Tess Gerritsen - Never say die

"We'd broken up months before. I didn't hear about the kid till after he was born. By then there was nothing I could do, nothing I could change. Ginny was already married to another man."

"Oh." She paused. "That made it simple."

"Simple?" For the first time she heard his anger, and she longed to take back her awful words, longed to cleanse the bitterness from his voice. "You've got some crazy notion that men are all the same," he said. "All of us trying to claw our way free of responsibility, never looking back at the people we've hurt. Let me tell you something, Willy. Having a Y chromosome doesn't make someone a lousy human being."

"I shouldn't have said that," she said, gently touching his hand. "I'm sorry."

He lay quietly in the shadows, staring up at the ceiling. "Sam's three years old now. I've seen him a grand total of twice, once on Ginny's front porch, once on the playground at his preschool. I went over there to get a look at him, to see what kind of kid he was, whether he looked happy. I guess the teachers must've reported it. Not long after, Ginny called me, screaming bloody murder. Said I was messing with her marriage. Even threatened to slap me with a restraining order. I haven't been near him since…" He paused to clear his throat. "I guess I realized I wouldn't be doing him any favors anyways, trying to shove my way into his life. Sam already has a father-a good one, from what I hear. And it would've hurt everyone if I'd tried to fight it out in court. Maybe later, when he's older, I'll find a way to tell him. To let him know how much I wanted to be part of his life."

And my life? she thought with sudden sadness. You won't be part of it, either, will you?

She rose to her feet and groped around in the darkness for her scattered clothes. "Here's a little advice, Guy," she said over her shoulder. "Don't ever give up on your son. Take it from a kid who's been left behind. Daddies are a precious commodity."

"I know." he said softly. He paused, then said, "You'll never get over it, will you? Your father walking out."

She shook out her wet blouse. "There are some things a kid can't ever forget."

"Or forgive."

Outside, the rain had softened to a whisper. In the thatching above, insects rustled. "Do you think I should forgive him?"

"Yes."

"I suppose I could forgive him for hurting me. But not for hurting my mother. Not when I remember what she went through just to-" Her voice died in midsentence.

They both heard it at the same time: the footsteps slapping through the mud outside.

Guy rolled off the pallet and sprang to his feet beside her. Shoes scraped over the threshold, and the shadow of a man filled the doorway.

The intruder held up a lantern. The flood of light caught them in freeze-frame: Willy, clutching the blouse to her naked breasts; Guy, poised in a fighter's crouch. The stranger, his face hidden in the shadow of a drab green poncho, slowly lowered the lantern and set it on the table. "I am sorry for the delay," he said. "The road is very bad tonight." He tossed a cloth-wrapped bundle down beside the lantern. "At ease, Mr. Barnard. If I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead now." He paused and added, "Both of you."

"Who the hell are you?" Guy asked.

Water droplets splattered onto the floor as the man shoved back the hood of his poncho. His hair was blond, almost white in the lantern light. He had pale eyes set in a moonlike face. "Dr. Gunnel Andersen," he said, nodding by way of introduction. "Nora sent word you were coming." Raindrops flew as he shook out the poncho and hung it up to dry. Then he sat down at the table. "Please, feel free to put on your clothes."

"How did Nora reach you?" Guy asked, pulling on his trousers.

"We keep a shortwave radio for medical emergencies. Not all frequencies are monitored by the government."

"Are you with the Swedish mission?"

"No, I work for the U.N." Andersen's impassive gaze wandered to Willy, who was self-consciously struggling into her damp clothes. "We provide medical care in the villages. Humanitarian aid. Malaria, typhoid, it's all here. Probably always will be." He began to unwrap the bundle he'd set on the table. "I assume you have not eaten. This isn't much but it's the best I could do. It's been abad year for crops, and protein is scarce." Inside the bundle was a bamboo box filled with cold rice, pickled vegetables and microscopic flecks of pork congealed in gravy.

Guy at once sat down. "After bananas and coconuts, this looks like a feast to me."

Dr. Andersen glanced at Willy, who was still lingering in the corner, watching suspiciously. "Are you not hungry, Miss Maitland?"

"I'm starved."

"Then why don't you eat?"

"First I want to know who you are."

"I have told you my name "

"Your name doesn't mean a thing to me. What's your connection to Nora? To my father?"

Dr. Andersen's eyes were as transparent as water. "You've waited twenty years for an answer. You can surely wait a few minutes longer."

Guy said, "Willy, you need to eat. Come, sit down."

Hunger finally pulled her to the table. Dr. Andersen had brought no utensils. Willy and Guy used their fingers to scoop up the rice. All the time she was eating, she felt the Swede's eyes watching her.

"I see you do not trust me," he said.

"I don't trust anyone anymore."

He nodded and smiled. "Then you have learned, in a few shorts days, what took me months to learn."

"Mistrust?"

"Doubt. Fear." He looked around the hut, at the shadows dancing on the walls. "What I call the creeping uneasiness. A sense that things are not right in this place. That, just under the surface, lies some… secret, something… terrible."

The lantern light flickered, almost died. He glanced up as the rain pounded the roof. A puff of wind swept through the doorway, dank with the smells of the jungle.

"You sense it, too," he said.

"All I know is, there've been too many coincidences," said Guy. "Too many tidy little acts of fate. As though paths have been laid out for us and we're just following the trail."

Andersen nodded. "We all have roads laid out for us. We usually choose the path of least resistance. It's when we wander off that path that things become dangerous." He smiled. "You know, at this very minute, I could be sitting in my house in Stockholm, sipping coffee, growing fat on cakes and cookies. But I chose to stay here."

"And has life become dangerous?" asked Willy.

"It's not my life I worry about now. It was a risk bringing you here. But Nora felt the time was right."

"Then it was her decision?"

He nodded. "She thought it might be your last chance for a reunion."

Willy froze, staring at him. "Did you-did you say reunion?"

Dr. Andersen met her gaze. Slowly, he nodded.

She tried to speak but found her voice was gone. The significance of that one word reduced her to numb silence.

Her father was alive.

It was Guy who finally spoke. "Where is he?"

"A village northwest of here."

"A prisoner?"

"No, no. A guest. A friend."

"He's not being held against his will?"

"Not since the war.'' Andersen looked at Willy, who had not yet found her voice. "It may be hard for you to accept, Miss Maitland, but there are Americans who find happiness in this country."

She looked at him in bewilderment. "I don't understand. All these years he's been alive…he could have come home… "

"Many men didn't return."

"He had the choice!"

"He also had his reasons."

"Reasons? He had every reason to come home!"

Her anguished cry seemed to hang in the room. For a moment neither man spoke. Then Andersen rose to his feet.

"Your father must speak for himself…" he said, and he started for the door.