AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And Wayne? He hadn’t had anyone.
Still, he hadn’t been able to escape the blame he had put on himself after Michael had left the island with only a note—one that had read:Don’t look for me.
They had lost two people that year: Tara and Michael.
Now, they were getting one back, but they had no idea what state he was in, what he had gone through. It was then, sitting out on the porch, that Wayne realized he’d just half-assumed Tara and Michael were off somewhere together, joyful, and without worry.
How stupid.
“I can’t believe Fred didn’t stay,” Cindy whispered toward her glass. “His own son...”
Wayne didn’t have words. He sipped his whiskey again and huffed.
“I’ve missed you, Cindy,” he told her.
It was Cindy’s turn not to respond for a long time. When she finally did, she said, “The reputation you’ve built for yourself on this island is really weird for me.”
This felt like the worst kind of attack.
Essentially, it meant:You have ruined Tara’s memory with your reckless, bachelor ways.
“I didn’t know what else to do with myself,” Wayne whispered.
It seemed terribly cruel that she had just outright decided what he had done was wrong when she’d been allowed to continue on as Fred’s wife and Megan’s mother.
Wayne’s heart felt stricken. It was almost as though he felt the knife going through right there as she spoke her words. He opened his lips to say something. But what could he possibly say to support all he had done? Even the idea of having met someone else was now all tied up in the issue of the Swartz family and all of their BS.
There was the screech of the back porch door. Wayne and Cindy turned their heads to find Michael Clemmens, aged twenty-four, with hair down to his shoulders, large caverns beneath his eyes, a stoop to his shoulders that seemed to represent just how hard the world had been to him, and a big backpack stretched across his back, presumably filled with everything he owned in the world.
He stood out on the porch and looked down at his mother and Wayne. His mouth made no move to smile. Slowly, he shifted the backpack down to the ground and loosened his shoulders slightly.
What the heck was there to say to someone you loved so much who’d abandoned you?
But a mother’s love was much more powerful than all that.
Cindy stood and tapped her glass of whiskey on the little coffee table. She walked toward him on shaky legs. Her hands found his upper biceps as her eyes looked into his hungrily.
“Oh, honey,” were the only words she could muster before she fell forward and wrapped her eldest son in a huge hug.
Wayne felt strange. He stood and placed his hands on his hips and shifted his weight. When Cindy fell back, she brushed a tear from her cheek and brightened her voice to ask, “I should get you something to eat! You’ve probably traveled a long way and are starving.”
Hurriedly, as though time was running out, Cindy entered the house and marched toward the kitchen.
This left Wayne and Michael in a bit of a stand-off.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Michael said.
These were the first words he’d spoken.
They nearly knocked Wayne to his knees. He couldn’t decide if they were meant to be cruel, if they were angry, or if they were hopeful.
“Your mom called me,” Wayne explained.
“So you’ve kept the band together, then,” Michael said. “You, Mom, Dad—best friends forever, right?”
Wayne swallowed the lump in his throat. “Not exactly.”
Michael turned his eyes toward the ground. Wayne shoved down his desire to rush forward and hug this man as tightly as he could.
