Jack Who?

CHAPTER 15

 ♪♫••════════CHAPTER 15════════••♬ ♭

“I cannot believe you are doing this, Marissa.”

     “Doing what mom?”

     Tristan, after being awake long enough to eat some macaroni from his lunch tray and to look at the activity books his gammy brought, fell into a doze, leaving her essentially alone with her mother. He had slept after breakfast also, and curled on the short couch beneath the window, she had caught some sleep until her mom showed up.

     “Doing that.”

     “I’m not doing anything.” The false declaration was sullen, and she didn’t meet her mother’s eyes.

     “I have been more than patient, thinking you might confide to me on your own. But you never do, do you?” Indignantly, her mother carried on with the tirade, “Always have to be so secretive. As if what goes on in your life is so much more important than the rest of ours.”

     “I’m not talking about this right now.” Keeping her voice low, in case the little boy in the bed was not fully asleep, she turned her back as she finished the fruit from her own lunch.

     “For five years you have hidden the identity of this man, and then he waltzes right into our lives and you are going to continue–”

     “Mother! Stop!”

     Her phone blipped with a text, and she circled to where it lay on the foot of the bed near Bandit and Tiggy.

     RUSS
Sorry overslept
1:30 PM

RUSS
Should I come by or wait?
1:30 PM

My mom is here
Sent 1:31 PM

RUSS
Im guessing that’s a negatory
1:31 PM

     The texts passed back and forth, and she even sent a few more after her mother’s pointed throat clear. It was hard to believe this was happening, whatever ‘this’ was. She wasn’t going to mess it up, before it even began, by throwing Jack too quickly to the wolf who was her maternal parent.

     All day, she relived the kiss, over and over, and even imagined taking it farther. The anger and humiliation of the phone call, and the following legal letter was not forgotten. But, if many wonderful little things could cancel out one big thing, similar to the way that five years ago, they had jokingly struck a ratio of fifteen texts to one phone call, then he was well on his way to redemption.

     Was she though? Was she in need of forgiveness from him? The blurt before he had stopped himself concerning her not telling him about Tristan nagged at her memory for a moment.

     Her mother’s insight could be uncanny, and this was one of those times. A habitual early riser, waking before daylight each morning, her mom napped each afternoon. However, today she wasn’t budging. Marissa’s father stopped by after his workday, and even his company didn’t send her mother scurrying as it normally did.

     A perky hospital aid delivered Tristan’s supper, and Marissa had just finished setting the tray up for easy eating when the first guitar lick blared.

     Her parents’ reactions to this ring tone were much the same as the occupants in the waiting room the previous evening, but Tristan’s eyes rounded with pleasure. “Answer it, Momma! Please!”

     Tristan’s reaction further fascinated her mother and father, but she quickly did as her son said.

     As if she could refuse calls now…