Forbidden Son (18 page)

She
smiled. “I take it you don’t want me making a fuss over you tomorrow. Anyhow,
my plane leaves in the morning.”

“I’m
sorry I couldn’t spend time seeing the sights with you, Mom. Truly, I am.”

“What
did I ever do to deserve a son like you?” It was a question she had often asked
herself. “Learn as much as you can about politics, Jack Tripp Garrett, but
don’t forget to enjoy yourself. I’ll see you in August.”

It
was difficult for her to say good-bye. She cradled the receiver and went to
answer the room-service announcement at the door. Sighing, Honey Belle pushed
away all thoughts of Tripp from her mind.

When
the truth came out, she hoped JT would forgive her.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Honey
Belle set the food tray out in the hallway and retreated into her hotel room,
making sure the door was closed and locked. She rubbed her eyes, stretched, and
yawned. She hadn’t slept well the night before, and the stress of today’s
meeting with Tripp had left her exhausted. She shed the housecoat and climbed
into bed.

She
didn’t remember shutting her eyes or falling asleep. She saw herself in a
swirling fog of darkness. A man wearing a mask approached her. Though she
couldn’t see his face, there was a familiarity about him. He warned her it
wasn’t safe for a woman to be on the streets at night and alone. He asked if he
could escort her someplace. She felt safe with this man. Because of his mask,
could she trust him?

He
grasped her hand and lifted it to his lips. Her body flamed, and she ached for
more of his touch. His tongue caressed the inner harbor between her thumb and
forefinger. Desire rushed through her and she felt faint. The flash of longing
pulsated with such power it frightened her. She pulled her hand away. “I have
to go.” And she turned and ran, allowing the swirling fog to engulf her.

She
came to a door and knocked. No one answered. She balled her fist and rapped
against the wooden frame until the sound echoed in her ears.

She
knocked again.

She
pleaded, “Please, let me in.”

Knock.
Knock. Louder.

Stirring
in her sleep, she wondered why someone didn’t answer the door.

Knock.
Knock.

Honey
Belle sat up. Her heart raced. The knocking was real. Someone was actually
rapping on her hotel room door. She looked at the clock. One-thirty in the
morning. She quelled the panic in the pit of her stomach. Had something
happened to JT? Was it her son? Had he changed his mind about staying in D.C.?

Knock.
Knock.

Scooting
out of bed, she ran on tiptoes across the carpeted room and pressed her eye
against the peephole. The last person she expected to see stood in the hall. He
turned to walk away. Releasing the security chain, she opened the door.

“Tripp,
what are you doing here?”

He
pushed in past her. “Shut the door.”

Puzzled
at his mysterious late-night visit, she obeyed. “Do you know what time it is?
What’s wrong?”

Tripp
handed her a paper sack. “Coffee.”

“Uh,
thanks, I think. Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“You
were right this afternoon when you asked if my office was bugged. Capitol Hill
has eyes and ears everywhere. That’s the reason I waited until those eyes and
ears went to sleep.” He lifted the lid off the cup he held and sipped.

“Excuse
me for asking an irrational question, but what about when you get ready to
leave? Won’t there be eyes and ears?”

He
warmed her with a smile. “I’m not staying that long. I’ve thought about it all
afternoon, Honey Belle. I need to know why you ran out on me.”

Disarmed
by his smile, she relaxed her guard. “Okay. You have to promise you won’t
interrupt, that you’ll hear me out all the way through.”

He
settled in a chair, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. He gave what
sounded like a resigned sigh. “On my word of honor.”

Honey
Belle was conscious of his undivided attention. She hid her pleasure. The
feeling came from deep inside, a warm tide that felt like it couldn’t be
emptied.

She
pulled the other chair around to face him, then gathered the scrapbook and
large brown envelope from the briefcase and held them in her lap. Her voice
even, she began. “The day after you left for Massachusetts, a sleek black
limousine parked in front of the home I shared with my parents in Shanty
Groves. A man dressed in a black uniform asked if I was Honey Belle Garrett. He
said Judge Hartwell wished to speak with me. I very naively thought your father
had come to congratulate me on our engagement. I was excited, but disappointed
because another part of me thought you must have asked him to take me shopping for
an engagement ring.”

The
entire time she talked, she watched Tripp’s face. It was obvious that over the
years he had learned to mask his emotions.

Mask?
A portion of her dream came to her. Was Tripp the masked man in her dream?

She
continued her story. Refraining from referring to the Judge as Tripp’s father,
she called him the Judge. “The Judge said he wanted me out of town, that I
wasn’t good enough for you. He offered me a large sum of money. I told him you
and I loved each other, and no amount of money could force me to leave you.”

She
clutched the envelope of incriminating pictures. “That’s when he showed me
pictures, shameful pictures. I explained the people were my father and mother
and my cousin Bubba. He laughed and said you wouldn’t know the difference. That
trash was trash. It wasn’t until he threatened my family, saying he’d fix it so
my father couldn’t get medical treatment at any hospital, and that he’d see to
it my mother and I lost our jobs, and he’d have us kicked out of our house... I
couldn’t allow him to hurt my parents.

“I
tried one more bluff. I snatched the pictures from him and ripped them to
shreds. I shall never forget the sound of his laugh when he reached inside his
briefcase and pulled out another pack of these.” She handed Tripp the envelope.
When he hesitated, she said, “Where we lived was a dump. Mama and Daddy, well,
they were who they were, and I didn’t know any different. As bad as the
pictures look, they really are all innocent.”

She
watched Tripp’s frown as he flipped through the stack of black-and-whites.
“Part of me wants to believe you, Honey Belle. The other part knows my father
wouldn’t stoop to blackmail. Threats, maybe. Blackmail, no, I’ll never believe
it.”

She
saw the white outline of anger around his pressed lips. A muscle ticked under
his right eye. And he rubbed his leg. The prosthetic leg...as if it ached.

She
closed her eyes because she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to recognize the
accusation she saw in his eyes or to look too deep into his heart.

She
reached inside the briefcase and removed a folded sheet of paper. “I wasn’t
smart back in those days. Yet somehow I knew the time might come when I would
need to defend myself. I made a copy of this.”

She
reluctantly handed him the photocopy of the personal check, written in Judge
Hartwell’s own hand and with his signature, in the amount of ten thousand
dollars. She didn’t tell Tripp that his father had equated her to a
fifty-dollar whore.

“Fearing
a bank might ask questions if I tried to cash the check, the Judge also gave me
five hundred dollars in cash. He wanted us out of town the next day. We packed
up our few belongings, boarded a Greyhound bus, and went to live with my
mother’s sister in Valdosta, Georgia.”

Tripp’s
jaw worked as he looked at the reproduction. Honey Belle held her breath,
waiting for him to speak.

He
threw her an irritated glance and enunciated clearly. “Did you know you were
pregnant when I left for Massachusetts?”

Honey
Belle hugged her knees close to her body. “No, I honestly didn’t. All those
nights we spent together on the beach, getting pregnant never entered my mind.”

“When
you found out, why didn’t you tell me?”

An
ache had grown behind her eyes, and she rubbed her temple. “Oh, Tripp, back
then I was young and dumb. What did I know? Nothing. The Judge...he...he said
if I was pregnant to get rid of it, that he’d have no bastard baby tainting the
Hartwell’s pure bloodlines or ruining your chances at a political career. I
kept my pregnancy a secret, and I’ve kept my son a secret all these years,
because I was afraid of what your father might do if he found out about JT.”

Tripp
shot out of the chair as if he’d been fired from a cannon. The copy of the
check fluttered to the floor.

Honey
Belle got up and put her hand on his shoulder. He was clearly upset and, she
could tell, about to get very angry.

****

Tripp
frowned. He, of all people, knew about the walls people built up to protect
their hearts. It was evident Honey Belle had ramparts around hers a mile high.

By
the square of her shoulders, and the tilt of her chin, she seemed strong,
resilient, and yet there was a vulnerability about her eyes that elicited
compassion, even empathy. It was as if she’d seen many lows and was valiantly
prepared to face more. He hoped he was that prepared to face the final outcome.

Old
thoughts crammed his head. The long-ago conversation with Charlie Nichols, the
detective his father sometimes used for cases. He’d often wondered about the
detective’s hesitancy when answering those questions. It was too late, now, but
he should have listened to his gut instinct and hired his own detective.

“I
know why you lied about where you lived, Honey Belle. When I returned home and
found you had never lived on Barrington Street, I went to the Burger Bin to see
Carla. She couldn’t tell me where you’d gone, but she laid it on pretty thick
about why you had left. Me, a college kid born with a silver spoon in his
mouth, and you, a high school dropout born on the wrong side of the tracks. An
imperfect match doomed to disaster from the very beginning. Carla advised me to
forget about you and get on with my career.

“Later,
I drove out to Shanty Groves. I was determined to find you. By that time, the
house you’d lived in was a crumbling shell and no one remembered your family.”

Tripp
studied Honey Belle for a long moment. He was overcome by the sudden urge to
unclasp her hands and gently loosen her shoulders so she didn’t appear so...so
knotted up.

Something
shifted inside Tripp, and he felt the familiar coldness envelop him like steely
armor. He gritted his teeth. He needed to confront his father.

She
stared up at him, wide-eyed. “What’s done is done, Tripp. We can’t go back and
change any of it. I know you don’t want to believe the Judge’s role in this. It
was difficult for me to tell you. Honestly.”

“We’ll
work through this, Honey Belle. We
will
. I promise.”

She
reached up and brushed his hair away from his forehead. He felt her fingers
tremble against his skin. His body seemed to pull toward hers. More than
anything in this world, he wanted to give in to that pull and kiss her.

The
time wasn’t right.

He
had a son, and he wanted to know the boy. Before he could do that, he had to
confront his own father.

He
rubbed his thumb over her fingers. “Go back to Valdosta, Honey Belle. Let me work
this out with my father in my own way.”

Tears
rolled down her cheeks. “I can’t go through this again, Tripp. He will only
deny it. The question is—will you believe him? Frankly, I don’t care, as long
as I don’t lose my son.”

Tripp
leaned close, touching her cheek. “He’s my son, too, remember? And it’s my job
to protect his mother. Good night, Honey Belle. I’ll contact you when the time
is right.”

And
then he was gone.

Honey
Belle sighed. She pressed against the closed door and strained to hear the rhythmic
thump of the cane and the footsteps in the hall.

****

A
son.

The
news filled Tripp with a myriad of emotions.

Elation.

He
reveled at the idea of having a son. Nearing forty, he had feared his days of
being a father were over. What woman wanted to make love to a one-legged gimp?
He tossed that emotion aside. Pity parties weren’t his style.

Anger.

Definitely.
But at whom? His father or Honey Belle? Honey Belle’s explanation sounded
plausible. Part of him believed her story. His father? The same gnawing question
he’d felt years ago had returned. Oh, yeah, his father had denied a role in
Honey Belle’s disappearance. Who to believe—that was the enigma.

Frustration.

As
much as he desired to hop the first plane to South Carolina to confront his
father, Tripp’s first obligation was making certain the wording of the bill
regarding the arms regulations for the military had no holes the opposing
members could punch through.

He
slowed his pace a little. Maybe this wasn’t the hornet’s nest he wanted to walk
into. It was times like this he missed the counsel of his mother and Pearlie
Mae. Both gone.

Honey
Belle’s face floated before his eyes, standing in the middle of the hotel room,
her arms wrapped around herself, hugging her middle tight, she’d looked angry,
sad, and about a dozen other female emotions he didn’t have a name for. He
didn’t like seeing her that way, hurt. She seemed as fragile as an eggshell.

He
shook his head, chasing off memories that would more than likely spell trouble.
He would keep his promise to Honey Belle and not make contact with young Jack
Tripp Garrett. At least, not yet.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Tripp
leaned over, planting both palms on the conference table. “Well, ladies and
gentlemen, it’s been a long eight weeks. A few subtle details, and we’ll have a
bill that neither the House nor the Senate can afford to shoot down.”

Senator
Eleanor Whipple lamented, “And then we can go home. Hopefully, we can wrap this
up by the end of the week. I’d like to spend time with my twins before school
starts.”

Minutes
later, Tripp and the committee members bent to the silent task of rereading
sections from the lofty pyramid of documents.

Intent
on the page he was reading, the voice bending to whisper in his ear startled
him. “My apologies for interrupting, Senator Hartwell, but you have an urgent
phone call.”

Tripp
looked at the fretful expression on his secretary’s face. “Who is it?”

“It’s
your uncle. He says it’s about your father.”

Tripp
pushed back his chair and excused himself. Moments later he returned to the
meeting room. “My father is seriously ill. Senators Clarksdale and Whipple will
fill my stead.”

His
eyes shifted around the table as he bid the committee members good luck.

****

A
few hours later, Tripp landed at Charleston’s airport and collected a rental
car for the drive to the hospital. Usually a cautious driver, he changed lanes
frequently and bore down on the accelerator when the lights turned yellow,
feeling the weight of every passing moment.

When
he arrived, the scene in the hospital reminded him of the time when Kathryn had
fallen down the stairs and miscarried their baby. It was as if nothing had
changed. The same ammonia and antiseptic odors filled the air, the same
fluorescent lights in the same fiberboard dropped ceilings, and more people
than the waiting room had chairs.

Jake
Hartwell looked every bit the lawyer in his navy blue suit and shiny black
shoes. At the age of seventy, he was still a robust man. Tripp reached out to
grip his uncle’s hand in a hearty shake. “How is he, Uncle Jake?”

“Dr.
Chapman is running tests. He thinks the fall may have triggered a stroke.”

“Not
down the stairs?”

“No.
It appears Harlan was trying to change a light bulb in the bathroom, fell off
the stepladder, and hit his head on the tub. He was barely conscious when the
nurse heard the crash and ran upstairs to investigate. She called the
ambulance. I called you.”

“Waiting
is the worst part, Uncle Jake. Brings back painful memories of another time
when the waiting seemed to last forever.”

“Kathryn?”

Tripp
nodded. “Father is eighty-one. Even with a certified nursing assistant with him
night and day, he has no business rambling around inside that big old house all
by himself.”

“Are
you suggesting an assisted living facility?”

“Yes.”

“I
don’t disagree. Convincing my brother is a horse of another color. Let’s see
what Dr. Chapman tells us about Harlan’s condition.”

Tripp
hadn’t finished his coffee when a nurse entered the waiting room and called for
a Tripp Hartwell.

He
stood. “That would be me.”

“Dr.
Chapman wanted me to let you know he’d be out shortly.”

Tripp
thanked the nurse and sat back down.

Thirty
minutes passed and the nurse emerged again. “Your father is a little
disoriented. His vital signs are good. He’s been moved to a room. Dr. Chapman
said he’d talk to you when you arrived there.”

Tripp
felt his uncle’s eyes drift toward him. “You go on. The two of us might wear
Harlan out.”

The
nurse shook her head. “If you’re Jake, then Mr. Hartwell wants to see you
and
his son, together. He insisted. Room 402.”

****

“The
news isn’t good, Senator Hartwell. As I suspected, the fall triggered a mild
stroke. However, that isn’t my major concern. The x-ray shows a large mass on
the temporal lobe. I’ve sent the reports to a neurosurgeon for a second
opinion. All indications suggest a malignancy.”

For
a moment, Tripp stood without speaking. “What does that mean in terms of time,
Dr. Chapman?”

The
doctor patted him on the shoulder. “I can’t tell you that until I hear from the
neurosurgeon. I’ll let you know as soon as I get his report.”

Tripp
and his uncle traded handshakes with the doctor. As he entered the room, Tripp
thought his father looked small in the bed, his face paper white. Tripp pulled
a chair close to the bed and sat. His uncle did the same.

“Hello,
Father.”

“Hello,
son,” the Judge said shakily.

“Uncle
Jake said you fell off a ladder.”

“Got
a little dizzy and lost my balance.”

His
father’s eyes had grown curiously misty. He said, “Jake, I want you to bear
witness to what I have to say to my son.”

Jake
Hartwell said, “Your will is in place, Harlan. Did you want to add a codicil?”

The
elder man waved his hand in the air as if popping invisible bubbles. “Hell, no.
I’ve got a confession to make. Somebody ought to hear it besides Tripp.”

The
heart machine beat steadily, soothing in its monotony. His curiosity piqued,
Tripp had no idea what deep dark secret his father harbored. “What do you have
to confess, Father?”

A
coughing spasm caused pain to constrict the Judge’s face. Tripp poured a glass
of water. While his uncle assisted in lifting the Judge to a sitting position,
Tripp held the glass so his father could drink. Water dribbled down the
wrinkled chin to stain the white sheet. As if exhausted by the mere act of
swallowing a few sips, Harlan Hartwell leaned back on the pillow and closed his
eyes. Tripp exchanged glances with his uncle, and waited.

Harlan
rolled his head to the side of the pillow. His eyes snapped open. “I’ve known
about the brain tumor for quite some time. It was confirmed at the Mayo Clinic.
I told that idiot Chapman.” Harlan’s laugh was short and unpleasant. “I told
him to send for the medical records. Young upstart. Thinks he knows more than
me, the retired governor of South Carolina. What does he think I am, stupid?”

Tripp
tried to calm his father. “Dr. Chapman is doing what any good doctor would do.
He’s covering all the bases. Why didn’t you tell me or Uncle Jake about the
tumor?”

“I
don’t want to talk about it. I have other things on my mind.”

Not
wishing to agitate his father, Tripp smiled. “All right, Father. Uncle Jake and
I are listening.”

Tripp
saw pain mirrored in his father’s eyes, saw infinite sadness dwelling there.
The small black clock on the wall told him it was almost three-thirty. Tired
from his flight and the drive through Charleston, Tripp felt impatient. He
wanted to pace around the room, to stretch his long legs. Instead, he remained
seated.

The
Judge coughed, cleared his throat. “When I met your mother, she was so
beautiful, so warm and loving. I knew the moment I laid eyes on her she was the
woman I would wed. The cruelest thing your mother ever did in her entire life
was to die and leave me alone.”

Tripp
envisioned his mother in her old gardening clothes and floppy hat, wearing a
smile that could brighten the dreariest day. He, too, missed her.

His
father’s voice broke through Tripp’s musing.

“Kathryn
was a mistake. I should never have insisted you marry the girl. She was
shallow, selfish, and greedy. Not at all like my Mary Alice.” Harlan’s eyes
closed and he seemed to drift off. His eyes looked wide and startled when he
opened them.

“My
fault for your unhappiness...all my fault. My fault you went off to war. I
could have used my power to keep you home. My fault you lost your leg. All of
it...my fault.”

“You’re
not making sense, Father. I chose to join the Army. Vietnam happened without
your help. As for my leg, I was a casualty of war. It’s over and done. In the
past. What does this have to do with Mother, Kathryn, and a confession?”

As
his father toyed with the edge of the blanket, the mist continued to cloud the
Judge’s eyes. “That girl, Honey Belle Garrett—you remember her?”

Tripp
laced his fingers together in a tight grip. His stomach clenched. “What about
her?”

“There’s
no easy way to say this, son. I paid her to leave South Carolina. Oh, she tried
to get feisty, but I had Charlie Nichols take pictures of her. When I showed
them to her, I said you would believe whatever I told you. I misused my power.
I did it because I was afraid she’d ruin your chances at a successful political
career.”

Oh,
God, he thought, if he’d ever had any doubts about Honey Belle’s
confession—Tripp shook his head, eager to leave the hospital, and his father.
“Did you tell her to abort the child if she was pregnant? The truth, Father.”

“I...well...
I didn’t want the Hartwell-Calhoun bloodlines tainted. That girl was white
trash from the seediest section of Charleston. I did it for you. But I need to
make my peace before I die.”

“Oh,
I get it. Confession is good for the soul. Is that it, Father?”

Tripp
felt as if he’d stepped into the hottest depths of hell. In spite of the
hospital room’s frigid temperature, sweat trickled between his shoulder blades.
Fingers of fire gripped his stomach. Bile burned the back of his throat. As
much as he wanted to hate the shriveled shell his father had become, instead he
pitied him. He fought to keep his voice calm. “I found out eight weeks ago that
I have a son. His name is Jack Tripp Garrett. He is sixteen years old, and he
served as a congressional junior page this term. His mother kept him a secret
because she was afraid you would make good on your threat to harm the child. I
refrained from meeting the boy to protect his mother’s privacy.” Tripp rubbed
his brow as he paced about the room in agitation. “All these years, because of
your self-righteous spitefulness, you denied me the right to know
my son
,
and my son the right to know his father...and a grandfather.” He stopped pacing
to stand at the edge of the hospital bed. “I should hate you. If you weren’t a
sick old man, maybe I would.”

Judge
Hartwell blinked fast as if to hold back the tears. “I can never make amends
for what I’ve done. Your mother, God rest her soul, always wanted a grandchild.
In a sense, I denied her, too.” He struggled to prop up on his elbows. “I’ve
changed my mind, Jake. Write this down and let me sign it. Add a codicil to my
will stating that a trust fund in the amount of one million dollars be set
aside for Tripp’s son...m-my grandson.”

Tripp
felt his chest constrict. He couldn’t breathe.
His son.
The words
sounded so foreign to him, he couldn’t grasp the true meaning.

“Tripp,
do you suppose I could meet my grandson before I die?”

Tripp’s
heart slammed against his chest. “JT doesn’t know about me, or you, Father. I
think the odds are impossible that either of us will ever know him.”

****

Honey
Belle felt like a trapped rabbit. Trapped in a lie by omission. Moving her gaze
from each passenger to the next exiting the gangway at the Albany airport, she
searched until she spotted JT waving at her.

After
the initial hugs and loading his luggage inside the car, Honey Belle still
wrestled with how to tell her son about the father he’d never known. “So, did
serving as a junior page and hobnobbing with politicians help you to decide if
you’d like to major in political science when you go to college?” She knew it
was a lame way to begin a conversation. Still, with a hundred-and-ten-mile
drive to Valdosta, she had plenty of time to get to the dreaded topic.

“Being
in D.C. was a cool experience. I mean, like, man, it was really rad. You know?
But that scene’s not for me.”

Honey
Belle laughed at the typical teenage lingo. She decided to do a little fishing.
“Did you meet any particular congressman who impressed you?”

“They
were all pretty cool, some more than others. I didn’t get to meet my original
mentor. Senator Tripp Hartwell. He was in a special session the entire summer.
I really wanted to meet him, especially since he’s a war hero and we both have
the same name, Tripp. Pretty cool, huh? I heard he was a real stand-up guy.
Say, Mom, did you deliberately name me after such a famous person?”

She
loved the way her son prattled on and, without knowing, had opened the door for
her big reveal. Sidestepping the question, she asked, “Are you hungry?”

“You
know it. I could go for a bacon cheeseburger, extra pickles, hold the onions.”

Hold
the onions.
A laugh escaped her. She knew another Tripp who loved
hamburgers with extra pickles, hold the onions.
She wondered if taste
buds were genetic.

An
hour later she removed the scrapbook from the briefcase on the back seat,
slammed the car door, and slid behind the steering wheel. Her pulse raced out
of control. Was she so conditioned to accept the worst out of life that she
feared her son would reject her once she told him the truth about his
parentage? She frowned, hating to admit it was true. Life had dealt Honey Belle
her share of blows, but that was no excuse for hiding the truth. Was it?

“JT,
earlier you asked if I’d deliberately named you after a famous person. The
truth is I knew Tripp Hartwell long before he was a senator.” She held the
thick blue album toward her son. “I created this scrapbook while I was pregnant
with you. I knew one day you would want to know about...about—”

Honey
Belle held her breath. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She
tried to remain cool and calm.

“What
is it, Mom? I can tell by the look on your face something has upset you.”

Her
voice was husky when she spoke. “I never expected to choose a Hardee’s parking
lot on the outskirts of Albany, Georgia, to make my grand confession. I hope
when I finish, you won’t judge me too harshly.”