Forbidden Son (10 page)

The
waitress nodded.

Honey
Belle didn’t go far, just to the edge of the building. She leaned against it,
gasping deep breaths of air.

Her
aunt followed. Honey Belle leaned into the cool hand touching her cheek as her
aunt said, “You look a little pale.”

“I’m
fine now, Aunt Tess. Do you mind if we go home? I need to lie down.”

The
waitress stepped out the entrance door. “Here’s your food. That’ll be ten
dollars.”

Honey
Belle watched her aunt rummage inside a uniform pocket. After handing the
waitress two fives and accepting the bag of burgers, she placed her arm around
her niece’s waist. “Isn’t your doctor’s appointment tomorrow?”

Honey
Belle didn’t want to talk. She wanted to take a nap. “I don’t mean to be a
pest, Aunt Tess.”

“Hush,
you hear me. You’re many things, and a pest isn’t one of them.”

She
nodded and blinked away tears. “Remember when I asked why you’d never married?”

“Uh-huh.”

Honey
Belle drew in a wavering breath as she followed her aunt to the bright yellow
Volkswagen Beatle. “You were a little evasive with your answer.”

Tess
opened the door as if impatient to be done with this conversation. “No more
than you, niece, about the father of your baby.”

“I
need to know about your life, Aunt Tess. I see your career, the house you live
in, your success.” Honey Belle ducked her head as she settled on the car seat.
Her aunt was standing at the door, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand.
“I have so many doubts about raising this baby, about being a single parent.”
She stopped abruptly. “Never mind, Aunt Tess, your secrets are your own. Just
like my secrets belong to me.”

Honey
Belle looked down and shuffled her feet to a more comfortable position on the
little car’s floorboard. She swiped her eyes with the heels of her hands,
chasing away memories that threatened to spill over into tears.

Chapter
Fifteen

Issues.
Honey Belle had lots of issues to deal with. One part of her needed to share
the threats Tripp’s father had made if she didn’t leave town, if she didn’t get
rid of the baby. Insecurities nagged at her, threatening to drown her in a
whirlpool of self-doubt.

Reassurances.
She needed reassuring that she was a good person, responsible and capable of
loving and nurturing a child. What if she’d inherited her mother’s
mean-spiritedness, her inability to show love?

“Back
all in the same day.” Aunt Tess’s drawl drew Honey Belle back to the present.

She
nodded and blinked away the tears. “I’ve never cried this much in my entire
life, Aunt Tess. What’s wrong with me?”

Her
aunt reached over and patted her niece’s hand. “It’s called hormones. Your body
is trying to adjust to the changes it’s going through. Add to that you’re still
grieving for the loss of your mama and daddy. Put it all together and that’s a
lot of emotions to deal with.”

Honey
Belle opened the door and climbed out of the car.

“Come
on.” Aunt Tess jiggled the sack from the restaurant. “We can pop these
hamburgers in the microwave.”

The
thought of a reheated greasy hamburger caused a wave of nausea to sweep over
Honey Belle. “I’d rather have a cup of your special hot chocolate.”

She
accepted the warm smile her aunt offered. “Double Dutch with a generous splash
of half-and-half. Guaranteed to make all your troubles seem trivial.”

“If
only that were true, Aunt Tess, the world would be a better place for all of
us.”

They
walked through the back door and into the kitchen decorated with shelves of
colorful jars of canned tomatoes, okra, and pickled peaches.

Honey
Belle settled on a stool as her aunt melted chocolate in a double-boiler, then
added the milk, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a liberal pinch of cinnamon.
Inhaling the savory aroma, she felt as if her aunt’s house was the safest place
in the world.

“You
wanted to know if I’d ever married.”

Absently
thrumming her fingers on the counter, Honey Belle whispered, “What did you
say?”

“You’re
a thousand miles away. Take the tray of cookies to the den. I’ll follow with
the hot chocolate.”

Honey
Belle set the tray of homemade pecan sandies on the coffee table and settled on
the floor in front of the fire place, resting her back against the sofa while
Aunt Tess poured two steaming cups of cocoa.

Tess
sat down across from her niece. Honey Belle reached for a cookie. “It’s your
life, Aunt Tess. Really, you don’t have to tell me.”

Tess,
too, reached for a cookie. “Post traumatic syndrome. And my confession comes
with a condition.”

Honey
Belle wiped crumbs from the corners of her mouth and reached for a second
cookie. Her voice reflected caution. “What is this post traumatic thing, and
what is the condition?”

“When
I finish telling you my story, you’ll know what PTSD is and what caused it.
Second, I’m not asking you to name names—just give me enough information to
help me understand why you don’t want the father of this baby in its life, or
yours.”

Honey
Belle sipped her cocoa and set the cup down. “No pressure?”

Her
aunt crossed her heart and hoped to die. “No pressure.”

Honey
Belle laughed. “Deal. You go first.”

Her
aunt’s voice softened as she spoke. “I graduated nursing school a few months
shy of my twenty-first birthday. I needed to get away...away from all the problems
Delilah caused our mama, the endless screaming and arguments, the phone calls
to the cops when my sister didn’t come home at night. She was fourteen and more
than Mama could handle. I’d had a bellyful of my sister’s hateful shenanigans.
I wanted to get as far away as possible, and I wanted to see the world, so I
joined the Peace Corps.

“I
was sent to Rwanda in Africa. The village consisted of a small but
well-equipped hospital, a mission, and a school. The native people were
wonderfully accepting of a white nurse with a southern drawl. The only other
white women in the village were three nuns. Two were teachers, one was a nurse.
Father Brendan O’Toole was fresh out of the seminary and, like me, on his first
foreign assignment. Dr. Roger Kemp from the United Kingdom was the staff
physician. He was thirty-five years old and reminded me of Clark Gable with his
infectious smile and pencil-thin mustache.

“I
don’t remember when I fell in love with Roger. Maybe it was the time when we
worked round the clock during a cholera outbreak. Roger was tireless, and I was
proud to assist him. Our professionalism developed into a friendship, and from
there into a full-blown, goo-goo-eyed love. Five months later, we said our vows
in the chapel, with Father O’Toole officiating. Nine months later Roger Scott
Kemp, Jr. was born. We called our beautiful baby boy Scotty.”

Noticing
the slight tremble in her aunt’s voice, Honey Belle lifted the teapot and
refilled both their cups with hot chocolate. Eager to hear more of the story,
she waited patiently until her aunt seemed satisfied the steaming liquid was
cool enough to take a sip.

“About
three months after Scotty’s birth, a young native staggered into the compound.
His wounds were so severe that, to this day, I don’t know how he managed to
survive long enough to get to us. Before he died, he said rebel warriors had
destroyed his entire village.”

An
odd sense of trepidation raced up Honey Belle’s middle. Wrapping her suddenly
chilled hands around the warm cup, she sipped the sweet confection inside.

Her
aunt’s eyes looked like faucets that were about to be turned on. Honey Belle
had had enough life experience to recognize raw emotional pain when she saw it.
Only the crackling of the fire in the fireplace eased the tension of silence
that hung over the room.

Honey
Belle cleared her throat. She wished she’d never asked about her aunt’s past.
“It’s too painful, Aunt Tess—these memories. I should have kept my curiosity to
myself. I’m sorry.”

“I’m
sorry, too. Time hasn’t healed the wounds in my heart. Maybe the telling of it
will.”

A
visible tremor wracked Tess. Honey Belle didn’t know if she wanted to hear the
rest of the story. She sucked in a deep breath and blew out slowly.

Tess
continued in a monotone. “Roger used the shortwave radio to notify the
authorities in Tanzania. Officials in Tanzania said they were aware of sporadic
attacks on villages, but they were short-manned and had notified officials in
Brussels to send soldiers. We were advised to arm ourselves as best as
possible. Roger then contacted the Peace Corps officials. He was told to
prepare to evacuate. Because we were more than five hundred miles away by Land
Rovers, Roger requested a cargo plane. He wanted to evacuate the entire
village. The Peace Corps said they’d do their best. We held out little hope for
more than a bush plane.

“We
armed ourselves with what little we had—a rifle, a handgun, spears—not much,
I’m afraid. We were peacekeepers, teachers, healers, unprepared for what was
about to happen.

“They
came on us like a nightmare. Hutu rebels. We never heard them. One minute I was
assisting Roger with an appendectomy, the next minute our ears were filled with
gut-wrenching screams. Before we could react, rebels entered the operating
room. The leader spoke English. He ordered us outside. When Roger protested the
woman on the operating table would die if he didn’t finish the operation, that
horrid beast simply removed his pistol from its holster—”

Honey
Belle shuddered. Her aunt’s gaze was lost to memory.

“We
were ushered outside. Women were screaming, children crying, and bewildered old
men wailing. There was so much confusion. My immediate thoughts rushed to
Scotty. He was with Sister Mary Clare and Bunni, my wet nurse. I fought my
captors. My arms were twisted so tightly behind my back it felt as if they were
being pulled from their sockets. And still I fought, I kicked, I used my head
as a battering ram. Roger fought, too. I kept hearing him calling my name,
saying he loved me, and to be brave. Before my head exploded with pain and
darkness closed in around me, I saw Roger forced to his knees.

“It
was morning when I finally opened my eyes. Even after I regained consciousness,
the next hours had the unsteady presence of a dream. The compound yard was
littered with bodies. Every male child had been murdered—”

It
was painful for Honey Belle to think of what had happened to Tess’s baby. She
protectively cradled her hands around her middle. “And Scotty?”

“Him,
too.” The hurt came through in those two words.

“Aunt
Tess, I—”

“Let
me finish,” she held up her hand. “I need to get it out. All of it.”

Honey
Belle watched as Tess raked trembling fingers through her short gray hair. “My
baby looked like a broken doll lying there in the dirt.” She shuddered and
brushed away tears. “Roger and Father O’Toole hung on wooden crosses. The
sisters lay spread-eagled on the ground, their hands and feet tied to stakes,
their robes and dignity stripped from them. As my mind tried to absorb the
horrors, it took several minutes before I realized that I, too, lay in the
baking African sun, naked as the day I was born.

“I
cried out to God asking him why he’d allowed this to happen. I cursed the Hutu
devils for killing my child. I prayed for the plane to arrive, I prayed for
safety, I prayed for maggots to eat the eyes of our enemy.”

When
Tess stopped speaking, Honey Belle assumed her aunt had finished the story,
leaving the rest to imagination. She was wrong. Tess continued.

“If
you even think you can picture how awful it was, you are wrong. The leader squatted
next to me. He said his name was Ngoma. He called me
Nkento
. Woman. He
said he wanted me to live so I could tell the world of his power and how the
Hutu would rule Africa. As dry as my mouth was, I managed to create enough
saliva to cover his ugly face with spittle.

“‘You
bastard,’” I screamed at him, “‘You filthy murdering, bastard. I hope you rot
in hell.’”

“He
laughed a long, loud, barking hyena sound. In his language, Ngoma ordered his
men to rouse Roger and Father O’Toole—by jabbing them with spears. Then turning
to me, his eyes ferocious under his huge furrowed brow, he flung his hand
toward the nuns, in disgust.

“For
days, we were brutalized. Roger and Father O’Toole were forced to watch our
degradation. I vowed I would live through the nightmare.”

Tess
seemed to concentrate on a fingernail as she clicked it back and forth.
“There’s a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you
know it’s true but it seems like a fantasy.

“I
don’t even remember when the rebels left, or how many days I lay all alone with
the dead in the baking sun. I awoke in a Tanzanian hospital. Roger’s parents
were sitting next to the bed. They had flown in from London.”

Honey
Belle stared into Tess’s blue eyes. She wanted to wrap her arms around her aunt,
to hold her as one would do to comfort an injured child. She whispered, “Roger?″

Tess
spread her hands apart in a hopeless gesture. She closed her eyes and shook her
head. “I needed a place to heal. Returning to South Carolina, to my mother’s
home with Delilah’s problems, wasn’t an option. Instead I went to England to
live with Roger’s parents, and to pretend Rwanda never happened. That Africa
was a faraway place with make-believe people in history books. The tragedies
that happened there were not mine.” She sighed. “I stayed with Mr. & Mrs.
Kemp for two years. Eventually, I couldn’t stand the way people would duck
their eyes and whisper about me, saying how tragic for having suffered such a
loss.

“When
I returned to the States, I worked in a few hospitals, but I couldn’t stay
rooted very long. Eventually, I made my way to Georgia.”

Honey
Belle reached for and accepted her aunt’s outstretched hands. She was startled
by Tess’s next words. “For these many years, I’ve tried to heal myself by
healing others.”

“You’re
an attractive woman, Aunt Tess, why haven’t you remarried?”

“The
truth be known, I closed my heart and soul, vowing to never love again, nor
allow anyone to love me. You’ve changed that, Honey Belle, you and your baby.”

A
honeycreeper sang from the bushes outside the window. It seemed impossible that
an ordinary evening should proceed outside the house, when emotions inside the
room with the glimmering fireplace were so raw and tangled.

“It’s
been thirty years and, though not as often, I still wake up in a cold sweat
sometimes, with ghostly visions swirling inside my head. I work a great deal.
It helps keep my mind in order. These days, my life is satisfying...

“As
you said, Honey Belle, our secrets are our own. Now that you know mine, I’ll
not pressure you to tell me yours. All in your own time.”

Emotions
piled up as Honey Belle wrapped her arms around Tess and hugged her. Now she
understood the shadows of pain she’d often noticed in her aunt’s eyes. There
were days when she looked like the loneliest person in the world. If a person
didn’t know better they’d think Tess never felt pain, had never been hurt.
Honey Belle knew better. “You’re a strong woman to have survived such a
horrible ordeal, Aunt Tess. Mama always said the reason you stayed away was because
you thought you were better than us. I have to say that a part of me believed
her. She was wrong. Knowing how she was, if you’d told her, it wouldn’t have
made much difference. Mama had little feeling for other people’s troubles.”

A
quick cramp in her stomach ended her thoughts. She drew in a breath and fought
against the knife-sharp pain.