Gina Lowell
The blank stare was nothing unusual. I just didn't remember it being so forlorn. Every feature of his face seemed to be frowning all at once, lost in saddened thoughts. The blank stare was directed toward the coffee he held in his hand in such a way that you would have thought it held all the answers to all the questions he could think to raise.
He looked a lot older than I would have expected him to look. For some reason, he had always struck me as one of those ageless people like Dick Clark. But the years that had passed between the last time I had seen him and now were evident.
And then some.
Somehow my feet had put one in front of the other, bringing me so that I was standing about five feet away from where he was sitting without me noticing. My voice also seemed to be working by itself because it surprised me about as much as it did him when
I spoke up.
"Lawrence?" I said in complete disbelief. I expected the rest of the people in the cafeteria to look up at me like I was crazy and nominate someone to come over and tell me that there wasn't anyone sitting in the chair before me. I didn't only expect it, I hoped for it. I knew that wherever he was, she would more than likely also be there.
A thousand thoughts that cannot be translated to mere words on paper were running through my head when he looked up from his coffee to stare at me through eyes the color of mud after a spring rain.
He must've read what was in my eyes and stood up.
"It's not what you think," he said as if I had just caught him in bed with someone I should not have caught him in bed with. I almost laughed. But for once in my life, I held it back.
"Then what're you doing here?" I asked, having the strange feeling like we were starting in the middle of the conversation instead of the beginning. The beginning would include things like a simple hello. But Lawrence didn't remind me of hellos, he reminded me of good-byes.
He sighed.
"Sit down, this is going to take a minute," he told me, gesturing toward the seat across from where he had been sitting a moment before.
I complied, my narrowed eyes never leaving his figure, taller than I remembered and not quite as muscular.
He looked up at me, his eyes sadder than they used to be. He sighed again.
"Where's Andrea?" I asked him.
"I don't know. Last time I saw her she was saying something about going to go see Taylor in his room again or something of the kind," he told me.
"So he knows then," I said.
He nodded.
"Does Parker know?" I asked.
He shook his head and half of the weight I had felt come down on my shoulders when I had first seen him sitting in the cafeteria was lifted and I could suddenly breath a lot easier.
"Are you planning on telling him?" I asked.
"No, I don't think so," he said. "You'd have to ask her that. I have no say anymore."
I raised my eyebrows at him. He made it sound as if he and Andrea were some old couple.
"Then what're you doing here?" I repeated.
He shrugged.
"We're here for the simple reason that Annie knew Taylor was hurt and she wanted to come and see if he was okay," he told me. "We didn't plan on teling him. He wasn't supposed to find out. He just did."
I ignored the last part. I didn't care what was planned and what wasn't. The damage was done.
"How did she knew Taylor was hurt?" I asked him, the explanation not sounding quite plausible to me. I felt like a police chief interrogating a suspect. Most people that talk to Lawrence probably do.
"I don't know if Parker or Taylor mentioned this at all to you, but when Parker got home, the phone was off the hook. Annie had called before and apparently Taylor had heard the phone ringing and decided to get it off the hook to see if the person on the other end could help him. So Parker talked to Annie, told her what was going on and then hung up on her to call an ambulance," he explained to me.
"Then she knew where I was all this time," I said.
"Sort of. You sent her your address and phone number when you first moved here to tell her where you were. She called your house a couple of times, but you never responded to her messages," he told me.
I thought back, trying to remember any messages I may have received from Andrea over the past couple of weeks or months. Then, something occured to me.
"Annie Lawrence!" I said. "That's who that was."
"Yeah," he said, smiling weakly.
"How did you know which hospital we were at?" I asked skeptically.
"Lucky guess," he replied with a shrug.
I was surprised at how calm I was being about this, especially considering that this man and his wife had the potential to take the person I loved more than I had loved any other person away from me.
"Now Annie's going to the room to see Taylor and more than likely tell him that we're leaving in a few days and she probably won't see him," he told me.
"So you're going to leave? Just like that?" I said.
He nodded.
"And how do you think Taylor'll react to this?" I asked him.
"I don't know. I'm not sure that he even cares that she's his mother," he said back. "This will be the first time they've talked to each other since he kicked her out of his room after figuring out who she was."
I sat back, letting this all sink in.
"How could you leave?" I asked, my voice now showing more emotion than before. I was angry and bewildered. How could they do that to Taylor and Parker again? How could they just show up and then leave again?
"By plane," he answered sarcastically. Lawrence had never been a particularly sarcastic person. I guessed Andrea was rubbing off on him.
"Look, Gina," he said serioulsy, leaning forward. My name sounded slightly odd in his voice, much older to go with his much older face. "We didn't come here to make any messes. By just telling Taylor that Annie is his mother, we made one. We're going to have enough problems cleaning that one up. Then we have to leave before we make anymore. Do you understand?"
"No," I answered. "But I never have, so why should I be able to now?"
He sighed for the third time.
"Do you want me to get you a cup of coffee?" he said abruptly. I knew it was an offer to sit down and talk about things. That was Lawrence's technique, to buy you a cup of coffee and talk it all over.
"No," I said. "The coffee here is always cold."
Okay, now I can go back to my pleading. Pleeeeeeease e-mail me!
Index
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Three