him. He’d forgotten to ask his father about the music on his iPod. He’d have to do that tonight when he got home.
“What did this woman look like, in case she tries to talk to me?”
His mother frowned. “That’s another weird thing, I can’t really remember. I only have a vague impression that she was tall and her hair was blond. I’ve been racking my brain but I can’t come up with anything else. Maybe she scared me worse than I realized.”
“Did she give you a name?”
His mother shook her head. “No. When I asked for it she said, ‘Your people will know it soon enough.’” She shivered. “The way she said it was so, I don’t know, vicious. I was pretty frightened. I was glad when you guys came home.”
“If she comes back, you should call the police.”
“I will. You be careful, too,” she said and kissed his cheek. “And about everything else… your past history. We love you. I know there will be difficult things for you to deal with but as long as you remember that, we’re going to be fine, understand? We just have to keep talking about it, okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, a lump forming in his throat. “I’ll remember.” He kissed her cheek and set off out the front door.
Dmitri was waiting at the corner of College and Crawford. Brendan was glad to see him today. He was glad to see anyone normal.
“Did you get the calculus homework done?” Dmitri asked.