Chapter 6

We did stay in Africa for eight years. By the time we left there to travel to India we had four children, two boys and two girls. The first boy I named Adam, after the first man who engaged in incest to populate the world. My sister thought I was being sacrilegious, but I disagreed. It was obvious. I named the second boy Noah for the same reason. Oz was more conventional, if you consider Hermione a conventional name. Or Adebayo, which she named our fourth child, after the midwife who had delivered all our children. Hermione would grow up proud of her name. Adebayo preferred to be called “Addie” because she got tired of explaining that her name was African.

Our ten years in India would make a whole book, but this is long enough as it is. When we left there to go back to New York, where Oz had been promoted into an executive position, Hermione was almost eighteen and looking forward to going to college, though she didn’t know what she wanted to major in. Adam was more focused on what he wanted out of college, but was farther away from going than his older sister. At present, being sixteen, he couldn’t wait to get his driver’s license. Noah was fourteen and Addie brought up the rear at twelve. Addie made the flight back to the US memorable by starting her first period on the plane, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

I would never have thought that airlines carried those kinds of supplies, but they do.

There was one huge issue when we returned to America. That was that, as far as Haverson (and her new colleagues) were concerned, Oz and I were married. The kids had no idea their mother was their father’s sister. It was easy to enroll them in school and list me as their father. Nobody ever actually asks to see a marriage certificate. They just take your word for it.

The really big problem was with our parents. They knew about Daan, and the two children he had allegedly sired. When she had Noah, she said she didn’t want to marry the father. When they found out she was pregnant with Addie, the conversations got tense, because Oz again said she didn’t want to marry the father. By the time we’d been in India for a few years, they got used to the idea that neither their daughter nor son was going to get married. They knew their grandchildren by virtue of conversations had via the internet. They hadn’t gotten to come to India to see us, so when we got back to New York we knew they were going to make the trip to interact with us.

We also knew that our kids were going to refer to me as “Dad” in the case of Adam and Noah, and “Daddy” in the case of the girls. I was, after all, the only father they’d ever known.

Basically, it was clear we were going to have to come clean with Mom and Dad. And that was terrifying, because we had no idea how they were going to take it. More importantly, we had no idea what they would feel compelled to do.

Haverson has relationships with lots of institutions of higher learning. That’s where they recruit from, for the most part. So even though none of our children had school records from anyplace in America, Haverson greased the skids, as it were, to get some colleges interested in Hermione, for sure, and Adam, potentially. At that point Adam wanted to major in language. He already spoke French, German, Hindi, quite a bit of Urdu, and half a dozen African and Indian dialects. He wasn’t interested in doing American high school, which was why the first thing he did when we got to New York was take and the GED test (again, thanks to Haverson’s contacts in getting an age waiver). He was scheduled to take the SAT, which was what the colleges he talked to (on his own, without any parental assistance) wanted to see.

All the kids had been home schooled while we were overseas, something Oz and I relished doing. Most of the time we either didn’t have a TV or didn’t care to watch what little was available, so we spent the time educating our children. Hermione was eager to go to a college where she could make friends and be with other kids who looked like her and were her age. Noah and Addie were a little less enthusiastic about public school. I think they were worried they might not fit in. We lived in a large, older house in Brooklyn, but the kids hadn’t had time to get to know others their age in the neighborhood, yet.

So we were semi-settled, but our parents might upset that almost equilibrium when they found out what we’d done.

We told them not to try to drive, both because it would be a very long, very tiring trip for them, and because we didn’t want them to have to deal with big city traffic. We left the kids at home and drove to the airport to pick them up. We did not go directly home. Instead, I drove us to Prospect Park, found a spot next to the band shell, and turned the car off.

“What’s going on?” asked my mother.

“Let’s get out and sit,” said Oz. “We need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Please, let’s sit on a bench. I don’t want to have to crane my neck while we talk.”

We got out and sat on a bench. Dad and I were on the outside and the two women sat next to each other.

“Now, what’s this all about?” asked Mom.

“The kids,” she said. “Your grandchildren.”

“What about them?” asked Mom. She was eager to get her hands on little people she’d only seen on a computer screen.

“We need to talk about their father,” said Oz.

It got very silent. All they did was stare at Oz.

We had talked about how to do this, but hadn’t come to any firm agreement on the best way. Is there even a best way to tell your parents you’ve made babies together? Oz decided to just rip the Band-Aid off.

“We haven’t been truthful with you about who the children’s father is,” she said. “We lied because we were afraid you’d stop speaking to us; that you’d hate us.”

“Why would we hate you?” said Mom.

“Because Bobby is their father,” said my dad, his voice grim. He might have been a racist, but he wasn’t stupid. “Isn’t it obvious? They’ve lived together all this time. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before now.”

“Bobby?” My mother’s voice was at least an octave higher than normal. She stared past Oz at me.

“It’s true,” I said.

“It wasn’t his fault!” said Oz, earnestly. “I made him do it!”

“You can’t make a man do something like that,” snorted Dad.

“No, it’s true! I blackmailed him!” said my sister.

“Blackmailed,” said Mom, her voice shaky.

“Yes. He did something I knew would get him in trouble, back in college. He knew if I squealed on him to you two that you’d stop supporting him and he’d have to drop out. I told him I’d tell if he didn’t do what I wanted.”

“What did he do?” asked Mom, who I suspect was trying not to think about what Oz had just confessed.

“That’s ancient history, now,” said Oz. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was in love with him since I was twelve, and I always wanted him to be my boyfriend. And then I did something stupid and got in trouble at a party and he saved me from getting raped and that’s when I told him if he didn’t become my boyfriend I’d tell on him and get him in trouble.”

“Raped?” My mother’s voice rose again.

“Almost!” said Oz, urgently. “Bobby got there in time. He almost beat the guy to death. And he got me out of there without anybody seeing or knowing how stupid I’d been.”

“This was clear back in college?” asked Dad.

“Yes. I was so foolish back then,” said Oz. “But Bobby took care of me.”

“Getting you pregnant four times is not taking care of you!” snapped Dad.

“The first one was by accident,” said Oz. “He didn’t want me to get pregnant, but I couldn’t get more birth control pills in Africa so...”

“So, instead of stopping doing incest, you just had his baby?” squealed Mom.

“Yes,” said Oz. Her voice was firm. “Haverson thought we were married. That’s why they only gave us one house.”

“So that bullshit about some Dutch guy was just blowing smoke up our asses,” growled Dad.

“Yes,” said Oz again. “There was no mining engineer. There was never anybody except Bobby. We felt married.”

“Well, you’re not,” said Dad. “You’re fucking perverts.”

“John.” There was warning in Mom’s voice.

“What?” he barked. “That’s exactly what they are!”

“And what, exactly, do you plan to do about that?” asked Mom. The warning was obvious, just in her tone of voice. She wasn’t stupid, either. I think she sensed we were all on a precipice, which her husband could shove us all over. I think all she was concerned with, at that point in time, was not doing something nobody could recover from.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but we have to do something.”

“Well, let’s talk about that a little,” said Mom.

“Marian, there’s nothing to talk about. They’re perverts and we have to do something!”

“All right,” said Mom. “What might we do. Call the police?”

“Well, I guess,” he said.

“And do you think the police - here in America - are going to care a whole lot about incest done overseas, in Africa, over a decade ago?” Her voice sounded quite calm, now.

“Well they should!” said Dad.

“Okay. Let’s assume they do care. Which one do you think they’ll want to put in prison? Bobby? He’s the father. But she says he didn’t force her. In fact, she says she forced him! So I guess they might want to put Oz in prison. Is that what you want?”

Dad wrinkled his brow.

“Well ... I don’t know.”

“They might put both of them in prison, seeing as how they’ll say it was all consensual. It happened after they were both eighteen, but I’m sure it’s still against the law. So then the parents of those children will both be in prison. Who will take care of the children?”

“I don’t know!” snapped Dad.

“We’re the closest relatives,” she said. “We’d have to take them home with us. How old is Addie?” she asked, looking at Oz. “She’s twelve, now?”

“Yes,” said Oz, quietly.

“So we’ll have three teenagers at home again, and one in college.” She looked at me this time. “You said Hermione is going to college, right?”

“She wants to,” I said. “She’s looking into that, now, but even if she gets accepted there won’t be any scholarships, at least not for her first year.”

“And Adam?”

“He wants to go to college, too. He’s already gotten his GED and will take his SATs soon. He wants to major in foreign languages, but we don’t know how that will pan out, yet. As for Noah and Addie, we’ve home schooled them all their lives and I’m sure whatever school we put them in will test them to figure out where to put them.”

“So we’ll have to finish raising two teenagers, maybe three, and put at least one through college. Is that what you want, John?”

“No! Of course not,” he groaned. “We’re finished raising children.”

“Then we can’t get those children’s parents sent to prison, now can we?” she said.

“But it’s wrong!” he groaned.

“I agree,” said Mom, calmly. “I’m just not convinced we can do anything that won’t destroy our children, and make our grandchildren orphans.”

Dad was finally speechless.

“So, John, what do you want to do?” she asked.

“Fuck me!” he grumbled.

“I’d be happy to, Dear,” said Mom. She looked back at us. “Where will we be staying?” she asked. “My husband wants me to fuck him.”

“Marian!” gasped Dad.

“Well, it’s what you said!” she yelled.

“Calm down,” said Dad, looking around. There were people in the park, but none near us.

“I think it’s you who should calm down,” said Mom. “They did this thing. It’s ... distasteful ... but it’s done. We can’t undo it. Those dear, sweet children need their parents, even if they shouldn’t be their parents. You and I are just going to have to come to terms with all this.”