My Brother Died And I Went On A Quest To Find His Illegitimate Son
Hello! My name is Francine, I will soon turn eighteen years old, and as soon as this happens I will move out of my parents’ house ... Almost six years ago, my older brother did the same, but it didn't do him any good. He died six months ago. And only now am I able to talk about it at all. But, oddly enough, the darkest hour is the one before dawn... And this is what my story is about.
My brother's name was Roy. As I have already told you, he left our house about six years ago to go to college in a neighboring state. Roy was a good guy, a good son, and a good brother ... I miss him so much. He was the one our parents’ put their greatest hopes in — he was a totally self-reliant guy, he got scholarship for his college studies, and after classes he worked part-time to pay his bills. Of course, when he one day called our mother and asked her, in a very agitated voice, to send him a large sum of money, my parents felt terribly worried and asked Roy if he had gotten into trouble. Roy neither admitted it nor denied it, but he did confess that he had a debt that needed to be paid, otherwise he could really get into a lot of trouble. All this was true, but only partially.My parents ...well, you know, they are a little gullible. Sensible people would have gone to the city where Roy lived, or would have called the police to find out if he was in danger or had become involved in some criminal activity. They did nothing like that and simply took the money from their savings and sent it to Roy. But I was perfectly sane, and I knew my brother better than my parents did – after all, we grew up together! I called Roy and demanded an explanation, threatening him that if he did not tell me the truth, I would come to him with his best friends, who still lived in our city. And, together, we would surely make Roy tell us what had happened and knock some sense into him.
Roy became silent on the other end of the phone for a while, and then he promised to send me an email with an explanation. He said that these things should not be discussed on the phone. And the next day, my brother kept his promise. The first thing I saw when opening his letter was a large picture of Roy, a thin girl with a sloppy, shaggy haircut and gaudy makeup, and ...her pregnant belly. I did not really understand what it meant until I carefully studied the text under the picture.
The girl’s name was Iris. And she was my brother's girlfriend. She was one year older than him, they had been together for seven months already, and their relationship was really serious. Roy was going to marry Iris very soon, especially since she was about to give birth to their child. He didn’t want to introduce her to our parents yet, because he knew that they would never approve of the marriage — Iris was from a dysfunctional family, never attended college, did not have a steady job, and on top of that, she never managed to make a good impression on people. But Roy saw how good she was, and he loved her with all his heart. I looked at the photo again and didn’t see anything resembling a good girl there, but I thought that my brother probably understood what he was doing. Next, Roy wrote about why he needed the money. Or rather, why Iris needed the money.
Iris had a weakness that even Roy recognized. She was addicted to slot machines. Roy tried to justify it, saying that because she was a girl from a poor family she just dreamed of getting rich, thinking it could bring her from poverty to a better life… But, frankly speaking, this did not sound convincing. Iris blew all the money she earned from her odd jobs at the slot machines, then she borrowed money from someone, and again lost it, and this situation repeated in cycles. But Roy promised that as soon as they paid Iris’ debts, which was now necessary in order to avoid real trouble, he would introduce Iris to me and my parents. At the end of the letter, Roy wrote that he had moved from campus to Iris's house and left me her address.
However, Roy never married Iris, the same as he never graduated from college, or ever came home again. As we were later informed, for some reason, Roy crossed the road in the wrong spot, and the driver of the car that hit him could not have prevented the accident. It was a real tragedy for both our parents and me, and we still have not recovered from it. But, as I said at the very beginning, the darkest hour is always before the dawn. As soon as the first shock passed, I remembered that this Iris, who was never introduced to our parents, was expecting a child. My nephew? Or a niece?文本并非一一对应，且不完整，仅供参考阅读
LearnAndRecord
2015年2月8日
2019年8月28日
第1663天
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