Tomas was sitting at the library when he heard a knock in the silence.

Who could be disturbing the quiet calm of the library’s silence?

“Tomas, is this we’re you’ve been all this time?", a strange man in a grey business suit came over to his table and peered at him with a sense of familiarity unbeknownst to Tomas. Did he know Tomas? Tomas certainly did not recognize this man standing before him and hoped he’d go away before the librarian was called over.

“Tomas, I’m your uncle! Well, not really. More like your mother’s half-cousin. I knew your mother from childhood and saw you as a tiny babe when I visited your family in Venezuela.", he told him

Did Tomas believe any word he said? No. If he were truly family, Tomas would not have ended up in foster care after his parents passed away. This man must want something from him. What could it be?

The librarian had heard his little charade and was coming over to their table. The strange man, Tomas’s ‘uncle’, gestured for them to move from the table elsewhere.

Intrigued, Tomas gathered his things and followed his uncle to the lobby of the business library where he often studied. It was only the first week of classes, but that did not mean he could not get ahead and do some homework in advance. Better to think ahead and do it today instead of waiting for tomorrow is something Oma liked to say a lot.

When they got to the lobby, the uncle appeared to be stumped and opened his mouth several times to say something. After about two minutes of him wasting Tomas’s study time, Tomas told his 'uncle' to leave him alone and walked away towards the library coffee shop in the lobby.

Unfortunately, Uncle followed his lead and sat down at a table, seeming to wait for him to order.

He got his coffee, black as Opa’s penny loafers, and sat down at a table near the exit.

That old fool just switched seats. Tomas tired of this charade and decided to speak to him at last.

“What is it that you want? Spit it out, old man.", he told him finally.

“I know you don’t believe me and you have every right to. I should have been there when your parents died and taken you in. It’s just I haven’t gone to Venezuela in a long time and I did not know your parents had immigrated to the US. When I found out about their deaths, well, I had not kept in touch as I should have, being a relative of yours, and did not know that you needed a guardian.", he explained.

“Then when you found out that my brother and I were orphaned, why did you not reach out to us and take us as your own?", Tomas asked in an accusatory tone.

He had no reason to be happy that he was finally contacting him. Tomas grew up without a real family caring for him and having to withstand Opa’s disappointing glare at him his whole life. What right did his Uncle have to come back into his life at all if he had not done so before?

“I tried, but you see at the time I was living in Germany because I had not left yet like your mother and father. It wasn’t until a friend of mine who left Venezuela, a few years after the fact of the crash in fact, shared with me the news of your parent’s immigration status. After I tracked your parents down, they were gone and I was getting no headway with the American legal system because I was only a cousin, not a godparent or immediate family. By the time I had gotten permission to adopt you and your brother, someone else had already adopted you into their family.", he responded back with a tear in his eye.

“I wanted you to grow up with me desperately at that time. Family blood and all that. However, the people who adopted you wanted to keep you real bad and the man of the household even tried to bribe me. As if a businessman can be bribed!", he scoffed now.

“What was the man’s name?", Tomas asked. He still wanted to know if he was really telling the truth or not.

“Vincent Palmer. What kind of man has the name Vincent anyhow? Those professor types are insufferable are they not?", he scoffed again.

“If what you’re telling me is true, why did you not fight it out in the courts?", Tomas asked and waited for an answer.

“I did, but it was settled out of court. Due to previous-uh-disagreements with the law, I agreed with the people you call Oma/Opa to let you be as a child”, he stated.

Tomas guessed at why his family ‘did not keep in touch’. This man was not a simple businessman, but a criminal. At that moment, Tomas no longer wanted anything to do with him. Getting up, he wiped a stain off my shoe while standing to express his disgust at this character.

“Wait, wait, I may have done a few erroneous things in my past. But now, I have a profitable business to run. Legal, of course.“, he pleaded.

“This will work out for the both of us, right? You need an internship in auditing, right? And I want to spend time with you boy plus I need an auditor to look at the accounts and make sure everything is in order...", he kept blabbering.

“Done.", Tomas replied.

“What?", he exclaimed.

“I’ll do it, as long as you keep the rest of my family out of this.", he supplicated. Tomas did not want his brother to associate with the likes of his uncle. Alas, he was right, Tomas badly needed an internship as the last interview he had did not go well.

“Deal. See, you’re a natural at this already”, he said and they shook hands.

What could possibly go wrong?