My knees don’t want to hold me and I reach out for the nearest object to balance on. The oak table by the entrance is smooth beneath my palm. The tote on my back falls to the floor with a heavy thud. My voice is a decibel below a whisper. “Your son?”
The age lines around Mr. McAllister’s mouth and eyes deepen as he studies me. I study him back, suddenly aware that I have been under that gaze when I stepped off a bus from New York City. I want to sink even further down to the floor as realization hits. He’s not talking about some random stranger I’ve never met.
“Sawyer. Sawyer is your……” I have a hard time getting the word off my tongue. “Son?”
Though he never talked about his father, I had not been expecting this uptight businessman in front of me. And I’m sure with everything going on Sawyer would have mentioned this connection. What exactly had his mother told him about his parentage?
Mr. McAllister cocks his head to the side in another familiar gesture. “Why don’t we discuss this in the library.” He pivots and starts back down the hallway. This is a man who’s used to having his suggestions followed.
I can only stand here, numb with the revelation. I find myself back to questioning Sawyer’s motives. There is no way he could not have known about this. Is there? I cannot possibly believe in a town as small as Money, Mississippi that everyone didn’t know about this. How could he have grown up never having even a hint of who is father is? Has he been playing me this entire time?
But I can see Sawyer’s face as his mother raced by. There was shock and anger. This gives me hope that this revelation is news to him as well. His mother. Not exactly how I pictured meeting her. Is that where he is right now? It has to be the only reason he hasn’t rushed back through the door demanding answers. She has to be telling him what’s going on in some private corner of their familiar universe. While I face the answers alone.
The voice of impatience comes from the library doorway. “Are you coming Miss Roberta?”
I wonder briefly where Vesta is as I kneel down to pick up my tote and sling it once more over my shoulder. I take a deep breath. No homey aroma greets me. I look up to the ceiling as if somehow answers will magically shower down over me. As much as I want to get back into the library, I’m not so sure I want to be in there with him.
Mr. McAllister is already seated at the desk when I poke my head through the doorway. I’m still not sure I want answers badly enough to enter his lair. I know nothing about this man but for some reason I already have him wearing the black hat in this story. Not fair I know, but you know what they say about first impressions.
He gives an impatient wave of his hand towards a chair across from him. “Come in, come in.” His voice has a monotone timber, the impatience hinged with boredom, as if he uses the same expression every day.
I dump the tote at my feet as I slide into the expensive leather. I cross a leg over another but that doesn’t seem appropriate. I tuck my legs under the chair, crossed at the ankle and sit with my hands folded neatly in my lap. I worry at a hangnail.
He stares directly across at me. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”
An apology for luring me here under false pretenses would be more appropriate but I only lace my fingers together and uncross to re-cross my ankles. I was alone, far from home. If only I could hear the banging of pots and pans reassuring me that Vesta was somewhere in the kitchen. Just one sign of something that had become familiar in the past few days would allow me to relax against the stiff chair.
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Drawn to Troubled Waters
العاطفيةRoberta is afraid of bridges. She has no fear of water, just those structures that arc gracefully over bodies of water. The artist in her is drawn to their loveliness. She sketches from afar. Until the day a mysterious benefactor entices her to Mone...
