Читать книгу Finally a Hero - Pamela Tracy - Страница 11

Chapter Two

It didn’t seem possible, but the longer Jesse stared at the boy, the more he believed it. He had a son.

He tried to think of a scripture where a surprise son or daughter appeared, but couldn’t. Joseph might have been surprised when Mary told him about the son she carried, but she’d not followed the pronouncement with “Guess what? He’s yours.”

“So, you met Matilda?” It was all he could think of to say.

“Interesting girl,” his mother said.

Jesse’d lived with Matilda Scott for three months, just after he’d aged out of the foster system. He’d managed to deal with the assigned group home for only three days. Matilda’s one-room apartment had been an oasis for the next few months. Then she’d disappeared overnight, leaving him with rent due and a vague fear that he’d just been used by a woman too much like his mother.

He’d steered clear of relationships ever since.

Easy enough, since he’d spent much of that time in prison.

“But then, I only talked with her for all of twenty minutes.” His mother shook her head, her expression half mad, half impressed. “She knocked on the door. Next thing I knew, she was in the house telling me that Timmy was your son and that she had dreams to pursue. She wanted me to keep Timmy until you got out of prison. She kept saying, ‘It’s just nine days.’ I told her no. I mean, come on. Couldn’t she see we were in a one-bedroom apartment? She went to use the restroom and crawled out the window and disappeared. Wonder what she would have done if I hadn’t been on the first floor? And, she left me with the kid! If I’d been sober, she wouldn’t have gotten away with it.”

Looking across the table at Timmy, he tried to decipher if the young boy showed any emotion at being abandoned. Not really. Then, Jesse looked at his mother and tried to see any hint of interest, grandparental pride, something.

Nothing.

“How’d Matilda find you?”

“Didn’t get around to asking,” Susan said. “And she didn’t bother telling.”

“Timmy,” Jesse said, “did you know Matilda, your mom, planned on dropping you off?”

The yellow crayon clutched between Timmy’s fingers was quickly becoming a nub. The little boy didn’t look from the gold-panning scene he was coloring.

“Do you know your mom’s phone number?” Jesse tried next.

“I’ve already asked him, at least twice a day. He hasn’t said a word. I don’t think he can talk. Anyway, she didn’t leave a phone number or previous address. Nothing except her car, some games and a bunch of clothes.” His mother picked up her fork and ate her food as if it had been a week since her last meal. She didn’t look at Timmy.

He’d felt that same parental disconnect during his childhood. Felt it now, at twenty-four years of age. He didn’t know the woman sitting across from him, felt no connection. When Jesse was very young, he hadn’t been allowed to call her “mother.” She’d passed him off as her younger brother because calling him her son might have discouraged boyfriends. The deception worked for a little while because she’d had him at fifteen. But as time passed, the drugs and hard living made her look even older than her actual age.

Matilda had dropped off their son and disappeared? Jesse had no history, nothing to go on. Where had they been living? Had Matilda tried to be a good mom? What had happened? He had all kinds of questions, but they were not ones he’d ask in front of the child. Already, though, he knew his mother was telling the truth. Matilda had abandoned Timmy the same way Matilda had abandoned Jesse. And the same way Jesse’s mother used to abandon him.

This wasn’t how he’d pictured his first day of freedom. Jesse wanted to come to town, meet his employer and join productive society: the working world. He needed time to figure out his future.

He’d need a lifetime to figure out what to do with Timmy.

“You need to eat,” his mother advised him. “I, for one, am starved.”

Any appetite Jesse might have had disappeared with the words “Meet your son.”

The waitress, way too happy, came over and refilled Jesse’s water glass. She scooted Timmy’s milk glass closer to him as if to hint “Drink this. It does a body good.” If she noticed something amiss, she didn’t let it show.

She walked away from them to chat with the blonde seated in the corner. When Jesse looked over, he noticed the woman was watching him, her expression guarded and somewhat disdainful. He got the feeling she knew not only where he came from and what he’d done but had already made up her mind that his future would be just as bleak. The look on her face was the same one the guard had given him before saying he’d see him soon. Yet for all that, she was a pretty thing, all long blond hair and Westerny: clean and soft.

Clean and soft weren’t the words most females wanted to hear, but to a man fresh out of prison, they were powerful. She looked like someone well taken care of.

Someone smart enough to stay away from him.

Her cheeks colored about the time Jesse looked away. He had other things to focus on, like a newly discovered son.

He took the first bite of his hamburger, washing it down with a swig of water, and asked, “Did Matilda say why she dropped Timmy off? Was she in some kind of trouble? I mean, did she say when she’d be back?”

His mother rolled her eyes. “She didn’t even say she was leaving before she climbed out the bathroom window without taking her kid.”

Timmy didn’t act like he knew they were talking about him.

“And, you’ve had him how long?” Jesse asked.

“Nine days now.”

Jesse figured in those nine days, his mother had done more talking at the kid than to the kid. That was her style. Looking at Timmy, she said, “His mother left a twenty, but that didn’t last long. I’ve had to buy lots of extra food, stuff I normally don’t buy. Things like spaghetti, peanut butter, jelly and Pop-Tarts. Nothing in the car worth selling. Believe me, I looked. And then there’s the gas for driving him here.”

He knew exactly what his mother was telling him and took a deep breath. She wanted to be reimbursed. But what money could she honestly expect from a man who’d been out of jail for only a few hours? He was living on faith, but had no clue how faith could help Matilda, his mother or Timmy. Part of him wanted to pray; part of him wanted to run out of the restaurant. Instead, hating himself for what he couldn’t provide, he said, “You’ve come to the wrong man. Right now, I can barely help myself.”

“Not sure you’ll have a choice.”

If not for the generosity of Mike Hamm, he wouldn’t even have the clothes on his back. The prison chaplain had provided him with the pants and shirt, not wanting him to leave prison in state-provided denim blues.

“I don’t have anything to give,” he told his mother.

She didn’t respond. Instead, resignation on her face, she glanced out the restaurant window, looking like she wished she was miles away. He knew she wasn’t wishing to be any place in particular—just anywhere but where she was.

The boy watched, not uttering a word, ignoring Jesse’s attempts to ask him about age, school status and favorite things to do. The yellow crayon broke, and now Timmy colored with a dark blue crayon.

“Got a job lined up?” his mother finally asked after checking her watch for a third time.

“Yes.”

Susan gave a shrug and took the last bite of her meal. “That’s more than I can manage. Soon, though, things will be better. I’ve met a guy, a nice guy, and we’re heading for New Mexico. Maybe this time it will last.”

Jesse had never figured out what the “it” his mother talked about was. When he was young, he’d thought it meant love. As a teenager, he’d thought it meant monetary support. Now, as an ex-con, he figured it meant companionship and money.

His mother didn’t really understand the concept of love, so that couldn’t be it.

“He’s not crazy about the kid, I’ll tell you that,” Susan continued. As if cued, her cell phone sounded a rendition of “Free Bird.” She picked it up and looked at the number. “Oh, it’s him.” She answered with a “Hey,” then stood and said to Jesse, “Let me take this where I can hear.”

She headed to the front of the restaurant and stopped at the door. Before exiting, she said, “He’ll be excited that you and I met up.”

Somehow Jesse doubted it. In all his years, not one of Susan’s boyfriends had been excited about meeting Jesse. And certainly, meeting Jesse—fresh out of prison—with Timmy as collateral damage was more than any significant other could take.

Jesse turned his attention back to his meal. The food was better than anything he’d had in the past few years and he intended to enjoy it while he could—and enjoy the momentary silence before his mother returned.

* * *

Working at the ranch, being in charge of guest relations, Eva’d seen dysfunctional families up close and personal. As a matter of fact, she’d called the police a time or two, and once drove a woman all the way to California when her husband decided to end their marriage in the middle of their vacation.

Not fun.

She wasn’t sure how the woman who’d just sashayed from the restaurant was connected to Timmy’s father. He’d never spoken to her by name. She dressed young, but her face bore the lines of hard living. She’d introduced the boy as “your son” and not “our son.”

The man, on the other hand, didn’t look as rough—in part because he clearly had God in his life. Again, Eva felt a nudge of guilt. Last Sunday morning’s sermon had been about being judgmental. Sitting beside her father on the pew, Eva knew this was a trait she struggled with. At the front desk of the ranch, she often decided on personalities of people before they’d finished check-in.

She judged which parents were too easy on their offspring. She judged which family would prove to be good tippers and which would leave their rooms an absolute mess. She was often right—but she’d been wrong a time or two.

Maybe she’d misjudged the man across the restaurant.

Eva glanced out the window and watched as the woman passed the bench by the front door, quickly lit up a cigarette, and then headed alongside the building.

The phone call must be really private for her to go out back where the Dumpsters were located. Except...she’d already put away her phone.

Stop it, Eva told herself. This is ridiculous. Go back to your book. She reread the last paragraph, but she’d forgotten the storyline.

Outside, the woman walked up to a man on a motorcycle.

Feeling slightly ridiculous, Eva glared at the doors to the kitchen. The bill...Eva really needed her bill. She was worried, actually worried about the two males left behind. And she didn’t even know them! If the restaurant hadn’t been so empty and the family—at least the woman—so noisy, Eva wouldn’t be so curious.

At least curiosity wasn’t a sin.

Not in moderation.

The rev of the motorcycle engine sounded right outside. Eva sighed and gave up pretending that she wasn’t watching. Peering through the window, Eva watched as the woman took one last puff from a cigarette before throwing it to the ground. She seemed agitated.

She also seemed to know the man on the motorcycle. Well enough that she climbed on the seat and wrapped her arms around his leather jacket. And then, off they went.

Eva hoped she hadn’t just witnessed someone getting dumped, especially not a someone who’d just heard the words “Meet your son.”

None of my business, Eva reminded herself.

But she knew the woman hadn’t said goodbye. And she knew what it was like to wait for someone who had no intention of returning.

She glanced back at the two guys left in the restaurant. The little boy, Timmy, picked at his food, eating with his fingers, and making a mess of his face. The man pushed an extra napkin in his direction, but Timmy ignored it, coloring more vigorously in between bites of food. Then his crayon rolled toward the edge of the table, and when he moved to grab it, he knocked over his water glass. Water covered the page he’d been coloring. Timmy froze.

Eva knew that response. The kid expected some kind of punishment.

“It’s okay,” the man said, gently. “We’ve got plenty of napkins.”

Just then, Jane showed up with more. Timmy was an unyielding mannequin. He looked like he was barely breathing. The man literally had to scoot the boy’s chair out of the way so Jane could clean the table.

Eva looked out the window again. The motorcycle and its two riders were long gone.

Jane brought Timmy a new coloring sheet. “You want dessert?” she asked.

“No, my mother stepped outside to take a call,” the man said. “As soon as she returns, we’ll pay the bill and take off.”

So the woman was his mother. But if he waited for her to come back, they’d be waiting a long time. Eva waved Jane over.

“You need to tell him,” Eva whispered, “that his mother just took off on a motorcycle with some guy.”

Jane took a step back. “You’re kidding. I don’t want to tell him.”

“We can’t leave them waiting.”

“You tell him,” Jane said, and before Eva could stop her, she’d motioned for him to join them.

Eva watched as he glanced at his mother’s keys, at Timmy and then at the front door before joining them.

Eva should have left a twenty on the table and hightailed it from the restaurant. Then she wouldn’t have been in this uncomfortable position. She looked out the window again, hoping the woman would magically appear. “You’re waiting for your friend to come back?”

“My mother,” the man admitted, then leaned forward, one strong hand braced on Eva’s table and the other pushing the curtain farther aside. “Did she fall or something?”

“Um,” Eva said, “I think she took off with some man on a motorcycle. I couldn’t see his face because he wore a helmet. They took off down the road, probably toward the interstate.”

“Oh, man, you’ve got to be kidding.” He’d had a stoic, too-serious expression from the time they’d entered the restaurant, but now she could clearly read shock all over his face.

Eva shook her head, not kidding.

He marched over to his table and ordered Timmy, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

The boy didn’t move. Hadn’t since he’d spilled his water. But once his father turned away from him, he started edging to the floor and under the table.

As Eva and Jane watched, the man stepped outside, looked to the right and left. Not much happening on this blistering August day. It was after the noon rush, and the parking lot was empty save for four cars, including the one Eva had watched him arrive in.

Then he came back inside. Timmy was completely under the table, thumb in mouth, beginning a curious humming sound. The man walked past him, straight for Eva. “Tell me what you saw,” he ordered.

“I saw her leaving.”

“Story of my life,” he muttered.