RECLAIM MY HEART(25)

She looked him in the eye and said, “He’s my father, Zach.”
A tiny frown bit deep into the space between his brows. “Your father is the mayor of Oak Mills?” His voice had gone pliant.
“Yes. My parents live here, son. Lucas told you I grew up here.”
He gazed down at the newspaper in his lap, then out the front window at the people coming and going through the door of the convenience store, back at her, then down at the paper.
“How come you never told me? How come you never brought me here? How come they never visited us?”
His tone intensified with each question until it seemed the last one was hurled at her rather than spoken. Her heart palpitated and she felt light-headed. She twisted the key and started the car, flipping on the air conditioner the instant the engine purred to life. Cold air blasted from the vent and she pointed it directly at her face and chest.
“Zach, can we try to stay calm,” she began. “Can we try to talk about this without getting upset? I just don’t think I could take it if you—”
“I have grandparents!”
There didn’t seem to be an ounce of joy in the revelation. The words he fired off were crammed with angry accusation.
“I have grandparents I’ve never met.” He shoved at the paper and the newsprint tumbled to the floor around his feet.
“Cut it out, Zach,” she scolded. “You’re going to smudge ink on Lucas’s car seats.”
“I don’t give a shit about the car seats.”
“Watch your mouth, young man.”
“I won’t.” He glared at her. “I’ll say whatever the hell I want.” He shifted away from her, closer to the passenger side door.
Tyne shoved the car into gear and glanced behind her before pulling out of the space, fearful that he might leave the car before she could get moving. Seeing the street was empty, she put her foot on the gas.
“That’s what you’ve done for my whole life.” The paper crinkled when he moved his leg. “Whatever the hell you want. You don’t think of anyone but yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” The interior of the car suddenly seemed too hot to support life, so she reached for the knob on the air conditioner and turned the fan up a notch. Logic and experience told her that defending herself by pointing out all the things she’d done for him, all the times she’d put his wants and needs before her own, wouldn’t assuage his anger at this moment.
“Zach,” she began, then whatever words she meant to say jammed in her throat along with a big knot.
He faced the passenger side window, his body a tight ball of muscle. “Every year at school we had Grandparents Day. Everyone invited their family for lunch.”
She wasn’t going to let him go there. “Ms. Josephine went with you several years in a row, Zach.”
“Ms Jo.,” he spit out contemptuously. “She was my babysitter, Mom. My babysitter.”
“She loved you very much. She was hap S. SMpy to stand in—”
He turned on her, his gaze fierce. “I’m just now learning that I didn’t need a stand in. I have the real thing. I just never knew it. Thanks to you.”
Tyne’s jaw clenched at the same time that her hands grew white-knuckled on the steering wheel, her gaze latched onto the road ahead.
“I want to meet them. I want you to take me to their house. I want you to take me there right now.”
“No.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “No, I can’t do that.”
She didn’t have to look at him to know his coal-black eyes were staring a hole right through her skull.
“You have to trust me on this, Zach,” she said. “When you’ve calmed down—when we’ve both calmed down—we’ll talk about it.”
The BMW flew fifty-five in a thirty mile per hour zone, but she didn’t ease up on the gas pedal one iota. She knew exactly what she was doing. Knew exactly where she was heading. To Wikweko. To Lucas. He was the only person on the face of this earth who could help her explain this to her son.
?     ?     ?

Something was…?off. Lucas’s gut told him so. It wasn’t anything his uncle had said or done. Intuition alone alerted Lucas that something wasn’t quite right between him and Jasper.
Tyne had warned him of this and he’d scoffed at the idea. But the strange electricity tingling along his arms and the back of his neck every time there was a short lull in the conversation made him realize he should have heeded Tyne’s warning.
He’d come to the apartment over the gallery where his uncle lived this morning looking for information, but this awkward air bothered him, so much so that the questions he’d wanted to ask about his mother went unasked.
The kettle had been heating on the stove when he’d arrived, so he accepted his uncle’s offer of tea. Although Jasper’s kitchenette was compact, it had all the necessary conveniences. The two men sat opposite each other at the small, round table, another silence stretching out long, tentacle-like fingers, and Lucas could barely resist the urge to rub his palm over the prickling sensation at his nape. He was just about to point out the huge elephant that seemed to be sharing the small space with them when Jasper spoke.
“There was a fish,” his uncle said, “that lived in a tiny cove.”
Lucas went still. He knew that tone. It was the one Jasper used when he recounted Lenape myth. As a boy, Lucas had been mesmerized by the stories his uncle told, spending hours going over them in his head so he wouldn’t miss a single nuance of wisdom they contained. However, today his Uncle’s profundity was ill-timed and less than welcome. He rolled his eyes, and under his breath he mumbled, “Here we go.”