Finding Jaime

Chapter 105

"Jaime? Jaime Clarke. Is that you?" A voice that sounded familiar called my name. I looked up from the book I was looking at to see who was calling me. A woman came up to me and Mom as we were doing some grocery and Christmas shopping at Target. Marvel was sitting in the shopping cart. The woman had a little kid with her. I recognized him immediately. Charlie. The little kid from the foster home where I spent the first night after my mom died.

"It is you," she smiled at me. "I thought so."

"Hi," I said.

"Jaime?" Mom asked.

"Oh, Mom, this is Mrs. Kingston. She's the foster mom I spent the first night with after my mom died," I explained. Mom nodded.

"How are you doing?" Mrs. Kingston asked. Charlie was kind of hiding behind her.

"I'm okay," I said.

"I've read about you in the papers a few times. Who would have thought who your dad turned out to be, huh?" She smiled at me.

"Yeah. Oh, this is my mom, Meagan, and my little sister, Marvel. Marvel, that guy is Charlie. He tried to be nice to me when my mama died and I wasn't very nice to him," I said. I looked at Charlie, who was sort of hiding behind Mrs. Kingston. "Sorry, kid."

Charlie peered at me.

"Well, you'd suffered quite a shock," Mrs. Kingston said. "I'm sure Charlie understands, right Charlie?"

Charlie nodded from behind Mrs. Kingston.

"I hear you've had quite an interesting year so far," Mrs. Kingston said.

"You could say that," I said.

"But you're doing well? I heard you were sick," Mrs. Kingston said.

"I'm doing much better, thanks," I said. Mrs. Kingston smiled at me.

"It looks like you landed with a good family, hmm?" She said, looking at Marvel, smiling and then smiling at Mom. Mom smiled back.

"Yeah. My dad turned out to be pretty cool," I smiled. She smiled at me.

"I would say so," she laughed. "Well, we won't bother you any more. I saw you, I thought it was you and I just wanted to say hi."

"Thanks," I smiled. "And Charlie, I'm really sorry I was mean to you."

Charlie shrugged.

"You were sad. I think you're happier now," he said quietly. I smiled at him.

"I am. You're right," I said. "But I was mean to you and it wasn't your fault. So, I guess I just wanted to apologize."

I offered my fist for a fist bump.

Charlie smiled shyly and moved out from behind Mrs. Kingston. He lightly bumped fists. I smiled at him.

"We cool?" I asked. Charlie shrugged and nodded.

They said goodbye again and went to do their shopping. Mom watched them walk away.

"You never talked about that first night. Before you met with your dad and came home," Mom said.

"Not much to talk about, really," I said, as we started towards the groceries. "I was mad, scared, sad. I didn't want to believe my mom was gone. I didn't want to meet my dad because as far as I knew, he'd had to have known about me, and he just bailed for 15 years."

"Jaime, you know that isn't true," Mom said.

"I know that now. I didn't know that then. All I knew was I couldn't keep my mom alive, and now she expected me to go live with some deadbeat who was suddenly going to become a great dad?"