Page 6 of The Virgin's Baby
I’d taken a seat on the edge of my bed. “Yes, sir. What is it?”
“My son…” he stopped talking and put his fist tightly against his mouth. Then he cleared his throat before going on. “My son was murdered. Your father and mother have been killed. Their bodies were found full of bullet holes off the African Coast. Their yacht has been taken. Pirates are believed to have done the evil deed.”
It was hard to believe the news he’d delivered to me that day. The sun was shining outside my window; the birds were chirping merrily. Shouldn’t it be storming outside? Didn’t the entire planet know my parents had been killed?
As I sat there waiting to see the old man, lost in my memories, I knew my grandfather would deliver his news much the same way as he’d done back then, fifteen years earlier—straight and to the point.
Internally, I prepared myself to hear it. I had never allowed myself to think about a time that would eventually come—the time when I would find myself alone in the world.
I prayed like crazy that I wasn’t about to find out that the time had come much sooner than I’d ever thought it would. I wasn’t ready to be alone yet.
Sure, I stayed away from home more often than I stayed at home. But I called my grandfather all the time, and he called me too. When I was home, we would do things together. But since I graduated from college, our outings grew more infrequent. Until suddenly, they dried up entirely.
I’ve wasted so much time.
Putting my face in my hands, I fought the urge to cry. I wasn’t the kind of man who cried. I laughed. I joked. I played around. I didn’t cry.
But those tears were burning the backs of my eyes so badly, I thought they might burst free for the first time since I’d lost Mom and Dad.
About a year after their murders, the last of my tears were shed, and I never cried again. And now here I was, trying to hold them back, even though I had no idea what kind of news my grandfather was going to give me.
Pulling my head up, I shook off my feeling of impending doom. I had no clue what I was about to be told.Why start mourning the man now?
The door to his bedroom opened, and the lady in the lilac scrubs came out. “You must be Ransom. Your grandfather has told me so much about you.” She smiled at me as she extended her hand.
I shook it. “He’s told me nothing about you.”
With a light laugh, she said, “I’m sure he hasn’t. I’m Daphne, his attendant. I’ll let him tell you the rest.” She walked away to leave us alone. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes or so. Don’t leave him unattended, please.”
“And why is that?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer; she just closed the outer door behind her, leaving me alone with my grandfather. I turned to walk into his bedroom, worried about the state I would find him in.
He lay in his large, oak four-post bed. A white comforter billowed around him making him look small and slight in the bed.
“Ransom?” he croaked.
“Yes, sir. It’s me.” I came to the side of his bed as he didn’t sit up.
His blue eyes were sunken back into his skull. It had only been a little over a month since I’d seen him last, and he’d lost a fair amount of weight in that short time. And much of his white hair was gone too.
When he pulled his hand out from under the blanket, I could see multiple bruises on top of it. At some time or another, he’d must’ve had IVs stuck in it. And he’d never told me a thing.
“Ransom, sit down.” He patted the bed beside him.
I took a seat on the edge, looking at him and hating what I saw. “Grandad, what’s happened to you? Did you have a stroke or something?”
He nodded, and it made me feel like crying again. “Yes, I did.”
“Why didn’t you have someone call me?” I couldn’t understand why he would do this to me.
“Ransom, I wanted you to come see me, but I didn’t want it to be because I was ill.” He ran his thin fingers over the back of my hand. “You’re always going, going, going. You need to put down some roots, my boy.”
“I’m good, Grandad. I’m really good. I have lots of fun,” I told him, hoping he could understand that I didn’t want to live the way he did, tied down to this place.
“Fun,” he said then harrumphed. “Fun has its place and time. But fun isn’t a way of life, boy.” He shook his head. “No—not, boy. Man. You are a man. Thirty years old now. I thought you might call or come by on your birthday. But you didn’t bother. You didn’t want to spend that special day of yours with your blood. I suppose you were with your cronies—your posse or whatever you call them.”
“I was.” I had to get up and walk around a bit. Seeing him in that weakened state was getting to me. Making me feel things I didn’t want to feel. “And usually you call me on my birthday, not the other way around. I haven’t spent my birthday with you for years now.”
