Chapter Twenty One
JEDSATup, ignoring an unpleasant wave of nausea, and glanced at the window, perturbed he hadn’t heard Kim let herself in. “What time is it?”
Satisfied he was awake, Kim took a step back. “Six.”
“Where are the kids?”
“Asleep in their beds. I left Mrs. Dagastino knitting in the lounge. She’ll be all right for a while. You and I need to talk.”
Jed tried to picture the Coopers’ elderly neighbor while he eyed the time bomb Kim clutched in her hands. “What do you want to talk about?”
Kim narrowed her eyes. “Really, Jed? Are you bloody kidding me?” She dropped the passport and photos on the coffee table and walked to the window, though she didn’t turn and look out over the water. Jed thought about following her, but didn’t. Kim ran a hand through her inky hair. “This is my fault. He never wanted this. He never wanted to run… you have to believe me.”
Jed took a breath, but Kim cut him off. “Jed. I know my brother, and I know there’s something between you. Just, before you let this tear you apart, let me explain. Please?”
The shock of being called out on his feelings twice in as many days left Jed dizzy. For a moment, he didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he beckoned Kim forward and gestured for her to take a seat next to him on the couch. “Go on, then. Explain.”
Kim sat down. Jed appraised her through the haze of whatever was screwing with his sense of balance. She seemed apprehensive but determined, a trait he’d seen in Max many times.
“It’s such a mess. I don’t know where to start.”
“Try the beginning.” Jed gritted his teeth and reached for the passport. “Start with this.”
Kim touched the gold harp on the battered, deep-red leather. “Max was born in Dublin. The only time in his life he’s ever been early. He wasn’t due for another three weeks, but my dad was pleased. Dublin was his father’s hometown.”
“Your father was Irish?”
“Galway, born and bred.”
Jed turned it over in his mind. An Irish father and a Congolese mother. It was a hell of a mix. “Where did he meet Makemba?”
If Kim was surprised he knew her mother’s name, she hid it well. Max had never told Jed, but Jed had seen it scribbled on the box that held Max’s favorite recipes—the recipes he said were his mother’s.
“My dad was a lawyer by trade, but he worked as a diplomat for the Irish government. He met my mother when he passed through Kisangani in the seventies. They got married at the Irish embassy in Ethiopia.”
“Where were you born?”
“Singapore. I’d been all over the world by the time I was a few months old.”
Jed thought of the giant atlas on his bedroom wall. Thought of Max’s collection of pins. “When did you move to London?”
Kim shook her head. “Never. My dad quit politics when Max was a toddler and went back to being a lawyer. He took a job in central London, and we settled in a commuter town about fifty miles north of the city. We grew up in a town a lot like this one.”
Jed absorbed her words, analyzed them, and looked further, searching for the seed that would lead to whatever bombshell she was trying to drop. The conversation had begun with her father, but Max had never mentioned him. Not once. “Who did your father work for?”
Kim faltered. Jackpot. He’d found it… found the source of the pain and heartache that lurked behind Max’s bright smile.
Jed grasped Kim’s shoulders, leaving her no way out. “Who did he work for?”
“Who didn’t he work for? That was the problem. My dad was principled. He believed in right and wrong, whatever side you came from. He worked human-rights cases… prominent ones from the troubles in Northern Ireland, and he didn’t care which side of the boundary they fell.”
“Risky game for an Irish lawyer in London.”
Kim sighed. “Exactly. I used to hear my parents arguing about it. My mum thought he should pick a side and be done with it, but it wasn’t that easy. He said people were suffering on both sides, and it was his duty as a human being to help them.”
“So that’s where Max got his conscience, huh?”
“Without a doubt. He didn’t always agree with my dad, but he has his stubborn, self-righteous nature.”