Rick is standing next to my swollen-eyed foster mom. Her dark, mahogany curls are unbound and she isn’t wearing makeup. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her without it.
I’m also almost positive I’ve never seen her cry. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”
She shakes her head. She’s holding a thick file against her chest and she’s silent until Rick wraps his arm around her waist. As if he pushed a button, she automatically starts talking.
“Rick wanted to tell you years ago, but I put it off. He mentioned it again after his visit, but by then you were already here with Royal. Then Ken…”
She’s calling him Ken instead of Tanaka? How much talking did they do? “Matilda, Royal mentioned something about grandparents? Is that what this is about? I thought Gary’s parents were dead.”
“Your mother’s parents,” Rick answers when she doesn’t speak up. “They’re the ones that fought Lauren’s will and made sure we couldn’t legally adopt you.”
I stumble back as if I’ve been sucker punched, looking up in surprise at Royal when he guides me silently to his leather sofa. “Thanks.”
He nods and sits down beside me, close enough to lean on if I need him.
“You wanted to adopt me?”
Matilda buries her face in Rick’s chest and he nods soberly over her head. “Of course we did, son. We were there the day you were born and we loved you almost as much as your mother did. Then when she got sick, we promised her we’d take care of you if Gary couldn’t. Raise you as our own.”
Matilda steps out of his arms and wipes her cheeks, visibly trying to get herself together. “She was worried about leaving you with Gary, but she didn’t want her parents anywhere near you. They weren’t good people, she said. Rich but cruel. And once we started the adoption process after your father died, we found out she was right to worry.”
As she continues to speak, I feel more and more like I’ve stepped into a badly written soap opera. But this is my actual life. Soap operas have to be based on some grain of truth, right? Well, maybe not.
According to Matilda my story seems to be about rich, entitled grandparents that didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of me, but also were against losing their last surviving heir to someone whose blood was a little less blue. And they were willing to drag everyone involved into a long court battle because of it. Talk about family values.
My foster mother, the brilliant lawyer, made a deal in order to stop that from happening and to keep me away from them. No legal adoption in return for no further contact or financial inducement. Instead, the inheritance that had been meant for my mother would be held in a trust for me until I hit the ripe old age of thirty.
Apparently it’s a lot of money.
“That doesn’t sound like that big of a deal,” Royal says, arms crossed over his barrel chest. “Rich, evil grandparents and white boy problems. What was all the secrecy about?”
I turn toward him with wide eyes. “It doesn’t sound like a big deal? I thought I was…that they had to take me because…”
Rick steps over to me, reaches down and pulls me up into his arms, holding me tight. “We were afraid we’d lose you. We thought you’d resent us and want to be with your real family.”
I see Matilda standing stiffly to the side and I tug her close. Other than Royal, we’ve never been natural huggers, but damn it, it’s time we learned. “You are my family. You’ve always been my family. I guess because of…where I came from, I didn’t think I deserved to be yours.”
“That might be the most preposterous thing you’ve ever said. And if we’re family then it’s time you acted like it.” Matilda says all this as sharply as she can while pressed against my chest. “I’m talking regular phone calls and multiple holidays in person each year. And next time, we’ll watch Leia’s Wars together.”
Star Wars. But I’m not correcting her.
“And we’re getting you a new apartment,” Rick grumbles. “In a better neighborhood with stronger locks. And a car.”
Matilda lifts her head. “Unless you’re choosing not to own one to have a smaller carbon footprint. Do you even have a driver’s license?”
“Are we making demands now?” Royal jumps in, smiling at our awkward group hug. “Let’s have him clean my apartment once a month for a year to make up for what he’s done to it this week.”
I move out of the embrace, smirking at my brother and take a warning step closer, making him laugh.
“Careful,” he chuckles, holding up his hands to ward me off. “You need to stop randomly hitting people for no reason now that you’re loaded. That’s just asking for a lawsuit.”