Mister Moneybags(58)

“Are you sure?” The look of fear in her eyes seemed to match my own, albeit she was worried for a totally different reason.

“I’m positive. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay. Don’t be.”

As I was walking out the door, all I could think was that I wished I’d told her I loved her earlier this week at the restaurant. I’d stopped myself, thinking it was too soon. Now, I wished I’d told her how I felt before everything changed in an instant.

Flustered, I hadn’t even dialed my driver before leaving, so I was standing outside in the cold with no ride. It was starting to rain as I began to walk, weaving through people and traffic. Picking up my cell phone, I dialed my father.

His wife answered, “Hello?”

“Myra, is my father home?”

“Yes. Is everything okay?”

“Please put him on the phone.”

My father’s voice came on a few seconds later. “Dex?”

“Dad…I need you to think, okay?” The words were coming out faster than my mind could conjure them up. “When you and Eleni Georgakopolous had the affair…exactly how many years ago was that?”

“I told you it was ongoing…”

“Twenty-seven…twenty-eight years ago? What? Think!”

“Hang on.” He paused. “It started about twenty-nine years ago and went on for about six years.”

My stomach was turning.

“When you had sex with her…did you use protection?”

Please say yes.

After a pause, he said, “I can’t remember every single time, son.”

“How can you not remember?”

“I think she said she was on the pill, but honestly…it was so long ago.”

I raised my voice. “You never used a condom?”

“No. Never.”

“How could you do that?”

“I guess I trusted her. It wasn’t responsible. Anyway, why are you asking me all of this?”

“I saw Bianca’s sister tonight for the first time.”

“And?”

“Dad...” I swallowed. “She looks like you.”

Silence.

“You think she’s my daughter?”

The rain started to pelt down on me.

“I think there’s a chance.”

“How can you be sure that you’re not just looking for similarities because of what I told you about the affair? You might just be paranoid and looking for trouble.”

“No. I wish that were the case. The thought never even entered my mind until I saw her face. She resembles you too much. But, God, I could have never imagined that you would have been so irresponsible as to allow this possibility. How could you do this?”

“Nothing is confirmed. And even if what you’re saying is true…what are you so worried about?”

“You can’t possibly be asking that? You’re telling me that you could technically be the father of my girlfriend’s sister, that you were sleeping with their mother during the time period when both women were conceived. There are only a couple of years between them. Now I can’t even be sure whether I’m in love with my own sister! How the f*ck can you not know what I’m worried about?”

People on the street were staring as I yelled into the phone.

“Calm down, Dex.”

“Don’t tell me to f*cking calm down. The only thing that will get me to calm down is to wake up from this nightmare!”

I couldn’t even remember hanging up the phone. The next thing I knew, I was in a liquor store, leaving with a large bottle of Fireball in a brown paper bag.

When Sam pulled up outside, there was only one place I could bear going.

“Where to, Mr. Truitt?”

I took a sip and relished the burn of the alcohol sliding down my throat. “Brooklyn.”





This shit is disgusting.

Not that I cared. By the time I arrived in Brooklyn, I’d already made a dent in the repulsive tasting bottle of alcohol. I’d told my driver not to wait, so when Jelani didn’t answer his buzzer, I took up residence on the stoop of his house and proceeded to swig from the brown paper bag like a homeless person. Oddly, as I sat there for more than an hour in the dark, I started to wonder if this was what a homeless person felt like on the inside. Granted, they didn’t have a multimillion dollar penthouse overlooking the park to go home to, but I felt homeless at the moment—like I had no anchor, no one to turn to. In the months I’d known Bianca, she’d somehow become home in my heart and having an actual place to go had become meaningless. I took another big swig from the bag and relished the warmth that traveled through my body. I could see how people used drinking to replace warmth in their cold lives.

I must have nodded off for a while, because one minute I was contemplating the meaning of life while drinking my new cinnamon tasting best friend, and the next my feet were getting kicked.

“Trying to see how the other half lives, my friend?” Jelani was standing over me and smiling as he roused me back to consciousness. I stumbled as I climbed to my feet, feeling the full effect of the alcohol on my balance now.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Jelani nodded as if he understood and invited me in. He spoke as he unpacked some groceries from a canvas satchel that was slung across his chest. “Woman or family problems?”