Page 14 of Forbidden Bastard
This was the reaction he’d seen throughout his life when someone discovered the truth about him. He'd felt the same. No teenager with a computer and phone should have to wonder and research and discover a truth hidden away like unwanted news. “She made arrangements and dropped me off at a convent.”
Sandi reached for his hand, sending a shockwave through him. “That sounds horrible.”
Discovering his parentage wasn’t the worst part. His mind replayed being alone, still in diapers, and screaming in the rain at the train station.
He’d been left. Behind. On purpose. In the beginning of the revolution.
Then a gray-haired angel had taken his hand and escorted him inside to a warm room. In the bar, Charles blinked and decided to tell Sandi everything. He would break the wariness in her eyes.
She’d for-certain leave him. Everyone else had, except for Clara. He squeezed her fingers. “Then when Avce was invaded, I was abandoned and left to probably die.”
Her gaze narrowed like she shared his pain. “How old were you?”
“Two. Almost three.”
Her lips parted and she stared at him in combined shock and anger. “Who? They just left you?”
No one had ever cared before or since with one exception. He shook his head. “It was kill or be killed, and the nuns chose to leave me.”
For a second neither of them moved.
Near their table another couple got up and paid their bill, and a different group of friends sat.
He started to take his hand back but then Sandi patted the outside of it. “So, what happened to you?”
An inner voice screamed to shut up and change the subject. In school kids had made fun of his orphaned state despite Clara taking him in. She'd named him, fed him, and had tried to adopt him though she never had the right paperwork about who he really was.
He stopped talking. He glanced down at how their hands fit together--his large and olive-skinned, hers slender and pale. “I’ve never told anyone.”
Sandi whispered, “Was it horrible?”
Yes. When it rained at night, he still had memories of screaming into the dark and no one caring.
If Clara hadn’t taken hold of his hand, in a mistake, he’d be dead.
He sucked in his breath, half-afraid if he spoke out loud, somehow he’d not be so lucky again. “I don’t tell anyone because I don’t like to answer questions. Usually I change the topic.”
She traced the inside of his palm and that woke him up. “We can. You don't have to tell me.”
The kindness in her eyes made him wish this moment would never end. He brushed a small piece of her red hair off her forehead. “I know you’re smart, and your vacation ends in a few days, and for once I want to share the truth--but you need to swear you won’t tell anyone else.”
“Okay. I promise,” she said, and the charge between them made him believe it was just the two of them alone, with no one else around.
The night that normally paralyzed him, played in his mind. He’d been way too small. But somehow the words came out as he told Sandi, “It was dark and raining and everyone rushed around as shots fired from guns and bombs blew in the air. Clara Belrose…pulled me on the train. Her hand guiding me was the first hope I had that maybe I was saved.”
Sandi tilted her head. “Clara Belrose?”
He’d been brought to a room on the train and given warm apple cider. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had that sweet drink before, but it had tasted so good. His clothes had been wet, his diaper hadn’t been changed in hours. Then when the older woman returned, he wasn’t sure what she’d do.
The memory replayed of how Clara had studied him and covered her lips and he'd been filled with fear that she’d toss him out. Then she'd hugged him and no one’s hug had ever made him feel like that before; safe and wanted. Charles said in a thick voice, “Yes, when Clara settled us into her cabin, she broke down in tears.”
Sandi had a tear in her eye that she didn’t bother to swat away. “Why?”
Charles still felt that childhood guilt of having someone take care of him because of someone else’s tragic end. He leaned forward, not to kiss Sandi like he normally would in a darkened bar at night, but instead he told her his deepest secret. “Her daughter and grandson were both killed the day before. In the confusion of the station, when she saw me, she took my hand and saved me because her mind was confused in those seconds. She thought I was her grandson.”
“I’m so sorry.” Tears rushed down Sandi's face.
He wiped her cheeks with his thumb and his heart thumped slightly different. He couldn’t explain what he was feeling as he said, “Don’t cry for me. It worked out. Clara decided she’d take me in as I had no one either. She was the only mother I ever really knew and Clara is the only person in the world I try to please.”
