Chapter 16

The letter from my father arrived and my dreams took a serious hit.

I sat in silence wondering if it could be true. Could it be possible that the woman I loved, and had been making love with, the first woman that I had ever felt so strongly about, could be my sister? My head swam with every thought imaginable.

I am, if nothing else, a man of order, so, first things first. Was this really possible? My father wouldn’t tell me something like this as a joke. He must have had a reason to impart something so serious to me. So I needed to take heed of his requests. I was going to see Penny tomorrow and I would address his questions then.

The next day’s training was not my best. Roger Caruthers threw me across the mat several times and Warrant Officer Rickly brought my lack of concentration to my attention, loudly and with some considerable force, several times during our training session that morning.

“Mr. O’Dell! Has your promotion already gone to your fat American head? You used to be a formidable opponent. Now I doubt you could best Mr. Bonham on his worst day.”

“Yes Warrant Officer, sorry. I got a bit of news from home that has me unsettled. Give me a moment and I’ll gladly throw you or anyone else around the room. The O’Dells are not to be trifled with.”

“Well Captain, they never used to be.”

The man knew how to push my buttons. I took a walk around the mat and gathered myself. Then I walked to the middle of the mat and announced, “Who’s next?”

Charles came at me, then Roger, then three others and I handled each in turn. Then the Warrant Officer walked onto the mat. We battled for several minutes before he threw me. But I’d bloodied his nose and he was limping from my blow to his left knee.

“Now that’s the blasted Yank I remember. Keep in mind Captain O’Dell, that the Ricklys should not be trifled with either.”

I stood, laughing and embraced the large man.

“Warrant Officer, thank you. I think you just put all of my problems in perspective. May I be allowed to buy you a whisky at the pub this fine evening?”

“If you’ve not been called out, I would enjoy that.”

No one had offered to buy the man a drink in the two years I’d been in the unit. At least not in public. His persona of being the supreme being was daunting. Everyone was rightfully more afraid of him, and held him in more respect, than our commanding officer. Not, fair, perhaps, but true.

After my day’s duties were done, I rang Penny and asked if I could pick her up that evening for dinner at the pub. I thought that a drink with her and the Warrant Officer might calm me down before I had to ask the questions.

I picked up Penny at 18:30 and we arrived at the pub a few minutes before the Warrant Officer. Penny and I had occupied a table and waved at him when he entered. Like Moses at the Red Sea, he walked through the parting crowd and to our table. I stood and greeted him.

“Thank you for agreeing to having a drink with me, Warrant Officer Rickly. May I introduce my girlfriend, Penny Hollyflower.”

“Hello again, Miss Hollyflower.”

“Again?” I asked.

“Yes, dear. Wesley used to date my mother.”

“Not true, Miss Hollyflower. I TRIED to date your mother. Her obsession with your father was too great a hill for me to conquer.”

“What?” I seemed to be limited to one word questions.

“Mick, my love,” Penny said softly patting my hand. “My mother is a nurse. There are not many men who have been in her care who have not tried to begin a relationship with her.”

“True,” the Warrant Officer said.

“Penny, you said your father was dead,” I sounded a bit lost.

“We’d just met, and I didn’t know you, dear,” she said sweetly.

The Warrant Officer then said, “Wendy would have been a magnificent catch. Still would be!”

“Wendy?” I think I might have fallen over had I not been next to Penny. “Your mother’s name is Wendy?”

“Yes dear, of course.”

“I think I need to meet her,” I said quietly, my eyes losing their focus amidst the small stars I was beginning to see.

“Oh no. I’ve seen my father’s picture and you look too much like him. Like I did, she would fall in love with you in an instant.”

I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew there were two hands on my shoulders and another hand gently stroking my cheek. When I opened my eyes, I looked into two of the roughest hazel eyes I’d ever seen close-up. But his hand was so soft.

I turned my head to see it was Penny stroking my cheek. The Warrant Officer was checking that I was all right. I looked back into his rough eyes, when it hit me.

“You knew,” my voice even sounded weak.

“Yes Captain,” the Warrant Officer admitted. “Not when I first met you, of course, but later I came to know. You see shortly after you met Penny, she came to me and asked about you. She knew I had been friends with her mother and presented her beliefs to me. It took no time to find out who your father was and that confirmed her story.”

I looked at Penny.

“And you’ve done what we’ve done together knowing I was your brother?”

“Half-brother, Mick.”

“It doesn’t matter! You’re my sister for Christs sake!” I was getting some energy back.

“Yes, and I love you and intend to marry you and return to Boise Idaho and raise a family.”

I brought my hand to my forehead and rubbed it. I looked down at the table and a full shot glass had appeared.

“Is that for me?”

“Yes, my love.”

I downed the whisky and, forgetting, breathed out through my nose, bringing burning tears to my eyes. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my father’s letter. I handed it to Penny.

“Here, read this. I got it today.”

While she read the short note, I looked at the Warrant Officer.

“Wesley?”

“Yes Michael?” he answered.

“No. Your given name is Wesley?”

He looked like ... I don’t know what.

“It is an old and honored name in my family, as is yours. In private company, you may use it.”

“And you may call me Mick, like all of my very good friends,” I said, my head still scrambled.

“So, your father is the reason that Wendy Hollyflower wouldn’t have a relationship with me. I’ll need to reward you with a good thumping one day.”

“Wonderful.” I said feeling no comfort in his words.

“My love, your father doesn’t mention what he told my mother when he left the hospital. It is the single reason that she never formed a relationship with another man. Your father and she had just made me, and he said to her before he left the hospital, “Thank you Wendy. No matter where you go or what happens in your life, I want you to know that there will always be a man out there that loves you.”

“That hope has lived in her heart since then. Perhaps when we go back to the States for the wedding she and your father can get together.”

“No! My father and mother are happily married. My mother would kill her.”

“Perhaps, Mick, perhaps,” Penny looked at the Warrant Officer and asked, “Wesley, would it be possible for Mick to stay with me tonight?”

“I’m afraid not, Penny. We may be very busy over the next week or so, and Mick will need to remain close on station.”

I knew what that meant. He knew of an operation that was up coming. We’d heard rumors of something big coming and almost all of the groups had been recalled to base. We were gathering our forces. I’d had a feeling that my mission back in February had been something very big. Now I had a feeling that things in Europe were coming to a head.

Since the invasion in June of last year, the Allies had been putting more and more pressure on Germany. Our missions to assassinate high ranking German general officers and public officials had increased and only in the past few months had they moved onto German soil. Bombing raids had destroyed the German’s ball bearing factories and their ability to build tanks and planes had been badly damaged. The end was approaching.

“Wesley, I think that Penny and I need to have a talk. May I offer to buy you that drink at a later date?”

“Mick, that would seem to be a prudent idea. I’ll see you at curfew. Good evening Penny, please give my love to your mother when you speak with her next.”

“I will Wesley, Good evening.”

With that, he stood and parted the crowd again as he left the pub. I looked back at Penny to see a face that had no conflict in it at all. She was as pacific as she could be.

“Mick, let me guess that you are at a loss for words, and even if you had the words, you wouldn’t know what to say.”

I just nodded.

“Well then let me start with your letter. Obviously, my mother is alive. Her name is Wendy and she did have a sexual relationship, one time, with your father. Before you think that another man after your father might have done the deed, let me tell you that my mother has had no man in her bed since she was in your father’s. You are my half-brother. Now let me tell you something of my mother. She was married to a soldier who was exposed to enough mustard gas to severely injure him. He was returned to the States, with very badly damaged lungs, to Georgia to be more precise, and he waited for my mother to finish her enlistment in the medical corps and return to him.

“After that one mating with your father, almost a year after her husband went home, she realized she was with child, and she wrote a letter to her husband. Between the pain in his lungs and the pain in his heart, he became depressed and finally took his life. My mother swore that no man would ever be with her again until she knew for sure that Paul O’Dell was out of reach forever.”

“But that doesn’t explain you and me,” I said.

“In a way it does. Mother is from Georgia. I’m led to believe that it isn’t uncommon for related people there to marry and have children.”

“I’ve heard of terrible things happening in that case. The children are born as morons or with two heads or no arms and legs.”

“I’ve spoken to one of the doctors that mother works with. He says that is not necessarily the truth, but repeatedly making children within a family over generations can cause real problems. He said that when two parents have the same genes there is a chance the child will inherit a double dose of a recessive gene. So if your father has a weak gene to have two heads then you and I could double that and have a baby with two heads. Or the baby could be the perfect mix of our strongest traits.”