Chapter 2

    The plane hit the tarmac with a light bump that jeered me out of my thoughts. The sight of the Will Grant airport was not so welcoming but it felt like home. San Frease was a lot more compared to this heavily packed airport with people swathed in parkas and mufflers and thick sweaters. 

I already knew what sort of weather to expect but somehow it seemed like my black sweater shirt, thick coat, and wool-lined trousers were too light for the biting cold that was already eating away at my fingers. I tucked my hands inside the safety of my coat for some warmth and it provided a little of it.

The plane was flagged down and the passengers were discharged. If I had any doubts about starting a new life in Whisare they vanished the moment I set my foot on the land. The hustling bodies attending to themselves and their families, minding their own business didn't seem to mind having a strange person in town and I was more than happy to begin afresh here. Just myself and mom.

As soon as I got my bags checked and cleared I started heading for the exit with the hope that on my way out I would get a glimpse of that brownish-red hair I had seen in the picture mom had sent to me. Pretending to know my way around was not difficult since not so many people were paying attention to the tall, average-built, brownish-red hair stranger who immediately blended into the horde of sweaters and boots and mufflers and coats.

Mom had told me told to wait for her since she wanted to pick me up herself, she was worried I might get lost. But I wanted to blend in properly and after a while, I started to see the foolishness of my thinking as nothing was more awkward than pretending to know your way around a new place while hoping someone doesn't tap you to tell you you are heading in the wrong direction.

I started to reconsider my steps when a small body covered in thick clothes attached itself to me almost knocking my bags down. From the whiff of lilies, I smelt on the clothes, childhood memories long lost surfaced and almost choked me as the hot retort at the edge of my tongue died and instinctively I wrapped my hands around mom's small body. My bags fell on the floor with a heavy thud, the wheel on my bigger bags gave out and fell at our feet. I didn't care about those, the only thing that mattered was the small, short and tiny figure hugging me with such fierce strength, a strength I never knew mom possessed until this day.  Her body was racking, shaking like she was convulsing and at that moment I knew she was crying. I didn't stop her from crying even when her tears were already seeping through the wool of my shirt, damn it if I don't feel like crying myself!.

Mom stepped back a little and tried to blot the tears from her eyes and cheeks. She laughed, a very shaky laugh, "I'm so sorry about that. I didn't mean to.......".

"Sssh," I said bringing her back to hug me. She held on again, this time tighter than before and the tears started afresh.

"I....I...I thought you changed your m..mind" she cried in a high tremolo that was close to panic "I thought you will change your mind a..a..about giving up your life there to live in a place as simple as WhiSare"

I pressed my nose into her hair "I will never change my mind. I intend to stay here with you and stay here for good". She rubbed her nose against my shirt in an attempt to calm down then heaved a sigh and freed herself once more to look into my face "I find that hard to believe. I'm so happy to see you. You look so grown, so tall, so handsome" then in a more quiet voice said, "So much like your father". 

I smoothed her hair and said, "Guess whose hair and eyes I got?". Her green eyes smiled and she rained kisses on my nose, my cheeks, my eyes, my temple, and my lips. People passed without blinking an eye, those who understood smiled in the direction of a mother and her son reuniting. Mother stepped back some more and tried to clean the patch her tears had made on my cloth "Look what I have done now, ruined your cloth for no reason".

I laughed and held her hand away "For the best reason, mom". Her eyes filled up again. Before now dad only let me refer to her as Miss Parker which was her original name before she married dad and became a Hunter. She squeezed my hand and started to pick my bags up but I stopped her and heaved the heavy bags up myself and followed her as she led the way to her old beat-up truck, more like a minivan, with the white paint peeling off in the best of places. She flashed an apologetic smile "I know it's not what you're used to but it is the best I have."

As I hurled the bags into the open back of the van I could help thinking if my being here was comfortable for her, if she would feel burdened with the responsibility of taking care of her spoilt son. The cold outside was worse than I expected and my fingers were unbearably numb. Mom opened the doors of the van quickly and turned on the heater. I got in front with her. She quickly backed out of the lot and started heading south to my new home in my new community, making new friends and hopefully no girlfriends.

Mom kept glancing at me with extremely bright eyes, her fingers were convulsing against the wheel as if she was trying to keep herself from touching me, scared that if she does she would wake up from a bitter dream. I linked my fingers with her free ones and was rewarded with a happy smile, that was all the assurance she needed that I was here with her, alive and happy. The road was slippery with the melting snow and on both sides of the road, people hid behind thick layers of clothes and hurried along. Kids totally hidden in sweaters and scarves ran along a single lane with snowboards. In SanFrease, even though it's still summer there, winter is never as cold as this. This is freezing in raw form and even the heater which was humming softly couldn't drive out the cold from my fingers but mom didn't seem bothered, she wasn't even shaking as much as I was. She drove the car smoothly on the road like she was very much used to the slickness of the roads already. Everywhere we passed there were billboards of different products ranging from Cosmetics, can food brands and even pet food brands. Billboards were advertising new movies shown or still to be shown at the cinema. Dad would have seen this place as a great place to plant a business, he would have taken advantage of the sprawling civilization and used it for his own benefit, his eagle eyes would have seen the right sectors to take dominion over, what shares to buy, what assets to sell. He would have given his best campaign speech on how: The intentions he had were going to benefit the people. How: He could see a rising economy and a promising Megacity in the town. And the people would have believed him because dad has the proverbial mouth of milk and honey. In SanFrease where only the elites live everyone respected dad but it made no difference that I was his son. There was no preferential treatment from some of the guests who came to visit us because to them we are all the same but I doubt it would be like that here. People might be curious to see the runaway Hunter and as exciting as that sounds I don't want to be in the spotlight.

Mom rounded another corner and started slowing the car. The road was lined with brick and wooden houses, each with a white picket fence surrounding it. The ones with two stories had terraces on the second floor like it was a kind of law. People of different sizes and colors were moving around doing their own business, shouting greetings at one another. It was a picture of a peaceful neighborhood where no one had to watch his back when walking alone on the road because he had the assurance that his neighbors were helping him do that. Mom rolled down the window to shout greetings of her own, her breath coming out in white vapor. 

"I'll introduce you to anyone who comes around tomorrow," she said.

I fought the urge to groan. I know she is extremely happy to have me home with her and the idea of meeting new people immediately doesn't appeal to me but I also know that one way or another I would have to build the endurance to go through the: "This is my son, I thought you about him before, right? Shawn, that's his name" thing.

She turned the wheel and parked the car in front of a red brick house and from the dying light and the flash of light from her headlamps I saw a dark blue SUV jeep on her drive. I raised a brow at her, "Are we expecting anyone?". It must have been the way I said: "we" but something about what I asked made mom smile. She shook her head.

"Jackson had a car delivered for you. He is afraid I might make you use my minivan."

I squeezed my eyes shut. There was hurt in mom's voice, in the way she explained dad's superior behavior. Leave it to the old man to do something like this, ordering a car for my arrival. I tried to hide the disgust on my face as I went round to get my bags from the back, mom hurried over to assist me with the smaller bags, she locked the car and took out her keys, and the time I spent waiting for her to open the simple sandpapered door I studied my new home. Red bricks formed the better part of the wall, the windows had slides instead of shutters, three simple steps led to the front door which mom was trying to open, the terrace ran round the side of the house and from where I was standing it looked like there were two chairs with a table up there. The door opened and mom reached for the switch and in the next moment, half the first floor was flooded with light. The hardwood floor promised permanent injury if by chance anyone gets unlucky enough to fall on it though it was nicely polished and scrubbed. The wooden seats of the two chairs arranged in the main hall were covered with purple hand-sewn clothes that provided a kind of comfort from the hardness of the wood, there was a glass table chipped at the edges and a comfy sofa at another corner of the room. The house had the smell of lavender and as I appreciated the nice fragrance with a sniff mom smiled and her shoulders slumped a bit. She must have been waiting for my reaction to the house I didn't even have to pretend because I love the homeliness, the warmth. The fireplace had a fire going. It struck me how so unlike SanFrease mom's place is.  Where dad's house has a lot of empty spaces with nothing to occupy them the down floor of mom's house was a little too packed.

She started climbing up the steps and I joined her. She opened the door to my new room with a small key and pushed the door open, the musky smell hit me at once. "I haven't opened this room in a while. I only opened it to clean it out today" mom explained apologetically  "I don't think cleaning it once would do". She dropped my bags on the neatly made bed and sat down on it too. She shrugged out of her coat, then the jacket she was wearing underneath. "I'm so happy to have you home with me DeShawn you don't know how..." her voice broke and she stopped talking long enough to regain her composure "I've dreamt of times like this but I never thought it would be possible to have you here with me". She dabbed at her eyes. I knelt in front of her and held her hand "Mother. I don't want you crying again if you want me to stay then believe I am here and I have no intention of leaving you ever again, ok?". Maybe women have a thing for crying and I will just have to learn to live with that in the days to come.

She nodded vigorously then cleared her throat "Let me go downstairs and start dinner I suppose you're hungry?"

My stomach rumbled then making the both of us laugh. I took her hand "I'll help you with dinner, arranging of my things can wait"

"Have you ever cooked before?" mom asked with a disbelieving look on her face. Truth be told I never had any cause to cook anything in dad's house, I never even thought it was possible to turn on a heater or a stove or gas but with mom, I will learn. I told her so and she laughed saying she didn't want anything disastrous to happen to her good cooking. We went down and she turn on all the lights as we passed. The kitchen was fairly large but it had every necessary thing needed in a kitchen. Mom washed the vegetables and showed me how to cut them then left them to me when I got the cutting right. She hummed a tone around the kitchen, it showed how content she was living here and I intended to have a taste of that contentment.