Finding Their Son by Debra Salonen

peace. He liked the grouping of pine trees that formed a kind of sheltering cove around her little home. Another inch of the wet white stuff had fallen while they had talked.
    He didn’t begrudge the moisture. The entire state needed it, but he wasn’t thrilled about setting out in search of his uncle in this kind of weather. Maybe he was better off calling someone else to ask for help.
    But as his mind ran through the list of possible names, the emptiness in his belly became more pronounced. He hadn’t made it easy for his friends and family to be supportive the past few months. The bridges were probably still there, but they were mined with sympathy. He didn’t want to give people any more reason to feel sorry for him.
    Maybe that had been the reason he wound up with Joseph. For all his faults, Joe spoke the truth. He didn’t tryto gloss over the ugly parts to make Eli feel better. “If the way was easy, people would complain about that, too,” Joseph had said over their first six-pack. Their first of many.
    As if tapping into his thoughts, she said, “I met your uncle at a powwow near Bear Butte a few months ago. He asked about my aunt. Small world, huh?”
    Eli set down his cup a bit more forcefully than necessary. He knew what she was implying and he refused to believe it. “You think I’m here because my uncle—mystic seer that he is—found out where you lived and figured I’d unerringly stumble across you and you’d share the deep dark secret of your life with only a stolen B.B. pistol at your temple.”
    She not only laughed, she pretended to clap. “Now, that’s more like the Eli I remember. Smart, funny, irreverent, full of himself.”
    “How could you know me? Except for that one night—”
    “Alleged night,” she put in.
    He gave her a look that would have made his daughters sit back and listen.
    It didn’t work with her. She made a face and said, “I knew you better than you could have imagined. It’s one of the unrated aspects of being invisible.”
    He got up and walked to the counter to refill his cup. “You were younger than me. I didn’t know any underclassmen—unless they were on the basketball team or related to someone on the basketball team.”
    She nodded. “I’m not accusing you of ignoring me. Heck, no. I went out of my way to be invisible. You would, too, if the only thing that set you apart from the rest of the world was a pair of giant upright udders.”
    He bit his lip to keep from smiling. “There wasn’t a single guy on the team that would have called them that.”
    He could tell the topic embarrassed her, but she’d been the one to bring up the subject.
    “Well, maybe girls today are more comfortable with their sexuality, but my mom made such a big deal out of my figure—like I was trying to outdo her on purpose—that I did my best to be inconspicuous.”
    He could be thankful that at least Bobbi was a good mother. When she first told him she was leaving, he’d wanted the girls to stay with him. They’d looked at him like he was crazy. Another killer blow to his ego coming on top of learning his son wasn’t his biological offspring.
    He was about to bring up the subject of their supposed kid, when she said, “I signed up for every after-school activity where you might be. I took tickets at games, sold popcorn and candy at the school store, and worked in the library because you sometimes studied there.”
    He let out a gruff hoot. “I made out with Bobbi in the stacks, you mean. I didn’t have to study that hard because I knew I was getting a basketball scholarship.” He’d had one, too. For a week. “You sound like a stalker.”
    “I was a listener. I heard things. I knew Bobbi planned to snag you before you could get away by going to college. Although, in all fairness, I think her goal was to go with you, not to make you give up school altogether.”
    Bobbi. His wife’s name didn’t sound right coming from this stranger’s lips. And yet Char