Split Love

CHAPTER 28

SATURDAY, May 25, 2019.

The weak morning sun that came through the window brightened the round kitchen table, stopping exactly halfway across it. Jasmine Davenport was sitting in a chair where the sun hadn't reached, directly facing the window. Apparently, the girl had her eyes fixed on her phone on the table, but up close it was possible to notice that she wasn't looking at anything, her mind was far away.

The silence inside the house was almost deafening, and the tick of the yellow wall clock in the kitchen was the only thing that echoed through the walls of the house. Debra had gone out to meet some friends and Jamie had been sitting in that chair for almost an hour waiting for her cellphone to beep.

Two days earlier, Jamie had contacted her uncle. Besides missing him, she needed to talk to him. Richard told her he would arrive Saturday morning at Willow Creek. And there she was waiting for his message.

Her thoughts ran so fast through her mind that one topic mixed with another until her phone rang. She didn't need to read the message, cause before she picked up her phone she saw a car parking in front of her house. It was a black sedan and Jamie knew it was a rented car.

He didn't honk. Jamie stood up calmly and put her cellphone in the back pocket of her jeans shorts. She walked out the door, crossed the garden, and got into the car.

The two didn't exchange many words in the car. The journey was quick to the chosen place, but Jamie had time to express how much she missed him and that she wanted to see him more.

The truth was that Jamie enjoyed talking with her uncle. He understood her much more than her grandmother did. Richard always listened to her, both her silly stories and her arguments very carefully before advising or scolding her. Debra was the explosive one, since her childhood, before Jamie could explain anything, she was already shouting at the girl without listening to anything. Debra also never liked giving any explanations to her granddaughter - for her, younger people need to respect their elders and that means no questions asked. Richard, on the other hand, always answered all of her questions, even if between the lines, Jamie's questions never went unanswered.

Richard parked in the large public parking lot in front of the small fire station. They got out of the car and walked in silence to one of the benches in front of the river.

The Willow River came down through the state park's waterfall and cut the city in half, with another, but very small, waterfall a few meters after the Main Street Bridge. There the river became calm, and the banks were grassy with benches and trees scattered around. In the summer, families used to have picnics while children and some young people played in the river. It was a beautiful place, with almost translucent water running between rocks. But Jamie always liked the tranquility of the state park in the north of the city.

The weather was pleasant as it was early spring, and for a few minutes, they sat in silence, watching some children running around.

- You know I can't tell you anything without your grandmother's permission, right? - Richard finally broke the silence.

- I know.

- Okay. So tell me what's going on.

Jamie took a long breath and held it for a few seconds. There was so much she wanted to say that she barely knew where to start.