Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

“Well, he was pretty young back then too. That’s how I connected to him; he had no idea that they’d offered you the two-flat as a bribe to keep me and you out of the family. He was pretty shocked. And angry.”

“Anyone decent would be. It’s not that I would have wanted anything more than some legitimate child support. The two-flat did help but it wasn’t a substitute for a simple acknowledgment. So how did you find this man with a conscience?”

“A paralegal dropped a name she shouldn’t have.”

“What would that have to do with it?”

“It was my father’s name.”

“Why would that mean anything to you?”

“Because I saw a man who had that name. And he looked like me.”

“Oh, Matt.” Her celebratory air crumbled. “That must have been so … shocking for you. I didn’t think that might happen. That any relatives would still be associated with that law firm. What … was he? To you.” She bit her lip, reached out a hand to his. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t think what sending you there might mean. I was so selfish.”

The old apologizing-for-existing Mira was back. As much as her concern touched him, her regression chilled him. Maybe this was a very bad idea, even though it had been hers. He could still head this off.

“It was rough. I was way angrier than I thought I’d be. Then I found out that … members of the … other family had been duped too. It was the parents. Your parents. His parents. They took over and managed their errant kids, the hell with what the ones actually involved needed or wanted. Or what it would mean to me.”

“You shouldn’t swear,” old Mira said primly, falling back on the party line.

“I should do a lot more than that. I should dig up all those dead grandparents who decided what was best for my parents and hit them.”

She looked shocked, then smiled nervously. “Berating the dead is a waste of time. You know that. If they’d have known you, they’d have been proud of you. My parents couldn’t quite get past your … manner of birth but they didn’t dislike you.”

“Not a positive relationship, Mom. I was tolerated but I don’t remember them much.”

She sighed and sipped her drink.

“So,” he said, “given what a shock it was for me to meet a … relative, I’m thinking maybe you don’t need to go back like this. Maybe it’s enough to know not everybody in the family would have disowned us. That it was a Romeo and Juliet thing, where the older generation controlled the younger at a horrible cost.”

“Romeo and Juliet.” Her smile softened her features to a girl’s dewy promise. “That’s right. That was the way it was. Have you ever glimpsed that connection so right the whole world fades away?”

He wanted to temporize, as he always did on this one thorny subject but … his mother needed the truth, from everyone.

“Yes.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Someday you’ll tell me more about that. Or maybe not. Someday maybe I’ll meet her.”

“Mom, I’ve met yours.”

“My what.”

“Your person who made the world fade.”

“You can’t have.”

“I did.”

“Someone close … a brother? Is that who we’re meeting here? I don’t know if I can stand to meet a brother.”

“Mom.” He stretched both his hands across the table to cover hers, which were fanning and fidgeting with panic. “I’ve met him.”

“He’s dead. Are you crazy?”

“He’s not dead. That was a lie.”

She stood, despite the heavy chair, pushing it back with her legs as if she didn’t feel the effort.

“What are you saying?”

“You know what I said. But it doesn’t have to go further. I have a cell phone number. He can go away and never see us again at all.”

Her hand covered her mouth as if choking off a terrible cry.

“Not … dead? But—”

“He was … is from a wealthy family. Mistakes weren’t welcome in it. That’s all. He was told you were impossible to find.”

“The lawyers found me fine! He believed them?”

“They were convincing. Private detectives reported that they could find no girl named Mira in St. Stanislaus’s parish.”

“There were three in my high school class!”

“No right girl named Mira.”

“He believed them.”

“He’d been wounded. He was tired, confused. I can’t blame him, and, believe me, I wanted to more than I knew.”

“So. You’ve sorted it out. You two. You men. And now it’s up to me if I want to see him again.”

“Yes.”

“Does he want to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he hates that he was deceived. He would have done the right thing.”

“But he doesn’t love me.”

“He’s married.”

“With children?”

“Yes.”

She folded her lips. “I’m sorry, Matt. You’re the real victim of this. I’m sorry you had to learn what cold people you came from, partly. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry I asked you to look into this. You have a very stupid mother.”

“I have a very stubborn mother and I’m not sorry.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Swearing, Mom?”

Her lips twisted into an unwilling smile, despite the tears in her eyes. “Sometimes it’s called for. Why aren’t you sorry?”

“I’d rather know my father was lied to as well. That he wouldn’t have turned his back on us.”

“So he says now, seeing you face to face.”

“I believe him.”

“Well, fine. Can we go now?”

“Let me pay the tab first.”

“Tab? You expected a long night of drinking and reminiscences maybe?”

“I don’t know what I expected. You’re the one. Whatever you want or need. We agreed on that.”

“You and your … father. Why do I feel it’s always a conspiracy of men?”

“There are so many of us? Really. Take your time. You can always change your mind.”

“No, Matt. I can’t. I haven’t been able to act according to my own mind since that night that changed everything. Let’s leave. Your cousin Krys gets moody when I monopolize you too much. That girl! All hormones. No shame. Wish I’d been like her. Nothing would have mattered as much.”

“You underestimate Krys. Everything matters too much with her. And I like you just the way you are.”

“You can’t fool me. That’s a Billy Joel song. ‘Just the Way You Are.’ The Muzak at the restaurant plays it all the time.”

He sighed, signed the credit card slip, and left a generous tip.

They walked out of the bar’s calculated dimness into the glaring brightness of the hotel lobby, all slick marble floors and walls and glittering oversize chandeliers.

At the bank of house phones, he saw Winslow and nodded imperceptibly.

He thought.

His mother wrenched her neck in that direction, stared for a long moment, then took his arm and drew him toward the rank of glass doors leading to the hotel porte cochere.

He saw her into a cab and sent her to work at Poland-ski’s Restaurant.

Then he turned and went back in to have a postmortem with his father.

“So how did it go?” Krys asked when he got back to his mother’s apartment way too late.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me.”

“Mira won’t be off her shift until midnight. How did it go?”

“It didn’t.”

“You look horrible.”

“From you, that’s a new one.”

“I mean you look like you’ve been through it.”

“Imagine brokering a truce between Israel and Palestine.”

“That bad? I made some hot tea.”

“Like I need caffeine.”

“I’ve never seen you testy before.”

“She didn’t want to see him and I had to tell him afterward.”

“Testy on you is not bad, mind you.”