Reservations (ONC24)

Chapter 1- Table 11

TW- extreme violence, terror, school shooting

He looked the same, the way I remembered him that day. The day he left for school, the day he didn't come home. The day that changed everything. My boy, my handsome boy.

"Mom?" He looked up with his fathers crystal blue eyes.

I wasn't sure he'd recognize me. He was only seventeen when he left. I'm seventy three now. There's very little brunette left amongst the gray. My hazel eyes are tired and yellowing under the strain of the crows feet and thinning skin.

I take a seat at his table.

"Jason." I haven't uttered his name to him in thirty two years. It brings sadness to me to see his face as I utter the two syllables.

He gulps. I'm at a loss. He looks perfect. Not how he was described to me at the end. We didn't see him. Gunshot wound. The police were pretty cold when they described how he looked.

"Jason, we've been waiting a while to have this conversation."

He nodded and put his head down. I'm not sure if he is experiencing guilt or shame.

"I had no idea. That's what I kept telling everyone. None. People always asked. Always wanted to know how I couldn't have known. Was I such a poor mother?"

It's true in the months that followed the community even the church abandoned me, us- his family. He was even refused a funeral.

I catch a ghostly reflection of myself, in a window that looks out to the river. That's how he recognized me so quickly. I look exactly how I did that morning. That normal morning before the incident.

It was just a normal day like any other; Charles was sitting at breakfast with Jodie. I was rushing around fixing breakfast and lunches. Trying to get Jason out of his room in time for him to have at least a mouthful of cereal before school. The eggs and toast were ready but he never had time for any of that.

There was nothing unusual, no sign of anything being different. I'm sure of this I played that breakfast over in my mind a thousand times.

Charles stood up to leave as Jason finally made it to the table for breakfast. They didn't speak, both still fuming from their argument the night before. I can't recall the words now but it was about Jason failing in school. I recall that much and also that he didn't like his new friend.

Jodie finished her scrambled egg and lifted some fruit for the bus as I managed to get Jason to take a mouthful of honey hoops before they both rushed to the bus. Like I did every morning I hurriedly gave them a kiss on the cheek much to their disdain. If I had known what I do now I wouldn't have let him go. There was nothing, no red flag.

"Mom. We've both been waiting a very long time to have this conversation. I think we should have it."

This was unlike the Jason I knew, the Jason that as he got older spoke less and less to us. The teenager that would hide in his bedroom to avoid conversation. The boy that would utter three word responses to questions over dinner. And yet here he is asking to talk, to discuss things that people thought I should have been aware of. I mean how as his mother could I not know how dark his thinking had become.

I have lots of questions; why? Was I to blame? How did he get to that point? Where did we go so wrong with it all?

I looked at him, his dark hair and blue eyes. Sitting across from me now in a letterman jacket, but he was never a footballer. To be honest he was never truly anything. Not sporty, nor academic. I just thought he'd find his place in the world in his own time, and unlike his sister school just wasn't his thing. I can feel myself shaking my head, I notice him watching me. I don't know where to start so I guess I'll just have to start with what I know how to do, be a mom.