18.My So-Called Life
Lucas
Aaron turned off the vehicle, undid his seat belt, and had the door open when he saw me still sitting motionless in the car.
"Something wrong?" he wondered.
“Um, besides empathy, do you have any other powers?”
“No.” Huh. I’d been hoping for telekinesis or fireballs. “Oh, if you’re worried about visiting your dad’s house without the shifters, it’s alright. We have backup.”
"We do?" I checked in the backseat for good measure. Nobody there.
"We do," he confirmed.
I decided to trust his word, even if no evidence supported this statement, since I still wanted to see my father.
Dad and I shared a long hug after we went inside. After the introductions and some polite chitchat, Aaron left the living room and gave us some privacy to talk.
“They’re protecting you?” Dad asked first and I nodded. “Good. I worried last time I saw you was the last time I’d see you for a while.”
"Me too. Given everything, I’m glad we got another chance to talk. I was a little dazed last time."
"You had a lot to process. Do you have any questions?” Dad chuckled. “I mean, where do you want to start?”
Talking about the past apparently sparked nostalgia in my father. Old photo albums and grade school art projects were piled on the coffee table. My eye caught on the mediocre pinecone art Jack and I made on one of our earlier camping trips when we were too young for the ‘real fun.”
“Does…who else knows?” I asked.
“Jack doesn’t. No one else knew for a long time. After your accident, I had no idea what was happening. When the doctors were stumped, I wondered if somethingelsewas happening. I told Gary so he could help me keep an eye on you just in case.”
“Did you think about contacting the people who placed the suppression?"
"We didn’t stay in touch. They’re long gone."
Dad picked up a photo album and flipped through it, gaining strength from the pictures there. I followed suit and grabbed another album to look through.
"This wasn’t too long after your mother fled,” Dad said. “All the scary stuff was fresh in her mind, so we had to... These people, uh, they took some hair from you as ‘insurance,’ they wouldn’t let us offer our own. The only reason we agreed was because we had the whole payment. Once your mom called and told me you two were safe, I brought them the rest of the money and they gave me the hair back. The whole thing was terrifying.” He certainly looked paler as he thought back.
"Wow, that must have been difficult."
Dad tapped a finger against the picture on the page in front of him. “This is what we focused on.”
The picture showed a family in front of a lake, a smiling mother and father and a sour faced boy with a mop of blonde hair, lighter from a month in the sun. Under protest, the boy held up his catch, an extremely puny fish that I only landed because of Dad’s liberal help. Not shown was Jack’s much bigger catch that he reeled in by himself. Yet the parents only looked proud. And happy.
All the odds they had to overcome to make this picture possible weren’t shown, which was just as well, since those obstacles clearly didn’t matter. Everything that mattered was right there in the picture.
"You were right,” I said. “It doesn’t change anything. You’re my father." I felt the truth of his words as soon as he said them. I was just too stunned and shaken to acknowledge them then.
“Yeah,” Dad said, putting his hand over mine for a moment. “Yeah.”
This other man only provided genetic material. My father did all the rest. He raised me, protected me, and loved me. He saved all the crappy art projects and lovingly preserved photo albums.
We spent a little more time looking at albums before Aaron and I headed out. Even though I hadn’t learned anything more about the suppression, I still considered the trip time well spent.
We ran into Jack on the front porch.
"Hey, uh, hey, man.” Jack fixed his hair and stood up straight. “What’s up?"
