Family Secrets

Chapter 7

I wake up on the park bench that I had fallen asleep on, panting hard. I have always had nightmares, but I don't even know if you could describe this as a nightmare. It was more like reverse deja vu. I shudder and unstick my sweaty back from the bench. 

I go into the bathroom and see that it is exactly as I dreamt it. And almost as if it were taunting me, the outfit I was wearing in the dream was on top of everything in my backpack. 

Obeying the voice in my head, I put it on and get ready for the journey to the college. 

-Page Break-

This is the actual deja vu part, no reverse. I walk into a grand entry way and see a bored looking receptionist in the corner, which I walk to. The reception lady greets me, in an uninterested manner tone, "Hello, welcome to The University of Utah, what can I do for you today?" Just like in the dream, I think to myself.

"Um, yes, Hello, I was hoping to be able to speak to some of the professors. I am wishing to apply here, and my parents are alumni and were asking me to stop by and see some of their old teachers." I don't know what compels me to give the speech as I had, but I do. And just as before, at the word apply, her bored expression vanished and was replaced by a friendly and attentive one.

"Oh of course! Do you know which ones?"

"Um, no, they had asked me to check out the campus and everything, but they had to go to work. You know lawyers. Always busy, busy"

She looked at me, a little skeptically. "Um, okay they are lawyers, how long ago did they attend? I can just point you in the direction of the professors that taught that long ago." She narrowed her eyes a little, unlike in my 'dream'.

I did not know. I know the year I was born, of course, but not the years my parents attended. So taking a chance a say, "Eighteen." Hoping and praying. Oh please, oh please.

"Okay, we got all new teachers that year. If it had been any longer than that, I couldn't have helped you." She gets up from her desk, turning to see if I'm following her.

I thank whatever God or witch or higher power or whatever that had sent me that dream. I wonder, if I am about to meet my mom. 

When the door opens, the classroom is not the one I had walked into in my dream, and inside was not a girl that could be my mom. 

In fact, it wasn't a girl at all. Instead in front of me was balding old man, sitting at a desk, bent over some papers. He looked up when we walked in but suffered none of the shock or absolute horror that the girl in my dream had. Instead he looked annoyed, as if we had walked into something important. "Hello, may I help you?" 

The receptionist looks to me to speak first, so I do, "Um, hello, my name is Jessa Bluenight. My parents were students here, I think about 18 years ago, I think. I just had a couple of questions for their old professors." I look toward the receptionist for some guidance, but she has already slipped out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. 

The professor looked at me, squinting until he reached for glasses on top of the table. "Bluenight you said? As in Maliki and Stephen?"

"Er, yes."

"So which one is it?"

"Excuse me?"

"Which ones your father?"

"Um, Stephen." This is the first time I've actually referred to him as my father.

"So I assume your mother is Tessa?" The fact that this man knows so much about my parents brings me hope. Maybe  he'll be able to tell me something. Maybe I will find my mom.

"Yes."

"Well...? What did you need to ask me?"

"Well, how well did you know my parents?"

"I knew them quite well. I actually went to Addy and Maliki's wedding. I knew Adailin and Tessa before I taught the brothers. They girls had babysat my granddaughter. Then after I had started teaching, my first year here, I teach the Basic Constitutional Law Course, the boys had been really good students and stood out, so I asked them out to lunch to discuss some other classes that they perhaps could take in order to graduate sooner and such. So they came to the lunch, but afterwards, they were planning on going out with their girlfriends, and met them at the restaurant that we were at. When they saw me, they came over to say hi and introduce their boyfriends, not knowing that I was the one who they had met for lunch. So Stephen explained it to them, then asked how they knew me and so on and so on." 

"Oh um, do you still talk to them." I was curious to know if he was still in contact with my mother which would make my job a lot easier.

"Oh no, no at all. In fact, I'm afraid your uncle ruined that."

"What do you mean?"

"Something happened, I still don't know what, but anyway, Stephen had taken a year off to travel with Tessa but even after he was supposed to come back he didn't. I had approached Maliki about it, but he just yelled at me not to bring up Stephen and just screaming. I just put it off to lack of sleep, I knew he had twins and that must have not been pleasant. But after he left college, I never heard from any of them again. Do you know what happened?"

"Um..." I don't know if I should tell him, he seems trustworthy, but don't all villains start out that way?

"My father died." The professor, who's name I have still yet to learn, looks startled. "And my uncle did not have twins, one of those babies was me, and the other was his own, I think. But look, I'm trying to find my mom. do you know somewhere she would go, did she ever talk about, running away?"

"Rhode Island."

"What?"

"She always said, she wanted to live in Rhode Island," hearing my unasked question, he says, "I don't know why, she's just always loved it there. That's where she would go."

"Rhode Island," I whisper, looking at my feet. I then look up to thank him, "Thank you for your help." I turn to leave and hear him call, "Hey," and I turn and look at him. "Good luck."

I just smile at him before I turn around and leave, wondering how the hell I'm going to get to Rhode Island.