“Christopher?”
“Yes, this is Chris.”
Chris held out his hand. “We talked on the phone.” He was good at schmoozing with people he didn’t know. Being a freelance IT consultant required it. “Pleased to meet you, sir.
Beautiful house you have. And I love Bermuda.”
“Joey, both of you, call me Joey.”
“I stopped in to see Mother,” David said.
Joel seemed taken back. “Is she well?”
“I guess.” Chris knew David was being reticent. He didn’t believe in airing dirty laundry.
“Come, you and Chris must be tired from all that traveling.”
Joel led them up to the terrace. “Let me make you a rum swizzle.
It be the Bermudian national drink.”
He pronounced it Bermujan.
Unsure of what to do, David climbed the steps to the veranda and took one of the chairs. Chris slid into one beside him and handed over the bottle of wine. Joel thanked him and disappeared into the house. Chris leaned toward David. “My God he looks just like you. Except he’s… er…”
“What? Black?” David said “It explains a lot.”
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“How’s that?”
“My grandmother’s hostility.” He frowned and ran nervous fingers through his thick hair. “She would have hated that. I’m kind of surprised at my mother, too.”
“She wanted to take a walk on the wild side,” Chris said.
“When your mother rebels, she doesn’t do anything half measure.
Kind of reminds me of someone I know.”
“Come on,” David protested. “When have I ever done something that crazy?”
Chris just gave him a look and David thought it over for a minute. “Oh, right. I guess some people might think falling in love with you was over the top.”
“Yeah, just ask Martinez.”
“Thanks, I’d rather not re-open that can of worms.” He shrugged. David had to admit that had been awkward. For a while, when he had first come out, he had thought he was going to lose his partner. “He came around in the end.”
Joel returned with three highball glasses, handing them to Chris and David. “Rum swizzles.”
Chris sipped the drink. It was cool and sweet, tasting of pineapple and lime juice. Beside him David still seemed tense.
“Please,” Joel said when he returned. “You must tell me all about yourself. What have you been doing all these years?”
“Believing you were dead.”
“What? I don’t understand—”
“My mother told me you died in Vietnam. She never even mentioned you weren’t American.” Or black, but he kept that thought to himself. “She was ashamed of both of us.”
“I can’t believe she was ashamed of you—” Joel stared down at his drink. “Your mother was very confused, but she was a good woman at heart. I do not believe she was ever ashamed of you. When you were born I have never seen a happier woman. I had hoped to marry her… Then when she told me you had died,
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I was devastated. I’m sorry she thought it was necessary to lie to you.”
Talk of marriage must have gone over good with David’s grandmother. No wonder she had put the kibosh on it and sent Joel packing. “And what about you, she lied to you, too.”
Joel leaned forward in his chair, the metal frame creaking.
“Please, David. I know these last few days have been terrible for you. All you thought was true has been turned upside down.
But don’t blame your mother. She was only trying to do right by you—”
David abruptly stood, nearly sending his chair tumbling.
“If I hear one more time that everything was done for my own good…” David let it trail off. He stood over his father. “Tell me how you found me, since you thought I was dead.”
Joel grimaced at the coolness in David’s voice, but he remained calm as he replied, “It was purely an accident. The son of a friend of mine was attending Stanford University as a medical student last year.”
Chris perked up at that. Last year David had investigated a human trafficking ring and killed the man who ran it. He had also very nearly had an affair with another cop. Chris had a sinking feeling he knew where Joel was going with this. He had always hoped those days could be left behind them.
“The boy apparently was following a story in Los Angeles and he came across a
Los Angeles Times
story on it. He couldn’t believe it. He called his father up and said one of the officers involved looked exactly like me.”
David grunted. White lines around his mouth revealed his tension.
“He forgot about it until he returned to Bermuda and found the article in his school baggage. He showed the article to his father, who brought it over one day, laughing over how much this detective looked like me. He joked about you being my love child.” Joel twisted a plain gold band on his finger. “When I saw you, I wasn’t laughing. I knew then. I knew you were alive.”
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More repercussions of that terrible time. Chris couldn’t help but wonder whether this one would be good or bad.
“I had to find you then,” Joel said. “Even if you were angry and would never forgive me, I had to see you face to face. You have no idea—”
A tall, chunky black man, several years younger than David, stepped out of the house chewing on a carrot stick. He bore enough of a resemblance to David to send a shudder through Chris. He stared. The other man noticed the stare and glared back.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Jay, these are the ones I told you about,” Joel said. His voice was firm and strong. There was no shame in him.
Chris couldn’t help but admire the man. Not many could go through the onerous job of explaining a bastard son to his legitimate children. Chris wondered if there was a Mrs. Cameron in the picture and what she thought of her husband’s youthful peccadilloes. Even under the glare of his son Joel remained unruffled. David showed more agitation.
“This is David,” Joel went on. “Your half-brother from the mainland. And this is Jayvyn, my eldest son. Well, after you, of course.”
“You actually came.” Jay glowered at David then turned his hostile gaze to Chris, raking his slender form with a sweeping glance. “Who is this?”
“This is Chris,” David said, moving closer in a protective stance. Chris half expected him to put his arm around his shoulder. He was definitely staking his claim. Totally unlike the David of old. “My partner.”
Chris noticed he didn’t say husband. He lowered his gaze and stared at the drink in his hand.
Jay’s mouth dropped open. “My God,” he said. “My brother be backin’ up? That’s fat.”
“Jay! Weren’t you supposed to be doing some work out at the
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Pearman place?”
“They out. I come to get some greeze.” Suddenly Jay glared at his father. “Why’d you call him? Why he be here? I told you I don’t need any help from you or anyone!”
“Jay!”
Jay threw one last dirty look at Chris and David then stomped into the house. They could hear him banging around in what was presumably the kitchen.
“I’m sorry about that,” Joel said. “He’s angry because I told him I wanted to get in touch with you. I couldn’t believe it when I found out you were alive. I’m afraid he’s not used to coming second in anything.”
Chris wanted to say that Jay wasn’t angry over any perceived slight, he was flat out homophobic.
“If you loved my mother so much and you knew she was pregnant, why did you leave us?” David asked, the anguish in his voice only apparent to Chris.
“It wasn’t like that—” Joel sighed. “I didn’t leave until after you were born and it was never my idea.”
“My mother’s?”
Joel ducked his head. Chris could have sworn he was embarrassed. “Not your mother. We were living in San Francisco, in a place called Haight-Ashbury—did you know that?”
“Yes, she told me.”
“You got sick and I finally convinced her to take you to the free clinic. While you were gone, the police, ah, broke the door down.” Joel wouldn’t meet David’s eyes. “You have to understand, it was the sixties, there were a lot of…drugs around the place. And anti-war memorabilia.”
“You got busted,” David said.
Chris knew David was not amused, but he couldn’t help it, he thought it was funny. David’s mother and this man smoking dope, dropping acid or speed, whatever it was they did in those BeRMudA heAt
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days, chanting “Make love, not war” to gun-toting National Guardsmen.
“You got busted and they deported you?”
Joel nodded. “She refused to follow me, not that I blame her.”
“You called her?”
Again he nodded. “Many times. At first she took the calls, but she refused to come and bring you. I told her a family should be together. Then her mother started taking my calls and refused to let me speak to Barbara again. The last time I telephoned, her mother told me Barbara was getting married and that you had contracted some childhood disease and passed. At the time I thought it strange that she would go ahead with a wedding in the face of such tragedy, but it never occurred to me that there had been no tragedy. She wouldn’t tell me what illness either; now I know why. I was told never to call again. I never did. I thought you were gone… Now I am sorry for that.”
“It just keeps getting better and better,” David muttered.
“God, they buried themselves deeper and deeper in a shitload of lies. Sorry…”
A high-pitched, metallic whine broke the stilted silence. They all looked up, startled when a small blue scooter roared out from behind the house and skidded onto College Hill Road in a cloud of dust and sand. Nearby a raucous yellow and brown bird raised its voice in protest from the flowering tree. It sounded like
qu’est-que-ce, qu’est-que-ce.
Joel saw him watching the colorful bird.
“Our kiskadee. Very noisy. Bad for the other birds.”
David dismissed the ornithology lesson. “You still think my mother was only doing what was best for me? I could have had a father; you could have had a son.”
“I tried to find out when the funeral would be, but your mother refused to talk to me. And once I feared you dead… It seemed pointless. But then I started wondering. I was ashamed at first, thinking I had been lied to, but I’m afraid I became a bit obsessed with the idea. Finally I had to know. I tried to call your mother again, but they had changed the number and I never
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knew her married name.” Joel toyed with his half-empty high-ball glass. “When my friend showed me the picture of you in the
L.A.
Times
, I still wasn’t sure. Perhaps she had told you the truth and you didn’t want to contact me. And I wasn’t sure about hiring someone to find you. It was so expensive, and while I knew he’d have no trouble finding you, there was still no guarantee you would be glad to be found. But then I realized I had to know. I had to see you for myself.”
Joel’s bright eyes met David’s. “How long have you been a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department?”
“Nineteen years on the job. Eleven as a detective.”
“I confess I never would have expected Barbara’s son to become a police officer.”
“Don’t tell me,” David said. “You think I should have been a lawyer, too.”
“What? No, police work is honorable. What is the motto of the Los Angeles police? To protect and serve? There is no more noble calling.”
David blinked and a look came over his face that Chris had never seen before. Pride. An affirmation that what he did was something good.
Chris suddenly felt bad for the times he had all but nagged David to give his job up, to quit. Chris still lived in terror of David’s job. He couldn’t help it, every moment David was out of his sight, Chris imagined the worst. He knew why so many cops got divorced; their wives couldn’t take it anymore.
“Are you a good policeman?” Joel asked.
“I like to think so,” David muttered. He glanced at Chris and the pride was still there, along with something so simple it almost broke his heart. David was happy.
The door opened and a young girl stepped out. She was beautiful, with skin the color of sea-darkened sand. Waist-length black hair was tied back with a bright yellow scrunchy. She wore a matching yellow blouse and a knee length skirt. Gold earrings BeRMudA heAt
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dangled from her earlobes. Her shrewd look took in the three men on the terrace. Chris could see her evaluating them, building niches to store them in. A knowing look dawned on her face.
Joel stood and put his arm around her shoulder. “My daughter, Imani. She’s getting ready to go to Western University in Canada this fall. Honey, this is David, your half-brother and his partner, Chris.”
She nodded. Chris was sure she had them pegged at once.
Unlike her volatile brother, it didn’t seem to faze her.
“Daddy’s been so excited since he found you,” her voice was liquid and far too sultry for a young woman. “I’m so glad you came to visit us.”
“Sit, join us,” Joel said. She obliged by taking a chair beside him. Her gaze never left David.
“You really do exist. We would sometimes tease dad that you were a figment of his imagination. That he only wished you to be. We thought he was wasting his money hiring that private detective.”
Chris couldn’t help but like her. Her laughter was a rich contralto and her voice was amazingly seductive, it even sent a few neurons firing along his synapses, though he hadn’t looked at a woman in that way in years. She must be beating men off with sticks.
David seemed restless. He stood up, then sat down and drained his drink. Before Joel could offer to get him another one he bounced back to his feet. “Mind if I take a look at your garden?”
“Certainly.” Joel puffed up in pride. His daughter laughed.
“Oh, now you’ve said the magic words. He’ll bend your ear for hours. It’s all Dad thinks about.”
“David, too,” Chris said. They were both grinning. Chris waved David off. “You go look at your flowers. I’m going to stay here in the shade and have another national cocktail. Or maybe two. I’m sure your little sister will be a good hostess.” He winked
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at Imani.