Virginia Lovers (24 page)

Around three-thirty the plate glass of the window rattled with a knock. Thomas shook himself out of a stupor. He’d paid no attention to time, had let it get away from him.

The knocking continued. Thomas rose and pulled back the curtain reluctantly, taking his time, hoping whoever it was would go away. But his son stood there, backlit by the last blaze of sun sinking behind the block of storefronts across the street. Thomas wasn’t sure it was real, this vision. He stood there staring, his eyes shielded against the sun, while Danny mock-curled his hand around an imaginary doorknob, offered his father a weak smile.

“Mom dropped me off,” said Danny when he was inside the office. “I told her I wanted to ride home with you.”

“Let’s go then,” said Thomas. “I’m ready.”

They did not speak until they were in the car, pulling out of the lot.

“Put your seat belt on,” Thomas told his son, who shook his head slightly and smiled before strapping himself into the seat. Thomas blinked back tears. He was so thankful that his son had come to him that he was scared to speak, lest he ruin the moment. Yet he knew he could not count on silence, knew also that the sanctity of the two of them riding safely home would not last.

And it didn’t. They arrived. In the driveway Thomas turned the car off and they sat there, the two of them, in the stale air of the car, listening to the motor tick. Thomas thought of things to say, but none of these things left his mouth. Danny didn’t seem to mind the silence, and after a while Thomas asked him if it was okay if they just sat there for a bit. What he meant to tell his son was this:
Don’t you leave me now, and I’ll never leave you again.
But he didn’t say anything at all, and Danny did not speak either, though by staying put, he answered his father’s plea the best he knew how. To Thomas this was more than enough. To Thomas it was true, this moment, and out of habit or duty, he wondered how he might report it to the rest of the world, for surely this was news.

Acknowledgments

For help with this novel the author wishes to thank Hamilton Cain, Fred Chappell, Allison Seay and Porter Shreve.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 2004 by Michael Parker

ISBN: 978-1-4532-1317-9

This 2011 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
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