by Christopher Hivner

"Get out of here, you brat."

"Dad!"

"You idiot, he's not here." She dashed around the kitchen table, but Johnny was too fast for her. He feinted toward her then ran around the other side of the room.

"This my house! I don't want you here."

Johnny sailed up the stairs, racing from room to room, but they were all empty. His dad really wasn't here. He was in the master bedroom and there were pictures on the walls of his father and Tess. There were other photos of Tess's family with his dad in some of them. He found a photo he remembered of dad when he was young, posing with his grandparents. Dozens of frames, all filled with smiling faces from different generations. But there were none of Johnny or his mother Ruby. Johnny stared at a picture taken at a picnic. Henley Barber knelt on the ground surrounded by Tess's nieces and nephews, beaming, as if he were having the time of his life. Johnny stared into his father's eyes, and the joy he found there was a mystery to him. Just before tears fell, Tess grabbed his arm and wheeled his body around to face her. Her arm was raised high, her palm ready to slap Johnny's face. The dead look in the boy's eyes stopped her.

"Go ahead," Johnny said flatly. "It's what you want. You always get what you want."

*****

The back of Tess Barber's property tucked itself onto the edge of Patterson's Woods. John Barber stood a few feet from her acre and a half, leaning against an oak tree. She and his father had moved here two years before the cancer caught Henley and wouldn't let him go. How, John wondered, was that same cancer allowed to chase down his mother Ruby as well? Someday he was determined to get the answer, but tonight a different question needed resolved.

John knew he should think things through before acting, but he had a headache that had started weeks ago. His whole life up until tonight was pushing to get out and start over. Once the questions were answered he could explode and pick up the pieces, so tonight was not the time for rational plans. He walked right up to the front door and knocked loudly. There was a moment where the silence of late evening was crushing his chest. Then he saw a light go on upstairs. There was no movement, however, so he knocked again. Pressing his ear against the door, he heard muted thumps and then bright light was seeping under the door from the inside. John pulled his head back and jumped into the azalea bushes to the left of the porch.

The lock started to turn and then stopped. He imagined Tess Barber stretching to get her five-foot-five inch frame up to the peephole. John reached his arm over and knocked low on the door. Silence. And then slowly, the lock turned.

When the door opened enough for Tess to look out, John leapt out of the bushes and stuck a foot between the door and the jamb. Tess's eyes narrowed in anger, and she pushed with all her strength crushing John's foot. He yelped, then cracked his forearm into the middle of the door sending it flying open and Tess tumbling to her back. John closed and locked the door behind him, turning to stare down at his step-mother.

"Get up," he demanded.

"This is my house, you get out!"

"Fine, stay on the floor. Where is it?"

"Damn, you're thick headed," Tess laughed as she picked herself up off of the floor and sat down in her lounge chair. "There's no letter, no note, no anything. Your father had nothing to say to you. Sorry, if that's hard to hear." The sarcasm in her voice poisoned the air in the room. Before he realized it, John had taken a step toward her and raised his fist.

"Go ahead," Tess smiled. "You've waited a long time."

"Why won't you just give it to me?" John asked, lowering his arm but keeping the fist.

"He was mine. Nothing here belongs to you."

John was already stalking over to a roll top desk in the corner of the room. He threw open the cover and rifled through every piece of paper, quickly scanning its relevance. There were cancelled checks from the last four years, unpaid bills, overdue notices, letters from Todd, junk of all ilk, but nothing with his father's name on it. John stood up and saw a large closet tucked into the hallway leading to the kitchen. He took one step and a shot exploded high on the wall, the sound taking over the small room. John looked behind him at Tess holding a deer rifle.

"Get out of my house, John Barber."

"Shoot me," John said without emotion. Tess blanched momentarily, then pointed the gun.

"I'm not leaving without the letter," John continued, turning again toward the closet. Another shot buried itself in the ceiling above him.

"Come on, Tess," John laughed, advancing on her. "I know Dad taught you to shoot better than that." Again Tess winced. She let John take the rifle without a fight. He disarmed it and laid it on the coffee table.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"You know why."

"No, I don't mean that. What good is it going to do you?"

John looked deep into her eyes. She was staring at him differently. It wasn't fear or contrition, but it wasn't contempt. He took a few steps closer until he was towering over her.

"It's not my fault," Tess said. She put a hand on the wall and guided herself to her easy chair. Her eyes burned with pain as she lowered her body down. Her breathing was labored. She looked over at John as if she just remembered he was there.

"I didn't tell him not to pay any attention to you. It's not my fault." Her gaze drifted away again. "He wasn't always around for me either. You, you think you missed something. He tried to be a real father the second time, but Todd has no great love for him. You think you missed it all." Tess's eyes closed. She was tired. John sensed her waning away from him. He walked over and knelt down next to her chair.

"It might have been Dad's choice to forget I existed, but you helped it along and if you say you didn't, you're a liar. I know he was home sometimes when I called, and you would never put him on the phone. Don't lie to me anymore."

Tess's rheumy eyes teared up. She stuck her chin out and shrugged. "He was all I had. If he didn't want to be bothered, why should I force him back to his family and maybe lose him, lose everything."

"Didn't want to be bothered? I was a child. What if it had been Todd he abandoned?"

"I didn't have time to think about you. I had to save myself. Henley wasn't perfect, but he said he loved me and that was all I had."

John stood up locking his hands behind his head, stalking around the room. His headache was searing through his temples like a heated coil. His step-mother was on the verge of either falling asleep or having a stroke, he wasn't sure which. John sighed and decided to try one last time with the honeybee approach.

"Thank you for being honest with me, Tess. It's all I've ever wanted from you. Will you tell me the truth one more time?"

Tess laughed which coalesced into a cough from deep in her chest. She shook her head while wiping her mouth with a handkerchief. After a few stilted breaths, she settled back into the chair.

"The letter existed, but I honestly don't know if I still have it. Henley wrote it a few days before he died, and I was supposed to give it to you after he was gone."