“This isn’t right, Laura,” Jake said. “You shouldn’t have come around here like this. Better if you had called. Given us some warning.”
Laura was close enough to reach out and touch Jake’s shoulder. When she did, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t feel a spark, either, like he had when they first started to date in high school. Still, something was there, a little echo from the love they once had shared.
Laura said, “I didn’t want you to say no.”
It was exactly how Laura would think.
Laura peered over Jake’s shoulder at the Tahoe. “Is he in there? Is that Andy?”
Jake nodded. “He’s in there, but I’m not calling for him. If he wants to talk to you, he’ll open the door himself.”
Laura looked surprised. “He knows it’s me?” she asked.
The hopefulness in Laura’s voice again made Jake feel sorry for her. She’d missed so much of the good stuff. Andy had given Jake’s life shape and purpose, and Laura had spurned it all to chase down the hope of a better tomorrow. But what was she really chasing? An easier life? More money? Jake had never thought Laura stopped loving her son, but she did stop loving her life. For that, Andy had paid the heaviest price.
“I gave him a book of pictures,” Jake said. “You haven’t changed much, Laura. It’s still you.”
Laura gave an indifferent shrug, but her act didn’t fool Jake. She was clearly pleased by the compliment. “Has he talked about me much?” she asked.
“Your name has come up a few times.”
Laura smiled, and Jake broke away from her gaze. He couldn’t stare at her for long without seeing the past. Plenty of good memories offset the bad. Of course there were the fights, the blame and shame for the accident, dishes shattered against the kitchen wall, but time brushed clean the intensity of those memories-the good feelings that came from being in Laura’s presence were easy for Jake to recall.
At the stadium, she had been a fixture in the stands-always cheering him on, her voice carrying above the others, filling him with encouragement. In bed, Laura had been inventive and uninhibited, and her touch was not easily forgotten. In a way, Laura’s sudden arrival made Jake fully aware of his growing feelings for Ellie. Laura was the past, whereas Ellie could very well be his future.
Laura reached for another smoke, but something made her put the pack away. “How’d you know I was here?” Jake asked.
“Facebook,” Laura said.
“Facebook?”
“I’m friends with Andy.”
“Oh, shit, Laura.”
“Of course I didn’t tell him it was me. I used a picture of a girl I… I know.”
From the way Laura paused, Jake suspected the picture was the daughter of a man she’d been with. Maybe her own daughter-what did he know?
“You’re going to have to tell him about the Facebook account.”
“I will,” Laura said.
There was a moment of silence that Jake wanted to fill, but he couldn’t find the words.
“Where have you been?” he finally asked.
“Around,” Laura said. “A lot of time in California. The last couple of years I’ve been living with my mom. She died a few months ago.”
Jake’s eyes became downcast. He’d always been fond of Laura’s mom and dad. However, after Laura left, they withdrew from Jake and from Andy, feeling it wouldn’t be fair to Andy to be a part of his life. He was too young to know them, and their presence would have been confusing and a reminder of his mother’s abandonment. Jake didn’t agree. Why deprive a child of his grandparents? But the decision was made and final. Laura didn’t just remove herself from the family; she took all the relationships tethered to her as well.
“I’m so sorry, Laura. Your mom was a wonderful woman.”
“My dad’s been doing okay, but he misses her.”
“Is that why you came looking for me? For us?”
Laura got a faraway look in her eyes. “I guess Mom’s passing put things in a different light.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
The silence returned.
“What do you want, Laura?”
Laura tried to swallow a sob, but her tight lips couldn’t hold it in. “I want to see my son. I want to see Andy. I want so much.” Tears pooled in her eyelids and fell freely, and her body convulsed as she gasped while weeping. “I’m so sorry. I’ve messed so much up.”
Jake took a step toward her. The instinct to comfort had not abated with the years. But he stopped and turned at the sound of a car door opening. He saw Andy approaching, hands stuffed into the pocket of his sweatshirt, eyes cast down.
Andy stopped a few feet away from Laura. “You think you can just show up here and start to cry and make me feel sorry for you? How about my tears? I don’t think you felt sorry for a single one.”
Laura brushed her eyes clear with the back of her hand.
“Please, Andy. Let’s talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
Andy sprinted for the woods. Laura got ready to pursue him, but Jake lowered his arm like a barricade and held her in place.
“Where’s he’s going?” she asked.
“He wants to be alone,” Jake said.
“In the woods by himself? Aren’t you going to go after him?”
Jake couldn’t suppress a smile. “Trust me, Laura, he’ll be more than all right on his own out there. Where are you staying?”
Laura craned her neck to look back at the trailer.
“Any extra room here?”
Jake chortled. “You’re really something,” he said. “If the circumstances were different, I’d honestly be tempted. I won’t lie to you. I’ve always cared for you, and I’ve missed you. I want to know where you’ve been all these years, what happened to you. I want to know it all. But this is Andy’s home, too, and we’ve got to respect him.”
“You’re seeing somebody, aren’t you?” Laura asked.
“I am.”
“Do you love her?”
Jake thought a beat. “I do.”
And maybe soon, I’ll even tell her that myself.
Jake fished sixty dollars out of his wallet. “There’s a Motel 6 a couple miles down Route 120. I’ll give you my number. You can check in with me in the morning and we’ll see about getting you and Andy together. But it’s going to be up to him, not me, to make it happen.”
Laura nodded. She obviously wasn’t thrilled, but she took the proffered cash anyway. “Thanks, Jake. You always were a sweetheart.”
“Yeah, maybe so,” Jake said. “But you’re going to do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re going to unfriend Andy. Tonight. Find a computer and get it done. If you’re going to come back into our son’s life, you’re going to do it with honesty.”
Again Jake thought of Ellie, and he knew she deserved the same.
CHAPTER 14
Given the number of student organizations on campus and the limited amount of available space, the CB-B10 conference room, in the basement of the Cargill Building, should have been booked constantly, but it was no longer in the system. Pixie had hacked the online reservation system and deleted the windowless room from the available inventory, essentially making it disappear. Because students could no longer reserve CB-B10, and because the administrative folks knew it was not to be commissioned for classroom use, it was available to The Shire as a dedicated meeting spot. They had renamed it “Sherwood Forest,” in deference to the theme of their operation.
Cargill was not centrally located on campus. Sometimes the distance made it more practical to meet in The Quad or at one of the school’s many lunchrooms between classes. For this particular gathering, though, Andy wanted to use Sherwood Forest. The mood of the six young people seated around the solid oak conference table was somber and tense.
“This meeting will come to order,” Andy began. “Let’s take roll call.”