A Thousand Rainbows by Mike Williams
- 28 -
Will watched as his wife quickly exited the darkroom, making her way though the dining room and out to the deck at the rear of the house on West Brunswick Road.
"Christ, what have I done?" he whispered to no one in particular.
Bjorn approached him and put a hand on the man's shoulder. "It'll be alright, big guy. You just did the right thing."
Will turned to regard his friend, then looked back at the open door. "I hope to God you're right."
He allowed himself to be led from the darkroom back to the family room, where Hannah was entertaining the boys with one of her tales.
She looked up as Will and Bjorn entered the room and recognized the look on her grandson's face. She looked around and realized that Sarah was not with them.
"She knows," Will said quietly.
Todd looked up at his father from his cushion on the floor. "Dad?"
Will smiled lovingly at the boy. "It's alright, son."
"William," Hannah hissed, "you promised."
"Yes, Grandma," Will held his ground. "I promised. But this is my family. They would have found out sooner or later. And they have the right to know."
"Take me home."
"Yes, I'll take you home." He paused. "After they hear the whole truth."
-0-
Brian quietly closed the sliding glass door behind him and approached Sarah, placing a winter jacket around her shoulders. Although the day was sunny, the autumn breeze produced a chill in the air.
"You really shouldn't be out here on a cold day like this without a jacket."
Sarah turned to face her old friend, her face a mixture of emotions. Then she turned back to face the yard and the forest beyond the garden. "You live with someone for seventeen years. You spend fifteen years married to that one man, and you think you know everything there is to know about him."
Brian tried to comfort her. "I don't think you ever can know everything. Even after twenty-five years I discover something new about Bjorn every day. I never realized until last night that he's got a little freckle right on his ..."
Sarah turned to face Brian with a raised eyebrow.
"But I guess you don't want to know about that," he conceded. "And we're not dealing with your everyday family secret here."
"A secret he has kept hidden for how many years?"
Brian thought about that for a moment. "Until we know the whole story, we have to assume that he had a good reason, maybe a promise he made to his father or his grandmother, something to protect you and Todd. And, speaking as a man, I can't fault him for keeping that promise."
She laid her head on his shoulder. "Brian, what am I going to do?"
The wind whipped up around them, sending Brian's long hair flying about them both. He wrapped his arms around her and took a deep breath. "Well, if it was me, I'd go right back in there, listen to what he has to say, and tell him that I loved him no matter what. That's what I would do."
Sarah smiled and looked up into Brian's eyes. "I do love him ... no matter what. Thank you."
Brian gave her a kiss on her forehead before leading her back into the house.
-0-
"Sarah." Will cautiously held out his hand as Sarah and Brian as they entered the family room. Sarah took his hand and stepped even closer, embracing her husband.
Hannah watched the scene with a sour expression on her face. "Now I suppose it will all come out."
"You don't have to do this, Will," Bjorn said.
Will looked around the room, into the face of each person gathered there. "Yes, I do ... for my son."
"Maybe you guys should go upstairs for a few minutes," Brian addressed the twins.
"Brian," Will interjected. "If ever there was a time when I needed my family here, this would be it. Please let them stay."
Brian glanced at Bjorn who nodded slightly. "Alright."
Will remained standing as everyone else took their seats. It was Hannah who broke the silence. "I'm shocked, William, that you would break the promise you made to me and to your father. I'm ashamed of you."
"Grandma," Will began, "when it was down to just Dad and me, you took me in and raised me. And I will always love you, and I will always be grateful." He turned to his wife. "When you were in the darkroom, I heard you all talking about how eye color is hereditary, and you were all wondering why I don't share the same eye color with Hannah and Todd. The reason is quite simple: There is no blood-tie here. My parents ... that is, George and Claudia ... adopted me just after I was born."
"Do you know who your parents were?" Sarah asked.
Will nodded. "Yes, they were a couple of high school kids who smoked a little too much pot one night. Because they were both minors, their parents made them put me up for adoption. I've met both my real parents. My mother got married and has a family of her own, and ... last I heard ... my father is in prison for dealing drugs. It's not a heritage I'm proud of.
"I was always close to my dad, but he was on the road most of the time while I was growing up, the life of a traveling salesman. One day my mom dropped me off at Grandma's so she could spend some time with her girlfriends; I guess I was about three or four years old." He paused and looked down at his shoes. "She never came back. We waited and waited, but we never heard from her again. Even her own family has no idea what became of her."
Will looked up and continued his story. "When Dad got home from his business trip, he sold the house, and we moved in with Grandma so she could raise me, and he could continue with his job on the road. I later learned that he was quite the ladies' man. I guess he had girlfriends in cities and towns all over the West. He never remarried, and I never met any of his girlfriends ... except for one."
"Jill," Brian guessed.
Will nodded. "Jill."
"All living in the same house," Bjorn asked, "how could she have kept a secret like that?"
"They were very, very discrete. Jill kept up a good front. We all thought of her as ... well ... a party girl. Every week she was dating a different man. And, while we thought she was sleeping around, she really wasn't. But Jill and George ... well, that was a different story. They were genuinely crazy about each other, couldn't get enough of each other. But they didn't want to risk getting caught in our house. So they would arrange to meet elsewhere, at motels, in the park ... at Grandma's house ..." Will glared at his grandmother, but Hannah didn't respond. "... Anywhere but where we might spot them. Most of the time I didn't even know Dad was in town."
"The opera. Oh my god, that's it."
All eyes turned to Sarah.
"What opera?" Brian asked.
Sarah turned to him with a growing smile as the mystery unraveled. "Todd was born in October. Count back nine months, and you're in January. I was six months pregnant with Jason and Josh, and the four of us took a long weekend to go the opera in Portland. Remember? It was the opening of Carmen', and we begged Jill to come with us. But, no', she had a date that weekend." She looked back at her husband. "That's when ..."
Will nodded and picked up the narrative. "That was the only time Dad visited the house ... and I guess he spent the weekend. But he had left by the time we got back Sunday night. I talked to him on the phone about a week after that. That's when he told me that he had been seeing Jill. But he asked me not to tell anyone. So I promised him that I wouldn't say anything. A week later he was killed a car accident in California. He never even knew he was going to be a father."
A questioning look crossed Sarah's face. "Does that mean you and Jill ... um, how do I put this?"
"Let me." Will anticipated her question. "After Dad's funeral Jill and I had a long talk, and she admitted that she and Dad had been seeing each other, and that she thought she was pregnant. Right then we came up with a plan by which you and I would become her child's legal guardians if anything were to happen to her. The Becker bloodline was restored the moment we adopted Jill's son. And everything turned out pretty well." Will looked fondly at his son, then back at his wife. He took a deep breath. "So there it is, the whole dirty family secret, out in the open for everyone to see."
Todd thought for a moment and looked up at his father. "So I'm really your brother?"
Will smiled at his son. "Well, technically you're my half-brother." He paused and looked around the room. "Any questions?"
"Just one." Sarah rose from her chair and put her arms around her husband's neck. "Do you still love me?"
Will's face broke into a wide grin. "More than ever, my love."
And they leaned in for a tender kiss.
As they broke the kiss, Will turned to his grandmother. "I'm sorry, Grandma. But I think everything has turned out just fine." He turned to face his wife. "I should have done this years ago."
"I'm still very upset with you, William," Hannah said. "I'm ready to go now."
Bjorn shot Brian a quick glance. "Um, that's okay, Hannah. Brian and I will run you back to Andover. Will and Sarah don't have time."
Brian rose and stepped forward. "That's right. They have a big date to get ready for."
Sarah turned to face the two men. "What are you two talking about?"
Bjorn stepped toward the fireplace and picked up an envelope that had been sitting on the mantle, unnoticed by anyone. With a smile he handed the envelope to Will and Sarah. "Happy anniversary, guys."
Will accepted the envelope and opened it. There was a card with another paper. As Will read the card, Sarah unfolded the letter-size paper and gasped. "Oh my god."
That got Will's attention. "What is it?"
Sarah broke from Will and drew both Brian and Bjorn into a tight hug. Will reached behind the two men and retrieved the paper from Sarah's hand. As he read the paper, his mouth dropped open in wonder. "How did you remember this ... after all this time?"
"What is it, Dad?" Todd asked.
Will's eyes misted over. "Um ..." He ran a hand over his face. "... It's a weekend for your mother and me ... at ... um ... Hawthorne Cove. That's the bed-and-breakfast on the coast where I proposed to her."
And he joined the hug.
After a moment the adults broke their group hug.
"Well," Sarah said, "I suppose we should be on our way."
"That's right," Bjorn agreed. "Matt and Tommy are expecting you for dinner."
"Don't stop for sightseeing along the way," Brian chided. "You know how they just hate it when you're late for dinner."
-0-
to be continued in Chapter 29