Leon showed us to our rooms; Rick and I were sharing one guest bedroom, Shari and Yaz another; we may have been living together as couples in England, but Leon’s family, his mother in particular, were old-fashioned Catholics with very set ideas about who slept with whom. It had been a long day, with a large meal on top, plus that interlude with Shari out in the moonlight, and I must have flaked-out as soon as my head hit the pillow, because next thing I knew the sun was shining in my eyes. The room had a small bathroom attached, so I had a quick shower and got dressed. Rick was just finishing getting dressed when there was a knock on the door, followed by Leon poking his head round.
“Breakfast guys, come and get it, we’ve got a long day ahead! Judy just got here and the girls are all up, so come on, di di mao!”
When we arrived at the table, Judy was already seated with Yaz and Shari on either side of her, and she smiled at us, but behind it was that searching, almost hostile glance again, first at Rick, then me. She was starting to unnerve me; she couldn’t possibly know me or what I was like, or had been like, and yet she was definitely not as affable or easy with Rick and me as Leon was.
With the girls it was another matter; she seemed completely, genuinely taken with Shari and Yaz, laughing, joking and giggling with them; it just seemed to be Rick and me she had an issue with, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.
After breakfast, while Yaz and Shari helped Judy clear up, Leon took us on a quick tour of the property. The house stood on about three acres, and had a small stream or brook running through the back garden, with a small single-span barrel-vault wooden bridge connecting the two halves of the property. Off in the distance we could see mountains and snow-capped hills, blue with distance, with dense forest covering the lower slopes of the hills. The air held a sharp, refreshing chill, and smelled fresh and clean, tinged with pine, and I felt very relaxed. While we were sitting on some sawed-off logs and talking about England, with Rick telling Leon about London, the girls joined us, Shari slipping next to me, and Yaz plumping down onto Rick’s lap.
Judy remained standing, her expression unreadable, but even I could tell she had something on her mind; she was too tense, too intent, and once again that feeling of disquiet brushed the surface of my mind. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her snow jacket and turned away, looking up at the distant hills.
Eventually she seemed to come to a decision, and turned to face us.
“Bobby, Rick, if I ask you a direct question, will you answer me truthfully?”
I glanced at Shari, and once again she nodded almost imperceptibly, one eyebrow raised, like she knew something was coming, and had been prepared for it. I looked back at Judy and nodded.
“Ask away, I’ll be as truthful as I can.”
Judy looked at me skeptically, and then once again, that strange, half quizzical-half hostile look flitted across her face.
“Okay then, answer me this; who are you, and why are you really here in America, and more specifically, why are you here in Albany?”
Leon started to protest, but I held up my hand, quieting him as I looked into Judy’s eyes, seeing the suspicion there. I looked at Shari for guidance again, and her hand tightened on mine.
“Tell her, baby, it’s okay, I think she already knows, but she needs to hear it from you. Go on, it’s okay!” she whispered, kissing me lightly on the cheek. I nodded, and pulled Shari closer.
“Judy, I think you know we’re not here on holiday, we’re not having a junket before buckling-down to work, we came here for a reason. I have an older brother, he’s missing, he’s been missing for nearly four years now, I want to find him, we all want to find him. Rick and me, we have a lot of things we need to say to our big brother, and Shari and Yaz, they also have their own reasons for wanting to find my brother. My family fell apart because of something that happened, something very bad, and we want to find our brother so he can know it’s over now, and so we can ask him how we can make it right with him. We know he came from here a long time ago, and we know he came back, we just don’t know where he is now.”
Judy was watching me closely as I went through the basic reasons for us being there, her eyes sharp, intent, not missing a thing.
“And if you find him, what then?” she asked.
Rick stood up and cleared his throat, Yaz holding his hand as he spoke to Judy.
“If we find him, we tell him we’re sorry, we were wrong, what we did was wrong, what happened to him was wrong, that we went to our mother’s grave and we saw what he’d done for her, and that we both wish we’d done it, we should have done it a long time ago. My big brother tried to be there for us, and we pushed him away all our lives; now we need to make things right with him; we want to ask him to forgive us, and to let him know that his family finally understands who he is, and what he means to us.”
Judy looked at Yaz, then Shari.
“Okay, I get what you’re saying, but I still don’t understand why your girlfriends need him back as well?”
Okay, this was it. I looked at Shari, at Yaz; they both nodded and held themselves a little closer to us.
“This is hard to say, and maybe you won’t like it, but here goes. Shari and Yasmin are sisters, but you already knew that; what you don’t know is that they are also our sisters, or half-sisters; my older brother is their older brother, too, and they need him as much as we do, maybe more. Our father was a vile and evil man, and he did vile and evil things, but one thing he did I will always be grateful for; he fathered these two lovely girls. They’re part of our lives in ways you won’t understand, that I don’t expect you to understand, or approve of, but that’s the way it is. Our brother is missing, we all need him, we’re all here to try and find him.”
Judy was looking at me in open-mouthed wonder, as was Leon.
“So Shari’s your… sister? Really? You look nothing like each other…”
Shari spoke up.
“Bobby’s my half-brother, we have different mothers. My mother was Indian, and Bobby’s mother was English. Everything Bobby told you is the truth; we came here looking for my brother, we know what happened to him to make him leave, all we want is a chance to tell him his family is there when he needs us; we know he has a family here, we don’t want to drag him back to England, we don’t want him to re-live any of that, we know what pain and sorrow he went through, is still going through. All we want is the chance to tell him that he has us as well, and to let him know that when he’s ready, we’re going to be there for him, if he’ll let us. That’s all. All I want is to meet my big brother… and hug my niece as well!”
Judy looked thoughtfully from Rick to me, to Shari and back to Rick.
“And if you find him, what then? Maybe he has a life here. Maybe he won’t want to be reminded of the life he left behind, maybe he has all he needs right here, have you thought of that?”
Shari wiped her eyes with the back of her glove and squeezed my arm tightly.
“I hope he does have a life here, a good, happy life; after what happened to him, he needs and deserves all the happiness he can find, or make. All we want is for him to know that we’re here, that he has us too, and that it’s all finally over. There’s only one more thing we need him to know, and… well, I think that’s for him, if it’s all the same to you, Judy.”
Judy looked appraisingly at us, but the flat hostility that had been so apparent before was gone now. Now her look was friendly, compassionate.
“Ok guys, thank you for sharing at last. I hope you find him, I really do, it must be hell, knowing part of your family is missing like that!”
Yaz was hugging Rick closely, her face buried in his chest, obviously affected by Shari’s words, Rick stroking her hair as he hugged her, and Judy glanced thoughtfully at her. Leon was looking pretty shell-shocked at all these revelations, turning to stare back at us as Judy towed him back to the house. As we gathered on the back porch, he grinned at us.
“Whatever you do, don’t tell mom you’re all brothers and sisters! I could give a shit, but she’s kinda old-school Catholic; one hint of this and she’ll have you on your knees, so keep a lid on it, guys, and I mean it!”
We spent the rest of the morning touring around the town, Leon showing us the various historical landmarks and sites, obviously proud of his home-town. Judy and the girls split away from us, doing some exploring of their own, leaving the three of us to talk in an excellent coffee-shop.
“So Bobby, isn’t it kind of weird, you and… you know, your sister and all…?” asked Leon, a puzzled expression on his face, and I struggled to explain the connection Shari and I shared, plus the fact that three months earlier I’d never met her or knew she existed, so for me she wasn’t my sister, and that I had no place anywhere in my head that she fitted-in as a sister, so no, it wasn’t weird at all; to me she was only and always a beautiful, exotic girl who loved me, and I loved her.