Lineage(81)

“I’m not really sure yet,” he finally managed. He noticed the man at the table behind the rock pillar leaning out again, seemingly to eavesdrop or stare at them. When Lance looked, he just saw a shoulder receding out of sight. He frowned, wondering which resident of the small town couldn’t resist learning whom the local bookstore owner was on a date with.

“You kept calling him a father. Why?” Mary said.

Lance shifted his attention back to her and frowned. “What?”

“You kept referring to the main character as the father, not the husband or anything else. Why is he the father to you?”

Lance regarded her for a moment. She stared at him, unwavering, a sublime smile playing at the corners of her lips, which could become something beautiful or heart-achingly cold and impassive. In that tick of the clock’s hand, Lance felt himself slip. Something inside him shifted, an immense wall mortared with layers of doubt, fear, and guilt shuddered. He had always imagined he would be the one to chip away at the edifice of stone within him, and perhaps someday be able to carve out a door for someone else to pass through and join him on the other side. He never guessed another person would be able to disturb the foundations of the wall, but the woman across from him at that moment, in a flash of insight deeper than she knew, had done just that.

Lance gazed across the table and steadied himself before he spoke. “I guess it’s because I’ve never really known one, not a good one. And that’s something I’ve always admired.”

Mary nodded and the smile on her lips became whole. Lance noticed the waitress weaving her way through the tables from the other side of the room, and at the same time he saw the man at the next table lean out again to gawk at them. That’s enough, Lance thought, his anger flaring white-hot. He didn’t care who it turned out to be at the table behind Mary; if he was still ogling them when Lance looked, he would give the guy a piece of his mind. Lance swung his head around and glared at the man leaning out from behind the pillar.

His father’s face leered back at him.

Lance’s heart rolled across his ribs. The blue eyes he’d last seen wide in panic and fear stared back at him. The blond hair like straw in the low light, the mouth just a line drawn tight across the lower part of the face, one end twisted in a sneer. And then it was gone, sliding behind the rock partition that separated the tables.

“What?” Mary asked, noticing Lance’s expression. He hardly heard her, all the sound in the world became muffled—his chair falling and cracking hard on the floor behind him, his footsteps clicking on the wood below his feet, Mary’s question again.

The pillar loomed before him. He could see his father’s shoulder hunched forward over the table. The rest of the body came into view. A white head of hair, a large nose, two hands holding a fork and knife over a piece of steak.

The elderly couple at the table looked up as Lance stepped close and shifted the wild sockets of his eyes between them.

“Can I help you?” the man said, his brow furrowed.

Lance looked at him, words of apology hanging on the back of his tongue. He turned his head toward the woman at the table—a grandmother most likely, her matching white hair tied tight into a bun and her lips pinched together.

Lance opened his mouth but shut it again. He looked past the elderly couple. He could see shadows beneath several tables and other pillars. He started to walk toward them, to find where his father hid, but hands grasped his forearm and he spun toward them, sure he would see Anthony’s smile there. Instead, Mary held his arm, a questioning look on her face, her delicate eyebrows knitted together. Lance shook himself and looked back at the table beside him.

“I’m … I’m sorry. I …” He turned away from the couple and let Mary lead him back to their table, where the waitress had righted his overturned chair and waited, wringing her hands on a small towel.

“We’re fine, just give us a few minutes,” Mary said, guiding Lance back into his seat. He sat there, feeling waves of shock roll over him and welcoming their distraction, as Mary sat down across from him.

“What the hell was that?” she asked, leaning over the table.

The words registered and he brought his unsteady gaze up to meet hers. He couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder at the pillar and then sweep the room in general. When nothing leapt out at him from the rest of the restaurant, he felt reality begin to weigh on his shoulders like a lead cape. The image of what he must’ve looked like a few minutes earlier ran through his head. He breathed deeply and felt the urge to weep flow over him before he swallowed it down and looked at Mary.