CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

Robert was feeling so good about the world and himself that he did not realize that his sister was still sulking when he opened the door.

“Finch dropped this off at the main house. He gave this to your mother, and she asked me to give it to you.”

“Oh, thanks much. That’s the report I asked him to put together for Diana. When has Mom ceased being your mother?” Robert asked.

“When she paid off Jermaine.” Natasha flopped down in his sofa and looked woebegone. “Isn’t it amazing that the sea can look so tranquil and yet take so many lives?” she said, staring through the patio doors. “It's kind of like your mother; she looks normal yet underneath she ruins lives.”

Robert glanced at his sister’s expression as he lifted the weighty package. He needed to see Diana right away. He was going to propose to her. He couldn’t let her leave Jamaica without committing to him—they had so much in common. They found the same things funny and were combustible in bed. He needed to have her in his life permanently. On the other hand, his sister was hurting and looked set to continue her doldrums in his settee.

“Okay, Nats,” Robert said sternly. “You like when I tell you the truth, don’t you?”

Natasha nodded and sniffled.

“Well, the truth is, Jermaine is a gigolo. Everyone knows it except you. He uses women and then moves on to the next one who has more money to spend.”

Natasha gasped. Her eyes filled with pain. “Not you too!” She got up looking fierce. “I can’t believe it. She poisoned you.” She ran out of the apartment crying.

Robert dialed Diana’s number and waited for her to answer.

“Hello.” It was Floyd.

“Floyd, could you tell Diana to meet me on the beach, please? I have something for her.”

“Sure.” Floyd hung up and Robert rushed to meet Diana on the beach.

 

*****

 

“I have it,” he said, waving the package in front of Diana before she could sit down. She was in a summer dress with a low neck line. “Better yet, let's get out of the sun and go to my apartment.”

Diana looked at him intensely. “Okay, I agree wholeheartedly.”

They eventually opened the package in bed.

“He took pictures,” she said, gasping. “This is Derrick and Kenrick. They are identical twins.” She pointed to her older brothers and studied their features for a long time. They both had coffee-colored skin, big brown eyes and mischievous smiles, but Kenrick had a cut over his left eye that left a puckered mark.

“Here is the information sheet.” Robert handed her the information on Derrick and Kenrick who were twenty-eight years old.

Diana read aloud:

 

Derrick is a pastor in a New Testament Church in Whitehouse, Westmoreland, and is married and has three children. Kenrick is an ex-con who came out of jail last year. He is now living with his children’s mother in Matthew’s Lane, Kingston. Number of children uncertain.

 

Robert laughed. “Finch must have gotten confused when he started to count.”

Diana felt tears come to her eyes as she read on:

 

According to Pastor Derrick Lawson, the twins were taken from their mother at two years old to live with their father and his family in Whitehouse, Westmoreland. He was unaware that there are other siblings on his mother’s side and has no recollection of his birth mother. Says here that he would not mind meeting you. However, he suggested caution in meeting his twin brother because he is wanted by the police.

 

Robert turned Diana to face him. “Relax, Dee. You are getting too emotional over these people, and you don’t even know them.”

“I know, but they are my brothers. We share something, even if we are unaware of it.”

Robert handed her the picture of the fourth child. “You were the third one, right?”

Diana nodded and took the picture from him. “It's Tara,” she breathed. The woman in the picture was leaning against the side of a tree on a beach. Her pose looked professional.

“She’s a model! She’s beautiful.”

Robert looked at the picture and agreed. “Yes, she is. Here is another one.”

This time Tara was dressed in a formal dinner gown. She had very fine dreadlocks that were evenly cut. Her figure was perfect, and she had a confident I-know-I-am-pretty grin on her face.

Diana read the report attached to the picture:

Tara Lyne. Age twenty-three years. Model and actress. Lived in Flower Hill, Hanover, until the age of sixteen, when she ran away with Eric Lyne to Montego Bay. Modeled for an overseas cruise shipping line and received successful reviews. Married Eric Lyne at age twenty and widowed the same year. Childless. Resides in Montego Bay, St. James. Is dying to meet her sister. Has all her numbers affixed.

 

Diana was sniffling by the time she finished reading.

Robert just held her as she cried. “I promised them,” she whispered. “I can remember promising them.”

“Promising them what?”

“That I would always have them in my heart.”

Robert felt his chest contract. Why did the image of a windowless room, the one where he had his dream, keep floating to the front of his mind when she said that?

“There are more,” he whispered, burying his nose in her hair.

She straightened up and took the type-written page from him:

 

Flynn McTaggert disappeared from Flower Hill shortly after his mother’s death. He has not been seen nor heard from since.

 

“I wonder what happened to him. He was so small, barely three. He would have been your age now.”

“Are you implying that I am too young for you?” Robert asked gruffly.

“No, sir,” Diana smiled. “Give me the other report.”

Patricia Chin, age nineteen, looked back at her defiantly. Diana took the picture from Robert. “I can’t believe we are related.”

“She’s so Chinese,” Robert remarked, peering at the photo closely. “No indication that she has mixed parentage. This must have been when your mother decided to go interracial.”

“No,” Diana said, looking at Patricia’s sloe-shaped eyes and straight black hair. “She went interracial with McTaggert too—Flynn was a towheaded blond. It says here that Patricia lived with her adoptive family in Flower Hill, Hanover, but is currently on an exchange program in Beijing, China. She will contact me in a year or so. That’s a brush off,” Diana sniffed. “She doesn’t want to meet me.”

“Probably not,” Robert said thoughtfully. “After all, she does live in the district from which she was adopted.”

Diana stilled. “I am not calling her, she has to call me. Who am I kidding? I’ll call her. I don’t care if she wants to brush me off or not.”

“Okay,” Robert said and handed her the picture of Dalton Newby, aged 19.

“He looks wild,” Diana murmured, staring at the boy who had his hair bleached to an ugly-looking yellow. He was standing beside a car with his thumbs up.

“He looks nothing like his sister,” Robert said, frowning.

“They say twins of the opposite sex cannot be identical,” Diana muttered then began reading the report on Dalton. “He is an undergraduate at a university in Florida. His parents would prefer if I do not contact him—snobbish rich people,” Diana mumbled, “I wouldn’t want to contact him anyway. He looks like a wild one. Like he sniffs cocaine or something.”

“Stop it.” Robert pulled out the last file. “You are just disappointed. That’s all.”

“Kemar Winter, age eighteen, oh that’s what they called him?” Diana looked at the picture and gasped. “He is half Indian.” She put down the picture and began to laugh. “Remember what you said about my mother having her own little United Nations? Well, add another race—I had no idea he was mixed.” Diana snorted. “It says here that Kemar Winter is the child of Gavin Winter, a lawyer. He is the man who was helping to look about my papers to go to America,” Diana said, her eyes wide. “No wonder my mother couldn’t stop talking about my papers. What a stupid man. She already had seven kids, but he just had to give her an eighth.”

“That wasn’t smart of her to take on another man,” Robert said sadly. “She would probably be alive to take care of the rest of her children.”

“She was poor and gullible,” Diana said defensively. “If a lawyer was interested in you as a poor girl, I am sure you would jump at the chance.”

“I am not a poor girl,” Robert said mischievously, “I will prove it now.” He nibbled on her neck.

“Be serious, Romeo,” Diana said as she read the rest of the report on Kemar. “He lives with his stepmother, father and four other siblings. He attends the University of the West Indies, where he is pursuing a Law degree, just as his father did. He is not sure he wants any more sisters, but is willing to meet me.”

“Are you satisfied now?” Robert asked. “I am sure you are happy we used a private investigator rather than driving up and down Jamaica, only to find out that one of your siblings is a criminal, one a pastor, one a model, one missing, one doesn’t care whether she sees you or not, one’s family is asking you to butt out of their lives and one is not sure he wants another sister. The last one sounds hen-pecked to me.”

Diana grimaced. “In all, I will get to meet the pastor, the model and probably the soon-to-be lawyer, and I can call Patricia in a year or so. That’s good. That’s very good.”

“Do you still want Finch to be poking about in McTaggert’s business?” Robert asked glibly. “Or will you just drop it?”

“Tell him to keep on poking,” Diana insisted, as she got up from the bed, naked. “Flynn was my favorite sibling after all. If I could, I would meet them all today.”

Robert made a face. “Okay. Probably you should call the model. She was dying to hear from you. If she is ready, we will go to Montego Bay today.”

“I will call her from next door,” Diana said eagerly, pulling on her sundress. “Thanks a lot, Robert, for making this happen—you are the best.” She kissed him all over his face then scooped up the papers and left.