Primary Legacy
His mother dying hadn’t been surprising. She’d been sick for years. And Theo had been her caretaker. He cooked her meals, measured her medicine, and comforted her when fever and nightmares had their grip on her.
“No hospital,” she’d beg, voice hoarse from disuse, “can’t trust them, none of them.” Theo tried to keep his promises, only letting in the old retired doctor that she’d approved before the sickness took its toll. But eventually it couldn’t be helped and her last moments had been spent with nurses aflutter around her, tubes clinging to her body like vines, and his hand in the harsh grip of her bony fingers.
He was grateful that she’d been incoherent in her last moments—it made the whole process much easier.
But knowing that death was coming didn’t take away the feelings that came with it. The shock that she was gone, the strangeness of being alone for the first time in his life, and the grief that seemed to be reflected in the emptiness of the house. It was jarring to realize that the only things left of her were what little she’d left behind. She’d been a frugal person despite her wealth. And the only things she hadn’t donated or passed onto distant relatives were the house itself and what was left of her bedroom. All that belonged to him now.
That’s where he found himself, meticulously combing through his mother’s old bedroom, packing each item into cardboard boxes. Theo couldn’t imagine staying in this house. He felt haunted. Each shadow was the limbering form of his mother before she’d been bedridden. Every breeze was one of her rattling breaths as she clung to life. And the creaking of the house settling were her bones as they protested each movement. So he packed it all away.
Theo dug through the last drawer, which seemed to be filled with blankets. He lifted them out one by one, careful to smooth out any wrinkles and creases as he did. That’s when his fingers brushed up against something hard. He couldn’t contain his jump. But shoved his surprise down in favor of curiosity and reached back into the blankets to pull the lump out.
A stack of journals appeared in his hands. They were stuffed to the brim, the binding unraveling and falling apart. All Theo could do was stare. With shaking fingers, he carefully, carefully opened it. The familiar cursive of his mother’s handwriting called out to him. He couldn’t help the shaky sigh that left him at the sight of it. The first of the journals were dated back to her 10th birthday. Even then she wrote with a strange elegance.
Auntie gave me a journal for my birthday, the very first passage started. She said it’s important to remember things. Especially your mistakes, so you can learn from them. I disagree. But mother said it would be rude to not use Auntie’s gift, so I guess I have to. – Eloise Booker. Theo could barely breathe, quickly falling into each story and devouring them one at a time.
He read about her childhood, the adventures of a lonely heiress. Then her transition into a mild-mannered teenager with a spark of curiosity and a yearning for adventure. And eventually a bright eyed college student, ready to escape her sheltered life and take the world by storm.
Theo rubbed a finger over a smudge that covered the college’s name, squinting like it would let him see through it. But he eventually gave up and moved on. Everything seemed to be going normally for his mother, the following passages short and choppy. Nothing more than the occasional darting down of thoughts or everyday events. Until he reached the final journal.
Today I met the most amazing man, it began. His mother went on, fawning over a stranger with unending adoration. But that’s when Theo noticed something strange. The smudges were showing up more often, always over the name of the school or this new stranger’s name. There were even several lines missing where she’d begun describing him. Determinedly and thoroughly scribbled out. His brows furrowed in confusion. It couldn’t be a coincidence, right? But why would she do this? Not even the most embarrassing or personal of details had been blanked in the previous journals.
Theo started to flip through the pages. As he reached the last half of the journal, the smudges showed up more often. Little spots turned to puddles, to even entirely black pages. Theo’s heart began to beat faster, a strange mix of dread and panic making his fingertips tingle and palms sweat. He only caught phrases as he rushed through the pages.
Something strange is going on—
Father says to stop being nosy, that it’s traditional—
He’s keeping something from me—
The more I look, the more I wish I hadn’t—
I think I’ve made a huge mistake—
Theo paused when he reached a handful of pages, partially ripped away from the binding, as if someone had started pulling them out only to give up halfway. His mother’s cursive had become more messy and dried tears marked almost every page. He could almost imagine her. A young, frightened woman, hunched at her desk. Scribbling as quickly as she could, filling the journal page by page in a flash. Her fevered writing spreading wet ink across the paper and her hands. Her tears dripping down her cheeks and onto the paper with each panicked sob. Theo swallowed down his own feelings to keep looking.
But soon after that, the passages stopped, leaving completely blank pages. He flipped through them anyway.
“No, no, no,” he muttered under his breath. He slammed the journal shut only to flip through it from the beginning. “There has to be something else…”
His thumb dug deeper into the pages in frustration, only to get caught on an errant page. He nearly let out a growl of frustration. Readjusting his thumb, he prepared to start flipping again. Only for the top corner to catch his eye. He stopped and fully opened to it. This page sat towards the beginning. In fact it seemed to be the passage after his mother’s meeting with the mystery man. He didn’t bother reading over the text, his attention caught on the edge of the page. Theo brought it closer to his face.
The page almost seemed to be shedding, one corner splitting into two. He grabbed the topmost corner and carefully pulled it back. It peeled away with a scraping sound, like tearing a strip of tape. One page turned into two. They’d been meticulously glued together, only giving way due to age and time. The words were illegible but what was sandwiched between the glued pages was more important.
It wasn’t the first photo he’d seen in his mother’s journals. She had a habit of tucking things away. Polaroids, pressed flowers, even small items like buttons that made the whole journal bulge. But this one was different. A picture that’d been carefully cut out of some sort of magazine sat in the center of the page. It was the only part that hadn’t been drenched with glue.
A headshot of a young man stared up at him. He sat primly, back straight and lips curled into a mischievous yet charming smirk. He had sharp features; sharp eyes, a sharp nose, sharp cheeks, even his chin seemed to come to a point. Only to be countered by the soft curve of his jaw. His eyes were dark, a deep brown that nearly teetered into black. Yet they held a warmth in their depths. They brimmed with fire. With pride. With life. He took the photo in, breathing in every single detail. Blood rushed through his ears, his heart a heavy gong. Tears pricked his eyes. It wasn’t just his looks that caught Theo’s attention.
It was how they were a mirror image of his own.
Theo had never known his father. And he’d learned from an early age that he shouldn’t ask. Any questions had been met with cold eyes and harsh hands. Ice cold fingers gripping him, pulling at his hair. Or pushing him away, against walls, slamming him into furniture. And his mothers snarls, “Don’t you ever ask about that man! You hear me? Do you hear me!?”
He couldn’t help but to drink in each similarity like a man stranded in the desert. As he did, he noticed the nearly cut off words at the bottom. In the tiniest, almost illegible script were the words, Clarence “Clancy” Doyle, Honored Student of Carmine Academy.
Before he could think about it, he found himself reaching for his phone. In one hand he held the journal and with the other he typed the college’s name. He clicked the first result. Immediately, pictures of archways decorated with ivy and students all dressed in matching uniforms started to load on his screen.
Carmine Academy, a private institution for the brightest and most dedicated of each generation, it said below the pictures. He scrolled until he reached Alumni. Theo scoured the section for any student that looked like him. But not a single picture matched the one in the journal. He swore under his breath and futilely tried to scroll down further. The only thing that he saw were a few lines of text towards the bottom of the screen.
Carmine Academy honors the generations that it was built upon. If you have a family member that has attended, be sure to tell us so in your application or your in-person interview!
Below that sat a link, Enroll now!
Theo stared at the text for a long moment. This was the closest he’d been to finding anything about his father. And the obstacle that’d been in his way was six feet underground. He looked between the journal and his phone. His mother’s warnings and regrets versus years of isolation and spurning.
She would’ve never wanted this for him. The thought hit him like a baseball bat. His mother had spent his entire life hiding this from him, keeping her lips sealed and shooting down anything that even alluded to his father. Theo looked down at the journal. His father probably wasn’t a good man. He’d left both him and his mother and never bothered to return… or something prevented him from doing so.
Theo thought about his mother’s pain. The sorrow and loneliness that haunted her like her own shadow. The moments of rage and paranoia that only grew in frequency and ferocity as her sickness dug its claws deeper into her. If his mother was alive, she’d be screaming. She’d be cursing, grabbing him by the shoulders, and trying to shake some sense into him. If she could see him now she’d be rolling in her grave.
It was that thought that made up his mind. He shut off his phone and let it drop onto the floor beside him. The journal was brought fully into his lap and he stared down at the only picture of his father he knew existed. He let out a mournful sigh, shutting his eyes and letting his fingers trace over old paper and ink. He reopened his eyes.
And tore the paper away from the rest of the journal. He was careful enough to make sure the photo itself didn’t tear, but didn’t bother sparing the fragile binding or other pages. When he had the photo, he shoved the remains of the journal off his lap. Theo grabbed his phone and started scrolling through his contacts. After all, he’d have to find some proof that Clarence Doyle was his father if he were to attend Carmine Academy. The connection his mother had was a good start, but having both parents would be ideal. And it’d make any investigation into who Clarence Doyle was much easier in the long-run. Theo tilted his head in thought. “Perhaps he signed the birth certificate?” he murmured to himself. Nodding, he turned and left the room, leaving the ruined journal behind. It wasn’t like he had use for it any longer. In his personal opinion, useless things should be discarded. No matter how much it believed it was worth. For example, without her around he was finally free to do as he pleased. He couldn’t keep a smirk from curling his lips, remembering how his mother would pale and shiver at the sight of it. Knowing now that it perfectly matched his father’s.
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