Nephophile

WHO'S INGRID?

After the departure of Jake and Emma, Jane found herself glued to her laptop. Ingrid Adams on the screen, only she did not know which Ingrid she was looking for.

There were probably around 27 Ingrid Adams in the city. She looked at every single one of the profiles and where they reside. The birth certificate lay next to the laptop. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. Could Azalea be my dad's illegitimate child? Did my old man have an affair with this Ingrid?" She said with eyes glued to the screen. "Urgh! This just does not feel right. Something feels off, way off."

She got up and took a shower. Her mind is still a blur. The water cascaded down her back. She rinsed the foam off her body and hair and got out of the shower.

She rummaged through her closet and jumped into sweats. Her wet curls in a very, very messy bun. Jane grabbed the certificate and rushed out of her house. Her car beeped when she unlocked it.

Her car roared to life. She sped down the streets until she pulled up her family's driveway.

The soles of her shoes patted the ground. She found herself outside her parent's enormous estate. She knew there was only one person who knew all the answers to her questions. The door opened. "Miss Jane, welcome." A new face said when he held the door open. Jane nodded at the new butler and sighed. "Guess the old butler did not live up to Mrs Hawkin's expectations. " She said upon entering the house and rolled her eyes.

The familiar set of stairs led her exactly to where she needed to be. Her footsteps quieted in front of the last door down the corridor. Her hand reached out and grabbed the knob.

"Ah, Jane." Her father said with glasses that rested on the bridge of his nose. He held a newspaper in his grasp. "Your mother went to that federal thingy." He said with eyes glued to the paper in his hands.

"Who's Ingrid?"

Mr Hawkins eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. His grasp on the paper tightened. Slowly, he looked up from the paper to look at Jane. "Ingrid Adams, who is she, dad?"

"Ingrid is an old friend." He chuckled with discomfort. Jane saw right through his lie. "How do you know, Ingrid?" Mr Hawkins asked Jane.

"I don't. That is why I am here so that I can get some clarity on who this Ingrid character is." She said, folding her arms.

"If she's just an old friend, then why on earth would your name be on her child's birth certificate?"

Her father choked on his own spit. He had a coughing fit. Jane knew something was terribly wrong. Her father's reaction to this whole Ingrid ordeal told her all she needed to know.

"Does Mother know about your illegitimate child?"

His gaze lifted from the floor to meet his daughter's eyes. "This is a very complex thing to explain, Jane." He said and cleared his throat.

"What is so complex about an affair and an illegitimate child, dad? You thought this wouldn't come to light, didn't you? Everything done in the dark will always come to light, no matter how hard you try to cover it." She said and threw the birth certificate on the table. Mr Hawkins took the certificate and looked at it. His face was clear of emotion. Jane tried to read her father's face but found it impossible.

"Where did you find this?" Mr Hawkins held up the birth certificate.

"It found me. Why does it matter anyway? Can you just tell me who Ingrid is already." Jane said with a fist full of her hair. Frustrated, she sighed and sat down on the chair in her father's study. Her leg hopped up and down as she waited for a reply from her father.

"Wh-what do you mean it found you?" Shock was the first emotion on his face, followed with confusion.  The study grew quiet. Jane watched her father. Mr Hawkins seemed to be deep in thought.

"Does Mother know?"

"When did you find the..."

"Does Mother know?" Jane cut her father off.

Mr Hawkins looked at his daughter, who was expecting an explanation from him. He sighed, defeated.

"If this..." He held up the birth certificate. "Found you, then it simply means that someone else knows about this too and wants you to know."

"Go on." Jane said sternly.

"Right after we moved here, I went to a public school. In middle school, I met this girl and fell madly in love with her. That girl was Ingrid. I asked her out in the 8th grade, and we'd been dating since freshman year in college. We would've been married today if I wasn't such an ass back then." He stopped talking. Jane could see that her father reminisced about his college days.

"What do you mean you were an ass?"

He sighed heavily and looked his daughter in her eyes. "The day she came to tell me that she was pregnant,  she found another woman in my bed." He said and rubbed his face in anger.

"I got drunk after the game and went back to my place. I will never forget the hurt in her eyes. She disappeared without even telling me that she was pregnant. I got a call a month later from her grandmother. She told me that Ingrid was pregnant and that she had already informed my parents. It was a bittersweet moment, then. I was happy about becoming a father with the woman I love, but the bitter part was that she was gone. The following day, I got a call from my dad saying that the girl I had slept with was pregnant too. It felt like all control I had over life was gone. Ingrid's family did not want her to have the baby, and when she gave birth, they took the baby girl and sent her away. 3 Days later, they send the baby to my house. My parents took care of the child since I was still studying. A month later, the other woman gave birth to a boy. The two families decided that I must marry the woman who gave me a son and raise my daughter as his twin sister. I had no choice but to cover my own scandal with a wedding."

Jane sat frozen. She did not blink. "Jane?"

She did not respond to her father. A pained look etched on her face. "I gotta go."

"Jane, please..."

She held up her hand to silence her father.

"You only told me because you're afraid that someone else might beat you to it. You never would've told me if someone's didn't know about this "secret" and I still would've lived a lie"

"Don't leave like this."

Joshua came jogging into the study. He read the room and stepped out of the study. Jane stomped out of study and met him in the hallway. "You okay?" He asked, concerned.

"Perfect,  Joshie." She said sarcastically, using the nickname his mother uses.

**********

Hello. I know I have quiet with the updates. They will be coming frequently.

Let me know what yall thoughts are. Enjoy!