Farsighted (Farsighted Series) (19 page)

“Alex,” Mom calls, as I’m about to fall asleep. “Someone’s here for you.”

Who’d be here for me? I stretch and pull myself out of bed, slapping my cheeks in a futile attempt to beat the sleepiness out. I drag myself toward the living room, unsure of who to expect or why. As I approach, I hear the heated exchange of whispers.

“You had no cause. No cause,” Mom hisses.

“I had to. I know you don’t understand, but I had my reasons,” a man whispers back.

“You hurt me. You hurt, Alex.”

“I did it to protect—”

I clear my throat as I peak around the hall into the living room. The whispering stops.

“Hey, buddy,” someone with a gravelly voice greets me—one I haven’t heard for a few months but recognize.

“Dad,” I say with as much hate as I can squeeze into a single syllable.

“Look, I understand you’re mad at me for leaving, but I’m back now. Back to stay.” He plants a wet sucking kiss on Mom. “That’s the important thing, right?”

I don’t want to ruin this moment for Mom, but I’ve got to protect her.
Pissed
doesn’t even begin to describe my mood. I say nothing. Dad comes over and traps me between his arms, making me feel like a caged animal right before the hunter blows its brains out. I squirm within his grip. The need to break free to safety is strong, but his arms are stronger still. My escape fails.

Mom wraps her arms around the both of us, rocking gently and going on about how happy she is the family is back together at last. I snort, but Dad speaks at the exact same time, drowning out the noise of my frustration.

“I’m sorry it hurt you when I left, but I had to, Susan. I needed to be the provider for once, so I left, looking for work. I took on a construction gig outside of Boston, stayed with Nana and Gramps. When I called, I thought the work had dried up, so I said I’d be coming home, but then I got another opportunity. I couldn’t pass it up, and I was too proud to tell you the truth. I’m sorry if I hurt you. I love you. Love you both.”

“You didn’t have to leave,” Mom says. “I knew you were trying to get a job here, and I vowed for better or worse, richer or poorer. The three of us being together is more important than anything.” I can tell there’s a long talk boiling under her skin. She should grill Dad about the real reason he left, about Miss Teak. She doesn’t have to put on this show of support for my benefit. I’m angry, too.

“I’ll never leave again,” he promises.

“But I will,” I snarl, wriggling my way out his grip. “Can’t you see you’re so much better than him?” I yell at Mom. “I’m outta here.”

I pull my boots on over my pajamas without even bothering to lace them up, grab my coat, and slam the door behind me. While I’m doing this Mom tries to stop me, begs me to stay, but Dad tells her to let me go.  The bickering resumes the moment I’m free of the house. I break into a run, and the wind floods my ears.

***

I trudge over to Miss Teak’s. I’m going to ask her pointblank what’s going on with Dad, and I’m going to ask her to come out in the open and tell Mom the truth. Mom’s upset now, but I know it’s only a matter of time before she buys whatever lame excuse he’s feeding her and forgives him fully. She’s too blindly in love with the jerk to see him for what he really is.

I storm into Miss Teak’s like a hurricane, but a bigger storm is already brewing. Shapri is pacing from one side of the shop to another. I say pacing, but she’s moving so fast, it could almost be classified as jogging. None of Miss Teak’s heavy footfalls supplement Shapri’s, meaning she’s standing somewhere, or sitting. Their earthy scents spin ominously around each other in a cyclone of tension. The two are arguing loudly. Very loudly.

“I already told you why that can’t happen. Get over it, girl,” Miss Teak says in a high-pitched drawl, not at all like her usual accent. Maybe she’s losing her voice from all the yelling.

“No! There’s no reason why you can’t—Alex?”

“Huh, me?” I’m caught off guard when Shapri addresses me. I was feeling like an outside observer, not a player in this scene.

“Yeah, you. What are you doing here?”

“Um,” I stall. Then I remember why I’m here, and all the anger comes rushing to the surface. I raise my voice, almost yelling. “I came to talk to
her
.” I point to the center of the room, hoping Miss Teak is there, so I don’t look stupid.

“Yes, my child. Have you come to learn more of your future?”

“No! I want to know about the present,
your
present. What’s going on between you and Dad? Why did he leave? Why did he come back? How can you play nice with my mom one second and tear her marriage apart the next? Why don’t you—”

“Wait, what? You think
she’s
having an affair with your dad. Ha, yeah right. She’s not capable of love, that’s impossible,” Shapri interjects.

Miss Teak sighs, but otherwise leaves this conversation to Shapri and me.

“No, Shapri, you’re wrong. Something’s obviously up with her and my dad. If you saw what I walked in on before he left. If you heard the way—”

“But she’s married!” Shapri huffs.

“Duh, that’s why it’s called an affair.”

Shapri starts on another rant, but this time Miss Teak cuts her short.

“I’m not having an affair with your father,” she states

“And nothing’s going on?”

She clears her throat; a sure sign she’s lying. “The universe is vast. To say nothing, one must also say everything.”

“What the hell? That’s not even close to an answer to my question.”

“Alex, don’t talk to my mom that way. She’s just putting on a show for you. She would never do anything to hurt your family,” Shapri intrudes.

“She’d never do anything to hurt my family, huh? But I know she’s behind all of Dad’s lies. He started acting weird as soon as she came to town, started sneaking around, started lying. Then he left us. For months. Said he was looking for work, but I know that’s a lie. Since he’s not willing to tell me what’s going on, she’s the only person I can ask. And she better tell me the truth,” I fume.

“Why are you being so rude? Would you treat your own mother this way?” Shapri asks, coming over to stand in front of me. This closeness reminds me of our almost-kiss; it makes me uncomfortable, but also injects a bit of tenderness to the confrontation.

“I’m doing this all for
my
mom. To protect her. She’s not even the slightest bit suspicious of him. She believes whatever he tells her, and I don’t want her to keep getting hurt.” I sidestep to get away from Shapri and face Miss Teak directly. “Look, I’m not asking you to end your affair with my dad. I don’t understand why you’d want him, anyway, but really, I just want this to stop hurting my mom. Please come out in the open, let my mom see what’s going on, so she knows the truth. And then leave and go away, so she isn’t forced to see the two of you together every day and feel sad all over again.”

“You seek to understand the truth, but sometimes our vision plays tricks on us. What you think you see may actually be an illusion, a misperception,” she responds with so little interest, making so little sense, it sends me straight over the edge. I’m being way nicer than necessary, and she can’t even give me a direct response. Words can’t express my anger, but my hand can. I raise my arm without thinking, willing to do whatever it takes to prove I’m not a little boy who can be lied to, to get the answers I need in whatever way it takes.

“What are you doing?” Shapri flies at me and grabs my arm before I can make contact with my target. “You can’t hit my mom. What’s your problem?” Her voice is so shrill, it’s hard to make out the individual words. I try to shake her off, but she clings tight.

“Stop,” someone commands from the front of the shop. I’ve been so caught up in what was going on, I didn’t even hear the door swing open. “Stop,” he repeats, and I realize
he
is Dad. “It’s time to tell Alex the truth.”

“But, Greg, is he ready?” Miss Teak asks, crossing the room.

“We’ve done everything we can. Even if he’s not ready, we need to tell him and put this misunderstanding to rest.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, panting.

“Alex, you’re right. I didn’t leave to look for work. I left for other reasons,” Dad starts. “I had to remove myself as an obstacle, to give you your space to grow into your gift.”

“Wait, you know about gifts?” I ask, aghast and confused. Dad hates psychics, so why would he take the time to learn their lingo? Unless it’s bedroom talk for him and Miss Teak. I shudder.

“Ever since I was your age, yes. That’s when my powers surfaced as well.”

“Your powers? No, if you had them, I would’ve noticed already. You’re trying to trick me so I won’t tell Mom about your affair. It’s not going to work.”

“Alex, you need to believe me,” Dad says in a tone that seems to imply he feels sorry for me. “This. Is. The. Truth. How can I convince you?”

“S-show me,” I falter. Ninety-nine percent of me thinks he’s a liar, but the other one percent can’t help but wonder. The thing with the briefcase was just too weird to be a coincidence—the combination, the bracelet inside, the Christmas gift already wrapped. How else could these things be explained?

“You doubt me, but you also don’t know how to explain the briefcase you opened on Christmas Day. Am I right?”

“No,” I hesitate. “Lucky guess. You haven’t proven anything.”

“The combination, the Christmas present, the bracelet to enter a trance state, those were all carefully placed to show you what I am. Nana called and told me what to do—she saw you opening the briefcase on Christmas. I had to give you the evidence you’d need to believe me when I finally told you the truth.”

My mouth drops open, but no words come out.

“You need more, eh?” He cracks his knuckles. “Okay, think about something you’ve never told anyone, something only you know.” His Boston accent is back again.

I don’t want to play his games, but his prompt has sent my mind into a tailspin. Simmi, of course, Simmi is what I’m thinking about. I’ve never had to voice the danger aloud since Miss Teak learned by touch. I’ve never told anyone. It’s not exactly something I like to talk about.

“You’re thinking about Simmi,” Dad says, cutting my thoughts short.

From the corner of the room, Shapri grunts. I had forgotten she was here listening to this.

“She’s in danger, and you want to save her,” Dad finishes. “And Miss Teak already knows.”

“Simmi’s in danger? You knew?” Shapri asks, coming over to stand somewhere between her mom and me.

“No. No she’s not. He’s making stuff up. You don’t really believe he can tell what I’m thinking, do you?” I say with a faked confidence, hoping Shapri’s disbelief in all things psychic will be enough to throw her off the trail.

Shapri titters nervously. “No, you’re right. But why are they messing with us?”

“Girl, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. These things are real,” Miss Teak says. What happened to her mystic voodoo way of speaking?

“Think about something else,” Dad says, directing the conversation back the way he wants it to go. “Do this, think about an animal, a color, a number, a shape, and a place. There’s no way I could guess the exact combination by chance, right?” His Bostonian way of speaking hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s used it for this entire conversation. Something tells me it’s related to what we’re doing.

I obediently select one thing from each of the categories Dad listed:  a wolf, brown, six, diamond, and New York.

Dad repeats the list back to me as soon as I’ve finished compiling it in my head. “And Shapri’s thinking of a parrot, purple, eighty-two, and New Orleans,” he adds.

“Lucky guess,” Shapri spits, but I can tell she’s shaken.

“And you’re right, Alex. My accent is related to my gifts. I grew up speaking with this accent as a child and a teenager. But when I left Boston, I suppressed it and trained myself to speak like a normal mid-Westerner. Whenever I use my gifts, I revert to my natural way of speaking. I can’t help it.”

“So you can read minds,” I say, putting the pieces together. “And whenever you read them, you’re so preoccupied you end up using your Boston accent. And all of those times we’ve been talking and you start speaking like that, you’ve been reading my thoughts?”

“Pretty much,” Dad says. He seems overjoyed at the truth being out.

“This is too much for me,” Shapri intrudes. “I can’t listen to it anymore. I’m going home.” She grabs a set of keys, scraping them across a glass tabletop, and rushes out the door.

We all listen as she squeals out of the parking lot.

***

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I finally accept Dad is telling the truth about being gifted. What I still don’t understand is how the Teaks are involved, or why Dad was so dead-set against them when they first moved to town.

“I can explain,” Dad says. Great, he’s in my head again.

I decide to speak as much as possible and think as little as possible so as not to give him this added power over me. “You know, I’m not really digging the idea of having a Dad who can tell what I’m thinking whenever he wants. Aren’t thoughts supposed to be private?”

“Do you want to talk about psychic ethics, or do you want an answer to your question about the Teaks?” Dad shoots back.

Miss Teak shuffles her feet.

“Okay, fine. Tell me about the Teaks first. We’ll talk boundaries later.”

“You’re right. I was really not too happy when they first came to town. I’ve been working for years to protect you, then they show up and throw all of my carefully laid plans in the gutter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think we live in Grandon, Alex? If we’d have moved to a bigger city, you could go to a special school, I could find more work, Mom would get more business. It would be all around easier for everyone.”

“I don’t know,” I sputter. I never wondered about that. Things have just always been the way they are. Well, until recently, anyway.

“You see, psychic energy is magnetic,” Dad continues. “It attracts other psychic energy to it by nature. Around the world, hotspots have developed, places where there is a lot of concentrated psychic energy. The bigger the city, the higher the energy. But it’s not only about numbers, it’s about strength, too. A really powerful psychic can draw others to him without even realizing it.”