A Son's Tale

He counted on being able to work. On being a decent person and doing a good job. Helping his students to reach for their dreams. He counted on caring for his father. On food on his table and a roof over his head. A car to drive and things to interest him.

He counted on sex once in a while.

He counted on his alone time to write. The relationship between him and the words that poured out of him late at night were all the emotional sustenance he sought.

He counted on living peacefully.

And then Sammie Lowen had gone missing and he’d found himself facing a confusing array of conflicting internal pressures. The pressure to help one of his students who seemed to need him. And something else, too. Some long-ago something that was fighting for release.

Closure, maybe?

Or anger?

He wasn’t sure what was going on, which was why he’d stayed clear of Morgan Lowen the second he’d known her son was okay on Saturday.

And it was also why he handed her an envelope at the end of class on Monday, inviting her to stop by his office if she wanted to.

He could walk away from the weekend and leave things as they were. He’d helped a lot of students over the years and then never heard from them again. She could be one more.

Yet he wanted to see her. To speak with her. Like there was some unfinished business to the weekend they’d shared.

He’d expected her to come up immediately after class.

She didn’t.

And that left him uncomfortable, too.

His phone rang instead.

Seeing his father’s cell phone number on the display, he answered immediately.

“How is she?”

Sitting back in his desk chair, staring out the wall of windows that looked down on the green expanse of Wallace’s campus, Cal could picture the old man on the other end of the phone.

Off work for what should have been a week of fishing, Frank Whittier would be sitting in his chair in his room, probably reading, the lines on his face getting deeper by the day.

“She seems fine.”

“You didn’t speak with her?”

“We talked about some of the social issues that Twain raised in Huck Finn as part of the class discussion.”

“And after class?”

“No. I had some students with questions. She left.”

“You spent the night with her, Cal.”

His father had asked him no less than half a dozen times since Saturday if he’d called “that poor girl.”

“Not hardly.”

“You felt compelled to stay with her through the trauma but didn’t ask how she’s holding up after?”

“It’s not my business.”

“You made it your business.”