Brackish Water by Neil S. Plakcy

Author:Neil S. Plakcy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay, fbi, thriller, art theft, mystery, crime fiction, florida, cuba, old master
Publisher: Samwise Books
Published: 2022-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

17: My Father, My Apple

I looked at my watch. It was still about a half hour before Danny started his shift. I could call him then, or wait until his shift was over at midnight.

Annette might have held this secret for decades, but I couldn’t wait a few hours. I didn’t want my mother to overhear my conversation, so I went outside and dialed his number.

“Hey bro,” he said. “Everything copacetic in Scran-town?”

I heard his labored breath, which meant he was on his bicycle on his way to work. “You might want to pull over for this one, bro. Annette told me tonight about her first boyfriend, a guy named Artie Tanner, who joined the Navy and died.” I paused. “Turns out he’s my real dad.”

“Holy shit, Angus.” I heard his bicycle brakes squeal and the rattle of gravel. “Is she sure?”

“From the way she described it, I’d say sure.” I gave him the brief version of Annette and her two men. I had begun calling her by her first name instead of Mom, the way Danny and I did when we were frustrated with her. Somehow, the distance made the situation more understandable.

“Dad’s still your dad,” Danny said. “Like totally. I may not remember much of him, but I always had the sense that he was your favorite, and I was Mom’s.”

I agreed with him. All that time we’d spent together, me on his lap, him showing me the atlas and all the places he wanted to travel. And me another man’s son.

I had to stop thinking that. Artie Tanner may have been the sperm donor, but Cameron Green was my father.

“So wow,” Danny said eventually. “This doesn’t change anything between us, though. You’re still my brother.”

“Half-brother. Like the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings, who they called halflings.”

“Dude. Are you calling me a hobbit?”

“You do have hair on your feet.”’

“You watch, I’m gonna grow another couple of inches just to show you how tall I can get. I’ll be taller than you before you know it.”

I doubted that. Cameron Green had been at best five-six or five-seven, while Annette was a petite five-three. She and Roger had been surprised in my teens when I had a growth spurt. Now I wondered how tall Artie had been.

But I couldn’t keep obsessing so I told Danny, “In other news, Annette already has a new job lined up. A friend of hers works at the hospital and is going to hire her to do medical billing.”

“I didn’t think Annette Green had that much gumption,” he said.

“It’s probably her friend Delia who’s behind it,” I said. “But good for her anyway.”

We promised to talk again soon, after we’d both had the chance to let the news settle in. I went back inside, and in one of Roger’s file folders called “Annette,” I found the Navy paperwork for Artie Tanner. My mother had briefly collected the Military’s Survivor Benefit Plan after Artie’s death, but as soon as she married Cameron it stopped.

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