by Laila Kelly
Graham pulled up to the restaurant and the familiar sound of gravel underneath his tires soothed his mind from the conversation with his sister. He could smell the gloriously beautiful smell of smoked meat and his stomach growled again, this time with more force that felt like his stomach was eating away at the rest of his major organs. He took a deep breath of the fresh and smoky air and stepped out of his truck. The dust that had risen from the gravel when he rode in had begun to settle, and you could hear the faint clamoring of silverware and dishes inside the restaurant. When he reached the door, the familiar worn screen door looked just the same as it always had, worn down and looking like it was more off its hinges than on, but somehow still worked despite the way that it looked. The cowbell that hung above it to let the staff know when someone entered still reminded him of the touchdown bell at their high school football games.
Tony’s was a place of comfort in the community, but more so for himself. It was the place he made some of his greatest life decisions. It was at Tony’s that he decided that he didn’t want to play football in college, and to instead major in business at another school. It was also at Tony’s that he decided that he wanted to start his own construction company with the money that he inherited from his grandfather’s will. Tony’s was one of the make or break decision spots for Graham, and today he needed it more than ever.
He walked up to the counter and looked into the kitchen and saw the same Tony, the original Tony’s nephew, behind the grill making sandwiches. He looked the same as he always has, just a little greyer and his hair thinning in the front, giving him a cul-de-sac hairstyle. He smiled when he looked up and saw Graham, “Hey, Graham! How are you doing, son!” He smiled the same toothy grin he used to give when he asked how the wrestling matches turned out. Tony’s sponsored most of the school sporting events, and his care for the kids at the schools made his establishment one that it didn’t hurt to support.
“I’m doing great man, how about yourself?” he yelled back, the sizzling of the grill causing them to yell when they were a lot closer than it sounded. A small blonde woman came from the kitchen and walked over to the register. “Welcome to Tony’s, what can I get for you today?” her voice was soft and sounded like she was singing instead of talking. “I’ll just take a pulled pork sandwich with a side of baked beans and corn on the cobb, please.” He grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. He already knew his total, it had only gone up $2.50 in price since he was a teenager. She tendered his change and tried to hand him the rest, and he put up his hand, “You can keep the change,” she smiled and placed it in her apron pocket. He grabbed his cup and walked over to the tea urn and filled up his cup to the brim. He took a sip before walking over to the seat he always chose, the booth facing the highway.
The sweet tea at Tony’s was sweet enough to put any healthy person in a diabetic coma, but he continued to drink it up anyways. By the time his food arrived, he had finished his first cup, and the blonde waitress who took his order refilled his cup for him. Graham firmly believed that tipping your waiter or waitress always made it easier for everyone involved in the dining experience. He took the first bite into his sandwich and the sweet and savory filled nostalgia came back to him. He let out a small moan of delight and he hoped nobody around him heard. Graham didn’t realize how hungry he was until he quickly finished off his meal and pushed his plate away from him. Picking up the moist towelette beside him, he wiped his fingers and looked out of the window at the highway. The hustle and bustle of trucks and cars passing by made it a lot easier for him to think clearly.
Sophia finding out who her birth mother was and being so aloof about it left him with an unsettling feeling. He thought back to when they were younger and they decided that they wouldn’t go looking for their birth parents. At eighteen years old, he seemed so sure of what he wanted. His reasons for not wanting to find out who his biological parents were was mostly in part of not wanting to upset the parents that raised him, and part in not wanting to be disappointed in what the possibilities and reasons for why he was placed up for adoption could be. But now with his thirty-third birthday a few weeks away, he couldn’t help but feel curious as to who the people were that he came from.
The possibilities were endless, and even though there was a high chance that he could’ve been the product of high school sweethearts not ready to raise a child was a high possibility, not knowing was always worse than knowing. It was one thing to not know and be okay with not knowing, but since graduating college, he’d been feeling a lingering cloud over his personal life. Not knowing this key information could be the reason for it.
The blonde waitress came over and grabbed his trash and refilled his tea. He took a sip and it ran down his throat like a stream of sweet heaven. He scooted down in the booth and looked up at the sky. For some reason, he wondered what his father would have to say about him wanting to find out who his birth parents are. When they got of age to handle the news that they were adopted, he let them know that at any point if they wanted to find them, that they could, but he never gave them his personal opinion on the matter. The support from his father and the option to make his own decision made it a very easy one, but his mother was a completely different story. She was going to be a much harder nut to crack.
Anytime the subject of their biological parents came up she would always get emotional to the point to where it felt like discussing it would do more harm than good. That was never his intentions to hurt his mother, but curiosity and the fear of the unknown had all but consumed him over the past few years. Graham sighed and ran his hands through his hair taking another gulp of his sweet tea. He looked at his watch and saw that three o’clock was quickly approaching. Afternoon traffic for anywhere remotely close to Houston was about to start, and if there was another thing Graham Brentwood hated, it would definitely be waiting in traffic. The thought of wasting his time sitting and doing nothing while he could be busy doing something to further his company drove him nuts.
He stood up and nodded towards Tony and the waitress as he opened the door and walked outside. His decision had been made. While walking to his truck, he decided that this was going to have to be a decision of his own, and he couldn’t let his mother or anyone else get in the way of what would be best for him. As he walked over to his truck, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number. After a few rings, he heard a rugged, “Hello,” on the other end of the line. “Hey Jamie, it’s me, Graham Brentwood,” “Well I’ll be darned, look who it is, Mr. Richest Man in Houston, Texas,” Graham laughed at one of his newest magazine cover awards. He tried not to pay too much attention to the accolades, but he did appreciate the attention, and more than anything he loved winning. Number one was always the best place to be in Graham Brentwood’s mind.
“Aw man, stop it. You know I’m the same bird-chested kid who barely had enough nerve to try and wrestle you in high school,” Jamie Caldwell was always the biggest kid in their class. Graham had his own significant height and weight on him, but it hailed nothing in comparison to Jamie’s. He looked like he took fertilizer pills growing up instead of the chalk multivitamins that everyone else’s mom gave them. He was always the tallest, strongest, and coolest kid everywhere he went. He was exactly what a Texas boy should look like growing up, Texas-sized. Just made for playing for the Dallas cowboys one day, but after graduation, everyone else went off to college and Jamie decided he wanted to be a part of the United States Marine Corps.
For ten years he was in, and all of a sudden, he was back home in Piney Point again. Whenever anyone asked him why he was back, he would just say that he was honorably discharged. Just like with any small town, word got around and the speculation mill got to running. The worst possible scenarios about what could’ve happened to Jamie were being spun as some alternative version of the truth. Finally, after about three months of the jabber, Jamie came out and said that he saw some unspeakable things happen while he was overseas, and everyone from his un
it got out after one night that he refused to speak of. That was almost three years ago, and now with his money he saved up, he’s started a private investigation and security firm in Houston.
“You sure as hell are, man. Got a lot of guts in you. That’s how you made it to the big bucks by yourself,” Graham chuckled, “Man you’re the one with guts. You’ve always had that go-getter spirit,” Jamie was one of Graham’s best friends, and he was one of the only people that knew that he and his sister were adopted. In Piney Point, adoption back then was seen as taboo, and his mother couldn’t bear the speculation and ridicule from the other elite women in the town. The social club was his mother’s pride and joy and as the president, she couldn’t see herself going through some of the things she’d seen happen to the other exiled women.
They played catch up for a few minutes before Graham decided he needed to get on with the reason that he called in the first place. “Anyways, Jamie, I called you because I need you to do me a favor,” He could hear Jamie sit up in his chair over the phone. “What is it?” Graham was never the type to ask for favors, but this time, it was definitely a feat that he knew he couldn’t and didn’t want to, handle on his own. Graham opened the door of the truck, got in and locked it behind him. “I need you to help me locate my biological mother,” he said in a low tone as if someone was around to hear what he was saying.
Jamie cleared his throat, “Excuse me?” Graham took a deep breath. “Yeah, I want you to help me locate my biological mother. I’m about to turn thirty-three in the next couple of weeks, and I feel like it’s time to at least know the name of the woman who physically brought me into this world.” Jamie took in a deep breath and let it out. “Wow man, that’s some heavy stuff. How long have you thought about this?” Truthfully, Graham thought about who his biological family was more and more every day, and the thought of him having his own family one day was one of his main motivations for working as hard as he does. Especially when he saw the beautiful families that lived next to him, or when he passed by a playground and saw a father pushing his daughter on a swing, or when he saw the buyers of the homes on his properties getting excited about beginning their lives together.
It settled even heavier on his mind when he thought about where he wanted to be at in his life, and not being there ate away at him. In his master plan, he was supposed to be starting his own family by this time, yet he wasn’t. It can truly bother a man when he has every earthly possession at his finger’s access, but the one thing he truly wanted was so far from his reach. “For a while actually, and it’s kind of gotten worse after college. And then it bothered me again once I made my first million. Ever since then it’s been a reoccurring thought in my mind,” he took a moment to think. “You know Sophia was on the search for her's since she and Collin are about to get married. She wanted to know if she was genetically predisposing her future children to anything, but she’s been so aloof to the whole part about discovering who she came from, and if it were me, I just don’t think I would have the same approach to the news.” Graham could hear Jamie rustling through papers in the background.
“Yeah she told me that she was pursuing that,” Jamie and Sophia still talked after all these years. There was no one else that Graham would trust with such a sensitive subject, besides he was the absolute best private investigator in Texas. Jamie had the ability to find anyone, anywhere, at any time. He was truly the best at everything that he does. “That’s why I need your help. I know that you’ll be able to do this, and this is definitely something that I don’t want Sophia, nor my mother, to find out about. I already know how they’re going to respond to the news of me wanting to find out, and I don’t think I’m ready to deal with all of that right now.” The last thing he wanted was to upset his family, they were the most important thing to him. This would just have to be one of those things that he kept to himself.
“I’ll definitely help you man, just send me over a copy of your adoption papers and I’ll get started on that for you right away.” Graham took a deep sigh of relief and despite the sun shining bright as ever, he felt a sun come over his day. “Thanks, Jamie. I really appreciate this,” he put the key in the ignition, listening to the engine roar to life. “No problem, Graham. Talk to you later,” and the phone went dead. Jamie was never one for long drawn out conversations, and Graham had to learn some things were better concise and not drawn out unnecessarily.
He merged onto the highway and felt a sense of calm coming into his life. Hopefully, Jamie could find some sort of information out before the holidays. It would be nice to have something to be thankful for, even if the results weren’t all of what he wanted. At least it would leave him even more thankful for the family that he does have. The trip home seemed to fly by, his mind racing with the thought of being one step closer to everything he always wanted: the truth about where he came from, a happy family, and continued business success.
Chapter Three: Joleigh
Waking up was always Joleigh’s least favorite part of the day, it always took her far too long to get up and started, and the house was always cold in the morning regardless of the season. Letting go of the warm comfort that she felt inside her bed always seemed like a bad idea at first. She wished that she could just pop up and be full of energy like Amber does in the morning, but that just wasn’t the case. That girl was like a ball of energy in the morning. Amber got a fresh set of batteries every day, and Joleigh just got the set of half-charged batteries. She liked to get up and have a morning jog before coming over to Joleigh’s every day. That ability to pop up and out didn’t get put in Joleigh’s specialty basket. As she got older the thought of getting up early never got any easier but knowing the feeling that she would get when she knew that she had completed all of her tasks for the day outweighed everything else. The thought of staying in bed all day and not getting anything done overruled the idea of sleeping longer than she was able to and made her feel anxious. Continuing her cycle of productivity was always a good feeling for her, so getting up no longer became an option. It was a necessity.
She reached over to her bedside table and turned off her alarm and threw her legs over the bed to put her feet into her bedroom slippers. She sat on the edge of the bed for a moment and took a few deep breaths. Even early risers had to get a little motivation to get their feet to hit the ground. The clock read 4:32 a.m. and she looked out the window to see the same sight she saw every morning, absolutely nothing. The street was dead quiet, and the moon was so bright, it illuminated the road better than the street lights did. All of the other neighbors got up around 7:00 a.m. but everyone in the Everett household was already long gone by that time.
Amber: Hey, I’m on the way over, do you want anything for breakfast?
Joleigh: No, I’ll be okay, thank you though.
Eating the same breakfast every day gave Joleigh some of the control that she felt that she needed. With so many factors in her life that were out of her control, anything that she could control, she would. Joleigh grabbed her fluffy pink robe, put it around her body and tied the tie while walking down the hallway. Her old lady robe was her favorite thing to wear around the house. She peeked into her dad’s room to find him sound asleep, closed his door quietly, and walked to the kitchen and began making her typical breakfast of toast, green tea, and an apple. While her tea was steeping, she leaned against the stove and stared into the living room. Her day started normally like it always did, slow and steady but something about this morning something felt off. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it and decided to shrug it off. Spending the entire morning trying to figure out if something was really wrong would be wasting too much time. Instead, she decided to add a peppermint tea bag to the pot.
If she was coming down with something, she wanted to work on healing it sooner rather than later. Right on time, Amber’s headlights lit up the dark living room, and Joleigh walked over to the door and opened it for her. “Good morning, sunshine!” Amber chirped. Joleigh smiled, they had always be
en the complete opposite of each other, her shoulder-length brown curls always either loosely in a mess on her head or in a bun and Amber’s long red hair was always hanging down to her waist or in a bun. But their yin and yang relationship was what worked the best for the both of them and was what they both needed. Ever since they were in kindergarten, they had been inseparable.
“Good morning, how was your night last night?” Joleigh had to force a smile. She was much more tired than she expected to be but knew that from all of her tossing and turning all night she didn’t expect much rest. Amber walked in with her bags and placed them in the living room, getting out her blood pressure cup and stethoscope preparing for when her father woke up. Joleigh liked to check her father’s vitals every day, making sure he was still in the best physical health that he could be in for his age and considering his condition. She could only handle but so much right now, and something else happening to her father would be too much. She told herself that if he was healthy physically instead of mentally or both then maybe everything would be okay. She quickly dismissed the bad thoughts of what could ever go wrong out of her head, not wanting to attract that negative energy to her life.
“My night was great, actually. Momma and I watched tv until about 10 o’clock and then we went to bed, nothing too much going on.” She pulled out the loaf of bread from the cabinet and began buttering herself two pieces of toast. “I did ask her about that new neighborhood that you took those flowers to yesterday. She said those houses are going for well over half a million dollars. She heard from Sheryll that the marble inside of those houses was imported all the way from Italy. Whoever that woman was that you met, she definitely has money. Did she tell you what she did for a living?” Amber loved real estate, and if she hadn’t become a home care nurse, she definitely would’ve become a real estate agent and would’ve been an amazing one at that. Amber had always been the smartest one of the two. School always came easy to her, but Joleigh on the other hand always struggled and would’ve much rather that she spent her time painting, or drawing, or dancing.