Page 59 of Redemption
“Look at that and tell me I am gullible. Look at that and tell me I am stupid. I dare you, Father. I dare you.”
For long moments, he stares at me with eyes wide and angry.
“Look at the photo, or I will take it and leave you to wonder if what I said could possibly be true. And then you’ll have to follow me, back to Mother’s island, and beg for entrance so you can meet your son.”
He sucks in a breath and stares at me with those wide, crazy eyes. “You brought him to her! How dare you disturb her with your nonsense!”
With anger flowing through me that I do not wish to feel, I swipe out a hand and grab the phone from his desk and hold it up to his face. “Look at us. Look at us together.”
My father finally breaks his wild stare and glances down at the photo on the screen. I know his intent is to look away immediately, but he can’t. Instead, he reaches out with gnarled fingers and grips the edges. His expression is unreadable for a moment, before something unbelievable happens.
His mouth falls open, his shoulders curl in, and his hands shake.
Void of the intensity and ferocity of moments ago, he whispers, “It is not possible. I tortured the man who had taken him. He said Luca was dead. He said he killed him. This cannot be …” The words trail off as Father’s curled fingers form a fist that he brings to his mouth. “How? How could I be seeing two of you? How is this possible?”
His knees give way, and he falls backward into his heavy leather chair while I’m stunned at the knowledge that my father tortured the man who had kidnapped my brother.
This explains so much. So much.
While epiphanies burst in my mind, Father shakes his head back and forth, his face pale, leaving a stark contrast between his skin and his nearly black eyes.
“Plastic surgery. Something,” he whispers in a weak tone, as though he has seen a ghost. “That cannot truly be …”
“Why do you wish to push away a miracle that has been given to our family?” I ask in an equally quiet tone. “I have spoken at length with him. Lachlan is the name he has been using. He has never known where he came from. He thought he was unwanted by his family because he was abandoned on the steps of a church in America. New Orleans.”
“America.” My father breathes the word. “He swore to me he was dead. He said that was the purpose of the kidnapping—to visit vengeance on us for what we had printed in the paper. How could Luca have ended up in America?”
“When did he tell you he was dead, Father? When did this happen?”
“A lifetime ago. I believed all hope was lost.” My father shakes his head. “He looks just like you. And my father.” With one hand balled into a fist in front of his mouth, he cracks. Tears escape his eyes in shining streaks down his face. Bewildered and confused, he meets my gaze once more. “How could this be? How could this be?”
“It’s a miracle, Father. A miracle.”
With a harsh, broken sob, my father slumps against the high leather cushion of the chair, clutching the phone to his chest.
“How could this be? Is this a dream? A nightmare? Am I dead? What is happening?”
Waves of love flow out from me to encircle my father. I have never seen such emotion from him, and now, I’m finally beginning to understand that there was much that happened that I did not know. None of us—me nor Mother nor the staff—knew that my father had found the man who took Luca. None of us knew what he had done or what he had learned.
All I saw in him was bitterness and regret. I didn’t know the burden or knowledge he carried. My heart breaks for what I did not know. For the judgments that I could not stop myself from making about his harsh behavior.
Please forgive me, Father.
My father leans forward in his chair, head shaking from side to side, as if completely bewildered.
“How?” he whispers as he stares at the photo, his gnarled fingertip reaching out to trace the faces.
My heart seizes at the first moments of tenderness I’ve seen from my father in my entire life.
“By the grace of God, Father. Luca is a strong man. One whom you will love to get to know, for he made his way in the world all by himself. He overcame odds that even you would have shied away from. He did what he had to do to survive.”
“But how did you find him? How?” Tear-shining eyes lift to meet mine.
“I never stopped looking. Mother and I had been looking for decades. Every lead broke my heart. Every dead end. Every look-alike who wasn’t him. We kept looking. Mother never stopped praying. We never lost hope. And then one day, we got the break we needed. It took longer still for us to find him. But we found him. I brought Mother to him.”
His head jerks back at my admission. “You took her to America?”
I nod. “Yes. And it fulfilled her every dream to meet her son. And today, he arrived in Italy, with his family.” I point to the phone still in his hand. “Do you see his daughter, who he holds in the photo? That is Aurora. She is your granddaughter. Mother met her today, along with your daughter-in-law, Keira. They are happy and healthy, and Luca wishes to meet you very much as well.”
