by L. L. Muir
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes.”
Jamison let the pain wash over him. Invisible. Invisible.
He couldn’t look at her.
“I’m sorry. At least I didn’t let you think it was because he didn’t care. I didn’t take that away from you. I just took you away from him.”
“I should have asked,” he muttered to himself. He hadn’t asked because he didn’t want to hear something he couldn’t handle. Now Jamison knew, no matter what his granddad had done, he wouldn’t love him any less. It wasn’t possible.
“You should have asked what, if he was sending letters?”
“No.” He looked at her then and had the same knowledge hit him again. No matter what she’d done, what poor choices she’d made, he wouldn’t love her any less.
Now the only thing to do was to get these two back together, the two people he loved, the two people he’d like to beat senseless.
“I should have asked what he’d done to make you angry enough to leave and never come back.” He leaned forward. “I’m asking you now.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re back. You can spend as much time with him as you can, as much time as he has left.” A tear ran down her cheek, but Jamison wasn’t dishing out pity.
“It does matter. I’m going to read this letter—”
“No—”
“—and you can’t stop me. So, would you like to explain before I do?”
His mom glared at him. He didn’t care.
She tipped back in her chair and he thought she wasn’t going to answer him, but she started playing with the stack of envelopes and talking in that odd voice a mother uses when reading a bedtime story, as if she hopes the kid would fall asleep before she had to read the whole thing.
“I got pregnant at seventeen. Before you were ever born, your dad left me. Actually he left two days after the wedding at the courthouse and never came back to Flat Springs. Your granddad took me back home, said at least Shaw had given my child a name and that any man who could leave a pregnant wife was doing her a favor by going.”
“You’ve told me this before.”
“Hush. You asked, now shut up until I’m through.”
Jamison sat back in his seat.
“We got along just fine. You were happy, so I was happy, and that was enough for me then. I believed I could find love after you were older, but I always hoped...I hoped that Mickey would have a life-altering experience and come running back. I suppose I hoped for that harder than I realized. I guess I was counting on it.
“So, eleven years went by and no Mickey. Momma died. So young—she was so young! A girl is never the same after her mother dies, you know?”
“Yeah. I know. I think a boy is never going to be the same when his grandfather dies. You know?”
“Yeah. I know.” She seemed to shrink a bit then, as if the guilt of that realization was more that she could face and still get the story out.
“Go on.”
“Momma died. Daddy was a mess. Momma had always done the bills and the legal stuff. I was a paralegal by then and offered to take care of things, and when I went through boxes of documents I found a letter, from Mickey, to me.
“Oh, God!” She started sobbing. “I did the same thing to you that they did to me! But at the time, it felt like I was doing it to him, you know? It didn’t occur to me I was hurting you. You were always so...fine. I never had to worry about you.”
Little did you know. So much he could tell her, but what good would it do?
“So, what did Mickey say?”
“He said he wanted to see his child—he didn’t even know you were a boy. He said since my dad had paid him to leave me, that maybe the old money-grubber would let him see his kid if he refunded some of his money.
“I don’t know why my mom kept the letter. If she was worried that she might need to contact him sometime, she could’ve just saved his address. But I felt like she was leaving it for me, so I’d know what really happened. I thought she was so devoted to Dad, but maybe she was just pretending to be.
“Anyway, I got all the paperwork done that needed doing, for her sake, then I packed up our stuff and we left. I left Mickey’s letter on the counter, so he’d know why.”
She sat there, her face moving while she stared off at a corner of the orange and yellow shag carpet, as if she were reviewing it all again, looking for some detail she might have missed.
Jamison’s stomach rumbled and she came back from wherever she’d been.
“Yes, we’re going to eat today. I’ll find us something.” She stood up.
“And I’ll read this while you’re looking.” He waved the blue envelope and she sat back down.
“It’s not yours to read, Jamison Shaw.”
“Oh? I think if you’ve disowned him, that makes him only my relative, and this is from my relative, not yours.”
“Damn it, Jamie. Hand me that letter!”
“No. Unless you agree to read it.”
She stood up and left the room. Soon she was slamming things around in the kitchen, and Jamison had been well-trained to come running, to help clean up or cook or whatever, any time he heard those noises. But not this time.
He used a small pair of scissors to slice open the seal. It was yellow and crusted with five-year-old spit and glue. Unfolding the blue stationary with lighthouses in the corners, Jamison was disappointed to find the letter very short with large letters taking up space.
Dear Lori,
I caught Mickey in Parker’s barn the day after your wedding, in the arms of Parker’s wife. He laughed and offered to leave Colorado for good if I’d loan him the money to do it. I gave him enough to see him to Hell.
I wanted to spare you a bad marriage, aye? Would you not have done the same?
I love you. I won’t last long without the sight of you.
Forgive me.
Da
In spite of all the letter said, of the questions answered not to mention the father issues, the letter raised one silly question in Jamison’s mind:
Where did Skye fit in?
CHAPTER TEN
Jamison read the letter aloud, following his mother around the kitchen while she slammed things around, pretending not to listen. Finally, when his mother dissolved into tears, he handed her the little blue page and a wad of unused tissue and went to his room. He figured she’d be ready to go to the Recovery Center in about an hour or so.
There were still a few things of his grandmother’s in his room; a housecoat on the back of the door, a fishing pole mounted above the window, and a strange little table next to the bed. She used to keep old Harlequin romances in the drawer. He’d tossed the books, but the table was all right staying. The bed, finally, was his own.
The housecoat had to go, and as he was taking it off the hook, his eye caught on an envelope propped up against the blue and silver drum that had served as his piggy bank for as long as he could remember. He might have never noticed the envelope if he hadn’t been so recently obsessed with finding a mysterious letter.
He draped the quilted housecoat on the back of his desk chair, taking a second to feel the satiny fabric his grandma had been so fond of. He remembered finding her in her bedroom one day lying on the floor in her pajamas, laughing her head off.
“Watch this, Jamie,” she’d said to him. Then, wearing her satin pajamas, she stepped back into the corner, then ran and jumped on her massive bed, sliding across the tricot sheets, and with no friction to stop her, landed again on her butt.
She hadn’t repeated the trick, claiming that she’d never walk again if she did, but the two of them had laughed for a week, every time their eyes met.
Jamison smiled. He’d been so worried about his granddad he hadn’t spared much time thinking about Grandma. If she were alive his life would have gone happily along as it should have.
Strange. He didn’t remember writing on that envelope, but it was his handwriting, only it was more legible than usual. And the
re was something heavy inside.
To be opened if something happens to me.
He would have laughed, but then he remembered Texas. He could very well have written something four years ago and forgotten about it. But knowing that he was safe now, that it was all behind him, he didn’t want to open it. He didn’t want to know what the lump was, or relive any of it. He was home. Life was going to be tough enough. He didn’t need any more grief—even old grief.
He dug through a green metal tackle box, another one of Grandma’s treasures he’d decided to hang onto for a while. There was an old Bic lighter she’d kept handy for when she wanted to melt a good and tight knot on a fishing line.
He flicked the lighter and a healthy flame jumped to attention, like a genie, happy to finally be let out of the box. That’ll work.
He pulled out the mesh garbage can and held the letter above it, then flicked the Bic again. This time the genie was hungry and made quick work of the envelope. Unlike his mother’s old letter, this one wasn’t discolored and crusty, or at least not until the flame aged it, liking its way along one side, the blackened edge rolling along behind the fire, begging for more attention.
The fire went out, but the envelope was only half gone.
He flicked again, starting with the lower corner, and the flame jumped to do its duty again, to eradicate the entire state of Texas. About a quarter of the envelope was left, the corner he’d been holding.
He shifted his fingers to the very tip and flicked the Bic again, and the heavy lump slid out and landed in the bottom of the garbage. With nothing but a few carbon curls to cushion its fall, the clank was loud.
Jamison frowned at it for a minute. For the life of him he couldn’t remember ever making a tape recording. The only mini tape recorder he’d ever seen was the one in his granddad’s ‘odd things’ drawer. He’d poked his nose in that drawer the day they’d arrived, looking for old treasures. There’d been no computer to play on, so he’d killed some time looking through the ridiculous stuff the old man hadn’t been able to toss in the trash, or rubbish bin, as Granddad called it.
A powerful magnet, a slingshot, and the mini recorder were rescued; the rest got dumped. Maybe the old house was ready to let go of the past, like Jamison was.
He looked at the three items now taking up space on what might soon be called his ‘odd things’ shelf.
That was so stupid. If he’d made a recording in the last couple of days he certainly wouldn’t have forgotten it. Would he?
He got that fish-flapping-in-the-stomach feeling. Hadn’t he felt all day yesterday like he’d forgotten something? Had he forgotten a tape?
Jamison moved to the wall behind his closed door, backed up against it, and slowly slid down to the floor.
Breathe.
He breathed.
Think.
He didn’t want to think. He’d rather throw up. If the message on the envelope wasn’t written in Texas, then whatever was on that tape might be as bad as what happened four years ago. Only something bad would have made him write that kind of note.
Maybe he didn’t want to know.
Maybe it wasn’t his handwriting.
Maybe he should use that Bic one more time. If it was ruined, there’d be no going back. No knowing.
Holy crap. It would drive him crazy.
Breathe.
He breathed.
He’d toyed with the idea of asking his mom if he could see a therapist. Lots of people, normal people—well, normal-ish people—saw therapists. Now he wished he would have asked her. What he was really afraid of, was that he’d left it too late, that he’d pretended too much for too long, and now the transmission in his brain was slipping.
It was a long time before he moved a muscle or a brain cell. When he stood, he tried not to think. He wasn’t going to make the choice; he’d just see what his body decided.
He watched calmly as his hand took the mini-recorder off the shelf. His legs took him back to the garbage can and he wondered if he was going to trash the recorder, but his other hand scooped out the tape. His mouth blew black bits of ash out of the two little holes. His finger pushed a button and the machine opened. A thumb pushed the tape into the hole.
He pushed rewind but the button popped back up. Maybe someone had already rewound it. It took a couple of minutes before he could push play, but his body had gotten him that far. He could at least do that much.
“Okay, seriously. If I, Jamison Shaw, turn up dead or missing, or if the sheriff tells you I’ve been taken out of state for drug rehab, don’t believe it.”
He pushed stop. He wasn’t dead or missing. Technically he could stop listening. His stomach churned, letting him know it voted to run away. But if he really wanted to put Texas behind him, running away wasn’t the way to do it.
He crawled on his bed and scooted to the wall, then settled back against it. Again, he pressed play, but his thumb rested on the stop button in case his mom came in. His eerie voice was hushed, so he turned it up a little.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen now, so I’m making this tape, just in case. I only hope the Somerleds don’t get a hold of it. And if you’re listening, you murderers, you stay away from my mom or so help me...
“If you’re not a Somerled, then this is what has happened since I moved back to Flat Springs on Friday...
Jamison listened. Of course the voice sounded like him, but it freaked him out the way it freaked out anyone who listened to themselves. But hearing it on a recording he didn’t remember making was jacked up. He was jacked up, and by the time he got to the end of the recording, he was pretty sure his whole life was permanently jacked up.
His mom pounded on his door and he nearly shat his pants.
“Jamie, honey?” She cracked the door open and lowered her voice. “I’m going to go down to the Recovery Center in about an hour. Do you want to come with me?”
He was on auto-pilot
“Y..yeah. I mean, no. I mean, if you can be nice, I’ll let you go without me. He’s going to be getting some test results back today, and if it’s bad news, um, he’ll be glad you’re there.”
“What kind of test?” She finally looked at him. Her eyes were swollen, her mascara gone. Anything he said would turn the water works back on.
“To see if the cancer is responding to the treatments.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She flew across the hall. “I’m leaving in five minutes if you’re coming.” She slammed her bedroom door.
Of course he wanted to witness the reunion, but a tearful reunion? Not so much. Of course he wanted to find out the test results, to be there for Granddad if they weren’t good, or to celebrate if they were. But he needed a quiet hour to wrap his head around the story he’d just told himself.
Then he’d need another couple hours to figure out what to do with the murderer he’d been kissing the night before.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Skye wished she could throw up, but since she didn't have the equipment for it, she could only stand in the cold linoleum hallway and marvel at the war of emotions raging in her empty chest.
He'd done it. Jamison had gotten his mother to come!
She was disappointed he hadn't tagged along, not because she might have gotten a chance for another kiss, so she told herself, but so she could ask him how the miracle had been accomplished.
She was so happy for Kenneth. He'd been mourning more than the loss of his wife for the last five years, he’d been mourning the loss of his entire family. Too bad it had taken cancer to reunite them. And too bad the day he’d want to celebrate had also come on the heels of the worst news possible.
She could tell, the day before, that Kenneth had been expecting the test results to be bad. Even with the excitement of his family returning to Flat Springs, and the hope for his daughter’s forgiveness, he must have been able to tell that his body had been continuing its decline.
Skye had no experience with such things, of course, but she imagined one's
mortal body communicated with the mind in some way, letting a person know that something was not functioning as it was designed to.
She'd allowed him some space the day before so he could also communicate with his spirit, and his God. There was nothing more she could have done for him at a time like that, other than urge Jamison to do what Skye could not—push Kenneth’s daughter back into his arms so they could console each other.
Eavesdropping outside Kenneth's room, Skye had heard enough to know that the father and daughter would forgive each other for the past and move on to more urgent matters. She backed away, hoping no one would mention that she'd been there. Tomorrow was soon enough to visit Kenneth again, to let him know she'd been thinking about him and his test and if he chose, to let him share a bit of his happy reunion.
As she hurried past the nurse's station she whispered “don't look up” into the minds of the two women seated before monitors. She had the silly thought that if Jamison wasn't around to see her, she didn't want to be seen by anyone.
She climbed into her car but didn't turn it on. The last person to sit in the passenger seat was Jamison. She relived every detail of her conversation with him, every detail of his lips, every word, every blink. She remembered how high his shoulders hit on the back of the seat, how far he’d leaned down to...
Why hadn't he come? Was he so considerate of his mother that he'd sacrifice a moment with his granddad for her sake? She would have thought he would at least want to see the man after giving the two some time together.
Maybe he waited in his mom's car!
She searched the parking lot and noticed the blue Mazda across the way. Empty.
Maybe he was coming later.
She considered how long she might reasonably stay and watch for him. Did he have a car? Would he welcome a ride? Had he changed his mind about coming and was wishing someone would stop by, maybe in a green Beemer, and ask if he wanted a lift to his local assisted living center?