Page 27 of Black Waters

He hugged me back tightly. “Knew you would, big asshole.”

Hoping we wouldn’t be heard, I let him go. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

With the same beaten look I’ve seen on Crash before, he shrugged, wiping blood from his mouth that was already swelling, pointing to the blood on mine. “Why would I let my only friend—my only—you know—become part of this hell?”

Before I could answer, say anything to acknowledge that Crash indeed was my friend and much more, the creator of this puzzle piece of my family tree said, “Stop whining, Crash. Always with the story of the misfortunate one.” He spoke to one of his guards. “Get their mother on the phone.”

Crash and I looked at him slowly, in absolute shock at the groundbreaking bombshell.

A guard muttered into a cell phone, but I couldn’t comprehend the words. I was too stunned. My ears rang as my brain tried to understand what was coming next. All I could do was look at Crash. I noticed how much shorter he was than me. I thought about the tall, inebriated woman who’d stopped his beating moments earlier. And then I thought about my mother, a petite little thing.

The cell phone was handed to Mr. Thompson. He said into the receiver, “Marina, you have a lot of explaining to do. I have a young man here wanting to revenge his mother’s honor.” He listened. “You named him Reether? Why not Reefer, and announce his lineage?”

Crash’s words, Too close to home, blew through me. He’d asked to call me Link because he knew who I belonged to.

After listening some more to my mom, Mr. Thompson said, “Don’t want to hear it. I suggest you get your ass over here in minutes. Alone, Marina. Alone.” He hung up.

A confused finger pointed upstairs.

Mr. Thompson watched his son’s gesture then inhaled deeply. “No, she’s not your mother.” He looked up to the top of the stairs. “Nope. That woman is the result of every tragic mistake I’ve ever made. A heavy price she paid for falling in love with me.”

The man who’d helped Mr. Thompson’s wife to her room headed back down, nodding all was well. Our biological father turned and walked into a massive living room. “I suppose you both have lots of questions?”

Crash and I stumbled, shoulder to shoulder, following the man who’d spawned us.

Crash and I sat side by side, motionless on a couch. It felt as though the pair of us was the only thing we knew—could somewhat be sure of—so we stuck together.

Mr. Thompson made a drink. “How old are you?”

My vocal cords barely operated. “Seventeen.”

He nodded. “Tricky girl never told me we were having another child.”

“Dad?” Crash asked. “What’s going on?”

To my surprise, Mr. Thompson told the truth—or at least what I knew of it, and told Crash about Marina, the woman Crash knew as Reenah. Crash seemed shocked, appalled, disgusted all at the same time. His face contorted as if he didn’t know what emotion to let take hold. That all changed when a guard told our father, “She’s here.”

The rain had ceased by the time we all walked back out the front door. The faint driveway lights showed the steam rising from the hot pavers, making my mother walking toward us look like an angel in the mist—a tortured angel coming to retrieve her young.

“Why didn’t you have more children, Mom?”

Tears rimmed her beautiful brown eyes. “My heart is too full…”

When the mist cleared and I saw her expression, it was one of reservation and perseverance. I imagined it was what she looked like the years she lived in the place that had owned her body but not her soul—not her fight and hope to survive. The question was, what was she preparing to survive now?

“Hello, Marina.”

She nodded her head as if still a servant. “Hello, Harold.” She looked at me and asked, “Are you okay?”

I could only nod during the most surreal moment of my life.

My mother slowly found the eyes that had waited so long to see her again, the eyes that knew her before I was even born. Her feet carried her to the son she had not seen up close since he was three years old. Her arms wrapped around the boy who was now a young man, crying as if he were still the left-behind child. “Reenah.”

Because of all the events unfolding in my life, I didn’t feel I had much to be thankful for, but I was thankful Mr. Thompson didn’t interrupt—disrespect—the long-awaited reunion that was as beautiful as a dream could be. The rest of us stood quietly and patiently as a memory was created that would have to last my mother a lifetime.

When it could no longer be ignored, my paternal parent said to my mother, “You know how this has to end, correct?”

Still holding Crash, she cried, nodding, because she didn’t seem able to speak.