by Boo Walker
They walked past the giant mural of Louis and his trumpet on the side of the restaurant and walked through the open gates. Mr. B, one of the owners, chatted them up for a while and then sat them outside under the pergola. A bottle of Crystal Hot Sauce graced every table.
Sipping on sweet tea, they snacked on the complimentary fried okra, chatted casually, and perused the menu of New Orleans fare. They ordered the jambalaya, the crawfish étouffée, a shrimp po’boy, and beignets to share.
Claire popped an okra into her mouth. “So what’s new with you, Didi? I’m sorry I’ve been distant.” Claire hadn’t called her friend in more than a week.
“Oh, I get it. You two have been busy. And clearly developing a little thing.”
Blushing, Claire took Whitaker’s hand, and they met eyes. The guilt she’d felt when they’d first kissed had all but gone away, and in its stead she found such wonderful comfort in knowing they had each other. “This man has certainly gotten my attention.”
Whitaker leaned over to kiss her. “And you mine.”
Didi clapped her hands together. “Oh, how happy this makes me.”
Claire broke away from their kiss and turned to Didi. “So where’s your Spanish lover?”
“Long gone. There’s just too many men in the world. I can’t seem to stop.”
“You broke his heart?”
“I’m sorry to say that I ripped his heart out and crumbled it in my hands, if I’m being honest.” She dropped her head. “He’s still calling me.”
Claire couldn’t imagine living Didi’s roller-coaster life, especially when it came to dating and men. She turned to the only man she needed. “Imagine a younger, better-looking Antonio Banderas. That’s whose heart she broke.”
Whitaker inclined his head. “I’m not sure anyone is better looking than Antonio Banderas.”
Didi threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, he was great, but there are plenty more. Who wants Spanish food every night? I love jamón as much as the next girl, but sometimes I’m craving doner kebab . . . or wiener schnitzel, sometimes beef bourguignon.”
Whitaker and Claire died laughing. More power to Didi if that was her thing.
Mr. B sat another party nearby as Didi added with lower volume, “And sometimes, a good-old-fashioned hamburger.”
“That’s a lot of protein,” Claire said, wiping her eyes.
Didi touched her chest and batted her eyelashes.
Whitaker measured an inch with his thumb and forefinger. “And sometimes you crave crawfish and shrimp.”
Didi shook her head amid the laughter. “You’re the one that ordered the shrimp. I’m a lobster girl.” She held her two hands out, well past shoulder’s distance.
Claire and Whitaker laughed to tears as Didi regaled them with stories of chasing men around the globe. In the middle of Didi’s story about a date with a Hollywood celebrity, Claire noticed Whitaker’s muted phone light up on the table. She knew exactly who it was and nearly lost her breath.
When Whitaker saw that it was Laura from the local child-placement agency calling, he quickly excused himself and took the call as he walked farther up the sidewalk. A white egret with its long neck and legs was poking its way up the sidewalk ahead of him.
“Sorry it’s so late, but I have really good news,” Laura said. “I’ve located Oliver and spoken with him. He agreed to meet with you.”
Whitaker’s eyes watered, as if the entire world suddenly made sense. “What?”
“I found him a few days ago but had to get his permission before we moved forward. Can you and Claire meet him tomorrow?”
Whitaker turned and started back toward the table. “Yes, definitely. Where? What time?”
“Bay Vista Park at the end of Fourth Street South. Nine o’clock in the morning. He’ll be with his case manager. I’ll text you her number once we get off the phone.”
“Thank you so much, Laura. This means everything to us.”
“Just take care of Oliver. That’s all that matters to me. I don’t know what you’re expecting, but he’s been through a lot. Just know that. Okay?”
“Absolutely.”
Her tone turned more somber. “I’ve told him about David’s passing. He needed to be prepared.”
“How’d he take it?”
“He’s a tough kid, as many are in the system. But it certainly tore him up. He’s looking forward to meeting Claire. I think he has a lot of questions.”
I think everyone does, Whitaker thought. “Where has he been?”
“He’s been living with a great foster family near the park. Been with them for two years now, and he seems happy and stabilized. That’s why you need to proceed carefully.”
“We will. I promise.” Whitaker realized how little he understood about the life of a foster child. No amount of research could paint a true picture. He thanked Laura, said goodbye, and returned to the table.
The women were staring at him.
Whitaker couldn’t help but smile at their victory. “She found Oliver. And we’re meeting him at Bay Vista Park down south at nine tomorrow morning.” He put his hands on Claire’s shoulders while she was still seated. “We did it, Claire.” He could feel the tension running through her.
“You haven’t spent the night with him yet?” Didi asked, driving Claire back to Pass-a-Grille.
“Not yet, no.”
“What are you waiting for? If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.” Didi pressed the pedal hard as the light turned green.
“I want him,” Claire said. “We’re just taking it slow.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I think you two make an adorable couple.” Didi put up her hand at the person driving in front of her. “Get in the right lane, slowpoke!”
“Trust me. I like him a lot. Just working through the last of my stuff. He knows how I feel about him.”
Didi glanced at Claire. “Are you terrified about tomorrow?”
Claire breathed in the heavy question. “Even Whitaker couldn’t put into words the trepidation I feel.”
“It’s going to be all right.”
“I know . . .” Claire hoped so desperately that Oliver was David’s only secret. It was the only one she could possibly bear. “There’s still this nagging feeling eating at me. What if I find something out that destroys my love for him?”
“You may.” Didi switched lanes again. “But something tells me you will love him twice as much after tomorrow.”
Claire smiled and lost herself in the stars. That was a nice thought. Either way, she wouldn’t miss this meeting for the world.
Chapter 34
THE SILVER LINING
In a weak attempt to distract Claire from her morning thoughts, Whitaker pointed out a Tampa Bay Rays player’s waterfront home on the way to Bay Vista Park. It didn’t work. She had a one-track mind and couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Reaching the southeastern tip of St. Pete, they pulled into the parking lot of the park, which was on Tampa Bay.
A gazebo stood at the end of a long pier that faced the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which had taken them to Sarasota almost three weeks before. People were making good use of the park today. A line of trucks with boat trailers waited to ease their boat down the landing. The playground was full of kids swinging on the swings, climbing the towers, and sliding down poles.
As she reached for the car door handle, a tsunami of anxiety hit her. To think it all came down to this.
“I don’t see him,” Claire said, scanning the park through the windshield as her skin tingled.
“They’ll be here.” He put his hand on her arm. “Remember, as nervous as we are, he is too. He’s been through a lot.”
Snapping the car doors shut, they crossed into the lush grass. Claire scrutinized the people around the playground. No kids old enough to be him. Then she saw him near the seawall.
Finding it suddenly hard to breathe, she pointed and muttered, “I think that’s him.” Actually, she knew it was him.
Whitaker
followed her gaze toward the sheltered picnic tables on the southern end of the park.
A woman and a boy were standing up from one of the picnic tables. Claire knew the woman was Kari, Oliver’s case manager. She was dressed like a teacher in blue pants and a blue-and-white striped shirt. Oliver wore a baseball shirt, mesh shorts, and bright running shoes.
Claire’s throat closed for a second, and her heart scraped at her rib cage. Amid the nervous jitters pecking at every part of her, the fear of potentially learning things she’d rather not know, she also felt a good deal of excitement, like this adventure she’d been on since finding the composition books had led her to this exact moment.
They walked in silence toward Oliver and his case manager. Though the boy in the photograph was eleven, the young man standing before them was one and the same. He was taller than in the photo, maybe three inches shorter than Whitaker. He had brilliantly blue eyes that looked both curious and skeptical. His hair was the same as it was in the photo, straight and long, long enough to cover his eyes if he didn’t push it to the right. He was a good-looking boy, still so young. Too cute to be called a man, still a few months from sprouting. Awkward he was, but only because everyone was awkward at fourteen.
Claire said the first words. “You must be Oliver.” She reached for his hand, and he shook weakly, averting his eyes. She instantly thought of the pictures she’d scanned through back at the hotel in Sarasota. Why wasn’t he among them? Did he not want to be adopted?
After introductions, Kari gestured toward the picnic table. “Why don’t we sit down?”
“That’s a great idea,” Claire said, trying to sound upbeat and positive.
Claire and Whitaker sat opposite Oliver and his case manager. Two men were playing a game of chess at one of the tables under a gazebo.
“They told you about David?” Whitaker asked.
A nod, Oliver’s sadness coming through.
Claire and Whitaker had already put together that no one had told Oliver about David, and they could only assume he had been left wondering for three long years.
“I’m so sorry you had to find out this way,” Claire said, a foreign feeling rising up inside of her, something so distant she couldn’t place it at first, but it was powerful and thrilling.
“That’s okay.”
Whitaker took over. “We’re still trying to put the pieces together, but you knew him for a while, it sounds like.”
“A year or so.”
These short answers were breaking her heart. Claire had forgotten what it was like to be fourteen, but hearing the boy’s high-pitched yet changing voice reminded her. Fourteen was when you were finally finding yourself, growing into your body, discovering your identity.
“Did you have any idea what happened to him?” Claire asked, already knowing the sad answer.
Oliver shrugged. “I don’t know.” He looked to the parking lot and back again. “I thought he was mad at me.”
“Didn’t you have a way to get in touch with him?”
“Yeah, my case manager—the one back then—had his number. But I didn’t want to call him and bother him.”
“He didn’t run off on you,” Claire assured him. “Is that what you thought?”
Oliver nodded, and the foreign feeling, still unidentifiable, rose up her spine.
Everyone took a long breath, barely hearing the noises from the playground.
“Let’s back up,” Whitaker said. “Do you know who we are?”
“Kari told me. You’re a writer.” Oliver glanced at Claire, his eyes still darting and insecure. “You’re Claire. I recognize you from the photos on David’s desk.”
Her heart suddenly burned, the other feeling going away. “I don’t know where to start, Oliver. He never told me about you.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
Oliver looked at the table. “He wanted to tell you for a long time. Couldn’t figure out how.”
“What was the big deal?” Claire heard anger in her voice and reminded herself to calm down.
He shook his head, eyes still down. “He just said you were sad about never being a mom.”
Claire tightened her face, controlling the rush of emotions.
“But David was going to tell you,” Oliver assured her, like he was standing up for him. “We were supposed to go to your house for dinner one night. He wanted me to meet you.”
“What happened?”
“He never came to get me. I didn’t see him again.”
Claire’s voice cracked as she asked, “Was that in February? Three years ago.”
Oliver thought for a moment. “I think so.”
The entire weight of the world came dropping down on top of her. “That’s the day he died, Oliver. I’m sure of it. He told me he was bringing someone over.” She set her hands on the table. “Of course it was you. He was hit by a drunk driver around four o’clock. On February 18.”
Oliver crossed his arms and squinted, looking past Claire’s shoulder to nowhere. Claire could tell he was counting back. Oliver choked up, and his eyes grew wet. He was pressing his mouth together, fighting off a cry. He turned right, looking at the gravel bed below.
Everyone let him process the news.
For more than three years, she’d wondered who was supposed to have dinner with them. And Oliver was the answer. David was going to tell her about him.
“I thought he just—” Oliver stopped and shook his head, biting down hard on his emotions. Kari put a comforting hand on his back.
“I thought he was mad at me and decided he didn’t want me to meet you.”
“No, honey,” Claire said. “He never would have done that. From what I can tell, he cared about you so much.” That foreign feeling came rushing back, but more familiar now. It was love but different somehow.
Oliver was floored by the news, his whole body folding in.
“After the accident,” Claire said, “the police found a Yankees hat wrapped up as a gift in his car. Was that for you? Are you a Yankees fan?”
A tear nearly shot out of his eye. “Yeah.” His lip trembled.
Claire’s heart ached, feeling the boy’s pain from across the table, a lifetime of fighting to survive, fighting to find a place in the world. Bad news, death, abandonment. It was all he knew. She was witnessing a boy discover that he hadn’t been abandoned after all, that the world maybe wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Or was it? David was still dead.
In the silence that followed, she heard an engine starting up on one of the boats near the landing.
Oliver rubbed his eyes, still climbing back from the news. “I thought he was just like all the others.”
Tears flowed like waterfalls from the adults. Claire swallowed, now knowing exactly what the foreign feeling was. It was the inner mother inside of her trying to escape, the instincts she had suppressed so deeply that she’d forgotten about them. Until now. Looking back at Oliver, she saw him as his mother might, and her heart ached for him.
“Who could blame you?” Whitaker asked, wiping his eyes. “No one knew to tell you. Claire didn’t know anything about you until recently.”
As Claire processed her years of running from the mother within her, Whitaker told Oliver briefly about the book, then added, “Apparently, you meant everything to David. He was writing a book about you. Not exactly about you, but based on your relationship with David. We think you really changed his life.”
“Yeah, I knew about the book,” Oliver said. “He talked about it sometimes.”
“What did he say?” Claire asked, caught off guard once again at how well Oliver possibly knew David.
“Just that he was writing a story with me in it. Like, you know, a kid based off me.”
Whitaker took over. “He didn’t finish it, but the kid is in trouble in the book. Were you in some kind of trouble?”
Oliver looked at Kari and back to Whitaker. “No, I wasn’t in any kind of trouble.”
“But you said
you and David had gotten in an argument.”
Oliver nodded. “I had skipped a baseball game, and he started lecturing me. I didn’t like it. So we got in a fight. It was the day before I was supposed to meet Claire. That was the last time I saw him. He dropped me off at the group home and told me he’d be back the next day to take me to meet Claire. I was kind of a jerk but told him I’d still go.”
Claire squeezed Whitaker’s hand and asked Oliver, “I don’t understand why he didn’t give me a heads-up that you were coming, at least. Why the surprise?”
Oliver shrugged. “I don’t know . . .”
She could tell he was holding something back. “What is it?”
With his eyes back on the table, Oliver muttered, “I really don’t know . . .”
Claire’s heart stopped. Had David wanted to adopt this young man? Was that the unspoken truth? Of course it was. She could have been this boy’s mother! No wonder these feelings were coming at her so hard.
Attempting to collect herself, she said in a shaky voice, “He should have told me about you from the beginning.” And Claire had to ask. “Was there anything else he was keeping from me? I guess you wouldn’t know.”
Oliver glanced at her and shook his head.
This young boy might have been her son. It was all too much, the revelations, the deception.
Thankfully, Whitaker stepped in. “He took you to a baseball game down in Sarasota? What was that all about?”
“The Yankees, Orioles, yeah. How’d you know?”
Coming back to reality, Claire dug into her purse. “The only reason we’re here is because we found this picture in his desk.” She slid it across the table.
Oliver stared at it for a long time. “I can’t believe he’s dead. And I’ve spent all these years hating him.” He kept staring at the photo until a smile came.
