Desert rose, dreamed I saw a desert rose, dressed all in ribbons and in bows… – U2, “In God’s Country”
“What about when she changes?” Mal, after Knight explains what happened.
(Takes place fifteen years after “Negotiations at Hawkwood”)
“She fights like a tiger,” said Rose’s sensei to her mother. Rose beamed at the comparison, but her mother got a disturbed look on her face and took her out of judo two weeks later, saying they couldn’t afford it.
Rose was never one for ballet, instruments, or playing with girls’ toys. Even with her younger sister Judith, Rose didn’t want to play with silly Barbies, or dolls, or role play weddings. She didn’t bat her eyes at the boys, even now at 17. She had male friends, but she didn’t consider them really “boyfriends”.
However, she was smart, and she had been advanced an entire grade way back in grammar school. She easily kept up with the other children, both socially and academically. She was going to graduate high school a full year before her 18th birthday. She knew what she was going to do, where she was going to go.
She and a group of male and female friends were going to travel the country together the summer before college – so they told their parents. But, when the gang of five teenagers – Shelly, Ashley, Tiesha and Po – piled into Ashley’s old beat-up Caravan, the first place they went to was the hospital where Rose was born, in Fairfax, Virginia.
These precious friends joined Rose in her quest – to find her real father. Her birth certificate had said, “Father Unknown” in big block letters, and they thought that maybe the hospital records would show something else. That, unfortunately, turned up nothing. Rose had kept a diary since she was old enough to write, and she had gone through it looking for moments in her life that were important. She had typed up the milestones and brought the paper with her.
Tiesha looked at the paper as the five of them ate at a Jack in the Box. “It says here you moved out of your house in 2018 – what was that about?”
“They never told me,” Rose said, dunking a baked french fry in tartar sauce. “I figured out that it was because of foreclosure.”
“Maybe we should start looking where you were living at the time. Do you remember the town?”
“Candle?”
“Time to GoogleSat!” yelled Po, whipping out his tablet and searching for cities with “Candle” in their name in the near vicinity. It ended up being Candler, North Carolina, a three-hour drive.
When they got there, Rose noticed some buildings, but others seemed new or non-existent. After a night’s sleep in a local campground, they went the next morning to the City Hall, looking for the old deed.
Rose told the woman at the desk that she was looking for her real father, since her mother had passed away and never told her. The sob story worked, and the woman produced the deed. In fact, she suggested that the try the county clerk’s office to see if anyone had tried contacting her mother about being their father.
They raced to the clerk’s office, but at first the clerk wouldn’t budge, saying that he needed a copy of the mother’s death certificate before releasing any documents relating to a minor. “Like I carry my mother’s death certificate every where I go!” she yelled at him, and the mayor overheard. After hearing the story, he told the clerk to release any documents pertaining to her.
They found a series of restraining orders filed against a Mr. Henry Barron. “Who’s this?”
“He’s a lawyer, retired now. Think he lives on the Hill. Yes, in fact he does…”
After furnishing ten dollars for copies of the restraining orders, the pack of teens went for lunch and then went to the place the locals called “The Hill”, which was exactly that. A hill with three large, fancy houses on it. One was gated, two were not. One of the ungated homes had “Barron” on the mailbox and a Cadillac in the driveway.
Rose went alone and knocked on the door. After some time, a woman in scrubs answered. “Yes?”
“I’m looking for Mr. Henry Barron?”
“Who’s calling?”
“He doesn’t know me, but I’m trying to find my father. My mother passed away and there’s no name on the birth certificate, and she never told me, and the county clerk -”
“Hold on, hold on. You probably want his son. You’re looking for records? He has them. One moment.” The woman closed the door on her. The teens at the end of the drive were all giving her a “What’s going on?” look, and Rose just shrugged, but waited at the door. What seemed forever later, the door opened and the woman handed a scrap of paper with an address and a phone number on it. “This is his office.”
“Thanks, thanks. But ma’am, does Mr. Barron have blond hair?”
She blinked, “No…why?”
So close! Thought Rose, as she walked dejectedly down the hill.
“So you’re not a Barron,” said Shelly. “Maybe you have a trust fund, if he’s a lawyer and all.”
At that bit of possibly exciting news, they drove the hour to the attorney’s office. Of course, he wasn’t there. They’d have to make an appointment. And he charged $300 an hour. Tiesha, the brave and confident one, made the appointment anyway for the next morning. “You’ll find out about pro bono,” she told Rose.
Rose couldn’t sleep, thinking about the possibility of finding a mother lode of money in some lawyer’s office the next morning. All the teens got up and dressed in their best t-shirts and jeans and went to the City Center to see the attorney. Again, Rose went alone, and sat up on the ninth floor and waited with the secretary.
And waited.
And waited.
Three hours later, a heavy-set man came in and went right to the office behind the secretary and shut the door.
Nothing happened. She waited. And waited.
Something stirred inside her, something angry. She was close, she knew she was, and this man had the key. She got up, walked over to the door and knocked.
“Excuse me, miss?” said the secretary.
The door flew open. “What the hell.”
“I had an appointment with you,” Rose said, her hands balled into fists, barely keeping her voice under control. “You’re late.”
“So?”
Rose pushed him. He stumbled back. “I had an appointment with you and I need to find my father and you know where he is, don’t you!”
The secretary piped up, “Mr. Barron, do you want me to call the police?”
“No,” said Barron in a very tired voice to his secretary. “No.” He walked to the door, shut it, and motioned to the chair across from his desk. “Sit down.”
At his desk was a decanter of amber liquid, and he was drinking from a crystal glass. “Tell me again what’s going on?”
Rose went into her story again. He listened, nodded at the right places, and eventually said, “My father did some PI work sometimes on the side. He wasn’t very good at it.”
“PI?”
“Private investigator. I think he read too many Marlow novels.”
“Who?”
He waved his hand, “Nevermind. His old files are downstairs. It’ll take days to go through them.”
“How did he file them?”
“By the date they paid him.”
“All I need is up to 2018. And I have friends that can help me look.”
He threw up his hands, “Suit yourself. Have a ball in the cellar.”
She summoned her friends with her mind-phone and they all met in the cellar of the office. It was dark, dusty, damp, and the papers fell apart in her hands. But they were careful – they were all going to be in college, so they knew they were handling old and crumbly. Pictures were still clear, however.
“Oh, my god, Rose!”
Everyone stopped at Po’s outburst.
He kept saying, “Oh, my God, oh, my God…”
“Bring it to the table,” Tiesha said. Po gingerly brought the file to the table. Stamped on the outside was a date 24 March 2015. Inside were photos taken with a long-distance lens of a little girl at a birthday party.
“Oh, I remember this…my parents got the bouncy cage – there it is – ”
Papers inside said, “Rosemarie Brooke, age 4. Child looks healthy, well cared for. Mother is visibly pregnant. Pre-school records enclosed. Neighbor’s statements enclosed. Medical information from PCP enclosed.”
They all looked through the records. What they found was that she was a larger than normal, but otherwise healthy child. Ashley found another file with her name on it. Soon they found more, and it looked like it was one file every six months. The last file was date June 2018, when they moved out of the house, with a new forwarding address.
“Why the medical information?” asked Ashley to no one in particular.
They found a copy of a check at the end. “Malcolm King, 8065 City Center Penthouse, Millenium City, MI.”
Rose took the copy of the check and declared, “This is him. This man is my father.”
((This story is not meant to be canon…just an exploration))