Presque Vu

Chapter 31

"Do we need any plates?" Cassie called from the kitchen as Shannon and I settled in.

"No, just forks," I replied. Shannon gave a little laugh and shook his head. I could hear Cassie rattling around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets. "What are you doing? I said just forks."

"I know but I thought that..." her voice trailed off as I heard another cabinet click open and then quickly closed. "Aaron has some...." there was a pause, more shuffling around and then, "... ah, here we go."

Cassie waddled back out of the kitchen with forks, a couple of glasses, a bottle of whiskey and a Diet Coke. "I figured since it was a whiskey pecan pie we'd pair it up. Or you guys can." She handed me everything except the Diet Coke and a fork for herself before sitting down next to me. "Okay. Sugar me up." she laughed.

We dove into the pie with a laugh, and the room was soon filled with the oohs and aahs of satisfied mouths. Shannon took a few bites before looking at me expectantly. "Okay then. When does story time start?"

"I'm not sure where to begin, really," I told him.

"Tell me who you used to be, Raina. When you felt most like yourself."

I took another bite of the pie, savoring the way the warm bite of the whiskey melded with the caramelized sugar of the filling while I mulled over what he had asked. It was a simple question, but it was hard to answer. Was that really me, that person I had been before it all came crashing down? Or was that a mask, something I had glued in place but been unable to maintain? "I um... well..." I took a deep breath, a thought occurring to me. "You know, I'm more than what happened to me, more than the story of what broke me."

"And I want to hear it," Shannon said as he poured me a glass of the whiskey. "Start anywhere you want. Just tell me something, Raina."

I took a sip of the whiskey, which seemed harsher with all the sweetness in my mouth, and I grimaced. "I guess my story starts before I was even born, really. You see my father, his family didn't like my mother. They were kind of well off, and my mother was just this farm girl from the sticks. When she got pregnant and they ran off and got married, they cut him off, refused to have anything to do with him or her. Then, when my mom was about seven months pregnant, my father was driving home in a really bad thunderstorm one night and went off the road. He skidded into a tree, head on, at pretty good speed. Died instantly. There was some drama at the funeral but after that, Mom and I never heard from his family again. She sent them a picture of me after I was born, but they never contacted her back."

"So you never met your dad or any of his family?" Shannon asked.

"Nope. Mom moved back in with her parents on the farm, and I grew up there. And If they wanted to see me I was right there where they could find me. They had plenty of time. I am not going to go looking for them." I set my fork down, the pie no longer seeming as tempting. "It really bothered me that not one person in that whole family has ever tried to see me. Mom said that my father had two brothers and a sister, which means I have uncles and an aunt and probably cousins that I've never known. But they are about as real to me as fairies."

Shannon rubbed his forehead and stared down at his glass for a minute. "You know, Raina, there's no telling what they were told about you and your mother. They may not even know you exist. It might be worth a try to maybe contact one of them."

"That's what I told her," Cassie supplied. "But she's not willing to risk it."

I gave a little shrug as I stared at my hands. "Maybe one day. I don't know. But it wasn't so bad growing up without them. I loved my life on that farm. My Tito was so proud of it. He worked it himself, every day. He was this really quiet, gentle man who just seemed perfectly in tune with that farm. It was like a part of him - the land, the animals, it all felt like just an extension of Tito."