Taylor
I got the occasional funny look, that was for sure, but it was also nothing new. I could hardly go out in public anymore without getting a funny look from someone. That just came with being part of the band. However, these were a different sort of funny look that were cast my way not because I was part of a band, but for another reason that I didn’t know, but I could feel. It made me shudder, whatever it was.
Still, my presence was tolerated and people stopped staring eventually. I figured that this was because there were so many people there that nobody could possibly know who everybody was. I had no doubt that some of these people had never even met before as they went around introducing themselves to the widow, Collin Windsor’s wife. It was a fascinating thought, thinking that my biological father had somehow been connected to all these people. There were so many. It made me wonder how this could have been.
More fascinating than that was his wife. Annie and Lawrence had abandoned me in order to talk with others who were milling around after the funeral in order to not look conspicuous and after about an hour of waiting impatiently for them to come back, Mr. Whitney had gone after them, leaving me by myself. In the hour I had had by myself, I found myself watching her most of all and wondering. She was extremely short with mousy brown hair and big glasses. Not particularly attractive. Her cheeks were tear-stained and when she talked to people, accepting their condolences, her voice was quiet. I found out by eavesdropping that her name was Hannah. I couldn’t quite associate her with the role of stepmother, but I knew that if reality had been much different and I had had a relationship with Collin Windsor, that was exactly what she would have been to me.
Just as the children standing by her side and clinging to her black dress would have been my half siblings, no doubt. There were three of them, a little boy and two even littler girls. All three of them looked lost, the boy most of all even though it was clear that he understood the most of what was going on. He looked stoic, like he was trying to remain strong for his mother. I imagined myself trying to do the same if I had been the oldest boy or if my father had died when I was his age (he could’t have been more than six). How protective I would be of my mother.
I found out through more eavesdropping that his name was Dylan and that one of the little girls was Calie and the other was Piper, though I didn’t know which one was which. Interesting names. My father must have been an interesting man.
I was so deep in my thoughts, watching a woman about Hannah’s age giving her a huge hug, that the tap on my shoulder was like a clap of lightning right next to me. I spun around, obviously scaring the woman behind me, judging by her wide eyes and open mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, catching her breath in the gasp she had accidentally let go.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just didn’t realize you were there.”
“I should have known better,” she said, straightening her long black dress. “You looked so deep in thought. Generally, I’m against interrupting something like that, but I just had to.”
I raised an eyebrow. Her eyes moved to Hannah and she nodded toward her and her children.
“She’s going to be so lost without him,” she said. “She’s taking this very hard. So are the children. It’s going to be so difficult to adjust.”
I nodded, slightly embarrassed at the fact that I had been so openly staring at Collin’s wife. I wondered what she thought about it.
“You look like a ghost you know,” the woman remarked dryly from behind me. I turned my attention back toward her. “I think that’s why everyone’s been staring at you all this time. You look like him.”
“Who?” I said, confused even though I shouldn’t have been.
“Collin,” she said, growing wistful, her eyes tearing up the slightest bit. She ignored the salty wetness and went on. “How did you know him? Were you one of his students?”
Students?
“Students?” I said.
“Oh yes. He taught a poetry class at one of the colleges somewhere around here. I really haven’t been around enough to know where, but I guess his students loved him,” she said. “I take it you weren’t in one of his classes?”
“No,” I said. “I’m here with my mother. She knew him.”
She nodded knowingly.
“You do look like him, though,” she said, reaching into the purse she carried on her shoulder. She dug through it a bit before her hand surfaced, holding a rectangular piece of paper. “This is old. Long time before he got sick. I travel a lot and I always carry it with me.”
She handed it to me and I was shocked at what I saw.
It was as if someone had fast-forwarded ten years, slapped some older clothes on me and took a picture. I got the same disconcerting feeling I always got when I was around Parker that I was staring at myself. We looked that much like him. His hair was much shorter and he wore glasses and his eyes were green instead of blue, but otherwise...
He looked very serious in the picture, too. He was sitting at an upright piano, not even bothering to smile at the camera. But I could tell he wasn’t always that serious. There was something about him...and me...and Parker...that I knew he couldn’t have been that serious all the time.
“I think he was writing something,” the woman broke into my thoughts. “That’s why he looks so annoyed. But I knew I was going away for a while and wanted something with me to remind me of home. To remind me of him.”
I nodded, suddenly feeling very guilty. Parker should have been here. He had been the one wondering about all these people his whole life. Who his real family was. Now I was the one discovering it all before he got to. I was the one living with his mother and I was the one holding a picture of his father. If only I could have said something...
“I’m his sister, by the way,” she said. “My name is Maggie.”
“I’m Taylor,” I said.
She smiled feebly before sighing.
“Poor Hannah,” she said, glancing back at Collin’s wife. “Three little ones to take care of. He loved those children, too. I know the two girls are probably a little too young to remember him, but Dylan will. He’s probably the only child of Collin’s that will get to.”
Her meaning occurred to me almost immediately.
“Did he have other children?” I asked as if I didn’t know.
“Yes, he did,” she replied. “Twin boys with another woman. They were both very young then and not ready to take care of two babies, though, so they decided to give them up. Rather, she did. He wanted to at first, but then I think he must have changed his mind. He tried to stop her, but she had her mind set on it. Spent a lot of the last twelve or fifteen years looking for those boys. Never did find them.”
“Oh?” I said.
He’d looked for us? He’d been searching for us since Annie had given us up? How could he not have found us if he had been searching all that time? God, I had been in a rather obvious spot not even forty-five minutes away from where he had lived.
“Oh yes,” she said. “I have my own suspicions about what she did with those babies, but I never followed through on them. I personally don’t care to know what happened seeing as how what’s past is past. But he always wished he knew where they were. I think he even wanted Hannah to keep looking if he ended up dying. I doubt she will. I don’t think she much wants to delve into his past.”
I nodded, looking again at the woman and her three children. I could have gone right up to her then and told her who I was. Or I could have told this woman who I was. But from what Maggie was telling me, I gathered that neither of them was particularly interested in knowing. If Maggie didn’t know already, which it was apparent to me that she probably did.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” she said.
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “It must help to talk about him a little bit.”
“It does,” she said. “It helps to remember who he was. Thank you for listening.”
She smiled feebly again before leaning up and kissing me on the cheek. I smiled a little bit back at her before feeling another tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Mr. Whitney standing there.
“I managed to locate your mother. I think it would be best if we left now,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, allowing myself to be led away. Then, I remembered and turned back. “I almost forgot,” I said, holding the picture out to my father’s sister.
She shook her head. “Keep it,” she said. “I have prints.”
I smiled again. “Thanks.”
“No problem...Taylor,” she said.
I turned back around to follow Mr. Whitney to wherever it was he had located Annie and Lawrence. I stared at the picture for a few more moments before carefully placing it in the pocket of my black jacket suit, not wanting Annie to see it.
Like me. Hate me. But spare me your indifference. (Who said that anyway?)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty-One