Children of the Boss

Chapter 50: Gabriel

July 3rd

We went to Europe.

It was my idea after getting back from Brazil when we visited Carmen. I told Abe we should go to Europe and visit his family. I (Dad and Pop) would pay. He said no, so then I went to Aunt Axelle. 

"Abe misses his family," I told her.

"Does he?" she asked. She officially moved into our house at that point, since Kenneth and Carmen had basically moved out. 

"Yes. We should go to Europe."

She glanced up at me over her glasses. "You and him?"

"Yes."

"Just you two?"

"...yes..."

"No," she said.

"You're not my mom. My dads will say yes."

She shook her head. "No. Augustus and I will go with you two. You will not go by yourselves."

"But-"

"Nope. Just us four."

So that's how Abe and I went to Europe with his father and my aunt. 

I had been to France once when I was ten. We took a family vacation every now and then, mostly to Brazil or someplace in the Caribbean. Pop's side of the family was mostly French, and although most of his family had immigrated to the U.S. before he was even born, he had a few distant relatives still there.

So we went to France first and we visited my great-great aunt Amelie. She was Pop's grandfather's sister, and she was ninety-seven. When I saw her when I was ten, she talked about how she had been alive during World War II. She actually acted as a spy against the Germans by pretending to be a spy for them. She was basically a bad ass, I mean she didn't say she poisoned a few Nazis but she really did poison a few Nazis. Despite being ninety-seven, she was cool as shit. 

She owned a small cottage on the countryside outside of Paris. She also owned a flat in the city. We first visited her in the cottage. A nurse visited her every now and then. Aunt Amelie had only one son, Jean, and he had a wife Angelina. They had a few kids, and their kids had a few kids, all of them were distant cousins that Pop had probably only met a few times. 

Aunt Amelie was sitting in her rocking chair, wearing black slacks, black flats, and a white blouse. She looked so chic. She was wearing black sunglasses because she just had sensitive eyes. Also, she didn't speak a lick of English. Aunt Axelle spoke French.

They exchanged words in French, hugs and kisses. I hugged her and kissed her cheek. Aunt Axelle introduced Abe's dad and Abe, not sure as what. 

Turns out, Abe could speak French pretty decently, which turned me on. Abe's dad could understand French better than he could speak it, so I was pretty much the only one who didn't know what the hell was going on. At one point, Aunt Amelie stood up and walked into her parlor. She came back with a wooden box and sat back down. She started taking things out of the box, and handed Abe a picture.

"Wow," he said. He leaned over to me. "She's saying how you look like her."

"But I'm adopted?" I looked at the photo, and wow. We did look alike. She was probably not even twenty in the photo, but our faces looked so identical. I had a heart shaped face with high cheekbones and a pointed but delicate chin. So did she. 

"She says it's fate. She's not religious, but she believes in some kind of power outside of our understanding," Abe said.

She then handed Abe a folded up piece of paper. He unfolded it and it was a handwritten family tree, but it stopped right before Grandpa (Pop's dad) was married to Grandma, so Pop and his siblings weren't on it. Grandpa was an only child, the only son of Anse and Celeste, who were my great grandparents but they died before Pop was born. Connect to Great Grandpa Anse was Aunt Amelie, who had her deceased husband and children below, and then it connected to an Adalene, whom I had never heard of. She had been born in 1923, and died in 1939.

"Your aunt says her younger sister died in childbirth when she was only sixteen after she got knocked up. They gave the baby away, but your aunt was contacted in 1957 by the baby, who was a boy named Dabney, and he wanted to find out his origin since he had lived in an orphanage and was never adopted. He briefly stayed in touch with your aunt, and 1959 he started a small family of his own. They had a son named Emile, but then Dabney and his wife died in an accident, so Emile grew up without a family. He apparently knocked up some girl in the eighties, but wasn't active in his daughter's life, and your aunt doesn't know anymore after that. But I'm thinking she's thinking you're somehow related to Dabney, and therefore related to your father."

"That's totally impossible," I said.

"It's unlikely, but not impossible."

We hung around with Aunt Amelie until her seventy something beau came by to pay her a visit. We went back to our hotel, and while Aunt Axelle and Mr. Flores went shopping, Abe and I did some research.

"So I'm just gonna sign up for this geneaology website. I don't care if it costs money," I said.

"She said his name was Dabney Jeff, so just start with that," Abe said.

I typed it in and a few hits came up. It had a picture of his marriage certificate and death certificate. He got married in 1959 when he was twenty to a Swedish woman. They died only four years later. Their son's name was Gaspard, which was actually Anse's father's name. Gaspard got arrested a few times unfortunately, and was listed as the father to a girl named Alison who was born in 1983. Gaspard was only twenty-four at the time, making him only fifty-nine today. It didn't appear he was dead. Alison's mother was American, named Roxanne, who was only fifty-eight today. Alison was only thirty-five. These people were related to my family. It didn't say if Alison had any children, but her grandfather Dabney was my Grandpa's cousin. They were distant, but still related. They also lived in the U.S., whereas Aunt Amelie's family still lived in parts of Europe so Pop had rarely seen them. 

"I'm gonna look her up on Facebook," I said. Her last name was listed as Biscoe, but she had gotten married when she was twenty-eight to someone named Brent McCormick.

She was the first result, under Alison Biscoe-McCormick.

"Wow," I said.

"Wow," Abe said.

We said "wow" because we looked identical. She was so pretty. 

"It can't be," I said.

"You should just friend her and ask if she happened to have a kid in 2002 and if she gave him away."

"Let me stalk her real quick and make sure she's not psycho, you know."

She didn't have any kids. She was a medical doctor, her husband was a medical doctor. She didn't look like she was a bigot or anything, so that was good. I didn't see any photos of her with Roxanne, but maybe they just weren't public photos. I scrolled through her photos to way early, when a lot of people didn't have stuff on private because nobody thought of it then.

There was one post that stood out to me. It was from 2009. It was a photo she shared that said "share if you have lost an angel too soon," and it was a picture of a baby angel. 

"She didn't lose me though, I was just given away," I said.

"Maybe she didn't know you were given away," Abe said.

"How?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. There's only one way to find out."

"Should I though? I mean, what if this chick is my mom? She lives in Vermont. What would she want, or not want? Eve did it with her biological mom, but it's different."

"It's your choice my dear."

I looked at the photo of the beautiful woman that looked like me. She looked happy in the photo with her husband, but what if I would only disrupt that happiness? Also, I didn't need a mom. I just wanted to know if I was actually serendipitously related to Pop. 

I closed my laptop.