Chapter Fourteen

Taylor

“So...What do you think of Parker?” I asked, walking up behind Annie where she was busy helping my mother prepare dinner for everyone. My mother had not been all that thrilled, convinced that Annie was implying that she was not capable of making dinner for all of us, but I think she may just have forgotten that there was going to be thirteen of us that night. Once Lawrence arrived, anyway.

She laughed as she continued to chop up the tomatoes for the salad. The laugh forced and feeble.

“What do I think?” she said. “Taylor, I just met him two seconds ago. I don’t know what to think.”

“Oh,” I said, disappointed somewhat.

Frankly, I was hoping that Annie would come out with the whole story of who she was that night so we could just get past that whole thing. So I wouldn’t have to lie to Parker too much. But it was obvious even from the look on her face when she first saw him walk into the kitchen next to me that she wasn’t about to do any such thing. Not that night anyway.

Soon, I kept telling myself. She’ll tell him soon.

“Where is he?” she asked, keeping her eyes on what she was doing, just missing chopping her finger off every time. It wasn’t hard to guess that she had probably been given the job of salad making since it was one of the the few things even an inept cook such as herself couldn’t screw up too badly. Unfortunately, safety issues had not been taken into consideration. Apparently.

“He’s up in the guestroom, getting set up I think,” I said.

She nodded.

“What, uh...What does he think of me?” she asked.

“What does he think?” I said. “Annie, he just met you two seconds ago. He doesn’t know what to think.” I said it because I knew that to tell her that she hadn’t really made an impression enough on him for him to even remember he had met her once he was out of the same room.

She sighed. “That’s not funny,” she said.

“I don’t think I was trying to be,” I said back.

She sighed again, but didn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I know you want me to get this over with as soon as possible but please try to understand that it’s not that easy. I...I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how to begin or where to begin from. Should I just blurt it out or should I sort of ease into it or...? I mean, I have no idea. I just got lucky with you. Especially in the way of you eventually accepting it.”

“Accepting it? What do you mean? You think Parker won’t accept it?” I said. I had never considered the idea. In my mind, it had always been Annie telling Parker and then a tearful embrace or something like that.

What Annie was suggesting was scaring me.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, you don’t expect him to be totally overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude when he sees the mother who abandoned him twelve years ago, do you? Parker’s had time to think about these things, Taylor. He’s probably resolved in his mind that he’s never going to meet me or see me and that he doesn’t really care.”

“He probably doesn’t,” I said, unsure all of a sudden.

She shook her head.

“Just...give me time to get my nerve. I’ll tell him when I think it’s the right time,” she said, turning to give me a serious look. “And please don’t you tell him.”

I nodded my agreement without really thinking about it first. I wasn’t thinking about what not telling him would encompass. What it would mean.

I walked out of the kitchen just as my mother was coming back in. She stopped me momentarily before I could get too far.

“Taylor?” she said.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“Is she going to tell him?” she asked quietly.

“Not tonight, I guess,” I said.

She nodded. “Then you might not want to go talking too loudly about it with her, okay? Unless she’d rather have Parker just find out by eavesdropping rather than getting the luxury of telling him first.”

And that was my first hint as to what not telling Parker really was going to encompass. I couldn’t even act the same way around Annie for fear that he’d figure it out.

“Right,” I said.

She opened her mouth to go further into her warning, but was interrupted by Lawrence’s arrival.

“Pizza’s here!” Zac called as Lawrence came in through the front door.

I smiled to myself as my mother cast Zac a death glare that he couldn’t see from where he was sitting in the living room. She resumed her quick pace into the kitchen and I went to meet Lawrence. I didn’t want him to feel as lost as Annie had without me there for too long.

“Hi, Tay,” he said, waving to me as I entered the room. “Taylor,” he corrected himself when some strange glances were directed his way by Zac and my father at his use of the shortened version of my name. “Sorry if I’m a little later than I said I was going to be. I got caught in traffic.”

“No problem,” I said. “I think we’re running a little late with dinner, anyway.”

“Annie’s not cooking, is she?” he said, sounding dismayed.

“She has salad duty,” I said.

“God, you fools,” he said, shaking his head. “Should I make my way in there and rescue her now or what?”

“I think she’s doing okay for now,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow, but made no move for the kitchen.

“I take it Parker arrived safely?” he said.

“Oh! Yeah, he’s upstairs in the guestroom getting settled,” I said.

“In other words, nothing’s been said yet,” he said. “Didn’t really expect it to, I guess.”

“She told me not to tell him either,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t take that warning too seriously,” he said. “Eventually one of us is going to have to say something and it might be easier if Parker doesn’t have to force it out on some vague suspicion or overwhelming curiosity.”

I knew he was implying that Annie was probably not going to be the one to say anything if one of us had to. I didn’t comment on it, however, only led him farther into the house where Zac and my father were sitting. My father was reading a magazine and Zac had a book open in front of him. I recognized it as the one he had been reading since I had come back and, from the looks of it, he hadn’t turned a page.

“Hi, Walker,” Lawrence said, offering his right hand to my father.

My father stood, pasted a polite smile on his face, and shook Lawrence’s hand firmly.

“Lawrence,” he said, nodding.

Then he sat back down.

Lawrence cleared his throat. I gestured to one of the armchairs and he uncomfortably sat down on the very edge, clasping his hands in his lap. I sat down across from him, not really sure what to do from there.

“So,” my father said, closing his magazine.

Lawrence looked up, happy for sound.

“So,” Lawrence said back when my father didn’t go on.

And the conversation began from there. If you can call a bunch of meaningless monosyllables and small talk conversation. At least it seemed to be a start.

About fifteen minutes into it, Zac spoke up.

“Where’s Parker?” he asked without looking up from his book.

“Upstairs still,” I said. “I should probably go get him. It smells like dinner’s almost ready.”

“Smells like something all right,” Lawrence said. “Annie can’t cook, so I apologize in advance if any part of your dinner that she had a hand in making is...ruined in one way or another.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” my father responded.

I sighed and made my way up the stairs. The door to the guestroom was open and when I entered, no one was inside. One of the suitcases was still on the bed, half full of clothes and various other items.

With a raised eyebrow, I doubled back down the hall, noticing on my way that the door to the bathroom was open (not only a novelty in our house, but a good signal that Parker was probably not in there unless people from New York are weirder than I first gathered). Puzzled, I entered the bedroom Isaac, Zac, and I shared.

“Ike, have you seen--oh,” I said upon entering.

Isaac sat on the bottom bunk with his guitar in his hands, strumming softly. Parker was seated on the floor, watching him. He turned his head when I entered the room and smiled.

“Hi,” he said. “I, uh, got bored,” he added by way of explanation.

“Oh,” I said.

“I just thought I’d let him listen to that song we were working on earlier. See what he thinks of it,” Isaac put in.

“I see,” I said. “Had me scared there for a minute. I thought you’d jumped out the window or something.”

Parker shrugged, not answering. It could have been a possibility from what he had told me earlier, but I don’t think he was willing to admit either way in front of Isaac.

Isaac began to quietly strum again.

I cleared my throat.

“Well, uh, dinner’s just about ready. Any time you guys want to come down,” I said.

“Thanks,” Isaac said, beginning to replace his guitar in its case and snapping it closed. Parker stiffly rose from his seat on the floor, his joints popping as he did so. I wondered just how long he had been sitting there. It didn’t seem so long since I had apparently abandoned him.

We filed downstairs where my mother was just beginning to set everything on the table. She smiled pleasantly enough at us as we entered the room.

“Call your father, Isaac,” she said.

“No need,” my father said, entering the room, followed by Zac and Lawrence. Jessica, Avery, and Mackenzie came from the opposite direction and we all sat down together to eat.

It was the most awkward meal I’ve ever eaten.

C'mon. You know you want to, right?
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fifteen