"So, uncle Drew, when is Briana coming back?" David's asked Andrew.
"Who is Briana?" Asked Andrew with a smirk on his face.
"Come on Uncle Drew, don't tell me you didn't know that Brian called himself 'Miss. Briana' on social media." Replied Davids as she showed Andrew a picture of Brian on social media.
"Wow, she looks so hot?" Said Andrew jokingly.
"Uncle, can I ask you a question?" Asked David's sounding more serious.
Andrew looked at her and from the sound of her voice, it seems her question needed more explanation.
He has been with David's for almost her whole life to know when she needed a serious talk from a joking or a normal talk.
"I need to service the car, will you be late for school?" Asked Andrew as he tore his eyes away from David while focusing on the road.
Davids checked her phone and browsed a bit before sighing, "No uncle, we can service it up, I don't have a serious class up to 10:30.
"ok!" That was all Andrew said before stirring the wheel on the garage up Mountains to give it some services.
Alighting from the car, they took a seat at the booth of the cafe near the garage.
Andrew ordered a cup of coffee, looking at David's who was saying that she is okay but after insisting orders some ice cream.
"It's right in the morning son, why would you go for an ice cream?" Asked Andrew.
Something iced for a piece of chilled information," grinned David's while thanking the waitress for the service.
"So David's, what was it you wanted to ask?" Asked Andrew while sipping coffee from his cup.
"How did you come to accept that your son Brian was who he was? I remember at first you were mad and almost threw him out of the house," asked David's.
"Your dad talked to me about it and I accepted it," replied Andrew looking out through the window trying to avoid David's gaze.
"Uncle Drew, I just need to know how you dealt with it for some reasons, please?" Begged David's.
Andrew cleared his voice earning an eye from David's. Sipping on his tea, he took out a handkerchief and wiped his nose. David's saw that it was difficult for Andrew to talk about the issue.
She extended her hands and placed them on Andrew, Andrew looked at her fingers then lifted her eyes to meet hers.
"It's okay if you don't want to talk about it Uncle," said David's calmly.
Dropping his face, he went on and placed his fingers on top of David's psalms. Andrew didn't know that David's will be asking him about the questions dealing thing Briana and his gender identity. He thoughts that perhaps Davids was asking about business or investing ideas. Having worked for The Blacks for a long time, he had picked up one or two about the business and sometimes Mr Black asks for advice from him once or twice and he has seen him use some of his advice to an extent of allowing Andrew to invest in some corporation that will help him in the future.
"I want to talk about it David's I won't hide it forever," Andrew replied and removed his hands from Davids, inhaled then looked out of the window again.
"Catherine, Catherine....."
"Sorry Uncle, who is Catherine?" Asked David's with a worried expression on her face.
Andrew was acting like someone who has seen a ghost. His face when he mentioned the name it was like someone who has been robbed of everything he ever had in life and he was there motionlessly, all emotions drawn out of his face and only the name 'Catherine', was the name, the memory left in his mind and mouth.
Andrew takes a deep breath and released it out. He looked at the girl in front of him and went on with his story.
Catherine was the beautiful girl in high school who Andrew loved. Coming from a wealthy family, Catherine was not allowed to mingle with Andrew. The only time he got to see Catherine was once in a while when his father took home to go help do odd jobs at Catherine's house like weeding, mowing the grass. Andrew's father and mother both worked at Cathrine's. With his dad being a gardener and his mother was a cook.
One day when Andrews father was not feeling well, Andrew's dad asked him to go and take care of the garden and to make sure everything runs smoothly before he gets better. Sadly for Andrew, his father passed away from arthritis and Andrew was then chosen to help in the garden. He rarely went to school because his mother had stopped working at Cathrine's following the death of her husband she drowned into depression and later following her husband and laying beside him just as she had wanted.
Andrew was allowed by Cathrine's parents to live in the servants quarter. Working hard every day and he had little time to work on his studies.
Cathrine's parents were people who mainly travelled outside the country for business and had little time to know their daughter, attend her recitals, teach her the basics like first aid, taking care of herself as a girl. Sometimes her house helps was not keen on her. When she needed help with her school work especially maths, her parents would pay for expensive tutors who would only be interested in their money rather than helping Cathrine improve on her school work.
One evening, Andrew was helping their house help with a clogged tap when she saw Catherine in the study room. She was talking to someone and she had not closed the door to the study room.
Peeping at the door of the study room she had Cathrine rant out loudly,
"Mum, I can't solve the math, my tutor didn't come in today, he said that he is busy and held up." Cried Cathrine on the phone. "Mum, Mum, mum can you hear me?...." It seems the person on the other line did not hear her so she banged the phone on the table and threw her books away and just laid her head on the table.
Andrew had never seen Cathrine in a closer view, the only time he sees him so when he was picked to school or when a friend comes to pick her for a party.
He admitted she was beautiful. Her honey brown hair was all wavy on her face, she had caramel fair skin.
Andrew gathered the courage and pushed himself into the study room. Catherine did not wake up, she looked exhausted and was sleeping peacefully on the table.
Andrew carefully picked the books she had thrown on the floor and studied them carefully. He was surprised that Cathrine and he were in the same class. He thought to himself, "since I don't go to school regularly, I can ask her to be getting me books in exchange for helping her with homework. With this, I might be able to graduate and go to the University."
He settled himself down on the floor and carefully looked at the examples presented in the Math book. He followed them step by step until he understood everything. He then went ahead and did the math assignment for Cathrine outlining every step for her to follow. Once he was done, he placed the books back on the table and left her a note inside Cathrine's diary.
The following morning, Cathrine worked up panicked, she called Her driver earlier than usual. She wanted to get to school early and copy the math assignment from her friends in school. Her chauffeur agreed with her and took her to school early.
When she arrived at school she was disappointed that her friend was not there yet. She walked with her head down and went to settle in the Library to work on it herself but imagine the surprise on her face when she opened her maths exercise book!
The calculation was well done, written down neatly and the answers were given in a black pen the way she does it.
"Am I dreaming?" She asked herself looking at her book again. The person who did her assignment had tried to copy her handwriting but he or she wasn't that perfect.
She was extremely happy and sad at the same time.
She was happy that she didn't have to sit for detention for that day but sad that she didn't know who did her assignment.
She opened her diary to check out her plans for the day. Reading through her diary, she saw unusual handwriting that did not belong to her. It's was dated:
'Thursday; 22:30, you owe me one.'
Catherine scrutinised the handwriting and the message. She couldn't bring herself to identify the person who wrote this and placed it inside her diary.
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