Grandpa's Special Little Boy

Since as far back as I could remember, my name was Darrin. It was the name everybody knew me by, my grandma and my grandpa, my classmates, all my teachers, but there was something not quite right in all of this. You see, my grandpa was a scientist at the university where he taught advanced biology. Later I would learn that did a lot more than teach. As I wander these empty streets of darkness, there is a dreadful darkness that haunts my soul.

Ever since I was just a boy, I had questions that I couldn’t answer regarding my origins or where I had come from. You see, both my mother and father were absent during my childhood. My grandfather Stanley A. Brayburn told me that his daughter Ivy, my mother and my father Peter were killed in an automobile accident. Grandma Doris was always quick to affirm that fact. I had no reason to disbelieve what they told me, but there were times when I would retreat to my room and in my solitude begin to wonder why there wasn’t any trace of them any where in the house. No pictures on the with all the others, it seemed to me any trace of either of them had been purposely removed.

Grandpa would call me his special little boy. Why did he call me that, I wondered. When I was much younger, Grandma Doris would read books to me after I got ready for bed. She would sit at the edge of the bed and read Charlotte’s Web or The Secret Garden. When she had finished reading, she would tuck me under the covers and blanket. She would kiss me on the forehead or cheek and say the same thing every night, “Good night Noah, you are grandpa’s special little boy.”

“What was my mother like?” I worked up enough courage to ask her. A strange expression flashed over her face. It was strange because I had never seen it before and she was speechless for the moment.

“She was a very good child.” She stuttered. I had never heard her stutter before. “Now it’s time for you to fall asleep. You have to get up for school in the morning.”

I did not argue, because I was feeling tired as she left and turned off the bedroom light. As tired as I felt, I sensed that I needed to hear what she would say to grandpa who was in the living room reading the newspaper. I had a special corner near the top of the stairs where I could eavesdrop without them finding me snooping.

“He asked about his mother.” She sat on the couch next to his easy chair where he was reading his newspaper.

“What did you tell him, dear?” He put his paper in his lap and looked at her.

“Simply she was a good child.” She shrugged.

“Good answer.” He nodded approvingly.

“What if he finds out?” She frowned.

“If it should come up, we will deal with it as best we can.” He assured her.

“I just don’t like he has questions at this point.” She stood up.

“Where are you going, dear?” He asked with a smile.

“Finish up in the kitchen.” She wiped her hands on her apron. When she walked into the kitchen, I snuck back into my room. Sleep would come hard because my mind tried to decipher what they meant about me finding out. What was I going to find out?

Not long after that, I found out grandpa had a workshop in the basement. I was told that I was not allowed to go there. To be perfectly honest, the basement had an element of spookiness I did not wish to confront at this juncture of time. But there is nothing more alluring than something that is forbidden. Creepy or not,, the urge to see what was down there grandpa was trying to hide?

One day I saw grandpa open the storm doors to the basement. With a quick look-around to make sure no one was watching, he did not see me sitting on a branch of the oak tree. I loved that oak tree as it had become very accommodating to me as a place to hide in. I sat there watching him descend into the basement closing the storm doors behind him.

Now my curiosity had been awakened. I wondered what was down there that he would need complete secrecy to do the things he was doing down there. I knew better than to ask questions, because whatever was going on down there neither of them would tell me. But whatever he was doing down there had to do with me. Eventually, I would find out. I would just have to wait for the right moment.

Meanwhile I began to get some hints about what was going on. He smiled and continue to call me his special little boy, but I wasn’t that little anymore.

I read that the Recreation Center near the house was going to have art classes. I begged them both to sign me up since I loved to draw. Grandma took me after school the next day.

“Alright.” The woman at the desk dressed in gym clothes nodded when grandma filled out the form to sign me up. “I just need a birth certificate and he will be signed up.”

“Oh.” Grandma froze, “I didn’t think to bring it.”

“No problem, Mrs. Brayburn, you can bring it when he comes to class.” She smiled.

“I see.” Grandma nodded, but that expression crossed her face again. “Well, you have a good evening.”

“Grandma, do you have the birth certificate?” I asked as we walked to the car to drive home. She stopped as if she suddenly could not move.

“Of course.” She chuckled.

“Good, because I can’t wait to take this class.” I sat in the passenger’s seat and closed the car door. She sat there for a moment staring out the windshield as if she forgot how to drive. “Grandma are you alright?”

“I’m fine, dear.” She smiled.

“Birth certificate? What do we need that for?” Grandpa snapped from behind his newspaper.

“The woman at the Rec Center asked for it.” Grandma explained.

“I’ve never heard such nonsense.” Grandpa groused. “What does he need art lessons for anyway?”

“He wants to learn how to do art.” She shrugged on shoulder.

“Tell him it’s not possible.” He rattled his newspaper.

“It will break his heart. “She shook her head.

“Yeah, well life is full of disappointments.” He shrugged nonchalantly. At that moment, I hated him because of his unconcern for my feelings. I felt as if I was no longer grandpa’s special boy.

It was about this time I met Dennis Osteen whose father knew my grandfather. He was a bit of a wise guy who liked to prank his classmates, but he said something that gave me pause.

“My dad said he operated on Doris Brayburn when she had a still born baby. He said she would never be able to have children.” He told me during lunch in the cafeteria. We just had a lesson on reproduction in our biology class. I had told him that my mother and father were killed in a car accident.

“That’s not possible dude.” He chuckled, “If you grandma could not have any more children, you mom was never born.”

A cold chill ran through me. He was right. His father was an OBGYN surgeon.

“Yeah he told me about how Doris Brayburn almost died.” Dennis sneered, “He said it happened over twenty years ago when he was just starting out as a surgeon.”

“Grandma told me the accident happened just a few months after I was born.” I shook my head.

“Some is lying to you big time.” Dennis smirked.

That afternoon when I got home from school, I asked grandma what really happened. She could not answer. Instead she wore an expression of fear. Her blue eyes fixed on me as if I was a unwanted predator circling her as if I was ready to pounce on some unexpected prey.

“What was her name, grandma?” I asked as I watched her facial expression grow even more grim.

“Her name was Ivy.” She finally answered.

“And my father?”

“Albert.” She managed to speak, but her voice was strained.

I knew she was lying, because grandpa told me his name was Peter.

“Grandpa told me his name was Peter.” I stood up and walked out of the living room.

“Wait.” She called after me, but it was too late, I had already closed the door to my room where I threw myself on the bed and had a good cry.

Going on one of his symposium, grandpa would be away for a few days leaving grandma home to keep and eyes on me. One evening after dinner, grandma dozed off watching television. While she was asleep on the couch, I managed to gain access to grandpa’s secret room, I began to look for clues about who I was. Using my laptop computer, I googled “Ivy Brayburn,” but “Record Not Found” was what I had expected to find. My mother did not exist under that name. I began to wonder what name she existed under. Since I just had one name, Peter, for my supposed father, I could not search for him, but I was surrounded by grandpa’s books that included a few notebooks.

As a renowned scientist at the university, I knew that most of his notes would be unreadable to me. Opening one of them, I found I was correct in my assumption as there were a lot of characters in short-hand that I would not be able to decipher. I figured I would not discover what I was looking for until I managed to pick the lock on one of the desk drawers. I removed the notebook from its hiding place and opened to the first page.

Even though grandpa’s writing was barely legible, I was able to read some of it.

He is my special boy. Born in a test tube, he was biologically perfect by all accounts. At last I was able to give Doris the child that had been taken from her, because biology is not always perfect. I cannot begin to express the grief we both suffered at the death of our daughter Ivy. I would tell him how his mother Ivy died in an automobile accident. No one would be any the wiser. No one.

I was stunned. Slowly, I closed the book and put it back in the drawer where I had found it. She was not my mother as they told me every time I asked. What did that make me? I was nothing more that a creature created in some test tube. I was the creation of Mary Shelly’s imagination in her book about the monster.

My first reaction was to run as far away as I could. How could I live as the son of a mother who died at birth? Did they lie to me to prevent me from learning who I rally am?

Grandma was still asleep when I came in through the back door near the laundry room and kitchen. My first instinct was to scream at her, having learned the truth, but I restrained myself because I was lost in the conflicting, confusing jumble of the realization of my own identity. Was I actually human or just something that resembled a human. If I did not admit what I was, I could conceal the truth of what I was.

I went to my room and packed a ruck sack to carry over my shoulder. Reaching into the “sunny weather jar” I pulled out some money and stuffed it into my jeans pocket. I walked out the door without any idea of where I was headed. I just needed some time to think. Wearing my hoodie, I stuffed a .38 into my pocket for protection.

With enough to buy a bus ticket to the lake were we used to rent a cabin. It was quiet out there except for the sad song of the loons. I would make them wonder what happened to grandpa’s special little boy. There was a sleepy eyed clerk behind the desk and being off-season, nearly all the cabins were vacant.

“So, how long do you wanna rent the cabin?” He asked me.

“I will be here for a week.” I put some cash on the counter.

“Alright. You are eighteen?” He took the cash and counted it out. I saw him stuff a few bills into his pocket. He wrote a receipt and handed it to me.

“Of course.” I lied as I shrugged one shoulder.

“Here are the keys.” He handed me the key, “Number 4.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, turned and walked out the door. Outside the night air was brisk, and the moon hung in the black sky like a sleepy eye. Far away, across the lake, a loon sang its mournful song. I opened the cabin door letting the musty Pine Sol air escape. I didn’t even bother to undress, because as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep.

My dreams, however, will filled with haunting images of me when I looked into the mirror. While I saw my own reflection, I had no face. It just wasn’t there. Grandma kept telling me, “You are the special little boy grandpa made.”

“Noooooo” I sounded just like the loon across the lake.

Grandma smiled, “Who do you think you are?”

Grandpa was next to her, “You’re my special little boy.”

He held out his arms like he used to do when I was still in diapers.

“Get away from me!” I yelled in his face as he tried to grab me. “What did you do to me?”

“I created you.” He pulled his chin back. His eyes glared at me, “You’d better be grateful I did or you wouldn’t’ be here.”

“I didn’t ask you to do this to me.”

“There are things you will never understand.” His voice was just a harsh whisper. “The apple on the Tree of Good and Evil begged to be tasted and so I did.”

My eyes popped over as his voice echoed in my head. It took me a moment to realize someone was knocking at the door. Slowly, I raised my head as the new morning sun evaporated my dream into a heavy morning mist.

“Coming.” I grabbed the pistol on the nightstand.

When opened the door, Grandpa Stanley was standing there with his hands in his jacket pocket.

“The clerk told me you’d be here.” He tilted his head. Even through the distortion of his heavy lenses, I could see the anger in his eyes. “Why did you come out here?”

“I needed some time to think.” I shook my head.

“Think about what?” He ignored the gun in my hand.

“I know that I have no mother.”

“Yeah, she died in the accident with your father.” His mouth was just a line across his face.

“No, no, no, don’t lie to me.” I squawked.

“What did your grandmother say?” He pushed me, but then I raised the gun. His expression changed when he saw it.

“You’ve got my gun.” He sounded more concerned than angry.

“I also know that I am not your special boy.” I growled.

“What?”

“You made me in a test tube.”

“Put the gun down, Darrin.” He ordered me, “What difference does it make how you were born? All that matters is that you are my special little boy.”

“Stop saying that!” I cried.

He reached for the gun, and it went off. He staggered for a few steps until he fell backwards into the icy snow around the cabin.

“Drop the gun and put your hands in the air.” I heard a voice call out and that’s when I saw two police officers with their guns drawn, walking toward me. I immediately dropped the gun next to my grandpa.

After my trial and conviction, I was brought to the state penitentiary where I will spend the rest of my natural life for the murder of my grandfather. I will never tell anyone of the secret I have buried deep inside. I have come to terms with it. After all I am grandpa’s special little boy.