Part 3 (2/2)
It also bothered me that I couldn't get a read on him. I couldn't tell if he was trying to put me at ease, or if he was trying to distract me from the task at hand.
I could have told him the truth about me and Destiny, that we'd only met yesterday, that she'd hired me to investigate her past, that she was dating my friend Mich.e.l.le, but I didn't. Frankly, I thought the truth was too intimidating. For a moment, I wished that Destiny and I genuinely were friends and that she wasn't my client.
”We're good friends,” I said without blinking, and he seemed to accept that.
Before he could think of another question, I blurted out one of my own.
”What exactly has Destiny told you about what I'm doing?”
”She told me you'd be coming here to ask questions about her natural parents.”
”Mmm.”
”She also instructed me to tell you everything I know. She was quite adamant about that.”
”How do you feel about her instructions?”
He didn't reply at once. I watched him pick his words, almost one by one.
”I'm relieved she wants to know, I suppose. I've often wondered why she didn't come to me sooner. For a time, I was even disturbed by her apparent lack of interest in these people who cared for her the first four years of her life. It didn't seem normal.”
”What's normal for a young girl who loses both her parents when she's only four years old?” I blurted out, surprising myself with the harshness of my tone.
Destiny's father didn't seem taken aback by my forcefulness.
”You have a point there,” he said equably. ”I suppose that's why I never pushed her. I hoped she'd come to me someday....”
He paused, a faraway look in his eyes.
”To be candid, Kristin, I never would have imagined she'd send someone in her place. It's odd. We're quite close, closer than most fathers and daughters, I'd venture to say. It's strange she didn't come to me herself. I can't quite understand her motivations.”
”Even if you don't understand her, Mr. Greaves, try not to judge her,” I said gently. ”It took a lot of courage for her to come this far. It's not for us to say if this is far enough.”
He looked at me sharply, then softened his features.
”You're right again, young lady. How can I help you... or help Destiny?”
He s.h.i.+fted back in his chair, extended his long legs and put his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. His left foot covered Business Week, his right foot covered Fortune. I was starting to like him. I took the liberty of matching his pose and put both my feet on President Bush's face, which was disgracing the cover of Newsweek.
'Tell me about how you and your wife came to adopt Destiny.”
”Let's see... I met Destiny's mother, Liz, when we were seniors at the University of Denver. After we graduated, she went off to Europe for a year a” her parents' graduation present to her. Shortly after she returned, we were married.”
”Were you in love?”
He intently studied the pattern on his tie. Finally, he looked up and spoke.
”I suppose we were before Liz went to Europe. When she was gone, to occupy my time, I took a few other girls on dates, but nothing serious. When Liz came back, I wouldn't say we were in love, but we did feel a great deal of affection for one another. After her return, our relations.h.i.+p was strained at first. She seemed different, quite a bit more mature, as if she'd aged ten years instead of one. I always suspected she had an affair with a man in Europe, but she never told me about her year away and I never asked.”
”How old were you when you got married?”
”We were both twenty-four.” He paused. ”We honored our wedding vows for almost twenty-five years. Then one day, she asked for a divorce and I granted it. It was quite civil, a formality almost.”
”Tell me about Destiny a” when did you decide to adopt a child?”
”For several years after we got married, we tried to have a child of our own a” without success. When we finally faced the fact that we couldn't have children, Liz insisted we adopt. She was quite anxious to be a mother.”
”Er, what prevented you from having children?” I delicately posed the question, hoping for a discreet answer. The gentleman didn't disappoint me.
”I don't know exactly. I suspected something was wrong with Liz's, ahm, workings. I never knew for sure, though. In those days, there weren't the tests available that there are today. Also, I don't think either of us wanted to know for certain. Too much finger-pointing, you know. Even then, Liz and I had an uncanny knack for using that sort of thing against one another.”
I saw his point.
”I didn't realize this until years later, but the more we began to realize we couldn't have a child, the more we wanted to have one. We were both quite accustomed to getting our way in the world. We saw this a” our barrenness a” as an insult.”
How bizarre! I wasn't sure Destiny would ever be ready to hear what was on this tape.
”But we also saw it as a challenge, and we set out to adopt a child.”
”How did you go about that?”
”Privately. If you've been around the block even once, you'll find the private sector always operates more efficiently than the public one.”
Remembering my last trip to the post office, I nodded in agreement.
”It was set up through our church, Church of Christ.”
”A Catholic church?”
”Yes. At the time, Liz and I were both practicing Catholics. We raised Destiny as a Catholic.”
Poor Destiny.
”By the time we finally put our name on a waiting list, they told us it would be two or three years before we'd get a healthy, Caucasian infant.”
”Did you want an infant?”
”I did initially. I don't know if Liz did, but she went crazy when she heard how long we'd have to wait. As I said, the more times we, er, had relations without conceiving, the more desperate she became.”
”You couldn't wait a couple of years?”
”No, we couldn't. We wanted to get on with the business of having a family. I was a practical man. I couldn't give a home to a child who wasn't Caucasian. Liz couldn't provide care for a child who was ill. We both knew that much about ourselves. As I said, I was practical. Older children needed homes, too. I was content to settle for an older child. Liz agreed, although she insisted the child be a girl.”
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