Like Father, Like Son - 4

For the next two days fifteen-year-old Declan explored the house and grounds, meeting the servants who were, all told, as cold and aloof as the butler. Finally, at loose ends and bored with swimming in the large outdoor pool, watching television or playing video games in the huge recreation room in the basement, Declan took it into his head to see what was in the three boxes from their old home that were sitting untouched in one of the basement storage rooms.

Most of the other packing boxes had been put in his or his mother’s room, depending on their contents. One of the maids had unpacked his clothes for him, carefully putting them away in the closet or dresser. His books and other possessions he’d distributed on the shelves that lined one wall of his bedroom.

The storage room was at the back of the basement. He’d discovered it during one of his forays through the house and upon seeing the three boxes marked with his mother’s name and their old address he’d wondered why they were there and not with the rest upstairs.

He carefully opened the first one and found it was full of papers, old paid bills and such, which he knew immediately had come from her small filing cabinet. The second box held his old school books, the children’s books he’d grown up with and other miscellany from his childhood.

You are such a packrat, mother He smiled with amusement.

Then he got to the third box. Inside was a small wooden chest about the size of one of the large jewelry boxes his mother favored. He took it out only to find it was locked. Without a thought to the fact there might be a reason for that he went in search of something to use to pry it open, returning with a screwdriver and hammer. It took a few sharp blows but he finally succeeded in opening it.

The chest was filled with large envelopes and a few photographs. His first though was they were tokens from his mother’s childhood or maybe even love letters from some man, perhaps even his father.

He knew nothing about his father. It was a subject his mother refused to talk about other than to say the man had deserted her the moment he’d found out she was pregnant. Now, perhaps, he was about to discover who he was.

He opened the envelope on the top of the pile, removing an official looking document. It took only a second for him to realize it was a birth certificate. His birth certificate. He read it slowly. It listed his mother’s maiden name, Delores Marie Ryder, his own name, Declan Bryant Ryder, and the name of the man she had told the hospital was his father, Bryant Hill.

You named me after my father? You lying bitch. You always said Bryant was a family name. He ran a finger over his father’s name. Who are you? Where are you?

He knew he’d been born back east, in Minnesota was all his mother had told him. She had taken him and moved to Nevada before he was a year old, and then when he was five to New Mexico. Now he had the name of the city. Not that he could do anything about it. He was hardly in a position at his age to pack up and go there in search of his father.

After putting the birth certificate back in the envelope he set it aside. Next he looked at the two photographs. They were blurry, as if someone, probably his mother, had taken them without the subject being aware. They showed a dark-haired man sitting at a table on what looked like a restaurant patio, talking with an older, white-haired man. Declan squinted, trying to discern more clearly what the younger man looked like. He thought he could see a vague resemblance to himself in his features. With a small shrug he set them aside as well.

The next envelope held two newspaper articles. They were very brief, one about a murder/suicide pact involving two men, Crispin Hill and Kent Tyler. The bodies of the presumed lovers had been found by Crispin Hill’s brother, who wasn’t named in the article.

But it was my father, I know it was.

The other article was a short notice about the funeral service for Crispin Hill and where he was to be interred. No family was mentioned. Declan put then articles back in their envelope and placed it on top of the small pile he was keeping for himself.

Why did you save this stuff, mother? Did you plan on telling me someday or was it just a morbid desire to hang on to the memory of the man who fathered me?

The rest of the papers in the chest held nothing more of interest. He’d been right in thinking there were love letters, most of them from when his mother was in high school and college. None of them were from his father.

Stuffing everything except what he was keeping back into the chest he closed it and returned it to the packing box, which he slid into a dark corner under a shelf at the back of the storeroom. Perhaps she wouldn’t notice it there, if she came looking for it, and would think it had gotten lost by the shipping company. Not that it really mattered. He had what he wanted, the first link to his real father.