Thursday, May 1, 2008

Questions

For long moments the only sound in the hallway was the ticking of the clock. Richie and Josh stood there, looking at each other, not speaking. Finally, making the first move, Richie held out his hand, “hi Josh, it’s nice to meet you.” Josh took his father’s hand “it’s nice to meet you too.” Josh pulled his hand back to take off his coat and Richie helped him take his things to his room. They walked back to the living room and sat down, still not having said anything more than hello.

Josh looked at the man sitting across from him, his father, the man who hadn’t cared enough when his mother was pregnant to hear her out, to stand up and take responsibility, to be there at all. Sure he had his step-dad until the divorce, but he could have cared less about Josh. He was definitely not a kid person. There were so many questions he had wanted to ask, but now that he was here, in the same room as Richie, he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t want to offend the man or hurt their relationship. His mother was finally happy again and he didn’t want to do anything to change that.

Richie studied the young man sitting across from him he could tell something was bothering him by the way his green eyes got all stormy, just like Leana’s. He finally broke the silence and it was as if he could read Josh’s mind. “What do you want to know? You’re not going to offend me, so ask me anything.” Josh’s leveled his gaze at Richie, “anything?” Richie nodded, not breaking the eye contact, “anything.” Josh took a breath and pushed forward, “Why didn’t you care enough about my mother to stay with her?”

In the kitchen Leana was getting worried. She hadn’t heard a peep from either of them since she left them in the hall and they said hello. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a good thing after all. She heard part of what Josh asked and headed into the living room, coming around the corner in time to see Richie wince. “Josh! That’s not your business” she admonished. His cheeks pinked, but he held his ground, “why isn’t it? He made you miserable and I want to know why getting to be rich and famous was more important to him than you being pregnant. I want to know why he thought you weren’t good enough for him when he made it big, why he thought he could find someone better than you.”

Richie sat watching the two of them, running a hand through his hair. He had known this wasn’t going to be easy, but he had no idea that it was going to be this hard. “Leana, don’t.” She looked over at him, “Richie, he shouldn’t be asking you questions like that. It’s not his business.” Richie shook his head, “why not? He’s right you know, well at least partially anyway.” He turned his gaze from Leana to Josh, “I never thought your mother wasn’t good enough for me, I thought just the opposite in fact. I never thought I was good enough for her.”

Leana sat down hard in the armchair. Richie had never told her that before. He had apologized for what had happened, but he hadn’t every really explained to her why he had done what he had.

Richie turned his attention fully to Josh, “I broke up with her because I thought it best if she found someone worthy of her. I was going on the road again and didn’t know what was going to happen. She deserved to be with a guy who would be there for her, not a guy like me who was gone more than he was home. She deserved more than I could give her and I thought breaking up with her was the right thing to do. I can see now I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

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