Eye of the Storm (Hudson 3)

"Five minutes. Arnold," I heard someone growl behind him.

"Roy, where are you?"

"I'm here. in Germany, of course. What's happening now? Are you going right back to England? Did you talk to your real mother? Does everyone know about you? I mean, who you really are and all?" He was rattling his questions off quickly, hoping to stuff a lot of information into those measly five minutes. I thought.

Of course, for most of our lives. Roy and I had believed we were brother and sister. Anyone who really cared to take the time and interest could have looked at him, at me and at Beneatha and challenge that. I guess. My features were so different from Roy and Bentatha's, but for us the thought that Mama Arnold could have had me with a different man was just about as far-fetched as believing we had aliens from Mars or someplace living next door. And there was no way a poor black family would adopt another child. Ken, who never really wanted to be a father in the first place, often complained and said. The devil gives us children to drive us to drink.' Roy told him he didn't need any devil for that. He knew how to drive himself better than any devil could.

Ken and Roy fought a lot, and until Roy grew taller and stronger. Ken battered him around often. Toward the end of our lives in Washington. Roy began to stand up to him and then there were some really nasty fights, which nearly shattered Mama's fragile heart. Roy's love for her was about all that kept him in check-- and his love for me.

Once Roy found out I wasn't his blood sister, he confessed his romantic love for me, but it was impossible for me to think of him as anything but my brother. I told him so many times. Up until the moment the truth about me was revealed, he was my big brother, my protector. I knew and Beneatha knew he favored me over her. but I tried to make light of all that and made excuses for him whenever I could. After Beneatha's violent death at the hands of gang members. Mama Arnold wanted to get both of us out of the projects more than anything. She encouraged Roy to enlist in the army and she left to live with her aunt, never telling Roy or me just how sick she really was.

Apart from each other for some time afterward. Roy and I met again when he came to visit me in London. For a while, lost and confused myself. I seriously considered that we could become man and wife. I let him make love to me almost as a way of testing the waters, but it still didn't feel right. I knew I was breaking his heart. but I couldn't get myself to change. Perhaps what fate had done to us was cruel, yet I also thought what we might do to each other could be worse.

"No, not everyone, not yet," I said. "My mother's husband knows, of course, but the community here doesn't know it all and my half brother and half sister still don't know."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Roy. It's up to my mother and her husband to tell them."

"They're still ashamed of you. Rain. That's why," he said.

"Probably."

"Who's taking care of you? Is your mother doing that at least?"

"No," I said. "but remember I told you Grandmother Hudson put me in her will?"

"Yeah. sure. How much did she leave you?"

"A lot, Roy."

"A lot? How much?"

"It's in the millions. Roy," I said.

"Huh? Dollars?"

"Yes," I said laughing, "I own a majority share of the property, a portfolio and fifty percent of the business."

"Wow."

"But the family isn't happy about it and they're talking about taking me and the will to court. They want me to compromise and take a million dollars.'" "They do? What are you going to do?" "Fight," I said.

"Fight? Maybe you ought to just take the money and run. Rain. Why force yourself on a family that doesn't want you?" he asked.

It was a good question, of course. What did I want out of all this finally? Maybe what I wanted was to see the day when they had to accept me just so that day I could turn my back on them. Pride was rearing up like a magnificent horse.

"Okay. Arnold, hang up," I heard that person growl again.

"Where are you. Roy? Why is someone telling you to hang up? Roy?"

"I'm all right," he said.

"You did get in trouble for coming to see me in London, didn't you? You better tell me the truth. Roy Arnold," I ordered.

"All right. I did, but it doesn't mean nothing," he said.

"Are you in the clink?'