Chapter 8
“… Happy birthday, dear Taylor… Happy birthday to you,” the family sang.
Taylor’s
face was radiant behind her large chocolate birthday cake, topped with thirteen
glowing candles. Pushing her long
auburn hair behind her ears, she took a deep breath and blew fiercely at her
candles, extinguishing them all.
She
smiled, as her parents and brother clapped.
“Let’s
eat,” Harry said immediately. Jackie
pulled out the smoky candles and began to cut the cake. She passed pieces around the table, and
Taylor eagerly the first bite.
“Mmm,
this is great, Mom,” she said, savoring the rich chocolate of the cake.
“Thanks,
honey,” Jackie smiled.
The family ate their cake,
Taylor, Harry, and Harold all chatting happily. But Jackie sat in silence, just picking at
her dessert. Her mind had drifted to
Brian. It happened every year on
Taylor’s birthday, and Jackie had no control over it. She knew it wasn’t fair, for it was her
daughter’s birthday, and Taylor should have the attention focused on her. But Jackie couldn’t stop herself from
thinking about her lost son, who would have been nineteen that year. But in her mind, he would forever be the
five year old that he was when he had disappeared.
“Mom?”
Taylor asked suddenly. Jackie looked up
at her daughter, whose blue eyes stared deeply at her mother. Jackie felt a lump rise in her throat. She could see Brian in her daughter’s eyes.
Jackie
shoved the thought of Brian out of her mind, focusing herself to focus on
Taylor.
“What,
Tay?” she asked.
“You
okay?” Taylor asked her, concerned. “You
look sad.”
Jackie
smiled tightly. “I’m fine, honey,” she
said. “Just thinking.”
Taylor
nodded, shoving her last bite of cake into her mouth.
Glad
to get away from the table, Jackie stood and scooped up Taylor’s empty plate,
carrying it to the sink. She stood at
the sink for a moment, looking out the kitchen window, her thoughts once again
going back to Brian. It’s been
thirteen years, she told herself. When
will I ever be able to let go?
***
Late
that night, Taylor awoke suddenly.
Groggily, she rolled over in bed to glance at the digital clock on her
nightstand. It was one thirty in the
morning.
Her
throat felt dry, and she decided to get a drink of water. She rolled out of bed and padded out of her
room and down the stairs quietly, as to not wake up the rest of her
family.
But
when she made it to the foot of the stairs, she stopped suddenly. She heard a noise coming from the living
room, just around the corner. Straining
her ears, she listened. It sounded like
someone softly crying.
Silently,
Taylor peeked around the wall into the living room. Startled, she caught sight of her mother
sitting on the couch, a big black binder-like book in her arms. And she was crying.
Taylor’s
heart broke for her mother as she watched her.
But she didn’t know what to do.
Why was Jackie crying? Taylor
didn’t know, and she didn’t think she should let her mother know that she had
seen her.
Instead,
she crept back upstairs as silently as possible, stopping in the bathroom to
get a quick drink from the faucet. Then
she went back to bed.
***
The
next day was a Thursday, but Taylor’s school was having parent-teacher
conferences, and so there was no school.
Still,
Taylor got up early, when no one else was awake yet. She went downstairs and into the living room
to find the black book Jackie had been looking at the night before still lying
on the couch, closed.
Curiously,
she sat down and opened the cover. On
the first page, was her parents’ wedding picture. A wedding album? she wondered. But when she flipped to the next page, she
saw a picture of a newborn baby. Probably
Harry, she assumed. She figured she
was looking at a family photo album.
She wondered why she had never seen it before.
She
flipped through pages of Harry as a baby, with her then young parents. And then she came to a picture of another
newborn. Must be me, she
thought. She flipped to the next page
to find a shot of Harry sitting in a chair, holding the baby from the first
picture. He looked young, just
preschool age. Taylor stared at the
picture, confused. I thought Harry
was nine when I was born, she thought.
He only looks about three or four in the picture. That baby can’t be me. She stared at it some more. But then, who can it be?
Taylor
flipped to the next page, hoping to find some answers. She found more shots of the unknown
baby. As she flipped further, she saw
pictures of the baby getting older and turning into a toddler. It was a little boy, a cute little boy with
blonde hair and blue eyes. Who is
this kid? she wondered again. She
stopped on a picture of her whole family.
Except, she wasn’t in it. In her
place was the blonde little boy. He
looked about four or five, and Harry looked about eight. This is before I was born, she
realized. But who is this boy, and
what happened to him? The thoughts
both confused and disturbed her. And
she didn’t have any answers.
***
