Freaks & Family Legacies, page 27
Around it he could see benches at different intervals. One older gentleman sat on the far side of the pond with a fishing pole in the water. Isaac glanced off to the left and spotted a few café-style tables situated a few yards from the pond. At one, two older women and a man sat eating finger sandwiches and playing a board game. At another, an older African-American gentleman studied a chessboard while his opponent only smiled.
Isaac slowed to a stop just a few feet away and stared.
His hair was completely white now and he had gained about twenty-five pounds since the last time Isaac had seen him, but his grandfather still looked just as vibrant and spry as he remembered.
He knew he should say something, but he couldn’t seem to get his brain to work in that instant.
The old man suddenly looked up and met his gaze.
All the air left Isaac’s lungs.
He tried, but he couldn’t form words. He couldn’t even remember words.
“I’m sorry, Maynard. I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut our game short today.”
The old man spoke to his chess companion, but his eyes never left Isaac.
“My grandson is here for a visit.”
The old black man turned in his seat to see what had taken his friend’s attention.
“Is this the Isaac you talk about all the time?”
“Yes it is.”
That exchange got Isaac’s attention. His grandfather talked about him to his friends?
Sterling got to his feet and stepped closer, stretching out his arms.
Isaac swallowed and licked his lips. Outstretched arms always made him nervous, but there was no way he wasn’t hugging his grandfather after all this time.
Careful. Tentative. Lightly, but with feeling.
It was as if the old man understood the strange things the prospect of a hug did to him, and he acted accordingly. It wasn’t until the hug was over that Isaac saw it clearly — his grandfather did understand because he lived it too.
“I hoped you’d come one day,” Sterling said. Then he gestured to his chess partner. “This is my friend, Maynard Jennings. We play chess every day and listen to each other’s tall tales.”
“How do?” Maynard turned further around in his seat and tipped his hat to them.
Isaac nodded in greeting, still struggling to find his voice.
“Uh, this… this is Sidney Fairchild. She’s…”
“She’s important to you. I understand,” Sterling interrupted with a smile. Then he turned to Sidney. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, my dear.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Taylor.”
“Why don’t we walk around the pond and talk a while,” Sterling said to Isaac.
“Okay.” Isaac nodded and looked at Sidney.
“Actually, why don’t you two go.” Sidney stepped over to the table with Sterling’s friend. “I think I’ll stay here and play chess with Mr. Jennings.”
“Now that would be delightful!” Maynard smiled like he was the luckiest man at the dance to have such a beauty on his arm.
“Oh, do watch him, dear,” Sterling warned with a grin. “He’s a blatant cheater.”
Maynard laughed at his friend, but he didn’t try to deny it. Sidney giggled and Isaac couldn’t help smiling at her before he walked off with his grandfather.
He glanced around the pond as they walked, trying to decide where to jump in. This conversation was so overdue he wasn’t sure how to begin. He quietly cleared his throat and looked down at the older man.
“It’s good to see you, Grandad.”
“Oh, it’s wonderful to see you, Isaac. So grown up and doing well. I knew you had it in you to persevere. You just had to get past that low time in your life.”
His southern accent was thick, and his voice was full of what Isaac could only describe as pride. That surprised him. He twisted his clasped hands as they continued their slow trek around the water, running the thumb of his right hand back and forth across the palm of the left.
A short silence walked between them, and finally Isaac licked his lips and gathered his courage.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me? Why didn’t you?”
Sterling folded his hands behind his back. “It was a mistake. I know that now. I’ve known it since that day. In fact, I made the decision to tell you as soon as your brother and I found you in that room. I was determined that I would, right after all the confusion and excitement died down. I came to the hospital that next day on a mission to tell you everything.”
He sounded sincere, but Isaac frowned and shook his head.
“The day after?”
Sterling nodded.
“You never came to the hospital the day after. I never saw you again after the ambulance took me away.”
He hadn’t meant for his tone to sound so accusatory, but he was afraid that’s how it came out.
“I know.” Sterling nodded, sounding full of remorse. “But I was there. Brock sent me away yet again. Told me I wasn’t welcome.”
“But you had just saved my life!”
“Yes. And your mama and your older brother thanked me profusely. Your daddy, however, only made it clear that I was not to try and see you ever again. He said you were going to be normal and have a normal life, even if it killed you.”
The blood in Isaac’s veins ran so cold his teeth chattered.
Did his father hate him so much that he would’ve rather seen him dead than psychic?
The thought zapped something out of him, and he nearly doubled over. He slumped onto a nearby bench when he didn’t think his own legs would hold him up any longer. Sterling took a seat beside him.
Isaac stared out across the pond, his gaze seeking Sidney. He saw her laughing with his grandfather’s friend and just knowing she was nearby made it easier for him to breathe.
“I’m so happy you found your shield.” Sterling smiled and followed his gaze over to Sidney. “She’ll make your life one thousand times better, in one thousand different little ways. Cherish her always, Isaac.”
Isaac stared at him.
“Shield? Y-you know about all that? About…”
He let his question dangle. What had Geneviève called it?
“Hypersensitive psychics?” Sterling finished his thought with a knowing grin. “Of course I do. That’s what we are.”
He knows the lingo!
Both Isaac’s stomach and his mind took an unexpected dip, like he was swooping around a curve and plummeting down the steepest hill of a rollercoaster. His grandfather really might have all the answers he was looking for. All the answers to the questions he’d been asking himself his whole life.
“How did you learn about it?”
“My mama.”
Sterling smiled, and to Isaac he almost looked like a mischievous child speaking out of turn.
“Your great-grandmother, Abilene Taylor, was a hype herself.”
The rollercoaster flew off the tracks, and Isaac’s mind went sailing, sailing, sailing through the air.
“She was?”
It was an astonished whisper. He couldn’t muster much more.
“Yes, she was. And right proud of it too. And almost from the moment I was born, it seemed, she was indoctrinating me into the world of wonder.”
Sterling leaned back against the bench, settling in for his story, and Isaac hung on every word of his thick Tennessee accent.
“When I was growing up, my mama made being a hype seem like a badge of honor. She would tell me about all the wondrous things she could do with the power of her mind; and she showed me too! More than that, she encouraged me to develop my skills as well. When I was a very little boy, she would pull me into her lap and tell me the most imaginative stories without ever speaking a word. I would simply listen to her mind for hours on end. She said that was how she knew I had the sight as well.”
He looked at Isaac and smiled.
“That’s what she called it. The sight.”
What did he just say?
Isaac licked his lips yet again. His mouth felt like sandpaper.
“She told you stories? In her mind?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“The s-same way you…”
He paused and labored to swallow amid the Sahara desert of his throat.
“The same way you would tell me stories.”
He turned his whole body and looked at his grandfather.
“When mama would allow you to come visit me and Adam while daddy was at work. We would sit out back on that swing, and you would pull me into your lap and tell me stories. But you never opened your mouth. You never said a word out loud, but I could hear you!”
Sterling smiled and nodded his head.
“And that’s how I knew you had the sight too. Adam never responded to my stories. He couldn’t hear my mind. But you could. And you were so invested. You would ask me all sorts of intelligent questions for a three year old — how did the little rabbit beat the scary ogre, Grandaddy? Why were the faeries angry with the flowers?”
It all made sense now.
Why Geneviève had been confused when Isaac told her his abilities began when he was eight years old and not before. She’d insisted that his abilities must’ve started much earlier, and now Isaac realized that she had been right.
“I asked you questions about the stories?”
“You did.”
“With my mind?”
“Yes. That’s how I knew you could hear me. And I was so excited about it! I tried to tell your daddy that you had the sight, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d always been ashamed of our little family trait. Once when he was a teenager, he told me he was happy that the craziness would die with me. He screamed it at me in a fit of rage. He was so upset when your abilities finally began to manifest. So angry about it all. I think he ordered me to stay away as a sort of punishment. He blamed me for you having the sight.”
Isaac didn’t know what to say. It was all so much more information than he’d ever gotten before.
“I tried to tell Brock and Audrey that I could help you through it if they would only let me. Your mama was willing. She wanted to do whatever would be best for you, bless her heart. But Brock ruled that roost, as you well know. He didn’t want me anywhere near you. Said you were going to be normal. Not crazy like me.”
Isaac ran both of his hands down his face and then clasped them together, resting his elbows on his knees and shaking his head.
“It was sad really,” Sterling continued. “Here I could do these amazing wonderful things that I had been taught was a blessing. And my only child believed I was a freak of nature and wanted nothing to do with me because of it.”
“How come he didn’t have the sight?”
“I don’t know. Genetics, I guess. Got most of his genes from his mama; God rest her soul.”
The mention of his grandmother brought up a whole new question.
“So Grandma Eugenia? Was she your shield?”
Sterling’s smile rivaled the sun.
“Yes, she was. And my world was a beautiful place while she was in it. After she died… that’s when Brock really got it in his head that I was crazy. Even though he’d seen me do things his whole life, he denied it all. He was just a teenager then, and angry at losing his mama. But he wanted no comfort from me. I lost them both when Eugenia died.”
A comfortable silence settled down around them, and Isaac thought about his dad. Why was his father so filled with hate over the whole psychic thing? During that disastrous dinner for his mom’s birthday Brock had said that it ruined his life. Isaac just couldn’t wrap his head around that.
Brock wasn’t the one living with the abilities, the one coping with the struggle between the loss of human touch or the sometimes unbearable pain it brought. The strange and often scary flashes. So how exactly had his life been ruined?
“So this thing. Being a hype? How did you deal with it? The touch issues, I mean?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy.” Sterling sighed and looked at him. “Back then shaking hands meant something to a man. Deals were made that way. A handshake was your word.”
“Right.” Isaac nodded.
“I wore cotton gloves every day of my life. Always carry them with me.”
He patted the chest pocket of his shirt, and Isaac saw the finger of a white cotton glove poking out.
“Long sleeved shirts and pants, even in the summertime. And yes, people whispered. But you do what you’ve got to do in life. I had to protect myself from the pain. That was non-negotiable. If people had a problem with my gloves and long sleeves in the summertime, it was just that. Their problem. Not mine.”
Isaac nodded, thinking about the long sleeved t-shirts and gloves he’d worn for the hand-to-hand training during his time at the police academy.
“Yeah. I’ve adopted that attitude myself.”
“Oh, you have to!”
“Did you ever learn to control it? Like turn it on and off when you needed to?”
“Not entirely. Oh, you’ll gain a lot of self-possession, a lot of command over certain aspects of it. But you’ll never be fully in charge of it. Mama would give me pointers, although I’m not certain she ever learned to completely control it either.”
He grinned and Isaac smiled at him. Even though it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, he felt better knowing he wasn’t in it alone anymore. He had someone he could come to and ask for help.
“You can learn to glean whatever information you’re after. Past or present. Of course, that’s usually easier with objects than with people. At least, it’s that way for me.”
“Did you ever see the future?” Isaac asked.
Sterling gave him an indulgent smile.
“You know I did.”
“Right.” Isaac closed his eyes and shook his head for a second. “That’s how you saved me.”
“Originally, I could only see the future whenever my Eugenia was near. I assume it’s the same with you and your Sidney?”
Isaac nodded, flabbergasted.
“After Eugenia died, I took to wearing her wedding band on a chain around my neck. I found that having something of hers touching my skin had almost the same effect as having her nearby.”
“But how did you know about me? About… what I was going to do?”
He couldn’t bring himself to say those words today. It was just too much.
“You didn’t have anything of mine to touch.”
“But I did.” Sterling smiled at him. “I still do. Back when you used to sit on my lap and listen to my stories, you would always be clutching tight to a tiny blue teddybear. Do you remember him?”
Isaac frowned and thought back to his childhood. To those precious few happy times spent with his grandad.
“Beary Blue,” he whispered. Then he looked up at Sterling. “That was his name. I loved that thing. He was like my security blanket. I lost him years ago.”
Sterling shook his head.
“No, you didn’t. I took him. The last time I visited, your daddy happened to come home from work early and caught me there. He was madder than fire at both me and your mama. When he threw me out I happened to see your little teddybear sitting there abandoned after Brock made Audrey usher you boys inside. I swiped it because I knew I would need it. It was the only way I could stay informed about your life. It’s been my connection to you all these years.”
Isaac stared into his grandfather’s eyes, at a total loss of what to say. Then before he even knew what was happening he was laughing. Soon they were both doubled over in blissful cathartic laughter, holding their sides and wiping at their eyes.
“Looks like you two boys are having fun.”
They looked up to see Sidney beaming down at them.
Isaac took a labored deep breath to get himself under control.
“Chess game over, darlin’?”
“Oh, Maynard has a strict schedule he adheres to without fail.” Sterling looked at his pocket watch and answered for her. “It’s on account of his medication, you understand.”
He stood as if it was time to go, and Isaac stood up too.
“Would you two care to join me for lunch? I have a scrumptious chicken salad that I made myself. It’s your great-grandma Abilene’s recipe.”
That last line was said to entice them, and Isaac could only smile. After coming all this way and so far being pleasantly surprised, there was no way he was leaving so soon.
“We’d love to.”
Isaac took Sidney’s hand and they accompanied Sterling back around the pond and to his apartment, where he served them a delicious lunch of chicken salad sandwiches and banana pudding.
“Mmm. I have to say this is the best chicken salad I’ve ever had, Mr. Taylor.”
“Oh, please call me Sterling, honey.” He smiled at Sidney. “And I would be happy to write the recipe down for you if you want it. Mama would be plum tickled at the thought of me handing it down to the next generation of our family.”
He chuckled and took a big bite of his sandwich, and Isaac shot Sidney an embarrassed glance.
“Yes please. I would love the recipe.”
“Then you shall have it.”
“Um, can you tell me more about her, Grandad? What was she like?”
Sterling looked at him and delight lit up his eyes.
“My mama? Oh, she was beautiful. Fiery. Hard to handle once she got a full head of steam going, which was most of the time.”
He laughed and Isaac smiled.
“So she was stubborn?”
“Stubborn and persistent. But I believe that was because she knew she was usually right about most things. And of course, she was usually right because she got her information via her psychic abilities.”
“Where did her abilities come from? Do you know? I mean, this hypersensitive thing… it sounds like it’s genetic?”
“Yes, it is. And my mama always claimed that she got it from her mama, who got it from her father. Why it skipped a generation with your daddy I don’t know.”
He grew pensive for a moment.
“Although… Eugenia and I did have another child. A boy she called Boone. He died at three days old. Who knows? Maybe Boone would’ve had the sight that Brock lacked.”
Isaac stared at him. “I never knew Dad had a brother.”
