Chapter 1 - Old Wounds

Click, click click… click… “Crap!”

Marion Holst had just about reached her level of tolerance with the spreadsheet she was using. It was supposed to be simple; just plug in a few numbers, load the printer with the blank form, press the ‘print’ key, and presto: one contract ready for signing. Unfortunately, she was still at the ‘plug in a few numbers’ stage of the game, and the spreadsheet wasn’t playing nice.

“Marion?” came John’s voice over the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Line two is for you.”

“Send it to my voice mail. I’m in a bit of a struggle right now.”

“Will do,” he said as the intercom light turned off.

“Okay,” Marion muttered as she returned her full attention to the spreadsheet on the screen, “When all else fails, read the manual.”

A moment later, the intercom blinked on again.

“I’m sorry Marion,” John apologized, “but it’s your sister and she says it’s important.”

“Okay, I got it,” said Marion as she gave the screen her best ‘You haven’t won yet’ expression. She put line two on the intercom.

“Sue?”

“Marion!” exclaimed her sister, “You’ll never guess in a million years who I just got off the phone with.”

Marion was relieved that her sister’s call wasn’t something serious, but was a bit peeved by her calling just to play guessing games in the middle of the day.

“The Pope?” Marion offered.

“Nope,” she said, ignoring Marion’s sarcasm, “Bobby Holst.”

Marion’s thoughts about the spreadsheet vanished as she snatched up the receiver.

“Are you kidding?” Marion asked, amazed.

“Nope!” Sue replied, her enthusiasm bubbling over, “And you’ll never believe why he called.”

“Try me.”

“He wanted your phone number and email address. He said he was going to give you a call and invite you to his graduation.”

“Oh, my, god,” Marion said in stunned amazement. It wasn’t the fact that her oldest son, whom she hadn’t seen since the divorce, wanted to have her attend his graduation; it was the fact that he was old enough to graduate in the first place that took her by surprise. Had the time passed so quickly? “He’s… seventeen,” she said aloud to herself.

Sue paused a second or two to let the news sink in, “He said he couldn’t find your number in the phonebook, and wanted your email so he could send you his. I told him it would be okay to call you and gave him your home number. You’ll be home after six, won’t you?”

“Uh… yeah, sure,” Marion said as she peered at her day-timer. Her mind was already thinking back to the last time she had seen her sons. It had been just a few weeks after the gifting, and both he and his brother had been terrified at the sight of her. But they were just boys when she had been transformed into a centaur. Now they were young men.

“Marion?” asked Sue when the line had been silent for too long.

“I’m still here,” she said, her mind jumping back to the present, “I’m just a bit stunned, that’s all.”

“Well the moment you finish talking to him, promise you’ll call and fill me in on all the details.”

“Okay,” Marion said, “You’ll be the first to know.”

“And Marion,” Sue added, “I’d better warn you. He sounds exactly like Robert over the phone.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you after he calls.”

Marion hung up the phone, and feeling something she hadn’t felt in many years, turned her attention back to the spreadsheet with renewed vigor. Either she would have this thing working by five, or she’d crush the PC and throw it in the trash.

The spreadsheet finally relented around 4:30, and Marion decided to go home early. It was a good thing she did, too, as traffic was particularly bad this afternoon. When she finally made it to her house, it was already half past five.

She anxiously checked the answering machine and her email, and found nothing but the usual unsolicited garbage. She went to the kitchen to start dinner (and kill time) only to have the phone ring. A twinge of nervousness ran through her. What would she say? Since it wasn’t after six, it probably wasn’t him.

“Hello?”

There was a slight pause.

“Mom?”

The word itself ran a shiver down both her human and equine back. She thought she would never hear it again in her life. And Sue had been right: He sounded exactly like Robert.

“Bobby?”

“Hi mom!” said Bobby, the hesitancy in his voice replaced with a tone of relief, “Did Aunt Sue tell you I was going to call?”

“She called me the moment after you called her,” said Marion, “She said you’re graduating.”

“Yeah… uh… that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Bobby said with some hesitation, “Do you think that you could come down to my graduation? I’d really like to have you there.”

Marion could hear the hesitation in his voice. Was he just being polite, and worried that she would actually accept the invitation? Or was it something else? She doubted the former, because if that were the case, he wouldn’t have called in the first place.

“I’d love to be there,” she said, convincing herself with her own words, “When is the graduation?”

“The twenty-sixth of next month,” he said, a note of relief in his tone, “I just wanted to give you advanced notice in case you had to make plans.”

Marion discovered that Robert and the boys had moved to Nashville about six years ago. Robert had since remarried, and they now had a fourteen-year-old stepsister named Michelle. She gave him her email address, and he promised to send her directions to the school. What she though would be a short conversation soon turned into a three-hour chat.

“Hey mom? I gotta go. My friend Luke is pestering me to give him his phone back.”

“Okay Bobby,” she said, thinking it was odd that he had called from a friend’s phone, “I’ll see you on the twenty-sixth.”

“Okay mom, bye. And thanks for coming.”

“You’re welcome. Bye.”

“Your son’s graduating? Geeze you’re old,” teased Ed.

Marion had been talking to Pinky at the reception desk of the Center for Gifted Research when Ed Wilson, also known as Adamant, walked by.

“Why thank you, young man,” she quipped back, patting him on the head, “How astute of you to notice.”

[End of unfinished story. More to come.]