Chapter 34 - "Do you ever regret it?"

Start from the beginning
                                    

"Do whatever you normally do," she said. "I'm fine."

"I was going to take a shower and change real quick," he said, his voice hesitant.

"Yeah, go ahead."

Link nodded and moved to the hallways. He paused halfway there and looked back at her.

"Eat anything you want. There's not much in the fridge, but I think we have something," he said.

"Thanks."

With another nod, he left. She shifted her attention to Donovan and then to the apartment again. There was a long, narrow table beneath the mounted TV, that she hadn't noticed before. Across the top of the dark wood were silver picture frames. She moved over to the table and picked up the closest one.

A woman in her late thirties with dirty blonde hair, hazel eyes and oval face had her arms wrapped around an eight-year-old version of Link. It was a version of Link that still had blonde hair and didn't wear glasses. Even as young he was the resemblance between his father and him was uncanny.

Setting down the picture, she picked up a new one. This one Link wore the glasses and his hair was brown. He looked around fourteen and was standing in Time Square. She continued moving down the table, looking at the pieces of Link's life. The places he had traveled to with his mother. The truth of knowing who is his father was marked by the color of his hair.

She stopped at a frame towards the end. Link stood beside Donovan, holding a rolled up scroll that was tied with a blue ribbon. Link's face was dotted with the beginning of acne. Donovan's face still held a boyish look, though she knew he must be seventeen at the time.

She smiled despite the weariness tugging at her.

"You look young," she said, studying the way Link had his arm wrapped around Donovan's shoulder and the faint smile on Donovan's face.

Donovan looked up from the spread of homework he had before him.

"What did you say?" he asked.

Carter held the frame up and looked back at him. He studied it for a moment and then nodded before focusing his attention back down at his work.

"I was," he said.

He flipped open a textbook, rifled through the pages and then started writing out equations. She put the picture back and looked over the last remaining ones.

"Do you ever regret it?" she asked.

Donovan's pencil stilled and it was a fraction of a second before he answered.

"No."

She turned around to challenge his answer, but Link appeared, toweling his hair. Without his glasses, in his own home and dressed in a casual jeans and a t-shirt he looked more self assured. He dropped the towel onto the couch and nodded to Carter.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She pointed back to the table. "Watching you grow up."

He gave an embarrassed chuckle as he joined her. For a moment he looked over the collection of his life, the snapshots of memories made and precious moments captured. He picked the one up of Donovan and him.

"My mom likes having them out," he said, he put the photo back. "I don't know why. They are kind of embarrassing."

Carter shifted back to the table. "I like them." She pointed to the photo of him and Donovan. "Your eighth grade promotion, right?"

He nodded, then pointed to another photo, explaining what was happening in it. His past unraveled before them, his smile always coming into play when he talked of the times with his mom. Carter listened, relieved from her own thoughts by his stories. Her smile appeared every so often as he talked with his hands just as much as his voice.

A Secret Service [NOW PUBLISHED]Where stories live. Discover now