Chain Link

Chapter 22

 The trip to Little Rock was the first time that Dan had been in a plane.

It was Logan's fifth time.

Although that fact should have been significant enough on its own, the most significant fact about this journey was that they were going to visit their mother who they thought had been dead for the first time in over sixteen years.

The initial excitement of seeing his mother again had faded when he had to say goodbye from Alessa at the airport. As he watched her drive off, the smile fell away when he realized that he would be all alone.

There was no Alessa to work through his anger. Anger was definitely going to play an important factor when he saw his mother. He was aware of that. She had abandoned her husband and children.

It was an unforgivable act.

Dan was still excited and Logan wasn't going to ruin that, because he did understand that excitement. However he was still convinced that this trip would end with shouting and tears and a feeling of betrayal.

There was a small part of him that still had hope that his mother had a brilliant excuse as to why she had left them all of these years ago and she regretted every single moment, but realistically he knew that it wouldn't be the case.

But it didn't mean that he wished it was going to be different.

They arrived in Little Rock a little after noon. Visiting hours for his mom were from one to four in the afternoon, so they took a taxi to take them to the rehab clinic that was thirty minutes away from the airport.

At one they were at the rehab clinic.

As they signed themselves in, bricks and other heavy things started to settle in his stomach. He should have begged to Alessa to come. He had no idea what he was going to say and some outside help would have been nice.

That thought came a little too late.

Dan was still bouncing up and down the whole time, clearly excited about the prospect of seeing his mother. His little brother was probably the happiest to person to write his name in rehab clinic in history. He must have set some type of record.

The nice lady with the short curly blonde hair explained them some of the rules and regulations. They were probably important, but Logan wouldn't have been able to repeat any of them to the nice lady.

The corridors were bright white with no other colors, not even a scuff mark. The corridors were just a blank space.

His heart was pounding as their feet thudded over the white-tiled floor passing various rooms. His eyes scanned them and the name boards but the names were all blurs. None of them looked like Mandy Sargent.

Some whispers could be heard echoing through the corridors. His ears strained to hear if any of them sounded like his mother, but Dan's excited chatter with the nice lady overruled all of those noises.

How the fuck was Dan still excited about this?

His pounding heart and stomach that had twisted in various knots suggested that his excitement had long disappeared in favor of another emotion other than excitement.

The nice lady with her blonde hair turned towards both of them. "Your mother is always in this room painting in the afternoon."

Logan's eyebrows furrowed. His mother painting? Although he was young and his memory of his mother was blurry and vague, his mother didn't paint. His mother wasn't a very creative person at all. His mother liked getting dirty on the farm and writing lists on what needed to be done.