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“I’m not going to change because I’m an adult, Dad. The person you see isn’t simply a persona I concocted.”
“You’re not listening to me,” he argued. “You need to think about your plans for the future, Chad. You have to grow up.”
“I am grown up, Dad. I just don’t aspire to gather great wealth like you have. What you value is not what I value,” I disclosed.
Mom had seen enough. She did not like when her two men disagreed or couldn’t understand each other’s position. “That’s enough for today, Alex. Chad, why don’t you go simmer down for a bit?”
“I’m totally relaxed, Mom. It’s Dad that doesn’t want to hear me.” My father stood and walked out of the room. “See?” I asked her, shrugging my shoulders.
Mom sat on the bar stool Dad had just vacated, gathering her thoughts like she always did before speaking during a heated discussion.
“You’re wrong, honey. Dad is devastated with worry about you. He’s concerned that you can’t move past David’s death and now, with Clint leaving, he’s afraid for you.”
“I can’t shut off the emotions I have, Mom. If I sense that something bad or painful happened to someone, I’m drawn to them.”
“I know, son, but what about you? What about what hurts you?” she asked. “That’s what Dad worries about.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” I whispered.
“We think you should.”
Dad had gone one direction in the house, leaving Mom and me alone. I went the other, leaving Mom alone. They were right. I was suffering. Why couldn’t I find love? Others that I knew had had great love. They’d even lost great love. And then found love again. I’d been there. I’d helped. Why couldn’t I help myself?
I grabbed a sweatshirt from the guest house where I was living and wandered toward the beach. The surf, the sand, all the natural beauty of the shoreline soothed my soul. I was drawn to the ocean the way a moth is to flame. I could spend hours walking and thinking as the waves washed over my toes, invigorating my mind.
The beach was empty as the sun set behind me in the west. It was almost as if I could visualize a human form off in the distance as the ocean mist battled with the last remaining light.
“You’re right about him,” the voice I recognized in my unconscious mind spoke. “He’s not like us.”
“So, you are here,” I whispered, smiling.
After last speaking with Perry, his dead husband, Jack, had been on my mind. Imagine my surprise to find a picture of Jack in my new neighbor’s bedroom. Many people would say something like small world or what a coincidence, but I knew better. I believed in signs and messages from the universe and it took little convincing that Jack was up to his old tricks.
I’d kept this news from Mom and Dad earlier. I don’t think Dad needed any more ammo when it came to my thoughts about the world around me. Best to keep this close to the vest.
“What’s next, Jack?” I asked. “I can’t imagine you’re here for nothing.”
I waited. No response. Nothing. My eyes were playing tricks on me as I gazed down the beach. I swore I saw someone walking out of the ocean. Wiping at my eyes and refocusing revealed nothing but fading light.
CHAPTER EIGHT: Cole
“Meeting him was disarming,” I added, five minutes into a conversation with my one remaining friend, Marla.
“You said that, Cole,” she reminded me.
“Well, it was,” I defended. “He acts like he knows stuff.”
“You said that too.”
“But that was how Jack was, Marla. Exactly like this boy,” I replied, making sure she understood that I was intrigued by what I’d witnessed.
“Yes, Cole. I knew Jack just like you did. Maybe not as close as you two, but I remember Jack’s uncanny ability to see strange shit,” she said.
I let out a sigh of sadness at remembering my best friend, and opened the glass doors to the upper deck, stepping out and sitting on a deck chair. The evening weather was gorgeous even with the sun having already set behind me. I had a great view of the surf, and the constant sound the waves made was intoxicatingly soothing for my city-worn soul.
“Jack was strange sometimes, Marla, but more often than not, he was correct,” I argued. “I’d love to know what he’d think of this kid.”
“You said he knew the boy,” she reminded me.
