Stolen By Fate

Departure

The kitchen door that lead to the garage opened and a woman came in carrying many bags of many kinds. "I'm home!" She sang, setting her abundance of bags on the floor after untangling them from her arms. Her bright red, curled hair fell just past her shoulders and swept across her face as she reached to hang up her keys by the garage door. "I stopped at the farmer's market this morning and I-" She started, slipping out of her tan coat as she turned to the family, but was cut short by her surprise.

When I took in her features, I recognized her as the woman that was in the family pictures, Zac's mother.

She gasped, attempting to bring her hands up to cover her mouth, but was restrained by the bags. So, rather than hold the precious fruits and vegetables, she let them bounce to the floor, no doubt bruising their skins.

"Tyler!" She nearly screamed in frantic excitement. There was the slightest beat of silence while her eyes took him in, as if making sure he truly belonged to the name she could barely make herself say, and dashed toward him as she threw her arms out in an anticipated embrace.

Tyler cringed, bracing himself just before she took him in her arms and clung to him as if they were now glued together by her own doing. I watched as he couldn't help but smile despite the events of today that she was not informed of. He returned the embrace reluctantly after a moment and laughed.

"You've come home!" She exclaimed, but her voice was muted as she was deeply buried in the hug that she seemed to never want to end. Looking at the two of them, I imagined she was once much taller than him, but was now nearly dwarfed by his tall stance. I'd had no idea that Tyler would have someone missing him somewhere in the world, much less a whole family. Up until that moment, I'd always thought that he liked being alone, but found that the darkness in his eyes had slipped away the more I'd looked into them.

"Hey, Mom." He chuckled as simply as if he were a normal teenager. Her eyes sparkled when she looked at him and I realized she had started crying as she took Tyler's face in her palms and examined him for real this time.

Zac spoke up, interrupting the moment between the two of the people standing in front of me. "How 'bout some love for the first child?" He waved his hands in the air as if begging desperately for attention and his mother playfully pushed him away, laughing off the fact that she was wiping tears from her eyes.

"You'll get some love when you clean out the garage!" Louis joked as he poured his wife a cup of coffee and gave as brilliant of a smile as his wife and son were able to as he set the steaming cup on the counter.

I watched the scene as their mother giggled and pulled Zac in to place a kiss on top of his head that he swiftly wiped away with a face crinkled in feign disgust. She then took the steaming cup of coffee from Louis, who still appeared angry about the scene that played out before his wife's arrival, and took a sip.

"Mom, I want you to personally meet someone." Tyler prompted, his eyes patient, and turned her toward the breakfast table tucked in the corner of the room where I had been sitting. Taking my cue, I stood and acted as though I could straighten out the wrinkled clothes I was wearing. Tyler placed his hands on her shoulders and swiveled his mother around to face me and when her eyes met mine, they grew as big as a deer's when faced with oncoming traffic.