A King's ransom

17

That night was more difficult than I’d expected. Seeing the letter with Dad’s handwriting had been both a boost and a downer. The good news: He was alive and kidnapped. The bad news: He was alive and kidnapped.

Mom and I went to bed after the eleven o’clock news, but I lay awake in the darkness, listening to the palm trees rustling in the breeze outside my bedroom window. Those three royal palms had been two feet tall when Dad and I planted them, he with a shovel, I with my trusty plastic sandbox rake. Now the fronds were literally tapping on my second-story window. A quarter century, gone in a blink of the eye. Yet the last two weeks seemed like a lifetime. I tried not to be negative. Today’s note from Dad had at least confirmed his survival of the shoot-out in Cartagena that had killed three of his crew. But I wondered how long ago he’d written those words, knowing that so many things could have happened since then, so many of them tragic.

Around 1:00 A.M. I heard a noise downstairs in the kitchen. Mom and I were obviously on the same train of thought. I got out of bed, put on my robe, and walked downstairs. The kitchen light was on, but I didn’t see Mom. I noticed a pad of paper on the table. I walked over and checked it out.

My dearest Matthew, it began. I didn’t snoop, but the sheer length struck me. It went on for pages and pages, all written in Mom’s longhand. Practically the entire notebook was already full.

“Don’t read that.”

I turned and saw my mother standing in the doorway. “I wasn’t.”

She took the notebook and held it to her bosom. “It’s for your father. I’m writing down everything for him.”

“You don’t have to explain. It’s a nice idea.”

She sat at the table, apparently wanting to talk. I sat across from her.

“Your father was so excited about this baby. He wanted to be a part of the whole pregnancy, the birth. Fathers didn’t do that so much when you and Lindsey were born. This was going to be a new experience for both of us.”

I smiled sadly. One more thing the guerrillas had stolen from the Rey family. “I’m sure he’ll be back in time to enjoy some of it.”

“Next week is my first ultrasound. We’d planned on going together. Since he can’t be there, I’m at least going to share it with him through my writing.”

“It’ll make good reading when he gets home.”

“It’s not for then. I’m going to send it to him.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“I called the Red Cross. They told me that under the Geneva Protocol, all prisoners have the right to receive mail.”

“Mom, Colombian guerrilla groups don’t honor the Geneva Protocol.”

She had a wan look in her eye. I’d seen it before in clients who suddenly had to face the difference between what the law prescribes and what the law can deliver. “Why not?”

“They just don’t. There’s no one to hold them accountable.”

“I suppose I knew that,” she said quietly. “Of course, that only confirms my suspicions about that little postscript on the kidnappers’ letter.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they won’t let your father receive mail, I hardly think they would have let him write a letter to his family. I’m sure they wrote it.”

“It was clearly Dad’s handwriting.”

“I don’t mean so much the physical act of putting pen to paper. He may have written it, but they composed it.”

“I disagree. Those were his own words. I’d bet my Jeep on it.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because of the way he expressed himself toward me.”

“But it was so short.”

“It was long enough for me to know.”

She gave me a curious look. “What are you trying to tell me, Nick?”

“Look at it this way. Let’s say that a kidnapper is writing a letter that he hopes will pass for a letter written by a father to his son. If he’s going to do it right, the ghostwriter has to step into the shoes of the father. For all the father knows, this letter could possibly be the last words he ever conveys to his son. As a ghostwriter, you’d probably throw in three little words: ‘I love you.’ You’d do that because that would be normal, right?”

Mom blinked. “Depends on what you mean by normal.”

“Exactly. Because normal in this house doesn’t mean a father telling his son ‘I love you.’ Normal is what Dad wrote: ‘Nick, give my love to Lindsey when you see her, and take good care of your mother and grandmother.’ ”

She looked at me with soulful eyes. That I’d committed his impersonal message to memory told her that I’d given it much thought, that it had affected me. “You know your father loves you.”

“I suppose I do, yes. But it would be nice to hear it.”

“That’s a two-way street.”

“You’re right. We’ve never been great communicators. That’s what makes me sadder than anything. In the last few days I’ve come to realize that in my entire life I’ve never had an honest conversation with my father.”

“Your father doesn’t lie to you.”

“I don’t mean honest in the George Washington sense. I mean honest as in intimate. Two people baring their souls.”

“Your father doesn’t have many of those conversations with anyone.”

I thought for a second. The kitchen was suddenly so quiet I could hear the hum of the refrigerator. I hadn’t intended to raise the issue of the FBI tonight, but this seemed like an opportunity. “Mom, how much do you know about the Nicaraguan end of the fishing business?”

“Some.”

“How well do you know Guillermo?”

“Actually, I’ve met Guillermo only once. We hardly said two words to each other.”

She said it with conviction, almost as if she didn’t want to know Guillermo. Or maybe I was reading too much into it. “Do you trust him?”

“He’s been your father’s partner for over a decade. And I don’t see anyone else volunteering to run to Colombia to deal with the local police on behalf of the family.”

“No doubt he’s been a help.”

“Did something happen that makes you not want to trust him?”

I was thinking of Agent Huitt and his accusations, of course, but Mom seemed stressed enough without taking her down that path. “It’s just that you don’t know him, I don’t know him. You get right down to it, we don’t know Alex either. Someone from the family should be on the front line.”

“You still want to go to Bogota, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head, almost groaning. “Why?”

“I just told you.”

“I don’t think you did.” She seemed to sense there was something I hadn’t told her.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said.

“Try.”

“This kidnapping has made me stop and realize that something’s missing between me and Dad, always has been missing. I have respect for him. He’s courageous, strong, all that. Growing up, I’d always thought I wanted to be like him. Not necessarily a fisherman, but like him nonetheless. The last few nights I’ve stayed awake wondering if we really are at all alike, and it’s occurred to me: I don’t know him that well. And he doesn’t know me either. Maybe that’s why it’s so important that I go on this trip. Find him. Maybe we can introduce ourselves.”

From her pained expression it was clear that she still didn’t want me to go. But she finally seemed to understand. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost both of you. Please, be very careful.”

I reached across the table and held her hand. “I will. I promise.”