Mending Fences

A short drive to the airport and Henry was waiting for them. He whistled on seeing Monique with Rupert. "Hello, Lovebirds." He greeted them.

"Not now Henry," they said together causing Henry to laugh. After he had all sobered up Shimonthini wondered at how Rosaline's high school sweetheart was reacting to the events of the night. "Rosaline never had a high school sweetheart," Henry commented.

"What are you saying? She told me that she had met her high school sweetheart and wanted to go out on a date with him." Monique said.

"Well, that is one way of saying. Chill Mom I can take care of myself." Henry offered.

Rupert smiled and added to Shimonthini's support. "Rosaline didn't quite know that Monique is her mom in any way."

"Don't worry bro. Sometimes your wife behaves as if she is my mother as well." Henry offered.

Shimonthini returned to the topic at hand, however. "Then who was the guy she went out with?"

"She went out with a guy she was attracted to. Thankfully for everyone, he turned out to be FBI and was there to protect her." Rupert said.

"Oh." was all that Shimonthini could muster.

"And the Heinrich that you mentioned is it the same as your younger brother?" Monique asked Henry.

Henry nodded with a shamed face. "Unfortunately."

"Was Heinrich Rosaline's first love?" Monique asked curiously.

"No, he wasn't," Rupert said solemnly.

"He was," Henry said pointing to Rupert.

"But how? Rosaline is his daughter." Shimonthini said.

"Till Rosaline was fourteen years old she knew me to be only her foster father and her late mother's old friend. Once she reached puberty she started making advances towards me. At the age of fifteen, she was told that I was actually her biological father. I thought her believing that would correct her feelings for me. It backfired. She became more violent. A few years back she eloped with Heinrich. She was gone for over a year. When she returned a few months back she carried her child. I only saw Herb once before and so wasn't able to recognize him when I saw him with you." Rupert surmised.

"You just said that you let her believe that you were her biological father. What does that mean? You are not her father?" Monique asked.

Both men had solemn faces to the question. Neither was willing to answer but Monique prodded anyways.

"The answer won't change my feelings for Rosaline. I took her up as my ward when I never knew of any connection with her. Rosaline is a responsibility I took the moment I helped her escape from her abusive husband and that responsibility had nothing to do with you." Shimonthini said.

Rupert nodded. "Yes, you need to know the truth. The truth is a part of my life I am not proud of. Rosaline's mother, Madeline Mansfield was a family friend. I fell in love with her early on in my youth. We had a torrid romance. I proposed her at the age of sixteen. We were to be married as soon as we were legal. I was nobody then and lived under the care of Mrs Mornington. Then one fine day Mrs Mornington's daughter collapsed on the road. She was diagnosed with a heart disease. We had to take her to Switzerland.

"Mrs Mornington was my foster mother. I felt my responsibility towards her daughter were my priority. I went with her. I did not know then that Madeline was with child. Two months later she had a miscarriage. I wasn't there with her. It was an ordeal for her. She blamed me for losing the child. I appointed Mrs Mornington's chauffeur with the responsibility of bringing flowers to her bedside every day, to cheer her up. Madeline loved flowers. One day David asked her to marry him. Out of spite for me, she said yes. Because of the class difference between the two families they kept the engagement a secret. When a few months later Madeline was again with a child they had to finally declare.

"I still loved her. I paid for the wedding and everything that the couple required. It wasn't enough to keep them alive. They died in a car accident when Rosaline was three years old. Mrs Mornington and her daughter had passed away by then. Since I paid for Madeline's every necessity throughout her living years, society was wont to believe that I did so out of guilt and thus named Rosaline my love child. Rosaline doesn't know all this. She thinks I seduced her married mother and anointed her with shame in the process. That is why she left me in the first place." Rupert stopped.

"That is true partly, and the heartache of first love," Henry concluded. When the flight landed Dave was waiting at the airport. "Hello, Mr Mornington." He greeted Rupert.

"You must be Dave; I gather from the sling that you are wearing," Rupert said.

Dave smiled shyly. "Yes, I am."

"You need not have come here in your condition," Rupert suggested.

"Well, it is a surface wound. The bullet did not go far. I can't say that much for your brother though." The last part was addressed to Henry. "The bullet punctured his left lung and made for the spinal cord. Even if his lungs heal he will probably end up in a wheelchair for his life. Also, the charge sheet piling up against him isn't good."

"Can we go and see Rosaline first?" Monique asked.

Dave noticed the woman for the first time. "You must be Monique and this must be Herb." So saying Dave took up the young boy upon his unwounded shoulder. Monique objected but Dave refused to bother. "Let's go. She is actually at the guest house where I had been staying for my vacation. Returning to her home seemed an ordeal for her and I didn't have the heart to confine her to a hospital bed when what she really needed was the warmth of near ones." Dave explained.

Rosaline hugged Monique when she opened the door. "Are you ok?" she asked her. That was when her eyes fell on her father. Henry had decided to lodge at a hotel and go and visit only in the morning. A part of him was still ashamed for all the grief his brother had caused.

"Are you ok?" Rupert asked her back. Rosaline blushed. She wondered if her father would reprimand her for keeping him at bay for all this while. She wondered if she would have to go through all this if she simply returned to her father. But truth is that she would have never met Dave. Tears flooded her eyes as she went into her father's embrace. Before she could lay her head on his shoulders she saw Herb in Dave's arms. She went to take him from there but Herb was sleeping and Dave refused to part from him. "He is tired, Rose. The child had a rough day." He said. "And so did you. We should all go inside." He suggested.

Suddenly Rosaline realized that they were all standing on the porch. She nodded her head and led her family inside. "You are my father's wife?" Rosaline asked Monique well knowing the answer.

Monique smiled widely.

"Did he set you up to keep an eye on me?" Rosaline asked suspicious of her father's intentions.

"No, I didn't. We were actually having a fight when she met you. I just found her. I had you under surveillance though. Just tonight you went under the radar I presume and got yourself in trouble." Rupert said.

"But everyone is safe now and the problems have been solved. That is what matters. No one needs to run away or hide now." Dave surmised.

Rosaline looked at the new man in her life. She could see a shadow of her father in him but this time she did not want to run away from that. She wanted to welcome it. Maybe Freud was not spot on with his Oedipus complex theory. Our fascination with our parent of the opposite gender does not stem from a primal sexual desire but from a desire to trust. We all want to trust, blindly and that is the greatest human bond that may tie two souls.

Rupert felt a pride in looking at his daughter and his grandson. He was not homeless anymore. He had a family. A light touch on his arm reminded him of the greatest bond to his family, however. "Isn't there something you would like to discuss with your daughter? I believe honesty and transparency is the best foundation for a relationship."

Rupert hesitated, and then asked to speak privately with his daughter. He had two pieces of paper to show his daughter. The first was a copy of the DNA results he had torn away so many years ago, results that turned their relationship around from that of compulsion and shame to devotion and love.

"Why did you not tell me before?" Rosaline accused her father.

"I knew about your infatuation with me. The doctor who did your psych evaluation in High school camp was an acquaintance. He was, in fact, the same doctor under whose care Henry was. He believed that I should take some step to prevent such incestuous feeling in you. When you were told, what you were told about our relationship I assumed that if you went on believing so it would help our relationship. But it was the opposite of what I had hoped for. When you asked to go into boarding school I assumed you needed distance to accept the situation. I guess I assumed wrongly." Rupert said.

"What is the other piece of paper you wanted to show me?" Rosaline asked her father who was not her father but much more.

Rupert brought forward a yellowed paper. "This is proof that I am not a bastard," Rupert said. It was the wedding certificate of Tammy Edwards and George Mornington from the time when the Mornington were Indian residents.

Rosaline hugged her father and realized that like herself he too had been living in the shadow of a rumoured shame that did not exist. At that moment they were more than a blood relation. They were comrades in their stand against the rumourmongers of society. There was light outside. It was dawn. Rosaline was tired but she did not feel like sleeping. Still, Dave forced her into bed for a few hours. When she opened her eyes they had another visitor. It was Henry.

Soon they were all sitting on the roof enjoying the morning sunlight over a cup of tea. "So, all fences have been mended!" Henry concluded.

"Except one." Rupert objected.

"Which one?" the women asked in unison.

"Bert Monnet," Rupert said and smiled.

Henry did not understand what his brother was referring to.

"I want Monique to meet her first love," Rupert said.

Henry laughed understanding the situation. Monique was vehemently opposed to such a meeting. "I have rested my case with Henry. I believe it best to not meet him ever."

Rosaline had never heard the name Bert Monnet before but she had seen the name signed in certain documents. "I want to meet him."

"You don't need to meet him Rose but Monique does," Rupert said.

"Ok. I will meet him once. But I am not the sixteen years old in love with stories of chivalry." Monique relented.

"Will you do the honours, Henry?" Rupert requested.

"What?" asked Monique unable to follow the trend of thought.

Henry addressed Monique. "I present to you my brother Robert Monnet." And so saying waved his hand towards Rupert.

"I don't understand," Monique said.

"My adoptive parents named me Robert Monnet. When my birth father found me he was ashamed of his treatment of me and wished to make it up for me. He wanted me to take his name which I did but that was not enough. He wanted to erase my old life as a servant in his household and as a result, Rupert Mornington was born." Rupert explained.

Monique looked at Henry inquisitively. "Is what is he saying true?"

"Every word of it" Henry concluded.

Tears rolled down Shimonthini's eyes as she went forward and hugged her husband. Rupert placed one hand on a shoulder and the other on her stomach securing the family which was his own sense of belonging. Soon Rosaline joined in the group hug with Herb. Monique was ultimately united with the star she had adored all her life and her wings didn't even burn. On the contrary, she learnt to fly anew.