by Sandy Hall
Jane wiped at the tears with the hem of her T-shirt and drove home.
Chapter 20
Within a minute after the bus left the curb, Teo had to stop himself from leaping out of the seat and telling the driver to let him get off.
There weren’t very many people on the bus at this time of the morning, and Teo had chosen the seat closest to the driver because the idea of walking much farther down the aisle wasn’t appealing. But now he was sitting on his hands like a child whose mother had yelled at him, just trying to keep himself from jumping out the emergency exit.
He could envision the scene if he leaped up and started yelling. The driver’s shocked expression, his fellow passengers’ faces etched with confusion, the relief he would feel running back down the street to Jane.
In fact, this vision was probably Jane’s fault. Her imagination was rubbing off on him.
But he kept himself together, making it to the airport. He started to sweat when he tried to check in at a ticket kiosk and the screen kept saying that his confirmation number was invalid. It took two more tries before he realized he was trying to check in with the wrong airline.
Things went more smoothly after that, even if the whole thing was overwhelming. He tried to take it one step at a time. He found the gate and waited to board. He located his seat and stowed his carry-on properly under the seat in front of him. He gripped the arms of the chair during takeoff and listened to the same five songs on repeat during the whole flight because he didn’t feel like finding a new playlist on his phone.
The shuttle was waiting right where Jane told him it would be, and he was on campus in no time. He texted Jane to tell her he was okay and then put his phone on silent. He needed to do this himself.
It was a quiet Wednesday afternoon on campus. He wondered if all campuses were like this in the summer. If they were, it wasn’t a shock that his mom would rather spend her time doing work in the campus library than at home with his three screaming little sisters.
When he found the right building, he checked the time on his phone and saw a string of text messages from Jane. He didn’t even let the words sink in before slipping the phone back into his pocket.
He walked through the main doors and followed the directions Jane had gotten online.
Thoughts of Jane helped him make his way through the halls and up a flight of stairs until he found himself in front of a door that read MATEO RODRIGUEZ.
All he had to do was knock.
* * *
Jane was in the midst of the longest day of her life.
When she got to work that morning, Connie showed her the note Teo had left. Jane read it with bleary eyes, even though she already knew the contents.
“I don’t have time to deal with his car this morning,” Connie said. “So that means it will be in the way all day.”
“That’s okay. I’ll find other stuff to do with the girls around the house.”
Connie squeezed her shoulder. “Thank you, Jane. You’ve been a real asset this summer.”
“It’s been a great time,” Jane said, and she wasn’t lying.
Connie left, and the girls came tumbling into the kitchen dressed in what Jane could only describe as bathing costumes.
Each one was wearing a normal bathing suit, but with leis and straw skirts, and Keegan had on something that was probably supposed to be a sarong but looked more like a toga. Because she was seven.
“We’re going to have a fashion show,” Keegan told Jane.
“Do I get to watch?” Jane asked.
“Yes!” Piper said, taking Jane’s hand and leading her to the couch. “You sit here and clap for each of our outfits.”
“I can handle that,” Jane said, settling in for what she hoped would be a full morning of entertainment for the girls. Unfortunately, they tired of it when Rory almost choked herself trying to get her bathing suit off over her head.
It didn’t help that Jane was a terrible combination of emotions, and the girls could probably sense her unrest. She was tapping her fingers on any surface she could find and running her hands through her hair, and yawns overtook every other sentence she spoke.
After the near disaster with the bathing suit, Jane persuaded the girls to spend the rest of the morning watching a movie while she snuggled into the corner of the sectional and dozed on and off. It wasn’t her most professional decision, but she was beat.
The girls were pulling her from every direction when it was lunchtime. Jane was sleepwalking by that point, making their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on autopilot. Thank God they hadn’t wanted soup and grilled cheese, because there was a good chance she would have burned the house down.
She checked her cell phone again and again, without finding any messages from Teo. If his flight ran even a few minutes late, he could lose his window of opportunity. He would have to track Mateo Rodriguez down after office hours, and that could get a little complicated. Jane kept her fingers crossed, in between the tapping and hair touching, because there was nothing else for her to do.
“We want to go to the pool!” Keegan said after lunch. She really was like the union president when it came to her sisters.
Aside from the fact Teo wouldn’t be at the pool and she had no way to get them there, Jane couldn’t imagine having to watch them in the water this afternoon. Even after slugging two cups of coffee with lots of flavored creamer, she still wasn’t at her most energetic.
Jane did the only thing she could think of: She finally made good on her promise to create an at-home sprayground.
The girls walked with Jane to her house and helped bring back the Slip ’N Slide. They set it up in the front yard, along with the sprinkler and the baby pool.
Jane turned on the lawn sprinklers, and the girls were thrilled. Jane sat on the steps and watched them run around and slip and dance and be silly for a solid thirty minutes.
Around two o’clock, Jane got a text from Teo. He said he was in Champaign and he’d get in touch with her when he knew more. She texted him back.
* * *
Eight hundred miles away, Teo was quietly panicking.
He paced the unfamiliar hallway and cracked his knuckles. And then, miraculously, the door swung open and there stood Mateo Rodriguez.
“Hello there.”
An odd sort of discouragement flooded every bone in Teo’s body. He hadn’t acknowledged the thought previously, but he had hoped deep down inside that his father would recognize him as soon as he saw his face. That wasn’t the case.
Teo swallowed.
“Are you in one of my classes? Or are you signing up? Cat got your tongue?”
Teo shook his head.
“Do you want to come in for office hours?” Mateo asked, gesturing for Teo to walk through the door. Teo followed him. He felt like he was in a trance, as if he’d been hypnotized and no one remembered the magic word to wake him up.
“Are you okay?” Mateo asked when Teo stood uncomfortably next to a chair. “You look like you might be ill.”
Teo did feel like he might be ill. Every strand of hair on his body stood at attention, and sweat trickled down his forehead. He fought the urge to crack his knuckles again, but lost and ended up cracking every finger individually.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Mateo Rodriguez asked. Teo could hear the way his voice was getting worried, the way it pitched up at the end of the question. Teo looked at the man across from him, taking in the graying temples and icy-blue metal of his glasses. Teo liked him. He just wished that the man across the desk recognized his long lost-son.
Teo stood up to leave. Obviously something was wrong with him—he couldn’t speak in front of the man he’d come all this way to see. His phone slipped out of his pocket and landed on the floor, waking itself up. All Jane’s texts were lit up on the screen, and he read them quickly, the last one really standing out.
And that was what woke him up. He could ask yes-or-no questions. He could manage that, to bring the truth out
slowly.
“Do you know who I am?” Teo asked.
“No.”
“Do you know Connie Garcia?”
Mateo smiled fondly. “I do.”
“Did you know she had a son?”
“I did not know that.” He rubbed his chin. “Are you her son?”
Teo nodded, knocked slightly off balance by having to answer a question himself.
“Are you thinking about coming here for school? Did Connie send you? I didn’t know she knew I worked here.”
Teo shook his head this time.
“Then why—” Mateo started.
“My name is Teo Garcia, and I think I might be your son,” Teo said, interrupting.
“Oh.”
Chapter 21
Jane chewed her nails down to the quick, waiting and waiting for more information from Teo. At least she knew he’d gotten there and he hadn’t been killed or kidnapped. Knowing he was alive and okay made her heart stop slamming around in her chest.
Unless his kidnapper had used Teo’s phone to text Jane and give her a false sense of comfort. They would have to make a Lifetime original movie about this. She spent a few minutes thinking of titles for it, finally settling on Taken at the Airport: The Teo Garcia Story.
She sent another text about an hour after getting his message:
When Connie got home an hour earlier than usual, the girls were still playing in the baby pool, even though Jane had made them turn off the sprinkler earlier.
“Hi, Mommy!” they yelled.
Connie waved at them and took a seat next to Jane on the steps.
“I apologize if your water bill is astronomical next month,” Jane said.
Connie laughed. “They look very happy, so I imagine it’ll be worth it.”
“Yeah, they’re in great moods today.”
“I wish my son could be in half as good a mood as these three are. I never see him smile anymore.”
Jane hummed in response. She saw him smile all the time, but she didn’t want to make Connie feel bad.
“He grunts answers and seems unhappy with everything,” Connie went on. “I don’t look forward to him coming home later, angry about his car not starting and acting like it’s somehow my fault. Or Buck’s fault. Lately, a lot of things—at least according to Teo—are Buck’s fault.”
Jane tried to think of something to say to make Connie feel better. But she knew too much now. She knew too much about what was going on behind the scenes in the Garcia-Buchanan household, and she was too aware that Connie could have fixed her relationship with Teo a long time ago. Maybe not fixed it, but at least made it better somehow. Talked to him about his father instead of ignoring the issue. But it wasn’t Jane’s place to say that.
“Has he said anything to you?” Connie asked.
Jane opened her mouth, taking a deep breath, hoping that maybe a bug would fly in and keep her from having to answer Connie’s question. But there were no kamikaze bugs that day.
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I feel like he’s been sad about something, but I don’t know what. We’re not really that close.” Except they were close enough that Jane had driven him to the bus stop before dawn so he could fly away and find his father. She wasn’t sure you could really get much closer than that.
“I don’t want to put you on the spot, Jane. I thought maybe he mentioned something. I know part of the problem is that Ravi has been gone all summer long and Teo hasn’t had an outlet. But he seemed to be talking to you more. The girls even mentioned it.”
Jane looked over at the three girls splashing in the baby pool. “They’re very observant.”
“Do you think he’s okay?”
“He’s fine,” Jane said, even though every minute that ticked by made her think that maybe he really had been kidnapped.
“It’s weird that he left that note this morning. It solidified all these worries I’ve had about him pulling away. Like he’s going to be the kind of person who goes away to college and never comes home again. I don’t want that for him.”
“What does Buck say?” Jane asked. It was an odd question, but it was something she often wondered about. Buck’s opinion of Teo was a complete mystery to her.
“Buck says it’ll be fine. He says Teo’s been getting better lately, not worse. I think Buck’s a little bit in denial.”
Jane nodded. “I think every family has problems like this as the kids grow up. I know my parents are kind of dealing with it right now.”
“Thank you for listening, Janie,” Connie said, giving Jane’s shoulder a squeeze.
“Not a problem,” Jane said.
“Anything you need to discuss, now that I’ve talked your ear off with my troubles?”
Jane wished she could. She wanted to spill everything to Connie, sitting there in the afternoon sun with the girls dancing around the lawn and the cicadas chirping in the trees. She would tell Connie that she didn’t want to go to college and that she didn’t know what to do about Teo. She would tell her that right that very second Teo was in Illinois meeting his father. Jane would tell Connie everything. But too much of it wasn’t hers to tell, and the thought of trying to talk about college and the future just made her more exhausted.
“I’m good,” Jane said.
“You look tired.”
“Just staying up too late, watching TV and chatting on the Internet.”
Connie smiled. “You know where to find me if you ever need me.”
“I do,” Jane said.
On her way home, she sent another string of text messages. It wasn’t enough to know that Teo hadn’t been kidnapped; she needed to know he was okay.
* * *
After Teo declared his parentage, the office grew very, very quiet. Mateo sat behind his desk with his hands clasped, and his jaw dropped slightly.
Teo held his breath, his fight-or-flight response once more telling him emphatically to flee, to run all the way back to New Jersey.
“I think I need a coffee. Would you like to join me?” Mateo asked.
“Um, sure,” Teo said.
They walked to the student center in silence. When they got there, Mateo offered to buy Teo a drink, too.
“Water would be fine,” Teo said. He sat at a table and waited while Mateo ordered coffee and purchased a bottle of water.
When Teo took a second to check his phone, he found a string of text messages from Jane about being kidnapped.
Teo couldn’t help smiling. It was all so very Jane.
She responded immediately, and he could hear her voice saying the words.
Mateo sat down across from Teo then and handed him the bottle of water.
“I think you might have me confused with my brother, Jose.”
“Oh,” Teo said. “Yeah. That’s a possibility. That’s the name that showed up on my birth certificate. But my friend Jane found you, and we couldn’t find him.”
Mateo nodded. “I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but Jose died about fifteen years ago.”
Teo felt the air go out of him. In all their talk of contingencies, possibilities, and the various ways things could go wrong, they’d never considered that Teo’s dad could be dead.
“I’m very sorry,” Mateo said.
Teo shook his head.
“He was young. He had just gotten out of the air force. I wrote Connie to tell her, even. They hadn’t spoken in years.”
Teo couldn’t stop shaking his head. This time, he didn’t think he’d be able to control his fight-or-flight.
“I don’t think he knew about you,” Mateo added.
A tear trailed down Teo’s cheek. That was exactly what he needed to hear. That was the good news in all this. And that was what kept him from running.
But even as he felt relief about his father, the anger that had been growing all summer toward his mother finally erupted.
“She never told him about me?” he asked.
“Not that I know of. Jose wasn’t much for keeping secrets.
I think if he’d known, he would have told me.”
“She never—” Teo said, shaking his head. A feeling of betrayal flooded his brain. All that time, all those years, she’d never told anyone about Teo, like he was a shameful secret. Like he was something to hide. Teo’s hands tightened into fists, and he could hardly keep himself from punching the wall.
“Hey, hey,” Mateo said, holding his hands up defensively.
“No, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I can’t believe she never told my father.”
“What are you doing here, kid?”
“I came looking for you.”
“Does Connie know where you are?”
“Um, yes.”
His uncle—he had an uncle, a real blood-related uncle, not one of those impostors from Buck’s family—looked at him doubtfully but didn’t challenge him.
“How did you get here?”
“Plane,” Teo said.
Mateo rubbed at his eyes and then slugged down the rest of his coffee. “Why don’t you come back to my place? It’s a couple of blocks from here. We should talk this out a little more. And I should probably call your mom.”
“Yeah, sure. But I’ll call my mom, okay? You don’t have to do that.”
Mateo nodded.
When they got to Mateo’s condo, Teo sent Jane a long text.
Then he turned off his phone and sat down with his uncle.
Chapter 22
Jane read and reread Teo’s latest text. She had sent multiple responses to it last night, but he was obviously ignoring her. (Or he’d been kidnapped. She still didn’t want to rule out a kidnapping.) She had even tried calling him.
Now it was morning, and she was at the Buchanans’, and there wasn’t a heck of a lot she could do about Teo at the moment. But she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Even though it was her last day of babysitting, she couldn’t give the girls her full attention.
There was something about the tone of Teo’s text that made Jane want to see him immediately, to look him in the eye and talk some sense into him. He loved to tell her how logical she was. Maybe it was time to really show off her logic and make an impression.
