Fantastic Reality Part 3

It's the last part of the scene!

I waited for Dad to respond, but his mouth just opened and closed as he searched for something to say. In the end he looked helplessly over his shoulder to where my mother stood slowly stirring a tall glass of ice tea. She looked up from her tea, and cocked one eyebrow at Dad. It appeared that they were doing that weird telepathy thing that parents sometimes do, and a heavy silence fell. I clutched at Dad’s hand and forced him to look at me.

“Dad, listen, I’m sorry that you haven’t met James yet. He just feels uncomfortable around…authority figures. But we can fix that! James is waiting for me, and we can go down to the duck pond, and you’ll finally get to met him. He’s so funny, Dad, and I just know that you’re going to love him.” I pulled at his arm, and he rose slowly from his chair. He looked helplessly at Mom again, and motioned toward the back door.

“Come on, Camille. We should at least just go down to the pond and check it out.” She looked at us for a moment before slamming her glass down on the counter. I was surprised the glass didn’t shatter from the force of impact. Iced tea sloshed over the edge of the glass, but for once she ignored it.

“Fine,” she said tersely. “We’ll go down to the pond.” She clicked over to the back door, swung it open, and walked out into the garden without looking back. I scampered after her, towing Dad along behind me. When we finally caught up with her, I babbled about the time James and I had found a robin’s nest in one of the trees, the time I tricked James into thinking that old lady Winters was actually a witch, the time James found a small bush of wild blackberries growing in the woods by our house. As we crested the hill and the pond with its small circle of trees became visible, I raced ahead, calling for James. There was the log that lay half in the water and half in the grass, and there was the crook in the tree where James always sat. There was the birdfeeder that we had made when we were ten, and there was sparkling quartz rock that we had found in Mr. Connors’ back yard and rolled down to the pond.

James didn’t answer because James wasn’t at the pond, waiting for me like he’d promised. My parents had finally come, and James was gone.