Reclaim My Heart

by Donna Fasano

  Her son appeared in the kitchen, his hair combed and a fleck of white toothpaste speckling the neckband of his gray t-shirt. “Ready,” he pronounced.

  Tyne pushed away from the kitchen counter and held her hand out to Lucas. “May I borrow your keys?”

  • • •

  Nestled on the shores of the Susquehanna River, Oak Mills was a quaint town, picturesque, a perfect place for a child to grow up. Or rather, it would have been, had Tyne been born into a different family.

  The school parking lot was empty when she pulled into a space. The adjacent football field and the track surrounding it were vacant, as well. Zach barely waited for the car to come to a halt before he barreled out and started jogging toward the open gate.

  When Tyne caught up to him, he was out in the middle of the grassy field.

  “He actually played ball here?” Zach turned in a circle, staring all around him.

  “He did.” She grinned. “No one could run like Lucas. Of course, the place didn’t look like this back then.” She shaded her eyes with one hand and pointed with the other. “Those bleachers are new, and the lights. Back then the team could only play during daylight hours and our bleachers were at least half that size. Made of painted wood and rusty metal. You were lucky if all you got was a splinter.” She laughed.

  “Maybe I’ll go out for football next year.” There was a clear challenge in the tilt of her son’s head.

  “I didn’t know you were interested in playing football.” Avoiding an argument was enough motivation to keep her tone breezy. “If that’s what you want, it’s okay with me. But, Zach, you do realize that you’ll have to keep your grades up?”

  He ignored that. “I can run. I can block. I could make the varsity team.” He tucked an imaginary football into the crook of his arm and feigned left, then right, then raced toward the goal posts. He ran thirty yards or so and then trotted back to where she’d settled on the home players’ bench near the fifty yard line.

  “So…‌he was good, huh?”

  “Lucas? Yes. He was good.”

  “Was he the star player?”

  Tyne hoped her smile didn’t reflect the sourness she felt. “No. Not the star.”

  Only because his skin was the wrong color, she wanted to add, but didn’t. Instead, she said, “I notice you never refer to Lucas by name. You always say ‘he’ or ‘him.’”

  Zach shrugged. “Don’t know what to call him. Can’t call a stranger Dad. Sounds freaky. And calling him by his first name would be—” again he shrugged “—weird.” Abruptly, he asked, “Were you a cheerleader?”

  His question made her laugh. “For about five minutes. Didn’t last long. I realized really fast that I wasn’t one to stand on the sidelines. I ran track and played field hockey.”

  “All the cheerleaders in my school are snobby beeyotches. Won’t give you the time of day.” Zach scratched a spot on his shoulder. “If they do happen to look at you, they make a face that has you wantin’ to, like, sniff your pits when nobody’s lookin’ to make sure you don’t smell bad or something.”

  Tyne chuckled, slipping the strap of her purse off her shoulder. With her parents such important figures in the town, it had been impossible for her not to have been part of the popular crowd. And, yes, she’d have fit into the beeyotch category, she was sure. The superficiality of it all, the exclusive behavior, had bothered her. She’d often yearned for something deeper, more meaningful, although, as an adolescent, she hadn’t been mature enough to use those words to describe the hollowness she’d felt. But she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed the status and the unending choice of sidekicks that the name Whitlock brought her growing up in Oak Mills. However, she’d learned that admiration and popularity—not to mention loyal friends—could be as fleeting as a puff of smoke…‌thick one minute, vanished the next.

  “This is where you beat that Veronica girl?” Zach called.

  While she’d been lost in thought, he’d made his way over to the track. She got up, snagged her purse strap, and went to the white starting line.

  “Yep. Right here.” She tucked her purse under her elbow. “But it wasn’t paved or painted back then. It was covered in some kind of loose, gritty gray stuff. Covered your shoes with dust and turned your socks the color of lead.” She tapped the bottom of her sandal against the tartan surface. “This is nice.” The silence that splayed over them was uncomfortable, like a scratchy wool blanket on a hot night. Tyne wanted to shove it off her as quick as possible. “You could talk to him, you know. Talk to him about it.”

  Zach just looked at her.

  “About what to call him, I mean.”

  She held her breath, uncertain if what she’d said would touch off his teenaged short fuse.

  Finally, he only nodded, turning to glance up toward the school building that sat up on a small rise. “You guys go to dances and stuff like that?”

  Her smile was lopsided, her attempt at humor failing. “Are you kidding? No way. We didn’t go in for that kind of stuff.”

  Once they’d become friends, they avoided fellow classmates. After they’d started dating, they were careful not to be seen in public together. Dances, any school functions, really, were out of the question. Tensions grew quickly in mixed crowds.

  “Sounds like you two were pretty boring.”

  The burst of laughter that shot from her was genuine. “Hardly.” She realized he was looking for her to elaborate, but there was no way she could tell her son…‌Her whole body flushed with embarrassment as she muttered, “Well, maybe you’re right.”

  After a moment or two, Zach must have realized that was all she was going to offer. He ran up the first three steps of the bleachers and back down again. “So what’s next? I know you said there wasn’t much here, but if this is where you grew up, there has to be more to see, right?”

  They piled into the car and Tyne drove him to the river, the steep road snaking downward to the rocky bank. The wide open view was spectacular, full of cool, lush greenery and churning water. And she spent an hour teaching him to skip stones across the surface of the river. He caught on pretty quickly and seemed to understand the need to search for smooth, flat rocks without having to be told.

  “You’re a natural,” she told him when he’d made a rock skip several times before it plunked beneath the surface.

  He scanned the ground for another stone and when he found one, he smoothed his thumb across it. “This is a really big river.”

  “The Susquehanna is the largest river on the Eastern Shore. When I was in school, some of the kids tried to convince me that the name meant ‘mile wide and foot deep,’ and I even saw that listed in a visitor’s brochure.” She released a stone and it ker-plopped without making a single skip. “But Jasper told me it’s an Algonquian word that means ‘muddy current.’”

  “Uncle Jasper’s pretty cool, don’t you think?”

  She nodded. It seemed there was more her son wanted to say, but he only flung the stone he’d found and grinned when it hopped too many times to count.

  “Show off.” She laughed.

  “I’m thirsty,” he told her, dusting his palms on his shorts. “Can we stop someplace for a soda?”

  They headed back to the car and when she jabbed the key into the ignition, she asked, “Are you hungry?”

  Zach shook his head. “Nah. Not yet. Just thirsty.”

  They made their way to a convenience mart on the outskirts of town. Tyne had successfully evaded Main Street and the town square up until then. Zach hadn’t asked about her childhood home, and she had no idea what she’d say or do if he did.

  The store shelves were only chest-high, so she could see her son standing at the glass door of a refrigerated section of teas, sodas, and juices. She’d brought him out today to talk about his anger toward her, but she had no idea how to broach the subject without just coming right out with it. It felt awkward, and because she couldn’t begin to guess how he might react, she hadn’t even tried to rais
e the subject.

  Having paid for her bottle of water and his peach Snapple, she headed out the door. Zach paused by the stack of newspapers sitting by the door.

  “Hey, Mom—” he jogged across the parking lot after her “—look at this.”

  She stopped at the driver’s side door, her hand on the latch.

  “The town paper. It’s okay. I didn’t steal it. Says right here it’s free. But look.”

  Tyne slid behind the steering wheel and Zach got in beside her.

  “It’s an article about the Mayor.” Excitement sparked his tone as he read, “’Mayor Richard Whitlock cut the ribbon of the Sheer Elegance Hair Salon on Third Avenue this past Saturday.’ How cool is that? The Mayor has our last name. You know him?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Time. It’s what she was in desperate need of. Time for her heart to stop pounding. Time to figure out what the hell to tell her son. She unscrewed the top of her bottle of water and tipped it up for a very long drink.

  “Wow,” she said at last, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. “That’s cold. And delicious. Just what I needed. I was thirstier than I realized. How’s your tea?” Misdirection failure. Even as she asked the question, she knew he wasn’t going to fall for it.

  The bottle sat, unopened, where her son had tucked it between his thighs. Zach was too busy staring at the paper.

  “Do you know this guy?”

  His expression was curious, so guileless, in fact, that she was forced to look away. Her first instinct was to lie. Brazenly. But she couldn’t. She respected her son too much to do that.

  She looked him in the eye and said, “He’s my father, Zach.”

  A tiny frown bit deep into the space between his brows. “Your father is the mayor of Oak Mills?” His voice had gone pliant.

  “Yes. My parents live here, son. Lucas told you I grew up here.”

  He gazed down at the newspaper in his lap, then out the front window at the people coming and going through the door of the convenience store, back at her, then down at the paper.

  “How come you never told me? How come you never brought me here? How come they never visited us?”

  His tone intensified with each question until it seemed the last one was hurled at her rather than spoken. Her heart palpitated and she felt light-headed. She twisted the key and started the car, flipping on the air conditioner the instant the engine purred to life. Cold air blasted from the vent and she pointed it directly at her face and chest.

  “Zach, can we try to stay calm,” she began. “Can we try to talk about this without getting upset? I just don’t think I could take it if you—”

  “I have grandparents!”

  There didn’t seem to be an ounce of joy in the revelation. The words he fired off were crammed with angry accusation.

  “I have grandparents I’ve never met.” He shoved at the paper and the newsprint tumbled to the floor around his feet.

  “Cut it out, Zach,” she scolded. “You’re going to smudge ink on Lucas’s car seats.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the car seats.”

  “Watch your mouth, young man.”

  “I won’t.” He glared at her. “I’ll say whatever the hell I want.” He shifted away from her, closer to the passenger side door.

  Tyne shoved the car into gear and glanced behind her before pulling out of the space, fearful that he might leave the car before she could get moving. Seeing the street was empty, she put her foot on the gas.

  “That’s what you’ve done for my whole life.” The paper crinkled when he moved his leg. “Whatever the hell you want. You don’t think of anyone but yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?” The interior of the car suddenly seemed too hot to support life, so she reached for the knob on the air conditioner and turned the fan up a notch. Logic and experience told her that defending herself by pointing out all the things she’d done for him, all the times she’d put his wants and needs before her own, wouldn’t assuage his anger at this moment.

  “Zach,” she began, then whatever words she meant to say jammed in her throat along with a big knot.

  He faced the passenger side window, his body a tight ball of muscle. “Every year at school we had Grandparents Day. Everyone invited their family for lunch.”

  She wasn’t going to let him go there. “Ms. Josephine went with you several years in a row, Zach.”

  “Ms Jo.,” he spit out contemptuously. “She was my babysitter, Mom. My babysitter.”

  “She loved you very much. She was happy to stand in—”

  He turned on her, his gaze fierce. “I’m just now learning that I didn’t need a stand in. I have the real thing. I just never knew it. Thanks to you.”

  Tyne’s jaw clenched at the same time that her hands grew white-knuckled on the steering wheel, her gaze latched onto the road ahead.

  “I want to meet them. I want you to take me to their house. I want you to take me there right now.”

  “No.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “No, I can’t do that.”

  She didn’t have to look at him to know his coal-black eyes were staring a hole right through her skull.

  “You have to trust me on this, Zach,” she said. “When you’ve calmed down—when we’ve both calmed down—we’ll talk about it.”

  The BMW flew fifty-five in a thirty mile per hour zone, but she didn’t ease up on the gas pedal one iota. She knew exactly what she was doing. Knew exactly where she was heading. To Wikweko. To Lucas. He was the only person on the face of this earth who could help her explain this to her son.

  • • •

  Something was…‌off. Lucas’s gut told him so. It wasn’t anything his uncle had said or done. Intuition alone alerted Lucas that something wasn’t quite right between him and Jasper.

  Tyne had warned him of this and he’d scoffed at the idea. But the strange electricity tingling along his arms and the back of his neck every time there was a short lull in the conversation made him realize he should have heeded Tyne’s warning.

  He’d come to the apartment over the gallery where his uncle lived this morning looking for information, but this awkward air bothered him, so much so that the questions he’d wanted to ask about his mother went unasked.

  The kettle had been heating on the stove when he’d arrived, so he accepted his uncle’s offer of tea. Although Jasper’s kitchenette was compact, it had all the necessary conveniences. The two men sat opposite each other at the small, round table, another silence stretching out long, tentacle-like fingers, and Lucas could barely resist the urge to rub his palm over the prickling sensation at his nape. He was just about to point out the huge elephant that seemed to be sharing the small space with them when Jasper spoke.

  “There was a fish,” his uncle said, “that lived in a tiny cove.”

  Lucas went still. He knew that tone. It was the one Jasper used when he recounted Lenape myth. As a boy, Lucas had been mesmerized by the stories his uncle told, spending hours going over them in his head so he wouldn’t miss a single nuance of wisdom they contained. However, today his Uncle’s profundity was ill-timed and less than welcome. He rolled his eyes, and under his breath he mumbled, “Here we go.”

  “The fish swam in a school with other fish just like him. Brothers. Sisters.” There was a dramatic pause before he added, “Family. He grew and was happy. One day he heard about a place. A wondrous place called the ocean, and the fish decided he no longer wanted to live in the cove with his own kind.” Jasper set down the mug of fragrant herbal tea. “He wanted to experience new things, to be amazed and astounded by those things he had not yet seen but had only heard of. So he left his family. He began a long journey to the ocean.”

  Even just half-listening, understanding dawned on Lucas, and he sat forward in his chair to focus on his Uncle’s words. He’d moved away. He hadn’t been home in years. He’d neglected his duties as a nephew. The path this story was taking was plain. He deserved a lecture; he’d s
it here quietly and take it like a man. At least the cause of this stiffness between them would no longer be a mystery.

  “The fish swam into deeper water, following the swift current.” Jasper’s gaze never wavered from Lucas’s face. “The water became so deep the sunlight could not penetrate, so the fish had trouble seeing. He wondered if he should turn back, but ambition to see different things—to be different—urged him on. He was not used to the strong undercurrent. He was tossed and flipped and flung, the jagged rocks and brightly colored coral ripping at his tender flesh. The loss of scales made him weak.”

  Lucas frowned.

  “A storm arose,” Jasper continued, “and churned the water, capturing the fish in a dangerous eddy that tore at his fins. The fish rested by a pristine clam shell only to be nearly devoured by a barracuda.”

  “Stop.” Lucas stood and took a couple of steps to stand at the kitchen’s narrow window. The scent of smoky bacon wafted on the breeze. One of the other artists on the street must be having a late breakfast.

  He turned to look at Jasper. “I thought I knew what was going on. Thought I’d figured out the moral of your story. But you’ve lost me.” Lucas tugged on his earlobe and shook his head. Then he stood up straighter. “I’m not a kid, Uncle Jasper. If you have something you want to say to me, just say it.”

  Jasper listened and then looked down to study his mug. “You used to hang on my every word.” The older man lifted his gaze. “But you are a man, and you want to be treated like a man. I understand.”

  The turn the story had taken had unsettled Lucas. He wasn’t weak; he wasn’t torn or tattered. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  His uncle seemed to be measuring his thoughts. Finally, he said, “Ambition is a hungry master. It feeds on pieces of its servant until—”

  “I have no master.”

  They stared at one another.

  “I don’t want you to lose sight of who you are, Lucas. Of where you came from.”

  “I know who I am. I am Lenape. And I know where I came from.”