Patrick's Destiny. Sherryl Woods

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СКАЧАТЬ his mother to be the most admirable woman he’d ever known. Now, each time he caught a glimpse of the name painted on the bow of the boat, it served as a reminder that everyone had secrets and that everyone was capable of duplicity. It was a cynical attitude, but experience had taught him it was a valid one.

      Maybe he’d invited Alice to join him because he was getting sick of his own lousy company. Or maybe it was because he had a gut instinct that she’d learned the same bitter lesson about humanity’s lack of trustworthiness. Not that he planned to commiserate. He just figured she was probably no more anxious than he was to start something that was destined to end badly, the way all relationships inevitably did.

      Oddly enough, for all that they’d had going against them, his own parents were still together. He supposed there was some sort of perverse love at work, if it could survive what they’d done to their own family. Funny how for so many years he’d thought how lucky he was to have had parents who’d stayed together, parents who preached about steadfastness and commitment and set an example for their sons.

      He and Daniel had had a lot of friends whose parents were divorced, kids who’d envied them for their ideal home. Not that Patrick or Daniel had shared the illusion that everything was wonderful in the Devaney household. There were arguments—plenty of them, in fact—mostly conducted in whispers and behind closed doors. And there were undercurrents they’d never understood—an occasional expression of inexplicable sorrow on their mother’s face, an occasional hint of resentment in their father’s eyes—just enough to make him and Daniel wonder if things were as perfect as they wanted to believe.

      In general, though, he and Daniel had had a good life. There had been a lot of love showered on them, love that in retrospect he could see was meant to make up for the love their parents could no longer give to their other sons. There had been tough times financially, but they’d never gone to bed hungry or doubting that they were loved. And in later years, his father had settled into a good-paying job as a commercial fisherman, working not for himself but for some conglomerate that guaranteed a paycheck, even when the catches weren’t up to par. After that, things had been even better. There were no more arguments over rent and grocery money.

      He and Daniel had been eighteen before they’d discovered the truth, and then all of those whispered fights and sad looks had finally made sense. Not that their parents had confessed to anything in a sudden flash of conscience. No, the truth had been left for Patrick and Daniel to find discover by accident.

      Daniel had been digging around in an old trunk in the attic, hoping to use it to haul his belongings away to college, when he’d stumbled on an envelope of yellowing photos, buried beneath some old clothes. It was apparent in a heartbeat that the envelope was something they’d never been meant to see.

      Patrick still remembered that day as if it were yesterday. If he let himself, he could feel the oppressive heat, smell the dust that swirled as Daniel disturbed memories too long untouched. To this day, if Patrick walked into a room that had been closed up too long, the musty scent of it disturbed him. It was why he’d chosen to live here, on his boat, where the salt air breezes held no memories.

      He remembered Daniel shouting for him to come upstairs, remembered the confused expression on his twin’s face as he’d sifted through the stack of photographs. When Patrick had climbed the ladder into the attic, Daniel looked stunned. Silently, he held out the pictures, his hand trembling.

      “Look at them,” he commanded, when Patrick’s gaze stayed on him rather than the photos.

      “Looks like some old pictures,” Patrick had said, barely sparing them a glance, far more concerned about his brother’s odd expression.

      “Look at them,” his brother had repeated impatiently.

      The sense of urgency had finally gotten through to Patrick, and he’d studied the first picture. It was of a toddler with coal-black hair and a happy smile racing toward the camera at full throttle. He was a blur of motion. Patrick had blinked at the image, thoroughly confused about what Daniel had seen that had him so obviously upset. “What? Do you think it’s Dad?”

      Daniel shook his head. “Look again. That’s Dad in the background.”

      “Okay,” Patrick said slowly, still not sure what Daniel was getting at. “Then it has to be one of us.”

      “I don’t think so. Look at the rest of the pictures.”

      Slowly, Patrick had worked his way through the photos, several dozen in all, apparently spanning a period of years. His mom was in some of them, his father in more. But there were happy, smiling boys in each one. That first toddler, then another who was his spitting image, then three, and finally five, two of them babies, evidently twins.

      Patrick’s hand shook as he studied the last set of pictures. Finally, almost as distressed and definitely as confused as Daniel, he dragged his gaze away and stared at his brother. “My God, what do you think it means? Those babies, do you think that’s you and me?”

      “Who else could it be?” Daniel had asked. “There are no other twins on either side of the family, at least none that we know of. Come to think of it, though, what do we really know about our family? Have you ever heard one word about our grandparents, about any aunts or uncles?”

      “No.”

      “That should have told us something. It’s as if we’re some insular little group that sprang on the world with absolutely no connections to anyone else on earth.”

      “Don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?” Patrick asked.

      “Look at the damn pictures and tell me again that I’m being too dramatic,” Daniel shouted back at him.

      Patrick’s gaze had automatically gone to the top photo, the one of five little dark-haired boys. “Who do you suppose they are?”

      “I don’t even want to think about it,” Daniel said, clearly shaken to his core by the implications.

      “We have to ask Mom and Dad. You know that,” Patrick told him, feeling sick. “We can’t leave it alone.”

      “Why not? Obviously, it’s something they don’t want to talk about,” Daniel argued, far too eager to stick his head right back in the sand.

      It had always been that way. Patrick liked to confront things, to lay all the cards on the table, no matter what the consequences. Daniel liked peace at any cost. He’d been the perfect team captain on their high school football squad, because he had no ego, because he could smooth over the competitive streaks and keep the team functioning as a unit.

      “It doesn’t matter what they want,” Patrick had all but shouted, as angered now as Daniel had been a moment earlier. “If those boys are related to us, if they’re our brothers, we have a right to know. We need to know what happened to them. Did they die? Why haven’t we ever heard about them? Kids don’t just vanish into thin air.”

      “Maybe they’re cousins or something,” Daniel said, seeking a less volatile explanation. It was as if he couldn’t bear to even consider the hard questions, much less the answers.

      “Then why haven’t we seen them in years?” Patrick wasn’t about to let their folks off the hook…or Daniel, for that matter. This was too huge to ignore. And it could explain so many things, little things and big ones, that had never made any sense. “You said it yourself, the folks have never once mentioned any other relatives.”

      Even СКАЧАТЬ