Parker
Besides, I couldn’t get over it. It wasn’t even so much that she was my mother and the dead guy in the pictures was my father. It was like the back of my mind had been telling me all along as I tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together, it was staring me right in the face. It was obvious. It was an easy thing to see once one actually knew, even with her. The way she acted, some of the things she said, her personality in general. The way he looked. Of course. I was an idiot.
It was more that everyone had lied to me. Everyone. Every single member of the Hanson family, even the little ones. Even Gina had lied to me about it. It was like they had thought that I didn’t have a right to know that my own biological mother was sitting right there next to me in the car, at the picnic table. Talking to me. Joking with me. Watching me. How could they do something like that? Why had they done something like that?
I thought about things like this late into the night. I didn’t come downstairs for lunch or dinner, though I was invited to do both. I didn’t even go out of the room to go to the bathroom. I just sat there all day and the next time I looked at the clock on the nightstand it was dark and the glowing green numbers told me that it was eleven o’clock at night.
Everyone had gone to bed. I had heard them.
So, I got up from the bed, opened the door, and softly made my clumsy way down the stairs and to the phone.
Not really sure who I had the intention of calling, I picked up the receiver, listened to the dial tone for a few minutes and then punched in the numbers I hadn’t even known I had memorized somehow.
It was late here, it was even later there. But I had to talk to someone. Maybe even she had lied to me, but at least she was someone. At least she wasn’t directly involved with the whole complicated matter of my screwed up family tree.
The phone rang eight times before someone picked it up.
“Hello?” a deep groggy voice said into the receiver.
“Can I talk to Theresa, please?” I asked.
“Who is this? Do you know what time it is?” the other voice said.
“It’s Parker,” I said. “I know it’s late, but it’s important.”
“Oh. Parker,” she said, softening immediately. “Yeah, sure. Just let me go get her.”
I waited for a few moments until the phone was picked up again.
“Hello?” Theresa’s voice said. Then, when it took me too long to respond, “Parker? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry to wake you and stuff...”
“You didn’t wake me,” she said. “I have a tendency to stay up late during the summer.”
“Oh,” I said.
“What’s up?” she asked.
Yes, there was definitely a lot of that question going around lately.
“A lot,” I said, moving to one of the kitchen chairs and sitting down in it. “They told me about my biological mother today.”
A pause.
“Pardon?”
“So you didn’t know?” I asked.
“No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh good,” I said. “At least I’m not the last one to find out. Everyone knew but me. Gina knew. Your mother probably knew.”
“Parker, you’re crying,” she pointed out. “What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”
I quickly wiped the tears away before answering.
“My biological mother lives here in Oklahoma,” I said. “She’s sort of been hanging around here since I got here and I was only told today that she was, well, my mother. Everyone else knew. Taylor’s been living with her for God’s sake!”
“Oh my God,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“No, not really,” I said. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know who else to call. I can’t call Gina. I don’t want to talk to her right now...”
“It’s all right, Parker,” she said soothingly and I covered my face, aware that I was actually sobbing into the phone, embarrassed. “Sssh. Calm down.”
I couldn’t calm down.
“How did you find out?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I said. “But it all comes down to Taylor told me this morning. I knew something was up and when I asked him about it, he told me.”
“Wow,” she said. “Have you talked to her? Your mother, I mean.”
“No,” I said. “She came up to my room today and tried to get me to talk to her, but I didn’t want to. I don’t know how to. I have no idea what I could say to her.”
“What did she want to say to you?” she asked.
“She said she wanted to tell me her side of the story,” I told her. “But...I don’t know. I can’t process any of this. Everything that’s happened these past few days is just too much information. I can’t get it into my brain.”
“Sssh,” she said. “It’s okay, Parker.”
She didn’t ask me what other information I had gotten in the past few days that would have added to the angst of my situation.
“I can’t deal with this,” I said, putting my head down on the table.
“Yes, you can,” she said. “I’m sure your mother never meant to hurt you at all. I’m sure she just wants a chance to tell you why she did what she did. You should let her. Or let Gina tell you her side of it.”
“I’m not ready to hear any of that,” I said.
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Parker,” she said.
“Everyone’s been saying that lately,” I said.
“Oh. Well, in that case, I’m glad this happened to you, Parker,” she said. “You deserve to be put in the middle of a rotten situation like this.”
I smiled a little bit.
“That’s what I want to hear,” I said.
“Well, I have to go,” she said. “It is late here and both my parents are staring at me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you, Theresa.”
“Of course you’re welcome, Parker,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to call me again if you...you know.”
“Okay,” I said. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
Come on. I never get anything in the real mail.
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Eight