Sweet Reunion (17 page)

Justin smiled, and this time it wasn't his patented
smile #243, the don't-hate-me-because-I'm-irresistible smile. It wasn't #421,
the I'm-so-sexy-you-can't-resist-my-charms smile. It wasn't even another one of
her personal favorites, #67, the I-know-what-I-just-said-was-naughty-but-what-can-you-do-I'm-such-a-rascal
smile.

No. This smile was her very favorite. It was his best
smile. It was #1, the nothing-behind-it-just-radiating-pure-happiness smile.

He reached up and brushed a lock of her golden curls
off of her forehead and, still gracing her with the full force of smile #1,
said, “I remember everything.”

Chapter 16

Justin wandered aimlessly
down Main Street, taking in his surroundings, and doing his best to get his
head on straight.

Justin had begun his ramble without a specific
destination in mind, but then realized that without consciously intending to,
he had been heading toward the youth athletics fields at the north end of town.

He supposed that made sense. He was on a journey, it
seemed, to rediscover his youth – the good, the bad, and the ugly. He had come
here, obviously, to honor Parker, and that was solidly in the good column. He
had faced down the bad and the ugly by way of the speech he had given at the
memorial service two days ago, and that had been far from easy. But he did feel
freed by it. Time to revel in some more of the good, he reasoned.

When he was a kid, elementary school age and up
through middle school, discipline and order had not been things that were
highly prized in his home. Rather, chaos had ruled. Every day that Justin had
woken up, it was a spin of the roulette wheel as to what his life was going to
be like that day. Was his Dad going to be sober, behaving relatively normally?
Was there going to be food in the kitchen to eat? Were the lights going to work
when he flipped the switch, or water come pouring out of the faucet when he
turned the knob? When he walked into the living room, was it going to be empty,
or full of unsavory characters that his father had connected with in the bar the
night before and who were now sleeping off the effects of the party that they
had continued from the bar to Justin's home? Scariest of all, was the day going
to bring some other out of control event that he had absolutely no way of even
predicting?

All of these questions and more were things that
plagued Justin's young mind when he woke up every single day. They were things
he had no way of knowing, and moreover, things he had absolutely no control
over. Control and order were things that Justin craved more than anything. More
than food, more than water, sometimes even more than air – he craved
predictability and structure. His mother was never going to be of any use in
that department. She had taken off when Justin was still an infant. And Justin
had known from a very early age that looking to his father to provide that was
a losing proposition.

Rick Barnes himself had encouraged that philosophy.
From the time that Justin was about three years old, old enough to pour cereal
in a bowl, Rick had pretty much left him to his own devices. Not only that, but
he took pride in the fact. When one of his frequent female overnight guests
would try to cook breakfast for Justin, cooing over him and making a big deal –
no doubt as a way to attempt to ingratiate themselves with Rick – his father
would always tell them, “Leave the boy alone, he knows how to fend for
himself.”

Justin could swear that he heard a note of pride in
those pronouncements, as if in Rick's own estimation, his shining parental
accomplishment had been raising a child who did not need him at all.
Considering Rick's aptitude for parenting and his preference for alcohol,
perhaps that was simply self-awareness.

But, whatever the case, Justin knew from a young age
that whatever structure and predictability was going to be present in his life,
he was going to need to be the one to provide it. He learned early on that it
was unwise to depend on anyone but himself. He needed to learn to be
disciplined and self-sufficient if he wanted to live a life of calm and order.

The problem arose when it came to implementing that
discipline and self-sufficiency. Some eight-year-olds may come hardwired to be
completely self-motivated in things like schedule, hygiene, homework, and
health, but Justin would be willing to bet that the majority of them were not.
Self-discipline was an art that needed to be taught, at least it certainly had
been in Justin's case. And he obviously wasn't getting those lessons from his
father.

Where he did find them was in youth athletics. Every
sport they offered, he played. He didn't realize until he was older that
organized sports for kids were actually expensive, because he had never been
asked to pay. The Parks and Recreation department had given him a free pass
onto team after team. He realized as an adult that this had been a small
gesture on the part of the town, a way to ameliorate the guilt and discomfort
they must have felt at leaving him in a home situation that everyone knew was
untenable, taking no action to improve his situation. It was Hope Falls' way of
keeping an eye on him, so to speak.

But, guilty gesture or no, it had been the thing which
had given Justin the critical tools for survival that he still depended on to
this day. The discipline to stick to a workout regimen, the self-respect of
keeping your gear clean and in good order, the proper respect for authority in
the form of his coaches, and lastly – the camaraderie of being part of a team,
and the responsibility inherent in that.

When you were a contributing member of a team, you had
a responsibility to people other than yourself. You had to depend on them in
part, just as they depended on you. That's the one lesson, he realized with
regret, that may have gotten a bit rusty over the years. He'd been so committed
to complete self-sufficiency after leaving Hope Falls that it was feeling like
an adjustment to find himself back in midst of a community again.

In Alaska, of course, he had known people, had
friends, had relationships, even been part of numerous teams of people working
at various jobs. But all of that was transitory in nature. The culture there,
at least with the people he had sought out, was one of souls in transit, people
with pasts they'd prefer not to revisit and futures that were uncertain. If you
woke up one morning and someone had packed up their possessions in the middle
of the night and moved on, you shrugged and went on about your day. It was
expected. Inculcating himself into that culture helped him feel that the way he
had betrayed Parker and Amanda was less egregious than he knew it actually was.

And now he found himself right back in the middle of
the situation he had spent years running from. People here were depending on
him. Amanda was depending on him. He wanted – desperately wanted, needed even –
to live up to her expectations, and not to let her down again. But he did not
know if he had the strength to do it.

So, yes, it did make sense that, as he internally
struggled to strengthen his character, his subconscious had led him right back
to the same athletic fields which had instilled in him all of the character
traits of any value which he now possessed. Maybe watching these kids play,
remembering what it felt like to be a part of the team out on that field, would
strengthen his resolve not to run. As a player, he would never dream of walking
off the field in the middle of a game. It simply wouldn't have occurred to him,
no matter how formidable the opposition. That's the same resolve he needed to
now apply to the new team he found himself a part of, the co-management of
Mountain Ridge Outdoor Adventures, and to his newly rediscovered connection
with Amanda.

As he rounded the final corner before the athletic
fields came into view, he could already hear the crowd noise and the whistles,
the clapping hands and excited voices that he always associated with games. Of
course, he had never had a parent in the stands to watch him or be proud of
him, but nevertheless, the infectious enthusiasm of the other players' friends
and families had translated into his emotional consciousness, and he never
failed to get the juicy tingle of anticipation when he heard it. In fact, like
a Pavlovian response, he could feel happiness growing in him even now as he
listened to the cheers.

He wandered to the back of the crowd and leaned
against the trunk of a tall tree. Unlike the high school football field, there
were no permanent bleachers here at the youth athletic park, but rather, the
parents congregated at the edges of the field with blankets or portable chairs.
For the less prepared in the crowd, which today included Justin, it meant a
long game either on your feet, or sitting directly on the grass and dirt.
Justin didn't mind standing.

As he watched the players maneuver their way up and
down the field, he was struck by something odd. One of the players, a kid who
looked to be about eight years old, bore Justin's own surname on the back of
his jersey.

Sure, it's not as if Barnes was a rare last name, not
in the least. But in the small town of 5,000 souls, it was a bit of a coincidence.
He realized that the kid probably got mistaken for a relative of Justin and
Rick Barnes on a regular basis, and grimaced in sympathy for the young man.
After all, he had grown up with the stigma of being related to Rick Barnes, he
knew first-hand how it stung. It wasn't something he would wish on some poor
unsuspecting child. If Justin were one of the kid's parents, he would probably
consider moving, out into the anonymous world, where the name “Barnes” was
common and carried with it no stain.

When the game ended, Justin made his way toward the
field. Since he was here, and making the effort to connect to his former
athletic roots, it only made sense that he should stop by and say hello to his
old coach.

As he was approaching the field and the players were
finding their things, he noticed that the kid with the “Barnes” jersey on was
gazing at him with a peculiar expression. Before he even had time to
contemplate the oddness of that fact, the boy's expression changed. Like a
switch was flipped, turning on an internal spotlight, his face suddenly
brightened.

The kid opened his mouth, and to Justin's surprise,
yelled at the top of his lungs, “My brother's here! Coach! My brother's here!
My brother came to see me!”

Justin, puzzled by the fact that the kid seemed to be
looking in his direction when he said this, turned around and gazed over his
shoulder to get a look at who the actual object of this boy's enthusiasm was.
There was no one there, the crowd had largely dissipated.

When Justin turned back to face forward again, he saw
that the Barnes boy was moving toward him, and he had both of his small hands
wrapped around one of the coach's large ones, dragging him along as well. He
was still chattering excitedly about his brother. Damn, Justin thought. That brother
must be quite a guy.

He paused in his progress toward the field, leaning
against a tree. He figured he would just wait for few minutes while the coach
met his player's brother and then say a quick hello after that.

To his surprise, however, the boy pulled Coach over to
stand right in front of Justin and then stopped there. That's awkward, Justin
thought, trying to make the appropriate amount of eye-contact for the situation
so as not to seem strange. Then again what IS the appropriate amount of eye contact
for when your childhood and teen football coach and a child who is a complete
stranger to you stand one foot away from you to have a private conversation?
Too much seems intrusive. Too little seems artificial. Justin realized that
there might not be an appropriate social etiquette for this particular
situation.

“See?” the kid enthused to Coach, vibrating with
excitement, “I told you my brother was here! This is my brother!”

Coach laughed and clapped Justin on the shoulder.
Looking down at the thrilled kid, Coach said, “Noah, I know your brother very
well! I used to be his coach, as well. Isn't that right, Justin?”

Justin's eyes narrowed in confusion as he looked at
his former coach. He felt like he sometimes felt in dreams, as if the world and
all the people in it were operating by some set of mysterious rules that
everyone was privy to except for him. Hell, he often felt that way when he was
awake as well, just never to this degree. “Who's brother?” he asked Coach.

Coach hesitated a moment, looking unsure, as if he
couldn't quite figure out if Justin were joking or not. But after that initial
pause, he pushed ahead, if not quite as confidently. “Your brother, Justin.
Noah?”  He looked down at the child, who at that moment confused Justin even
further by throwing his arms around Justin's waist.

Justin's arms flew into the air as if in surrender.
“What the...?”  he began, but just then the kid was distracted yet again by a
car that was pulling up in the parking lot, and the man that was climbing out
of it.

“Dad!” he yelled, running in that direction, “My
brother! My brother came to see me! Why didn't you tell me my brother was
coming to see me?”

And with that, Justin turned and saw the little boy –
Noah, Coach had said his name was – launch himself into the arms of someone
that Justin had not seen in over 15 years, and had never planned to see again
in this lifetime. Rick Barnes. His father.

Chapter 17

It was an odd experience. Justin would have expected
to feel anger, even rage, growing inside him as he watched the approach of his
father across the grass toward him, but the surreal situation currently
unfolding around him seemed to have completely numbed him. Of course, in the
years since he had seen his father, he had imagined various scenarios for what
might happen if their paths crossed at some point. Suffice it to say, the
current one had never been on the table.