FIVE EXAMINATIONS

Besides the occasional beeping of the machines in the hospital, there was no other sound. Lady Pinkerton was sitting next to the bed, almost falling asleep. The opening of the door caused her to sit up straight in her chair, and she yawned loudly. It was her husband coming in.

"How is he?" the man asked.

"I'm not seeing any difference," the lady asked.

While they spoke, to their surprise and happiness, Vine coughed.

A nurse and doctor were called in, and they promptly attended to the patient. Vine opened his eyes, and he mumbled a word.

"What? What did he say?" lady Pinkerton asked.

"He's saying something that I cannot hear. It's a word starting with the letter 'V'," the nurse said.

"Vincent Lisandro? You're asking about your son?" Lady Pinkerton said to her grandson.

"V…Vin. Vin…cent." Vine finally managed to pronounce the word.

"He is well. Don't push yourself too hard, my grandson. Your son is alive and well," Lady Pinkerton said.

Various tests and scans needed to be run, and many hours were spent on that.

When it was towards evening, Vine had regained his speech, although it was still abnormally slow.

"I need to see Vincent Lisandro," he said.

"Ok we will bring them in tomorrow." Lady Pinkerton said.

"Why not today?" Vine asked.

"Today, he is down with the flu, so I think he needs to rest." She lied.

"My poor son," Vine looked aside. Then he proceeded to talk, "Is Gareth dead?"

"Gareth is alive in the prison hospital." The lady explained truthfully.

Vine gritted his teeth, seemingly in pain, and then he said, "I want him dead."

"Shh, don't worry much about that for now. Focus on recovering and going back to your son."

They spoke for a while, before one of the doctors came in. He gave a summary of everything, stating that if Vine continued to stabilize at the rate that he was going, the chances of him being discharged from the hospital within the same week were high.

"That is very good news," Vine's grandfather said.

"I do have some not so good news, anyway." The doctor hesitated.

"What?" everyone was alarmed.

"Well, as I had already told you, there were some nerve damages and initially we had not picked the magnitude of the damage." He stopped.

"Tell us," lady Pinkerton urged.

"I don't know how best to put this across, but Mr Vine Pinkerton, you unfortunately suffered what we call testicular trauma."

"Tell me what it is," Vine said. He was beginning to get scared, but his face did not show that.

"This is when your testicle is hurt by force. In your case, that man not only stabbed you with a sharp knife, but he also kicked you violently, as per the narration that we got from the witnesses. Unfortunately, this condition is a very frequent acquired cause of infertility."

"What does that mean?" Vie asked, although he perfectly understood what was being said.

"Do you have a child, Mr Vine?" the doctor responded by asking his own question.

"I have one son," he said.

"Well, what I am saying, in simple terms, is that you may never be able to have another child." He said.

"The word that I am not understanding is the word "may". Are you telling me that I am never going to be able to have a child, or you are telling me that I won't ever have a child? Is this a game of guessing, or you are sure of what you are saying?" his cold voice came out as a whisper.

"I…from the tests that we did, and many of them, I can conclude that it will not be possible for you to ever have a child again," the man explained.

"Can this be treated?"

"Unfortunately, no," the doctor shook his head.

"Not even in the long term?" The young master asked.

"No, I am sorry." He sadly shook his head.

"I want to be left alone." Vine said.

No one moved an inch, and he spoke in a low hiss, pronouncing every syllable with great intensity, his anger not missed; "I. Want. To. Be. Left. Alone."

One by one they exited the room, and as soon as the door was closed and he was alone in the room, tears ran down Vine's face.

Lady Pinkerton and her husband sat in the car, at a loss for words. When they finally spoke, it was the man who began with:

"This means we will have to find Kiara. Vincent Lisandro is our only hope for an heir to this family. I am old and I can die any minute from now. My grandson cannot have any more children. There is one person left, and that is Vincent Lisandro."

Lady Pinkerton sighed heavily and said, "You are right."

"Did you send out anyone to look for the mother and son?" the man asked his wife.

"I gave the task to Dream. He searched everywhere but the girl is nowhere to be found. Even her own parents do not know where she is."

They remained silent for a while.

"Now that the situation has come to this; we really have to find Vincent Lisandro. And since you and Vine have always been very close, I suggest you convince her to marry that girl. The girl already has a child with him," the man continued to come up with ideas to try and solve the situation.

"He is adamant that he is not in love with her," the lady responded.

"Kiara has a son with Vine. That is all that matters now." Vine's grandfather stated firmly.

"You are right, for even if he marries someone else, the person will never carry his child. As it is, Kiara is a treasure to our family. We cannot afford to chase her away. She has out heir. And if the worst comes to the worst, if it means separating them in order to get the boy, we will do so."

"What do you mean?" the man was scared, thinking that his wife was thinking about murdering someone, for he knew that she always had an itchy had to see blood being spilt.

Knowing exactly what was on her husband's mind, lady Pinkerton clarified her statement, "I mean if Kiara is adamant that she wants that Jeremy guy of hers, she can go, but she will have to leave Vincent Lisandro behind. I will personally raise the child, just in the same way as I raised Vine."

"But Jeremy is dead?" The old man was confused.

"I know! I'm just saying we will go to all extents to have the boy raised up here. He belongs here. He is a Pinkerton; and Pinkertons belong with us."

The lady would have gone on talking was it not for her phone which chimed. She looked at it.

"Who is it?" her husband asked.

"It's a message from Vine."

"What is he saying?" he asked.

She opened the message and read it before flashing it in her husband's face so that he too could read it for himself.

The message read,

Grandma, I need to have five examinations done on me by the best professionals that we have in this country. Find the best urologist, or whoever is responsible for the job, and get them to run the tests on me. And when the results are out, keep them until you have all five of them. When you come to tell me about them, I would prefer to have them all five in one day.

They looked at each other. The lady called their driver and ordered him to start driving. Since the Pinkertons already had a doctor residing at their residence, they informed him that he was supposed to look for the required professionals. Lady Pinkerton did not slack on the job; she too went online and searched for the best.

Within a short while, appointments had been made to see the said people. Not willing to wait for the said times, lady Pinkertons ordered that if possible, they should use money to jump the queues, so that their date could come sooner.

Meanwhile, Vine refused to see anyone at the hospital. He said if anyone was to come, they should bring Vincent Lisandro with them, for he badly missed his son and wished to see him. His grandmother continued with the lie that the child was not feeling well, and when Vine asked if a video call could be made, they had to come up with more excuses. They spoke over the phone always, for Vine had stated sternly that he was not to be visited. And only his grandmother had the privilege of calling him.

Finally, having run out of excuses, they told Vine the truth. The young man was very furious.

"Someone has to find my son. If Kiara is not interested in coming back anymore, she may not be forced. Let her go. But please, for the sake of my sanity, bring back the boy to me." he said.

"We are doing our best," his grandmother promised him.

Vine felt that his world was falling apart. He wanted to cry, but he had to remain composed.

"How far with the test results?" he forced his voice to be calm.

"We have three of them so far," lady Pinkerton told him.

Vine felt as if he was chocking. He badly wanted to know the results, but not in bits and pieces. He wanted to hear it all at once. He wanted all the five of them to come to him, and to see what they all said. He was telling himself that there must have been a mistake. There was no way he was going to accept his fate.

When he was lying in bed early one morning, his door was opened and his grandmother came in; with papers in his hands.

"I'm sorry, I know that you don't want any visitors; but I had to come in person." She said.

Vine did not respond. He looked at his grandmother and saw that she was holding sealed envelopes in her hands; and he could have sworn that they were five.

"The results?" he asked, already knowing what to expect as an answer.

"Yes," the lady nodded her head.

"Please tell me," he said.

"I have not opened them. I brought them for you to open yourself. But I did see two of them, they were sent online. I then called the others to not send me anything but instead to give me printed results."

"What did the two say?" he asked anxiously.

"I want you to open them yourself," she said.

"I cannot, grandma. Can you be the one to open them for me, please?"

The lady sat on a chair and wore her reading glasses. One by one, she opened the envelopes. Vine watched closely as she read each and every one of the papers, and while he searched her face for any kind of emotion or reaction, either joy or sadness, or even shock; he found none.