Wordsmiths Fiction Week 4: Season 24 – The Family Secret

Pixabay

Julie sat still, the title Jeremy Cates resounding in her ears. The attorney had said it so casually, like he wasn't dropping a bomb on the final string of her understanding of her father.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked the lawyer, her voice lean.
The attorney shook his head. “Just the P.O. box. We've sent a letter informing him of the will.”
A cold, undetectable divider rose between Julie and the mahogany table. Her brother, Michael, hadn't said a word since hearing the news. He stood with his arms crossed, jaw tight.
“Did you know almost this?” she asked him.
He jeered. “Of course not. You think Father would let me know anything?”

That was the issue. Their father had always been a shadow. Present in body, but missing in all other way. Presently it turned out indeed his secret had privileged secret.
After that day, Julie sat in her car outside the town library with a tablet and two coffees. Michael sat next to her, still quiet.
“Look,” she said at last, “we can sit in denial, or we are able discover who this fellow is. I as of now checked—Jeremy Cates has no social media presence, but his name pops up in an old local newspaper paper article from twenty years ago.”
Michael inclined in. “What article?”
Julie turned the screen. The feature studied:
"Boy, 7, rescued from Deserted House Fire—Mother Found dead." Underneath it was a grainy photo of a boy with hollow eyes and a fireman's coat hung over his shoulders.
His title? Jeremy Cates.

Julie looked over down. “He was put in foster care. No say of a father. But the house—look at the address.” She pointed. Michael's confront withered.
“That's Dad's ancient neighborhood.”
Something more profound was unraveling here. Their father hadn't fair hide up a child—he may have abandoned one.
In the following week, a response came to the lawyer's letter. Jeremy had answered. He had accepted to meet, but it has to be in person, and as it must be in an open space.

Julie and Michael met him at a calm coffee shop on the edge of the following district. Jeremy was in his thirties, with a difficult edge relaxed by tired eyes.
“So,” he said as he slid into the booth, “we're related.” He didn't grin.
“Did you know?” Julie inquired, observing him closely.
Jeremy gave a empty giggle. “That I had a father? Better believe it. That he had other kids? No.”
They talked for over an hour. Jeremy told them how their father had come around once—just once—after the fire. He'd given him a modern final title and vanished.
“I keep thinking he was embarrassed of me,” Jeremy said unobtrusively. “He never clarified why he cleared out. I figured I was the mistake.”
Julie gulped difficult. Michael looked absent.
At that point Jeremy asked forward. “I do not need the house,” he said. “But I need something else.”
“What?” Julie inquired.
“The truth. I need to know who my mother was, why my father left, and why I wasn't worth staying with.”

Pixabay

Julie nodded. For the first time, she saw the way forward wasn't legal—it was emotional. Together, the three of them started piecing together the past. Letters covered up in upper room boxes, photographs in old library files, neighbors who still remember the fire.
They learned their father had cherished Jeremy's mother—but she had been hitched to somebody else at the time. When the undertaking came to light, it crushed two families. He'd attempted to assist, but guilt and disgrace drove him absent.
Within the conclusion, Julie and her brothers concurred to sell the estate that their father left for them. They part the continues equitably, but Jeremy used his share to start a community center for foster kids. Julie and Michael gone by regularly.
In revealing who their father truly was, they found something unforeseen:
not fair a third beneficiary, but a lost piece of themselves.

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