Taylor
“Yup,” my mother answered, coming up to me and straightening out the suit a little bit. She looked up from where she was fixing a button into my eyes and gave me an encouraging smile. I looked away. “Are you sure you’re okay with doing this?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. It’s not really so much going to this that’s the problem. It’s...who it’s for...that’s the problem.”
She nodded. “I know, baby,” she said, pulling me into a hug. I reveled in the feel of her arms wrapped around me. I had forgotten how good my mother’s hugs felt. Lately, they’d been fairly rare. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “It happens to all of us sooner or later.”
She pulled away and her smile changed a little as she did so. I knew from that smile that she thought that I didn’t completely understand what her words meant.
“Where did Parker and Isaac and Zac go?” I asked.
“Isaac and Zac got Parker out of the house while you were taking a shower. They said that they wanted to show him the city a little bit,” she said. “I just hope they don’t get run over or anything like that. They’ll probably all think Parker is you.”
I smiled a little bit. “Ah, Parker will enjoy it,” I said, thinking about how Isaac and Zac themselves didn’t really know what this was all about. They just knew that something important had happened and I needed to go with Annie for the day--conspicuously dressed up which meant that they’d have to go somewhere with him so as to not raise his suspicions more than they probably already would be raised.
Speaking of raising questions, my mind wandered to a few days before when I had tried to follow through on my threat to Annie. I had lain in my sleeping back that morning, staring at the ceiling, thinking. Thinking it was time he knew. Thinking that I didn’t want to keep secrets from him anymore.
As soon as I walked in the door, though, I knew exactly what Annie had meant about it not being that easy. He was sitting there, writing in a notebook and listening to a CD. I had gotten as far as “I need to talk to you” before the words had frozen in my mouth. I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how to say it. I couldn’t say it. What was it going to do to him if I suddenly came out with the news that his biological mother was, well, Annie? What happened afterwards.
So I didn’t say anything, especially after I had been completely thrown off by the music he was listening to. I shuddered with the thought. The words were haunting...
But I haven’t seen Barbados...So I must get out of this...
And that only brought up an entirely different subject that I knew I didn’t want to talk about.
As a result of my fruitless attempts, Parker now not only didn’t know that Annie was his real mother, but also thought that she and I were lovers. I hadn’t even thought that he could catch on to my family’s dislike of her so easily and certainly wouldn’t have thought that that was the conclusion he would have drawn, joking or not.
Deciding to forgive Annie in her failure to tell Parker, especially because of the funeral, I had called her and agreed to go.
And now here I stood in front of my mother ready to go to my father’s funeral.
“Yeah, probably,” she responded to what I had said. “They told him that you had a dentist appointment and that’s why you couldn’t come. Which means if they come home early, I’ll have to hide somewhere so they don’t think that you had to walk or anything.”
“Thanks for covering for me,” I said. “I feel so bad about this. I mean, Parker has a right to know that his own father is...I mean, to come to his funeral and all that. I just don’t feel right going to this. At least not without him. He’s the one who’s had to think about stuff like this all his life.”
She nodded. “I know. And he probably will be upset that you didn’t tell him about it later, but if Annie doesn’t want him to know, then I guess there’s nothing we can do about it. It is, in the long run, her decision. Actually, I kind of doubt that she’ll tell him too soon. Even after she gets around to telling him who she is, she probably won’t mention for a long time that your father is dead.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, not really comforted.
Just then, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway could be heard. The engine to the car was turned off and a door slammed.
“Well, Annie and Lawrence are here,” she said uselessly.
As if on cue, Annie walked through the door. She was, of course, dressed in all black. A simple nondescript black dress, black stockings, and black shoes. She also had the most somber look on her face that I had ever seen before. Her mouth was set in a deep frown and her eyes were expressionless. It scared me to see her like that.
“Hi,” she said shyly to my mother. “Sorry we’re late. We had to wait for my dad and apparently he accidentally slept in this morning,” she added by way of explanation. “Ready?”
I sighed and looked to my mother, who only smiled encouragingly at me, urging me to get going. Or maybe urging me to stay here and not go to the funeral at all. Maybe then she could start to think that all this was a bad dream after all like everyone else wanted it to be.
“I don’t think it’s possible to be ready for something like this,” I told her. Then, clearing my throat, I stepped away from my mother and walked toward where Annie was standing by the door. She put her arm around me gently as I came within reach. My mother pointedly ignored it.
“Thanks, Diana. For letting him go,” she said. “I think this would have meant a lot to Collin.”
“I know,” my mother replied. “See you later.”
Annie simply nodded. I waved my hand good-bye and we disappeared out the door.
Nine times out of ten, I write back. :)
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Nine