Page 54 of Protecting Silver
Daniel nodded as he sipped his coffee, then stared at his parents, then back at his coffee. On his third time looking at them, he took the bull by the horns and blurted out. “I’ve learned something disturbing. I don’t know if it’s true, and I don’t know who to confront. I didn’t know if I should come home to you and Dad, or gone to Phoenix to see Grandpa and Grandma. To save you any heartache if there is any.”
“Well,” Douglas began. “First off, your grandparents are home for the summer. They came back from Phoenix last week.”
“How’s that working out for Grandma?”
“Good, it seems like spending the winter in the dry heat of Arizona helps with her heart and lungs. She hasn’t been sick in years. Not since she was first diagnosed. You can ask her all about it, because she and Grandpa just pulled in. Come on, son, let’s go help them. They went into town to buy groceries.” Together all of them rose from the table and went out to help them unload the groceries from the back of his grandfather’s truck. Daniel did the same thing with Daniel and Beatrice Atwater as he had done with his own parents, he gave them both a giant hug. Being named after his grandfather was a sense of pride with Daniel. However, to keep them both straight, the elder went by the name Dan, while the younger went by the name Daniel.
Once the bags were brought into the house, the women started putting the items away and the men sat at the table. Daniel knew it wasn’t the males thinking the women belonged in the kitchen. He knew that when it came time to cook, the men would be right alongside their wives, and they would do the cleaning up. Once everything was done, his grandmother started heating a pan on the stove, and in what seemed like seconds, there was the sound of searing meat. He looked over and saw his mother cutting up fresh vegetables she’d pulled from the bag.
“Pot roast?” Daniel asked as he rubbed his stomach.
“Yes, with mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, turnips, onions, and fresh biscuits.”
“I’ll even make a couple of pies.” His grandmother told him with a grin, and Daniel hung his head. “If this is all for me, thank you. I haven’t had a home-cooked meal since the last time I was home.” He watched as his grandmother started the oven, and soon the sizzling meat was in the roaster, doused with beef broth, seasoned, and the veggies his mother cut up were tossed in the pan. As soon as they closed the oven door, they looked at him.
“Quit stalling, Daniel,” Beatrice said. “We’re not getting any younger, and when your siblings get here, no one’s going to be able to get a word in. It seems like you’re here on a mission. You have about an hour before everyone converges on us.”
“Fine, but it’s not pretty. I don’t know how to say it.”
“Rip the Band-Aid off son,” Dan said. “You got something to say, say it. This family doesn’t keep secrets.”
Daniel looked at the four adults in his life, then blurted out. “Did you give a son up for adoption?” He didn’t get the response he expected. The shock he saw was expected, but the utter silence and exchanged looks wasn’t. The biggest shock was that there was no denial, until his mother spoke, but he noted that she had a death grip on her husband’s hand. All of their knuckles on both their hands were white from the tightness of their grip on each other.
“No,” Anna said, and Daniel breathed easier. He knew the man he had a photo of from Montana wasn’t his long-lost brother. He breathed easier until his mother spoke again. “We didn’t put our firstborn son up for adoption, but he was kidnapped from us.”
“WHAT?” Daniel asked in shock. This time it was his grandfather that reached out and gripped his forearm to stop him from jumping to his feet.
“Calm down, it was over thirty years ago. Let’s wait until we’re all here and discuss this. I know I just said not two minutes ago that we had no secrets, except for this one. We never told you younger kids, because it happened before most of you were born, and we never found him. We’ll discuss this at dinner, and everyone will learn it all at the same time, okay?”
“Okay, but you will tell us everything? You know that I can do some digging from my office.”
“We are aware of that,” Douglas, his father said. “You don’t know how many times we wanted to come to Chicago to lay it all on the line and have you help, but if the local authorities, and the FBI here in Wyoming couldn’t help us, what could you do? Besides...” he concluded when it looked like Daniel was going to protest, “...wouldn’t your superiors at the time take you off the case, because you’d be too close to it?”
“Okay,” Daniel deflated. “You have me there, but I’m a superior now, I can look into it, and I have two agents that were just promoted that would work this case from every angle, and…” he paused and looked at the four adults, but he shook his head and decided to wait. “Never mind, I’ll wait until everyone is here and we can all learn it.”
“Thank you,” Anna said as she rose, and went to her son and gave him a hug. When they broke apart, she looked at him with a sad smile. “Maybe once we tell everyone what happened, you can tell us why you’re asking.”
“Deal.” Daniel kissed her cheek, and rose from the table. “I’m going to excuse myself and take my bag to my old room, if that’s okay with you.”
“Absolutely, it’s the way you left it the last time you were here. I only go in and dust.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Daniel kissed her cheek again, and walked out of the kitchen. The family home was an old farmhouse that his great-great grandfather Michael Atwater had built almost a hundred years ago. Though it still stood firm, it wasn’t like a lot of the newer homes with an open floorplan. The kitchen was the gathering place for everyone whether they were family or visitors, so it was the largest room in the home. Back when it was built, it was also the warmest, because they used a wood stove to not only heat the house, but also to cook on. So, Daniel didn’t hear his parents when he walked through the living room and up the stairs to his old bedroom.
* * *
“What doyou think he’s not telling us, Son?” Daniel looked at his son, Douglas, and held out his arm when his wife joined his side. With his arm wrapped around her hips, he studied his son and daughter-in-law. “Not to sound morbid, but do you think the FBI found a body, and because he’s family they asked him to come tell us? That’s why he’s asking if we ever gave a child away?”
“No clue, and I hope to God that isn’t the answer. After all these years, I don’t know if I could accept that Michael’s been dead all these years. I think it would finally break me. I don’t know about the rest of you, but there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder what Mikey is doing now. Where he’s living, is he married? Has kids? In my heart, he’s living his life to the fullest, but in my head…” he didn’t finish that sentence out loud, but his wife did.
“He never made it and died at the age of two. The same age he was when he was taken from us,” Anna said, and reached up to wipe the tears streaming down her face. “Excuse me.” She jumped to her feet and hurried off. When Beatrice went to go after her, Dan pulled her back.
“Let her go.”
Beatrice finally agreed, then turned to her son and said firmly, “Get Decker here for supper, I’ll set an extra plate.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Douglas said as he rose, and went to his office to make the call.
Chapter 26
