Chapter 28: Chapter 28

Adrian

Flashes of images hit me in fragments, a girl with whom I fall in love, her rejection, my accident and my revenge against her. I open my eyes like a bolt from the blue to my wife's anxious orbs looking at me with flowing wetness and our baby sleeping in her arms. "Adrian" she aspirates perturbed tracing her hand on my upper arm.

My thoughts again go scattered and befuddled like I am the lone sailor who came back to conscience after a storm that hit years ago. The same agonizing pain strikes me. I hold my head in the suffering and my eyes close automatically giving rise to another wave of memories. My one night stand in dopiness with the girl, Aa...Amaira Witmore, yes her name was Amaira..Amaira Witmore. She decided to end me when I destroyed her business but fell in the pit thyself that she dug for me.

How am I concerned with the woman now? My sanity tries to intervene even in this vulnerable situation. She is my past and even more has no chance of coming back in my life as she is dead. I began to search my head for answers in spite of the terrible pain and then her last words began to bang in my head like an appalling typhoon.

"We have a child together, a son eight months old."

"You whore..." I slapped her so hard that her head twisted to a side and a stream of blood began to ooze from the corner of her lips but I didn't care. "I do not believe you. I do not know how many men you have slept and I am not going to accept your little bastard as mine." I yell at her with no mercy.

"Please don't call him that." She cries in ache holding her hand to her chest as though it would reduce her pain. "A dying woman will not speak lies Adrian, especially a mother of her child." She whispers with her eyes almost closing off. "Take care of him." Was her last sentence to me and in this world.

I have a son.....I have a son.

The words kept repeating in my head. "Adrian, are you okay?" My wife's anxious words bring me out of the dazed reverie. "I can remember...I got back the recollection." I tell her in a stupor. She smiles stirring in joy and hugs me tight. "Oh Adrian, I am so happy for you." She kisses my lips and brings her arms around me once again.

I pat her back still occupied by my thoughts. My son was my first concern. I need to bring him to my house at the earliest. I try to move out of the bed but a hand stops me. I look at Chris with curious eyes. "Yes Chris?"

"Where are you going? You need to rest." She tells me guarding the emotions on my face. "I have some urgent work to take care and I need to go." She stops me again. "But"

"No ifs and buts Chris. I need to go." I tell her impatient giving no chance for her to speak further and walk out of the bed. Putting on a plain red shirt and jeans after a shower, I walk to the parking lot and put the engine to life.

In the front room was Amaira's father resting in the rocking chair while sipping scotch. "Hello Good morning to you too...." He wishes me sarcastically. "I was waiting when you will come and pick that cry baby who keeps ringing in my ears 24/7." I wanted to take a stick and smack him black and blue but restrained myself for the ethics that unfortunately still rest with me.

"Yesterday I lost my patience and spoke to the orphanage. I was about to drop him there when you come to pick him." Biting a curse inside my lips I spoke to him trying hard with utmost patience. "He is your grandson. Don't you have at least pity for him if not love? You should have spoken to me before making a deal with the orphanage." He empties the glass in a go and fires at me with rage. "I do pity him and that's why I waited for you all these days in spite of the things you did to me and my family."

"Don't you dare, yell." I point my finger to him and growl. "I am not a man who would fold his hands and preach non-violence when my adversary is a monster. You tried to kill me using the excuse of an accident. I only gave you answers for the things you did to me." Losing my forbearance I vociferate. "Where is my son?" A hubristic laughter escapes his lips as he makes another drink for himself. "What did my daughter tell you, that this child was unplanned and you need to look after?"

I race to him and hold his collar. "Where is my son, I am asking you for the last time." I spoke chattering my teeth my tolerance was now hanging by a thread. He gets his collar relieved from my hold and stumbled back. "Liam is very much planned by Amaira. That one night stand..." He snickers shaking his head and looks at me with pity. "My daughter avenged her anger upon you making use of the kid. Well now you see her plan works."

This time I spare no ears to him to hear further. Taking the staircase I rush to the rooms situated in the first floor one after another checking for my son and in the last room I see a few kid toys and a baby bed. A nanny was sitting on a chair at the corner of the room reading a book while eating an apple.

My son was crying in soft whimpers holding an old teddy in his hands. He looked malnourished, weak and Ill-fed like a child from slums suffering a severe poverty. Oh Liam, my baby. My voice trembles looking at him. His clothes were torn almost in rags and the room smelt urine. I rushed to him, picked him up in my arms and kissed his cheeks. It was then the nanny takes notice of me. "For what are you here? Can't you feed the baby with some milk or food while you are having your stomach full?"

She stands up abruptly throwing the book she was reading on the chair and glares daggers at me. "He wants milk and that's why he whimpers 24/7 not having the energy to cry. After mewling for a few more minutes he loses his energy and falls back to sleep." She tells with no sensitivity pulling out a doctor prescription from her purse. "What I see in this house are used syringes with traces of blood and empty scotch bottles. How do I feed him? She asks my cynical.

I walk to her and grab the slip from her hands. "The doctor had prescribed some vitamin and mineral supplements for him apart from high nutrient food. I am not..." I walk out locking her in the room giving her no chance to speak anymore.

Amaira's dad was now seen unconscious on the chair he was earlier. Her mother was not to be seen at all. I felt nothing but regret for the pathetic conditions in which my son was living all this while.

Driving home I see Chris preparing lunch for us. "Chris" I call my wife and she turns back to me in smiles. Her eyes then fall puzzled on Liam who was laying weak in my arms. "Who is this child?" She asks me perplexed. "Can you feed him? He is too hungry?" I request her choking in my speech. "Of course" she answers and picks up the baby from my arms eyeing me quizzical.

As soon as the nipple goes attached to his lips, Liam gulps the milk like a hungry little puppy. "He looks ill-fed. I need to give him something more as a top feed. How old is he?" She asks me in concern. "Fourteen months" I swallow arresting the quiver from my throat. "I should get him some clothes and will come back in an hour. In the mean time can you run him a bath and dress him in the clothes of Ria?"

Chris looks at me in disconcert and then stares at Liam. Before more questions fall out in interrogation I run out of the house trying to buy some clothes for my son. I return home in an hour with three large bags of necessities for him including clothes, diapers, sweaters, shoes and many more things.

"Adrian" the voice of Chris came out firm after my return. "You get back your memory and immediately drive out to come home with a kid who looks like he didn't eat since ages. Who is the child and what is he to you?" I walk to Ria's bedroom checking upon Liam without answering my wife. She follows behind taking glances between me and Liam who was now playing with my pen that was inside my shirt pocket.

"Wait a minute" she speaks in a trance. Realization hits her too fast to my dismay. "Is he...is he?" She points to Liam and I had no way but to help her complete her sentence. "He is my son Chris, mine and Amaira's son."