The Ties That Bind

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

     Kasden had barely walked through the door for his shift when Stacey stopped him, handing him her cell phone. She had it opened to a story from Sunday's edition of The Trenton Gazette. She pointed to a column on the page quietly and said: "You need to read this", before she went back behind the counter to help customers.

     Kasden took the phone with a bewildered look, he wasn't one to read the 'Social News' (aka, gossip) section of the Gazette; why did Stacie want him to read it now?

     He continued into the back of the bakery to get ready for his shift, while at the same time reading the article on Stacie's phone. It displayed a column written by the same woman who had written a piece while he was in high school accusing his mother of having an illicit affair with a much younger man.

     Reading the first section of the column, Kasden was sure that it had been inspired by the encounter with his mother several days past. This wasn't going to be good; he already felt his stomach twisting like he might throw up.

<flashback>

     Someone had overheard part of the conversation between he and Aletha (he wasn't going to dignify her with the title 'Mother') outside the kitchens after the banquet; obviously not the whole of it, but enough to get the wrong idea - and tattled to the gossip columnist. The details in the column were too similar to the conversation with his mother to be anything other than the encounter he wished had never happened.

     Aletha's family had gone after the paper for libel and a retraction of the original piece had been printed.

     Kasden had only seen the article by sheer chance when he was looking through the news to research a subject for his English Literature class. The requirement was to find a topic about current events and write a short essay about it. The article had been one of those he wished he'd never read once he'd found it.

     Needless to say, he didn't write about the article as the topic of his essay.

<end flashback>

     Kasden wasn't interested in reading another of Ms. Deveaux's gossip columns; the woman made outlandish statements about those caught in her crosshairs. It wasn't his thing, but Stacey wouldn't have told him to read it unless she thought it was important, and she had been a witness to his confrontation with his mother. 

     He sat down at the little break table in the back room to read through a piece that could only have been described as almost complete fiction, from the first paragraph to the last. Yes, there were a few elements that were close to the truth, but the whole piece was distorted from any semblance of reality. About the only part that was even close to the truth was the part about Aletha abandoning him at the orphanage, but even that part was largely incorrect.

     Kasden's parents were married when he was born, so Aletha wasn't an unwed mother. He was five when he was left at the orphanage, not a baby. Kasden was furious to see that his name, and personal information had been included in the piece, but at least she hadn't identified his workplace.

     He was certain that the VanPelts were going to be furious when they read the article. He honestly couldn't blame them. Ms. Deveaux had included the names of the other three VanPelt children, as well as Kasden's. 

     The whole mess could have been avoided if Aletha hadn't tried to confront him at work. She had no awareness about the people around her.

     After the blow-up, Ms. Deveau had tried several times to get a statement from Kasden. She became so obnoxious that Carol had banned her from the bakery. Kasden had also blocked her number on his phone; he wasn't sure how she got his number, but she had, and she'd been relentless in hounding him.