a word. I don’t think he can talk. Anyway, she didn’t leave a phone number or previous address. Nothing except her car, some games and a bunch of clothes.” His mother picked up her fork and ate her food as if it had been a week since her last meal. She didn’t look at Timmy.
He’d felt that same parental disconnect during his childhood. Felt it now, at twenty-four years of age. He didn’t know the woman sitting across from him, felt no connection. When Jesse was very young, he hadn’t been allowed to call her “mother.” She’d passed him off as her younger brother because calling him her son might have discouraged boyfriends. The deception worked for a little while because she’d had him at fifteen. But as time passed, the drugs and hard living made her look even older than her actual age.
Matilda had dropped off their son and disappeared? Jesse had no history, nothing to go on. Where had they been living? Had Matilda tried to be a good mom? What had happened? He had all kinds of questions, but they were not ones he’d ask in front of the child. Already, though, he knew his mother was telling the truth. Matilda had abandoned Timmy the same way Matilda had abandoned Jesse. And the same way Jesse’s mother used to abandon him.
This wasn’t how he’d pictured his first day of freedom. Jesse wanted to come to town, meet his employer and join productive society: the working world. He needed time to figure out his future.
He’d need a lifetime to figure out what to do with Timmy.
“You need to eat,” his mother advised him. “I, for one, am starved.”
Any appetite Jesse might have had disappeared with the words “Meet your son.”
The waitress, way too happy, came over and refilled Jesse’s water glass. She scooted Timmy’s milk glass closer to him as if to hint “Drink this. It does a body good.” If she noticed something amiss, she didn’t let it show.
She walked away from them to chat with the blonde seated in the corner. When Jesse looked over, he noticed the woman was watching him, her expression guarded and somewhat disdainful. He got the feeling she knew not only where he came from and what he’d done but had already made up her mind that his future would be just as bleak. The look on her face was the same one the guard had given him before saying he’d see him soon. Yet for all that, she was a pretty thing, all long blond hair and Westerny: clean and soft.
Clean and soft weren’t the words most females wanted to hear, but to a man fresh out of prison, they were powerful. She looked like someone well taken care of.
Someone smart enough to stay away from him.
Her cheeks colored about the time Jesse looked away. He had other things to focus on, like a newly discovered son.
He took the first bite of his hamburger, washing it down with a swig of water, and asked, “Did Matilda say why she dropped Timmy off? Was she in some kind of trouble? I mean, did she say when she’d be back?”
His mother rolled her eyes. “She didn’t even say she was leaving before she climbed out the bathroom window without taking her kid.”
Timmy didn’t act like he knew they were talking about him.
“And, you’ve had him how long?” Jesse asked.
“Nine days now.”
Jesse figured in those nine days, his mother had done more talking at the kid than to the kid. That was her style. Looking at Timmy, she said, “His mother left a twenty, but that didn’t last long. I’ve had to buy lots of extra food, stuff I normally don’t buy. Things like spaghetti, peanut butter, jelly and Pop-Tarts. Nothing in the car worth selling. Believe me, I looked. And then there’s the gas for driving him here.”
He knew exactly what his mother was telling him and took a deep breath. She wanted to be reimbursed. But what money could she honestly expect from a man who’d been out of jail for only a few hours? He was living on faith, but had no clue how faith could help Matilda, his mother or Timmy. Part of him wanted to pray; part of him wanted to run out of the restaurant. Instead, hating himself for what he couldn’t provide, he said, “You’ve come to the wrong man. Right now, I can barely help myself.”
“Not sure you’ll have a choice.”
If not for the generosity of Mike Hamm, he wouldn’t even have the clothes on his back. The prison chaplain had provided him with the pants and shirt, not wanting him to leave prison in state-provided denim blues.
“I don’t have anything to give,” he told his mother.
She didn’t respond. Instead, resignation on her face, she glanced out the restaurant window, looking like she wished she was miles away. He knew she wasn’t wishing to be any place in particular—just anywhere but where she was.
The boy watched, not uttering a word, ignoring Jesse’s attempts to ask him about age, school status and favorite things to do. The yellow crayon broke, and now Timmy colored with a dark blue crayon.
“Got a job lined up?” his mother finally asked after checking her watch for a third time.
“Yes.”
Susan gave a shrug and took the last bite of her meal. “That’s more than I can manage. Soon, though, things will be better. I’ve met a guy, a nice guy, and we’re heading for New Mexico. Maybe this time it will last.”
Jesse had never figured out what the “it” his mother talked about was. When he was young, he’d thought it meant love. As a teenager, he’d thought it meant monetary support. Now, as an ex-con, he figured it meant companionship and money.
His mother didn’t really understand the concept of love, so that couldn’t be it.
“He’s not crazy about the kid, I’ll tell you that,” Susan continued. As if cued, her cell phone sounded a rendition of “Free Bird.” She picked it up and looked at the number. “Oh, it’s him.” She answered with a “Hey,” then stood and said to Jesse, “Let me take this where I can hear.”
She headed to the front of the restaurant and stopped at the door. Before exiting, she said, “He’ll be excited that you and I met up.”
Somehow Jesse doubted it. In all his years, not one of Susan’s boyfriends had been excited about meeting Jesse. And certainly, meeting Jesse—fresh out of prison—with Timmy as collateral damage was more than any significant other could take.
Jesse turned his attention back to his meal. The food was better than anything he’d had in the past few years and he intended to enjoy it while he could—and enjoy the momentary silence before his mother returned.
* * *
Working at the ranch, being in charge of guest relations, Eva’d seen dysfunctional families up close and personal. As a matter of fact, she’d called the police a time or two, and once drove a woman all the way to California when her husband decided to end their marriage in the middle of their vacation.
Not fun.
She wasn’t sure how the woman who’d just sashayed from the restaurant was connected to Timmy’s father. He’d never spoken to her by name. She dressed young, but her face bore the lines of hard living. She’d introduced the boy as “your son” and not “our son.”
The
