An Inheritance

Chapter 29

Reaching room 146, Lauren cautiously opened the door and walked in.  Lying in the bed, propped up with pillows, was a man who looked way older than his 68 years.  His hair had been freshly combed, his face clean shaven and she could detect the faint odor of aftershave. 

“Hello, Alma.” 

“Hello, Daddy.” 

Lauren walked toward her father; the man who had caused so much turmoil in their small family’s lives.  A man who they had fled from years ago. 

“So, Danielle wouldn’t come.”  It was a statement.  “I didn’t think she would.” 

“No, she just couldn’t bring herself to confront you.” 

“But I knew you’d be here.  Please, sit here where I can see you better.  My eyes definitely aren’t what they used to be; nothing is.”  His sad smile was self-depreciating. 

Lauren sat, her father held his hand out, and she clasped it.  Tears welled up in his eyes and it was all Lauren could do not to follow suit.  But the connection she had hoped to find with her father just wasn’t there.  Too many years between them and not enough good memories to sustain that bond. 

“You know, I really wanted a chance to explain things.”  He held up his hand as though he thought Lauren was about to protest.  “No, no, please just listen.  Nothing can undo what I have done, and there are really no excuses either.  I know that.  It was all my doing, no one else to blame.  I loved you girls, but I just didn’t know how to handle it, you know?” 

Lauren nodded her head sadly. 

“My parents, your grandparents, were wonderful people, really they were.  But they had left Baton Rouge to get away from all of the superstitions, all of the notoriety and especially from both of their families.  They figured since neither one of them had any of their families ‘gifts’, they felt safe in moving up north and starting a family.”  Conrad shook his head and smiled.  “They hadn’t counted on me.  I guess there are skips in the gene pools because there I was, just filled to the brim with family ‘gifts’. 

“Before I could even walk or talk, they knew I wasn’t like them, but more like others in the family; the ones they had moved away from to forget.  From that moment on, they made it their mission to curb, control and squash these gifts and make me like any other little boy.  My visions, my intuition, my dreams … all of these things that made me, me, were suppressed or ignored.  They were still there, of course, but they were buried so deep that even if I had wanted to, I couldn’t recognize them for what they were. 

“Somehow or another I made it through my childhood and through college.  I really had the urge to help people, and a pharmacist was as close as I could get without becoming a doctor, which by the way, my parents were completely against.” 

“But it must have been meant to be.  The first time I saw your mother come into the drug store, I knew she was the one, I felt it all the way down to my core.  She knew me better than I knew myself.  She recognized in me the ‘gifts’ that she herself had run away from.  But she had a better handle on it, she still knew which visions and feelings she should pay attention to and which to leave be.” 

Conrad had been staring out the window and now turned his attention back to Lauren with earnest.  “I loved her with all of my soul and I really did make her happy.”  His intensity lowered and he almost whispered.  “At least in the beginning.”    

Lauren’s father again looked out the window, as though it was through this portal that he could call to mind his story. “Alma helped me in so many ways to try to come to grips with what I had, but the damage was done, I was afraid of what I could become.  When Danielle was born we were bothelated that she was a normal little girl.  But while pregnant with you, Alma knew that you, too, would be ‘gifted’ and that terrified me.”  Conrad glanced back to Lauren for a moment.  “In the beginning I tried to convince myself that your mother had been wrong, but deep down I knew she wasn’t.  But when it became evident that she had been right, I just closed down.  That’s not saying I didn’t love you just as much as Danielle, but seeing how powerful you could become, I just didn’t know what to do.