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Jeff Abbott: Distant Blood

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Jeff Abbott Distant Blood

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He turned to me then and I could see an alien sadness coloring his face. I say alien because I'm not sure I could ever understand the emotions that painted that particular expression. He looked like a man who's gotten every gold piece in creation, only to see it all turn to brass in one dreadful second. I turned back to setting the table.

“Son, I love you.” I was still unloading the tray and I didn't look up again. A twitchy discomfort arrowed through my body and I felt my face tighten.

“I haven't said them words to you in a long time. Not since after we-after you found out about me.” He'd murmured them in an intensive-care hospital room after taking a bullet while saving my life from a vicious killer. I'd held his hand, and like a little boy, I'd cried. But since then the topic of his paternal feelings for me had been avoided, a maelstrom to be carefully circumnavigated.

My mouth felt dry. I stared down at the jumble of torn lettuce, quartered tomatoes, and sliced onions in the salad bowl. The smell of the steaks had set my mouth watering, but I couldn't swallow past the dense block in my throat.

“It's okay,” he murmured. “You don't have to say nothing. I know you still have trouble seeing me as your father.”

I coughed past the blockage and glanced up at him. “Bob Don-”

“It's just that you coming to this reunion, God, it means the world to me. And I don't want you scared off by some idle worry that my people are gonna think that you're just gunning for Uncle Mutt's money. But after the past year we've had-getting to know each other, you letting me into your life more-I just want us to be able to acknowledge each other. To say publicly that we're father and son.”

I clanged silverware down on the table. My stomach, grumbling anxiously a moment ago for meat and potatoes, quieted like a hushed baby. I didn't look at him and I didn't know what to say. I wasn't ready for this, not yet. Not yet.

“You're sure keeping quiet. That's not like you,” Bob Don finally said.

“I-I don't mean to be quiet. You've just given me a lot to think about.”

He touched my arm, as gently as he might a baby's, and I glanced into the full want in his face. His voice was hoarse, rasped raw by emotion. “You're my child. I can never, ever regard you any other way now. I see so much of myself in you, of your mother-”

“And my father. My-other father,” I interjected quickly. My real father, I'd nearly said, and bit the words off just in time. But the reality was, as far as the dictates of biology went, Bob Don had claim to that particular title.

He lowered his arm. “Yes, of course. You've got his kind streak. Most of the time.” He sat down and began to slice into his steak. “Sit down and eat, Jordan, before your supper gets cold.”

I took an uncomfortable seat. I was evading his demand, but he had neatly skipped past my question. I considered telling him about the cards, but knowing Bob Don, he would have insisted I stay put and out of any potential harm's way. I wasn't about to be skittered off by a sick threat. My own curiosity gnawed at me as to why someone was going to such careful trouble to frighten me off the family tree. If I pressed him for details on who in the family might be dangerous, I might need a reason to justify my queries. For now, I decided to keep my own counsel.

We ate in silence. The meat was meltingly tender, the potato creamily smooth and peppery, the salad crisp, but it all tasted like cardboard in my mouth. My bones felt like they were trembling inside the bag of my skin. I had been avoiding publicly acknowledging Bob Don for over a year, and he was going to force the issue. No pun intended.

I chewed a chunk of meat, my appetite fading. Why wasn't I ready? I snuck a glance at him, scooping out the buttery innards of his baked potato.

Because he wasn't my daddy. He was a nice man, a kind fellow with a big heart, but he wasn't the man who raised me and taught me and spanked me when I deserved it and hugged me when I didn't. He wasn't Lloyd Poteet, and he could never be. You cannot erase twenty-odd years of fatherhood with an announcement of true paternity. You can't push your daddy's memory deeper into the grave by turning to all folks you know and saying, “This man is my real father.” It's not possible. If our hearts are homes, some rooms can't be rented out once the occupant dies.

Thankfully, Bob Don abandoned the subject and we ate the rest of our meal with the drone of the baseball game on the radio as our companion. We drank beer and we talked of the weather. He did not tell me family stories and I did not ask him to. He did not mention again that I was his child. He exhausted his collection of Aggie jokes and I made myself laugh through them all. But I felt a creeping, unfamiliar misery nestle in my chest.

I was saying goodbye to him in the den when Gretchen returned from visiting her aunt.

“Hello, hello,” she chimed as she came through the kitchen door. She gave her husband a cheek kiss and favored me with her uncertain smile. I've sometimes wondered if the long years of drunkenness wiped the memory of how to truly smile from Gretchen's mind. Her grin is half grimace and it never settles correctly into her face. “Did you boys enjoy y'all's dinner?”

“Yes, it was great,” I croaked, coughing for no reason. We made an odd tableau in this den: the very scene where a wasted Gretchen had brayed out her hatred of me, blaming me for her long years of inebriation, and finally the truth that I was Bob Don's bastard. His precious bastard. The times I came to this house, we did not linger in this room, as though its walls still held the faintest stain from her venom. It was still the spot on earth where my world unraveled for all time.

“Did you have a nice visit with your aunt?” I asked her.

She blinked at my inquiry-kindness from me was suspicious. “Yes, we did. Poor old aunt's not getting younger. But it was nice to see her.” She patted Bob Don's arm and I saw genuine affection light her face.

“I'll be going, then. Thanks for the dinner, Bob Don.” I feared for one long, unmerciful moment that he was going to mention his desire to claim me as his son; surely he had discussed this with Gretchen. Hadn't he?

He simply shook my hand. “You're still planning on coming to the reunion, aren't you?”

“Of course,” I assured him. I saw the corners of Gretchen's eyes crinkle in consternation, then her smile- her offish, odd smile-slid into uneasy place on her face.

I wished them good night and drove home, peering into the rural darkness. A blanket of stars unfurled above my head as a wall of clouds pushed onward toward the Gulf, clearing the sky of its low haze.

Gretchen hated me-or at least she had once. Could she be behind the cards? If I never became a part of Bob Don's family, I could not trespass on her territory. I imagined her hands smearing blood across a card, razoring a printed face, pasting letters with malice.

It scared me that I could easily see her hands busy with such work.

Two days before the reunion.

“I'd really prefer you not go,” I murmured into the soft spill of Candace's hair. She smelled of flowers, and of lime from the ceviche she made for dinner. Moonlight played along our bare bodies as we cuddled in bed.

“Why don't you want me there?” Her tone was measured, which meant I might be in trouble.

“Because it's going to be complicated enough, sweetheart. I think I need to face the Goertzes on my own.” I fib best when not having to look directly into Candace's face, and I examined the top of her head with intense concentration. As if knowing my thoughts, she shifted in my arms to turn her blue eyes straight on my face. I hazarded a smile.

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