Family Bonds

Chapter 17, Episode 2

 "Mom, I've got to talk to you."

"Come on over, Chet. Will you bring Jane? She's such a lovely girl. I can see why you like her so much. Your father said she had the kind of gumption he'd like to see in Eddie. I'll bet if she wanted, he would hire her."

Chet's left cheek ticked as he recalled Jane's description of her meeting with his father. She'd spit nails before working for him. "No. I'm coming alone. See you in a few."

His mother was in the garden when he arrived, picking flowers for a bouquet he knew she would place on the dining table.

When she looked up, he said, "I talked to ... Dad ... the other day." He hated using that word now. "He said you won't let him move back."

"I'm not sure when I will, if I will." She concentrated on the blossoms she was gathering. "He thinks you're brilliant. Always has. And, I'm so proud of you. I know you'll have your pick of law firms after graduation."

She patted the bench on which she sat. "Tell me. What are you going to do three years from now? And when are you going to pop the question to Jane? I can tell—in your eyes—in hers, too—how you feel about each other."

Only if he could convince Jane that Richard Barton, the bastard, wasn't a part of his life, their life, any longer. He's not my dad, especially not now.

"Will you stay in Seattle, maybe pick a law firm there, or come home to Evergreen?"

"Probably Seattle. I'm not sure. I have to pass the bar first."

"I know you will." She put down the flower basket and hugged him.

He stood up, unsure how to proceed. "I need to see my birth certificate."

"It's in your baby book." She led him into the house. In the quiet in the late afternoon, the light filtered through the lace curtains his mother always pulled closed to protect the antique furniture she was so proud of.

They walked upstairs to the master bedroom. His mother went directly to the small bookcase near the window seat where she kept photo albums and special mementos. She pulled out Chet's baby book and opened it.

"Here it is. Chester—after your grandfather—Alan Barton."

"But that isn't my real father's name. Why isn't his name on this certificate?"

"Oh. When Richard adopted you, the certificate was changed to reflect his name." She peered at him anxiously. "Why does it matter?"

"What about the original one?"

She thumbed through the book. "The original was destroyed when your adoption was final. But I kept a copy. Don't know why." She stopped when she spied a yellowed envelope. "Here it is."

Under his mother's name Chet read Patricia Ellen Langley. Beneath those words was another line, his father's name. Denis Mateus Haider.

"Can I borrow it? I promise to return it."

"Why, Chet?"

"You know we haven't gotten along for the longest time, Dad and me—" he began, and stopped to clear his throat.

"Because you two are so much alike. You both have world-class tempers." She smiled at him. "I've watched you over the years, and it used to worry me, that temper of yours. But you've learned to control yours, especially since that trouble at Whitman. Far better than your father."

Don't call him that. He's not. I don't ever want him to be. He gripped the envelope holding his birth certificate.

"I—do you know if you're going to—I have to know. He didn't ask me to ask ... about giving him another chance. Even if he had, I'd never do that."