Chapter 18
They
had just entered the living room, when Austin began to cry. Alarmed, Taylor turned and knelt in front of
him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Is
Bwent alwight?” Austin asked, looking up at her with watery brown eyes.
“I
think he’s gonna be fine,” Taylor said, giving Austin a tender smile. “He should be coming home in a couple days
or so.” He nodded, sniffling loudly,
and she patted his shoulder lightly.
“Hey,
Brittney?” she asked, turning around to face the twelve year old, who seemed
much more personable than Jimmy.
“Yeah?”
Brittney replied.
“Could
I use your bathroom real quick?”
“Sure,”
Brittney said. “The toilet’s busted on
the one downstairs, but the upstairs one works good. Just go up the stairs, and it’s the first
door on the right.”
“Okay,
thanks,” Taylor replied. She left the
room and started up the stairs. She
found the bathroom and used it quickly, not wanting to stay in it for too long
because of its dirtiness and less than pleasant odor.
As she was coming back down the stairs, she glanced at the wall of pictures to
her left. She lingered on each step,
studying the pictures of the children.
Towards the top of the stairs, the wall was filled with baby pictures of
each of the children. Or so she first
thought. But after quickly taking
count, Taylor realized there were only six baby pictures hanging… and there
were seven Cooper children. Which one
had been left out?
Taylor
studied the pictures, trying to determine which baby was which child. She counted up all three girls, although she
was not sure which was which. Then she
looked to the three boys’ pictures. One
of the boys of the family was not hanging there with the others. But who?
Taylor
eyed the three boy pictures and quickly picked out Austin’s. He was the easiest to recognize because it
had only been three years since the picture had been taken. His baby-like features were still very
similar, just more mature now.
Taylor
realized the other baby that had dark eyes had to be Jimmy, since Tucker’s eyes
were hazel, and Brent’s were blue. Her
gaze focused on the last baby picture.
The baby in this picture’s eyes were hazel. It was Tucker. So where was Brent? Why would he be left out?
It
confused Taylor, but she didn’t give it too much thought, just shrugging and
moving on. The other pictures varied in
the age of the children, and she only glanced at them shortly. But one in particular caught her eye. Looking at it, she realized it had been the
same one to catch her eye when she had descended these stairs earlier.
The
picture was of a little boy, blonde and blue-eyed. He was young looking, only about seven or
eight years old. And he looked
familiar.
That’s gotta be Brent, Taylor thought, noticing the child’s bright blue
eyes. But still, there was something
more that was tugging at her mind. He
seemed familiar, but not just because it was a young version of Brent. She felt like she had seen this boy before,
when he was that age or even younger.
But she had never met Brent before, had she?
And
then it hit her like a brick wall. This
child looked like her brother. Not
Harry… but Brian. A version of Brian
just a few years older than the picture she had seen of him.
No way, Taylor told herself. That
can’t be Brian. That’s Brent, and he
just happened to look like Brian when he was a child.
That’s
what her mind was saying, but her heart would not agree. It would not let go of the hope within her that
this could possibly be her long lost brother.
Taylor
could not take her gaze away from the picture.
What if it really was him? After
all these years, was it possible? Could
it be that Brian was still alive and had grown up to be known as a boy named
Brent Cooper, rather than Brian Littrell?
It
sounded farfetched, but Taylor would not let that thought go. It seemed too coincidental that Brent looked
so much like Brian did.
She
decided she needed to find out some information, so she headed down the
stairs. Entering the living room, she
looked around for Jimmy, hoping he would answer some questions for her. But he was nowhere to be found. Instead, Taylor decided to settle for
Brittney, who sat on the sofa beside Jaime, while Tucker, Cassie, and Austin
sprawled across the floor, watching cartoons on an old, fuzzy TV.
“Hey,
Brittney?” Taylor asked.
Brittney
looked up. “Yeah?”
“Would
you come with me a minute? I have to ask
you something,” Taylor told her.
“Sure
thing,” Brittney replied, getting off the couch. Taylor led her out of the living room,
ignoring Jaime’s curious stare, and up the stairs to where the picture of Brent
hung.
She
sat down on one of the steps, and Brittney perched on the step below her. “That picture up there. That’s Brent, isn’t it?” Taylor asked,
pointing to the picture of Brent, or Brian.
“Yup,”
Brittney said. “I think he was eight in
that one.”
Taylor
nodded. “Brittney, was Brent adopted?”
she asked.
“Adopted? No… I don’t think so,” Brittney replied, her
forehead creasing as she thought about it.
“I would have heard about it if he was, wouldn’t I?”
Taylor
nodded. “Yeah,” she said, but she
wasn’t sure. If this was Brian, how did
he get here? Either the Cooper parents
had adopted him after someone had kidnapped him, or they had kidnapped him
themselves. Taylor’s eyes widened at
the thought. She had not yet met Mr.
and Mrs. Cooper, but just the thought of her brother living with the people who
had kidnapped him for eighteen years made her shudder.
“What’s
the matter?” Brittney asked suddenly, intruding into Taylor’s thoughts.
Taylor
shook her head, trying to clear her mind.
“Nothing,” she told the younger girl.
“How
come you wanted to know if Brent was adopted?” Brittney asked, studying Taylor
critically.
“Uh,
just wondering,” Taylor said, trying to think up a good excuse. Studying Brittney for a moment, she came up
with one quickly. “It’s just that he
doesn’t really look like the rest of you,” she added. “So I was just thinking, maybe he was
adopted.”
“None
of us look like each other,” Brittney responded, glancing up at the pictures on
the wall. Taylor did the same and
realized that Brittney was right. It
was the first time she had ever really paid attention to the lack of similarity
between the siblings. Their hair was a
variety of colors, as were their eyes.
Their facial structures all differed.
Taylor could see very little resemblance between any of them.
“That’s
weird,” Taylor said.
“I
guess so,” Brittney said with a shrug.
Taylor
shrugged as well, not sure what other information she could ask Brittney
for. It was obvious that if Brent
didn’t really belong to these people, Brittney didn’t know it.
Taylor
wished that Brent was not the oldest.
If there was another child, someone older than him, that would be the
one to ask. Someone older might have
remembered when Brent came into the family, whether he was born, or “adopted”
at five or older. But all of the other
kids were younger than Brent. And if
Brittney didn’t know anything, why would the others? Even if Jimmy or Leanne knew something, it
was unlikely either of them would tell Taylor. Neither seemed to like her much.
“Hey
Taylor!” Tucker called, appearing at the bottom of the stairs. “Joe’s here to pick y’all up.”
“Okay,”
Taylor said, standing up. She and
Brittney descended the stairs to where Tucker was waiting. Jaime had just come into the foyer as well.
“Ready
to go?” she asked Taylor.
“Yup,”
Taylor said. She turned to Brittney and
Tucker. “Thanks for everything,” she
told them, smiling. “You guys take
care. I hope everything okay with
Brent.”
They
nodded. “Thanks for comin’,” Brittney
said. “We don’t get many visitors around
here.”
“No
problem,” Jaime said. “Bye.”
“Bye,”
they called, as Jaime and Taylor headed out the door. Joe, the mechanic, was sitting in the
driver’s seat of up rusty pick-up.
“Hop
on in, y’all,” he called through the open window.
Taylor
and Jaime nodded and walked around to the passenger side. They climbed in, scrunching together in the
cab.
“Your
car’s sittin’ down at the garage. I
replaced the tire for ya.”
“Thanks,”
Jaime said.
Joe
nodded, and drove them down the road back into town. He pulled into the garage, where Jaime’s car
sat. The girls hopped out. They split the cost of paying Joe and
climbed into Jaime’s car, relieved to be getting on their way.
Joe
gave them directions how to get back onto the interstate, and they pulled away,
waving to him as they did so. Then
Jaime drove on down Main Street, passing the grocery store and all the little
shops they had seen earlier. And then,
they left Redridge and were back on the open road.
***
