THREE
AARON stared in disbelief at the paper in his hands, his pulse quickening as the colour began to drain from his cheeks. His mouth tasted as though he had been sucking on coins and his throat was rapidly closing in on itself. A million questions raced through his mind, too quickly for him to make sense of any of them. Shaking, he read the letter again, and then a third time, and then a fourth, but still he found himself unable to process the words. Nothing seemed to make sense and it was only on the fifth reading that his mind stood still long enough to focus on a single phrase: ‘Maybe you are not receiving my last letters?’
In that split second Aaron knew the real reason his mother had kept the faded journals and his stomach did a quick somersault. Pulling the box file closer towards him, he held each issue up in turn and gave it a gentle shake. His suspicions were instantly confirmed when the movement yielded a small flutter of letters from between the pages, each scrawled in an inky black lettering identical to that which covered the first note he had found. The faded red rug no longer visible beneath him, Aaron felt tears prick his eyes for the second time that day. Paralysed amongst the sea of letters, tears coursed down his cheeks, slowly at first, but soon picking up speed, until his vision became so blurred that he was looking at, but could no longer see, the letters that lay all around him. He gasped desperately for breath between the violent sobs that rocked his body, yet the string of questions continued their relentless tirade and before long his upset and confusion had transformed into an irrepressible rage.
Like a man possessed he struggled to his feet and, defiantly wiping away his tears, attacked the third bookcase with new vigour. Box file after box file was wrenched mercilessly from the shelves, the journals inside shaken violently, finally forced to give up their secret hoards. Each shelf was stripped bare, its former contents sent crashing to the floor in a flurry of perfectly preserved notes, until nothing remained but a thick blanket of dust outlining where the box files used to stand. Collapsing breathlessly back into the fort, Aaron sat back against the stacked carriers, panting with exhaustion from the sudden surge of activity. The manic outburst had helped to quash his rapidly rising anger, providing a vent for the intense frustration he felt, but now all about him lay more letters and ultimately more questions.
A soft knock at the door startled him and he looked up in panic, half- expecting Aunt Ruby to come barging in.
‘Aaron, is everything all right in there?’ came Arthur’s concerned voice from the other side of the door.
‘Yeah, it’s … it’s fine,’ he lied, his heart beating furiously inside his chest.
‘What was all that banging?’
‘Oh, I … I just knocked a stack of books over, that’s all. Everything’s fine.’
A brief and awkward silence followed while Arthur appeared to contemplate Aaron’s excuse, but it seemed to satisfy his concern because he quickly changed the subject.
‘Aunt Ruby’s not back yet. I don’t know where she’s got to, but I’m starving and I can’t wait any longer. I’m going to order a pizza or something for lunch; do you want anything?’
Food was the farthest thing from Aaron’s mind after what he had just discovered and he wasn’t ready to face Arthur yet either, not until he had more information.
‘No thanks, Arthur. I’m still full from breakfast.’
‘Okay. I’m sure there’ll be a few slices left over if you change your mind later.’
Aaron listened while Arthur’s heavy footsteps backed away from the study door and made their way downstairs. When he could no longer hear them, he breathed a deep sigh of relief and, gingerly mopping his brow, turned his attention back to the chaos that lay before him. The sheer number of letters was overwhelming, perhaps ten or even twenty years of correspondence; a lifetime’s worth. He reached for the nearest one and began to read compulsively. Entirely engrossed, he consumed letter after letter, pausing only to reflect on the things that he had read and what they might mean. However, far from offering any explanation, each reading only served to add to his confusion and to raise more questions about his biological mother and the nature of her relationship with the only mother that he had ever known.
The Rutherfords had always maintained that Aaron’s real mother had passed away shortly after his birth. Entrusted into Catherine’s care during her residency in India, the dying woman had quickly developed a strong bond with the young doctor and, with no trustworthy next of kin, begged her to take care of Aaron once she was gone. The childless Catherine had been so touched by the woman’s plight and resolute faith in her parenting abilities that she had felt compelled to accept. Now it seemed that not only was this story fabricated, but that his birth mother was very much alive, had regularly corresponded with Catherine over the years and even had other children.
With each letter that he read Aaron’s reality became more and more twisted, until he was no longer certain of anything that he had believed to be true about his life with the Rutherfords. It was hard to take it all in at once, but something inside was pushing him, daring him, to keep reading and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the page. He pressed on, desperate to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, but the task was complicated by the absence of Catherine’s responses to each letter, and by the fact that his frenzied attack on the bookcase had disturbed any chronological order that Kalpana’s letters might have been stored in.
Straining to read the last lines of the umpteenth letter, Aaron became aware that he was sitting in near darkness. He glanced up at the window, surprised to find that the sun had already set and that the faint glow by which he had been reading was cast entirely by the lights that adorned the garden below. He had been locked away for hours and so absorbed in his quest for the truth that time had slipped by almost imperceptibly. He felt drained, physically, mentally and most of all emotionally. His head was swimming with everything that he had read; yet for all his efforts he was no closer to understanding the true circumstances surrounding his adoption. He desperately wanted to put the letters back where he had found them, to close the door to the study and to crawl back in to bed and pretend that the day had never happened, but he knew that there could be no simple return to the life that he had always known.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a low growl originating from deep within his belly, as he registered the feeling of hunger for the first time in over a week. Breakfast felt like an age ago and though he usually wished to avoid the awkwardness of their one-on-one exchanges, he knew that a second mealtime conversation with Arthur was now an unavoidable necessity. Arthur was the only one who might be able to explain the truth about what he had found and, despite the evidence to the contrary, he still clung to the hope that there was a perfectly logical and rational explanation as to why his parents had lied to him.
Tucking a few of the letters into his tracksuit bottom pocket, Aaron gently eased himself to a standing position and surveyed the room once more. It was reminiscent of a city street after a bomb blast and even the neat towers of books that he wanted to keep had been toppled during his frenetic attack on the bookcase. He edged carefully around the rubble and stepping out into the hallway pulled the door shut firmly behind him, relieved to be free of the suffocating confines of the room. His lungs were immediately filled with the aromatic scent of roast chicken, causing his stomach to gurgle appreciatively in anticipation. The scent grew stronger as he made his way down the stairs, and rounding the corner to the kitchen he found Aunt Ruby busily preparing dinner at the counter, whilst his father remained hunched over the newspaper as though he hadn’t moved all day. Hearing his footsteps, they both looked up in unison and Aunt Ruby smiled warmly in welcome.
‘Hello, dear. How are you?’
‘Hello, Aunt Ruby. I’m, um, I’m okay … okay, I guess.’
‘Are you hungry? You must be hungry; Arthur told me that you didn’t have any lunch. Dinner will be ready in just a tick.’
Aaron smiled meekly at his aunt and moved to seat himself
opposite Arthur, who, making no attempt to acknowledge his son’s presence at the table, had already turned his attention back to the newspaper. Aaron cleared his throat loudly, causing Arthur to look up at him somewhat irritably.
‘Is everything cleared in the study?’
‘No, not quite.’
‘Not quite? You’ve been up there all day,’ Arthur shrieked.
‘I started … but then I found something,’ Aaron retorted sharply, immediately annoyed by Arthur’s response. If anyone was going to feel surprised or disappointed, it would be him.
‘I see. What was it then? This thing that you found,’ replied Arthur sarcastically, the disinterest in his voice barely disguised as he returned to the article he was reading.
‘Letters from Kalpana.’
Arthur visibly stiffened at Aaron’s words and slowly raised his head until his eyes met his son’s. His face was pale and strained, and his lips barely moved beyond a whisper when he spoke.
‘What did you just say?’
Aaron remained mute, allowing the words to settle over them whilst he searched Arthur’s face for signs of guilt or regret. The men stared at each other intently, another one of their silent exchanges, and it was only Aunt Ruby’s sudden presence between them that broke their gaze. Both father and son had momentarily forgotten that she was even in the room.
‘I think I’d better leave you both to it,’ she murmured softly, slowly unfastening the apron strings from around her sizeable waist. She placed the apron onto the table in a crumpled heap and, casting Arthur a sympathetic look, politely excused herself from the kitchen.