The Return

He rotated the teacup, seemingly lost in thought.

“I taught her to drive a car, you know. She didn’t know how until we met, and I remember thinking that was strange, especially since she grew up on a farm. And over time, I began to sense something else about her. Beneath the surface, as smart and mature as she was, I noticed a deep-seated insecurity, even though it made no sense to me. To me, she had everything and was everything I’d ever wanted. But the more I got to know her, the more secretive I realized she really was. For a long time, I knew little about her father or the power he wielded. She hardly ever spoke about him. But toward the end of our relationship, she would often make me promise to take her with me when I returned to the States, and the way she begged sometimes made me think that her desire had more to do with escaping her circumstances than how she felt about me. Nor would she ever introduce me to her father, or let me visit the farm. We always had to meet in out-of-the-way places. And strangely, she never referred to him as her father or her dad. He was always the Colonel. And all of those things eventually made me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“I think this is where you need to ask yourself again how much you really want to know. Last chance.”

Tru closed his lips and nodded. “Go on.”

“When she finally began to open up about your grandfather, she would describe two different people entirely. In one version, she adored him and stressed how much they needed each other, but the next time she spoke of him, she would tell me that she hated him. She would say that he was evil, that she wanted to get as far away from him as possible and never wanted to see him again. I don’t know the full details of what went on in that house when she was growing up, nor am I sure I want to know. What I do know is that when her father found out about me, your mother panicked. She showed up at my place, hysterical and babbling that we had to leave the country right then, because the Colonel was furious—there wasn’t even time to gather my things. I couldn’t calm her down, but when she realized that I wasn’t going to do what she asked, she ran off. That was the last I ever saw of her. At the time, I didn’t know she was pregnant. Maybe if she’d told me, things would have been different. I like to think that I would have gone after her and helped her get away. But I never got the chance.”

He brought his hands together, squeezing as though hoping for strength.

“They showed up at my house that night, after I’d gone to sleep. A group of men. They roughed me up pretty good and put a hood over my head before tossing me into the trunk of a car. They drove me to some kind of dwelling with a cellar, and after being dragged from the car, the next thing I knew, I was tumbling down a set of stairs. I was knocked unconscious, and when I woke, I could smell the dank and mold. I’d been handcuffed to some pipes. Which hurt like hell, because my shoulder had been dislocated in the fall.”

He took a few long breaths, as if gathering his strength for a final push.

“When they finally took the hood off, a flashlight was shined in my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing. But he was there. The Colonel. He told me that I had two choices: I could either leave Rhodesia the following morning, or I could die in the cellar, handcuffed to the pipes, without food or water.”

He turned toward Tru. “I’d been in war. I’d seen terrible things. I’d been shot—got myself a Purple Heart—and there’d been times when I wondered how I’d survive. But I’d never been more scared than in that moment, because I knew he was a stone-cold killer. You could hear it in his voice. The following day, I got in my car and didn’t stop driving until I reached South Africa. I caught a flight back to the States. I never saw or spoke to your mother again.”

He swallowed.

“I’ve spent my life knowing that I was a coward for doing what I did. For leaving her with him. For vanishing completely from her life. And not a day has gone by when I haven’t regretted it. I mean…I love my wife, but I’ve never felt for her the deep, burning passion that I felt with your mother. I left Evelyn with that man, and I know in my heart that it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. You should also know that I didn’t come here for your forgiveness. Some things can’t be forgiven. But I want you to know that if I’d known about you, things would have been different. I understand those are only words and that you don’t know me, but it’s the truth. And I’m sorry for the way everything turned out.”

Tru said nothing, realizing that it wasn’t difficult to reconcile the story he’d just heard with the grandfather he’d known. It left him disgusted, but more than that, he felt it give rise to a piercing sorrow for his mother, and pity for the man who was sitting beside him at the table.

His father motioned toward the briefcase. “Would you mind handing me that?”

Tru reached for the briefcase and placed it on the table, watching as his father opened the lid.

“I also wanted to give you some things,” he said. “I put them in my trunk on the day I left Rhodesia, and over the years, I completely forgot about them. But when I saw your photograph, I had one of my sons find the trunk in the attic and bring it down. In the event you didn’t visit, I was planning to send them to you.”

Inside the briefcase was an envelope, set atop a stack of drawing paper that had yellowed at the edges. His father handed Tru the envelope.

“One of my friends back then was a photographer, and he used to bring his camera with him everywhere. There are a couple of shots of the two of us, but most of them are of your mother. He tried to convince her to become a model.”

Tru slid the photographs from the envelope. There were eight in total; the first he examined showed his mother and father seated together in front of a river, both of them laughing. The second was also of the two of them, staring at each other in profile, similar to the drawing he’d been working on of Hope and himself. The others were all of his mother in various poses and outfits, with clean backgrounds, a photographic style common in the late 1940s. His throat tightened at the sight of her, and he felt a sense of sudden loss he hadn’t expected.

His father handed over the drawings next. The first was a self-portrait of his mother staring at a reflection of herself in the mirror. Despite her beauty, her darkly shadowed expression gave her a haunted quality. The next was a drawing of his mother from behind. She was draped in a sheet and gazing over her shoulder, making Tru wonder whether she had used a similar photograph as inspiration. There were three more self-portraits and several landscape scenes similar to those that Tru created for Andrew. One of them, however, depicted the family’s main house before the fire, with imposing columns gracing the veranda. He realized that he’d forgotten how it had looked then.

When Tru finally set the drawings aside, his father cleared his throat.

“I thought she was good enough to open a studio, but she wasn’t interested in that. She said that she drew because she wanted to lose herself in the process. At the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I spent many afternoons watching as she sketched. She had a charming habit of licking her lips whenever she was working, and she was never completely satisfied with the results. In her mind, none of the drawings were ever finished.”

Tru took a sip of water, thinking. “Was she happy?” he finally asked.