CHAPTER TEN

°°° Grim Truths °°°

     Sean highlighted the SUV a few seconds after they got back to the house. He grabbed his bag, feeling a bit ashamed of his actions, and walked to the door.

"Sean," Dan called out. "Come with me." "There's something you should know," he said, tilting his head in the direction he wanted them to take. "Boys, you too." His smile was calm yet alarming.

Jason looked at Sean, who was equally confused. The trio shrugged in unison and walked after Dan.

In a minute, they were at the back of the house. They hardly ever came back there, but they made sure it was always neat regardless.

"Come on," Dan beckoned on them.

      The three boys slowly walked to him. He was standing, hands on his waist, staring at a group of garden gnomes that were placed in a circle on the grass with a sleeping beauty toy in a miniature glass coffin. It looked like a Snow White and the Seven Dwarves scene, only there were twelve gnomes.

"Hey… "I remember that," Andrew smiled, taking a step closer as Dan squatted. "We had something like that back in Pittsburgh, right?" he asked, placing his hands on his father’s shoulder.

"Hehe," Dan chuckled. "Sharp memory," he smiled, ruffling Andrew’s lush shoulder-length Havana brown hair.

"This was what you wanted to show us?" Jason raised his brow, confused.

"Uhh… yeah… "Well, I also wanted to explain something to you guys," Dan looked up and sat on the grass. "Well, you know how your mom reacted last night?" he asked and only continued after all three boys nodded. "Well, she was..." he stopped and sighed. He fell silent for a while, thinking about how he would relay the news to them. "Okay," he turned to face them, "Ann was reminded of an experience last night...

"Back in Philadelphia, Ann got a contract that took her to Africa. "You know your mom is also a botanist, right?" He turned to Jason and Andrew and continued after they nodded affirmatively. "Well, she was called to Africa because of some Venus flytrap plant variant. For some reason it had the same properties as one parasitic plant, I think Hydnora africana... I can't really remember the details, but on reaching Africa, she realized she wasn’t feeling too well. She went for several checkups until they discovered... Dan stopped and exhaled. "After a few weeks, she called me to say she was pregnant." Dan exhaled as though he’d been burdened by it and was dying to tell someone.

Jason looked more stunned than the others. He slowly sat on the grass, not blinking for a second, keeping his eyes on his father.

"I’m lost," Andrew, who was already seated, said.

"Yeah," Dan’s exhale was loud, but he sounded much more relaxed and comfortable. "She was a month and a week pregnant," he said, looking into the skies. He then faced them with a kind of joy that they couldn’t comprehend. "It was the first time that she told me she was pregnant over the phone." It was so... scary and... I can’t really explain it. But I was excited, and she was also excited. I asked her to come home immediately, but the project in Africa was something that would grant her international recognition, so after trying futilely to convince her, we decided she could complete her project then return to the states.

"Eight months and five days into the pregnancy, she called to say she was done with her part in the project." His smile had a hint of pain in it. "You see, they had let her off the project because her state didn’t allow them to effectively access and utilize her knowledge the way they wanted, but she’d done pretty much everything that needed to be done. "I was happy," Dan sniffed, confirming how hurt he was by what he was saying.Sean already knew where it was headed, and so did Jason and Andrew, but they didn’t know how to ask him to stop since he was hurt. He, Sean, joined them on the grass, feeling like he was disrespecting the story by standing.

"I was really happy." Dan found his smile again. "I couldn’t wait to speak to my daughter in her mother’s womb, but your mom wanted to give everyone a shock." "Especially you two," he pointed at Jason and Andrew. "We were in Maryland then, and I was quite busy with work, so she tried to convince me to let her give birth there, saying I’d be distracted by her presence, but I refused to give in." I asked her to take the next available flight back to the States. "We hired a doctor, and the next Monday morning..." he took a long pause. "Your sister was eight months and ten days in the womb when she got on her first flight. By the time the plane was down in Maryland, I was at work in an unexpected meeting, so I was unable to pick her up at the airport.

"I eventually got a call; your mom had been rushed to the hospital. "Getting there, they told me your mom was in critical condition and your sister... was in heaven," Dan forced a smile, looking directly into Andrew’s eyes as though she would emerge from within those jade green eyes.

"According to the doctors and the person that had taken over the project in Africa, the child had died from the radiation of the plant, the Venus Flytrap plant variant." The radiations were so minute, they hadn’t noticed them, and when they did, they thought they were harmless to humans, which they were, but since your sister was in her developing stages and her immune system was as good as nonexistent, she got affected.

"According to the lady that took over, I can’t remember her name, but she was French." She said Carlie. That was what we were going to call her, Carlie. The French lady said Carlie’s genes were mutated. The exposure had made her like the Venus flytrap variant. She was reliant solely on your mother for survival.

"But... isn’t that how it naturally is?" "I thought babies relied on their mothers for survival." Andrew couldn’t help himself.

"Yes... but in this case, she was so reliant that, as soon as she left your mother’s system, she couldn’t survive too long," Dan explained. Knowing his "Curious George" of a son still had a question, he further explained. "That was a theory, but it was confirmed after the Venus flytrap plant was transferred to a different location. "It withered in a couple hours."

Andrew was stumped. The image his head created was not one he was willing to ask about. He saw a child whither like a plant would. He swallowed his question and denied the image.

Dan then continued after confirming that Andrew wasn’t going to ask any more questions.

Your mother was traumatized for months. "You remember visiting her in the hospital, right?" he asked Jason. "After that, we had to move out of Maryland to avoid all the questions about the child from those that found out she was pregnant," he forced a smile then turned to Sean. "Ann was only scared you would have died. "The death of a child does something to you as a parent," he chuckled, hiding his tears. "So I hope you understand and forgive her outburst."

     Sean sat silently on the grass, trying to understand what had happened, comparing it to what Dan had just told them. In a moment, it all made sense. It was around this time of the year that Ann returned from Africa and was hospitalized. He had gone to see her once, and after she was discharged, they had just moved from Maryland to Pittsburgh.

      He figured that the timing was a major trigger. It wasn’t just what he did. She was overly protective because of the trauma that still lingered. He’d seen movies about losing a child but never thought those reactions the mothers showcased were actually real.

"It’s alright," Sean smiled, feeling enlightened and much happier that he didn’t leave, although he couldn’t believe that radiations and mutations were more than science fiction.

"Thanks, kiddo," Dan smiled. "But I hope you all know that she can’t know that you know?" "At least not yet," Dan paused midway to standing up.

"Why?" Andrew was perplexed.

"It’ll trigger some emotions," Sean said, saving Dan the trouble of explaining. "We can’t show her pity, but we must shower her with love and affection." According to a book I read, spending time with you two, especially, is sure to make her think less of her loss," the side of his lips lifted into a smile.

"And we have a therapist," Dan laughed.

"A runaway therapist," Jason joined in.

"You guys," Andrew cautioned them with a straight face. "You might get him so vexed he’d leave again."

Silence descended as they all—Sean too—looked at each other confused, then burst into another round of laughter.