The Pages We Forget (18 page)

“People stop me all the time thinking I'm her,” she told two teenage boys, who came over and asked for her autograph.

“That's because you look just like her,” one of the boys said. “I mean just like her.”

“Well, thanks for the compliment,” she said and forced a smile. “That was a compliment, wasn't it?”

“Hell yeah!” He took another hard look at June and shook his head before walking away. He stopped, turned around and stared at her again. “Are you sure you're not her?”

“Last time I checked, I wasn't.”

“All right.” He turned to his friend, still in disbelief. “I think she's just messing with us.”

“Word,” the friend agreed as they walked away.

June looked at her watch and then at the bathroom door. Trevor had been in the restroom too long, nearly ten minutes. She opened the door and called out his name. “Trevor!” No one answered.

June looked inside. There was no one using the dozen or so urinals lining the wall. “Trevor,” she called again. When he didn't answer, she walked on in. She opened the door of the nearest stall. He
wasn't there. She was starting to get scared. “Trevor!” He wasn't in the next stall. Or the next.

The bathroom door opened and a young man walked in with a toddler in tow. “Excuse me. Is something wrong?” he asked when he saw June running down the line of stalls pushing every door open.

“My son's gone!” June was frantic. “I'm looking for my son!”

“What does he look like?”

June didn't have time to answer as she ran out the restroom.

“Trevor!” she yelled as she visually scanned the terminal. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Can I help you?” an airport security officer asked.

“My son is missing,” June replied and then ran down the terminal with the officer hurrying behind her. “I've got to find my boy!”

“How old is he?”

“Nine,” she answered. “Trevor!”

The officer radioed for assistance, rushing behind June. “What is he wearing?”

“A pair of black jeans and a black and white striped shirt,” she answered. “And, and a jean jacket tied around his waist.” By now, June was terrified and thinking the worst.

A female security officer joined in the search. “Where did you last see him?” she asked June.

“He went into the restroom back there.”

“Did you see him come out?”

“No,” June answered as tears filled her eyes. “That's why I went in the restroom to look for him.”

“Don't worry, ma'am, we'll find him.”

“Aaaaah!” June folded over, barely able to stand from the pain.

“Are you all right?” the female officer asked.

June tried to answer but couldn't.

“Let me help you sit down.”

“Harry,” she called for the other guard who had run ahead of them. “I need some help here!”

The officer's assistance came too late. June fell to the floor.

Harry ran over to June and his coworker and knelt beside June, now curled up on the floor. “Phyllis, radio med and tell them to get here on the double. And then get these people back. She needs some air.”

Phyllis made the call and turned her attention to the crowd of onlookers gathering around. “That looks like June Thomas. Is that her?” a young woman asked Phyllis.

“I don't think so,” Phyllis answered. “Now move back.”

June wasn't worried about herself or the razor-sharp pains that had temporarily crippled her. Her son was missing and a thousand gory scenarios raced through her mind. Was he lost? Scared? Abducted?

“Oh God!” She begged Harry, “Please find my son.”

“We have some people out looking for him now, and I'm sure they'll find him.”

“Trevor!” June called. “Trevor!”

She heard his voice calling in the distance, “Ma!”

“Trevor,” June cried.

“Ma!”

When Phyllis saw Trevor running toward them, she pushed her way through the crowd to meet him. “Let him through! Let him through!”

“Ma!” Trevor kneeled beside her. “You need your medicine!” He opened her pocketbook and took out the bottle of pills. “She needs something to drink,” he told Harry.

“I'll get it,” Phyllis said and rushed off to get a drink from the machine.

“It's going to be all right, Ma! I called Dad and he's coming to get us! He'll take you to the doctor when he gets here.” Trevor fumbled with the bottle as he tried to open it. “Hold on, Ma! Dad's coming!”

“He can't. We have to go, Trevor.”

“No, Ma. We need to wait for Dad!”

“Help me up, Trevor.” June put her arm around his shoulders. “Help me, Trevor.”

“But, Ma.”

“We have to go now!”

Trevor put his arm around his mother, and with Harry's assistance, helped her to her feet.

“I think you should wait and at least let the nurse here check you out,” Harry suggested to June.

“I don't have time. I have to go now.”

Phyllis returned with a Pepsi in her hand. She handed it to June. Trevor gave her the two pills he'd been holding in his free hand. June thanked Phyllis for the drink as she took the pills. She reached for Trevor's hand as they walked toward the Enterprise counter, with Harry and Phyllis walking close beside them.

“Should I cancel the med call?” Phyllis asked Harry.

“Go ahead, but tell them to stay alert.”

All June had to do was pick up the keys when she got to the counter. Tammy had called ahead and reserved a car for her. The Enterprise representative was anxiously awaiting June's arrival.

“Tammy said you wanted a mid-sized car.” The woman opened her mouth wide, showing her toothy smile. “So, I reserved you a Grand Prix with GPS. I think they're the best-looking cars you can buy this year.”

“So do I,” Harry chimed in. “My wife just traded her car for a burgundy one.”

“I bet that's nice,” she remarked and turned to June. “Here are your keys. I had the car pulled up front for you.”

“Thank you.”

“You're more than welcome,” she said and then extended an Enterprise pamphlet. “Before you go, can I get your autograph? That's the only way my boyfriend's going to believe me when I tell him I rented you a car today.”

“What's your name?”

“Cynthia.”

“Cynthia, thanks for the ride.” June jotted down the memo in her signature style. “Your friend, June.”

A minute later, June and Trevor were on their way to Micanopy. She had driven about fifteen miles west along Interstate 10 before either of them spoke a word.

“I have something to tell you,” June finally uttered. She waited for him to respond. After he didn't, she continued. “I should have told you this a long time ago, but I didn't know how to back then. I'm still not sure, but I think it's time you know.”

“We should have waited for Dad.”

“We couldn't.”

“Why not?” Trevor asked.

“Because.”

“You're sick, Ma. I can tell. That's why we should have waited.”

“Listen to me, Trevor. There's nothing seriously wrong with me. It's just that lately I've been having these really bad stomach cramps. I don't know why, but the doctor said it's nothing.” June was having a hard time lying to Trevor because she knew that regardless of what she said he was going to believe what he already believed. “Why am I lying to you? You need to know the truth.” June sighed.
If she was going to tell Trevor the truth about Keith, she needed to tell him the whole truth.

“Ma, why don't we wait for Dad?” Trevor wasn't sure he wanted to hear what she was about to say. He was only a child, but he understood, even at his young age, that sometimes the truth could be a horrible thing to face. Why else would his mother make him promise not to tell his dad or anyone else about the cramps and the pills? And he remembered what his dad said last night on the way home from the concert. Stop with the lies and face the truth. But no one listened to him. Not June. Not Kathryn. No one. Instead they hid behind the cloak of detachment and continued living with the lies. They had unknowingly let Trevor know they were afraid of the truth, which convinced him the truth was something to be feared. “You can tell me when Dad gets here.”

“I have to tell you now,” she said. “Before we get to Micanopy.”

“Ma, I'm tired of listening.”

“How can you be tired of listening when I haven't been saying that much?”

“My ears are tired.” He covered his ears with his hands in a dramatic gesture. “My eardrums are hurting.”

“Trevor, I know you don't want to hear what I'm about to say, but I have to tell you this.”

“Can I listen to the radio?” Trevor didn't wait for an answer.

“I'm through with love,” country singer Sandra Lloyd's voice burst from the speakers. “I'm through with hoping; I'm through with everything that I can't control.”

“I'm walking out,” Trevor sang along. “I'm letting it all go.”

“I can't believe you know this song,” June said.

“Why?”

“The last time I checked, you didn't like country music.”

“I like Sandra Lloyd.”

“Since when?”

“Since she got so fine,” Trevor jokingly answered.

“So fine?”

“That's what Dad says.”

“Oh, he does?”

“But he says she's nothing compared to you,” Trevor said, trying to straighten his slip of the tongue.

“He better say that.”

Trevor was glad he had momentarily diverted June away from the bullet she was about to fire. After watching his parents fight, make up and then fight again and again throughout the past few months, he'd found a way to hide or to at least dodge the verbal bullets they aimed at each other. He heard how they tangled and manipulated words to either hurt or pacify the other, and he saw their rueful faces when those words didn't match the feelings they harbored inside. They had let him see and hear too much for a boy his age.

“You run, Trevor,” June said and glanced at him. “You run just like your father.”

“Dad doesn't run,” Trevor defended Alex.

“I'm not talking about Alex,” June cut him off. “I'm talking about your real father.”

Trevor pretended he didn't hear June. “I'm turning loose,” he sang along with the radio, seemingly oblivious to his mother's confession. “The things I cannot hold.”

“When I met Alex,” June said, turning the radio off, “I was already pregnant with you.” She looked at Trevor, who pretended not to hear her. The tears in his eyes betrayed the nonchalant look on his face. “Mrs. Adams has a son named Keith.”

He already knew about Lucy Kaye's son, Keith. Trevor remembered the day Lucy Kaye told him he reminded her of Keith. She even asked to put her arms around him so she could remember how it felt to hold her son. “Now,” Trevor told himself, “if her son is really my daddy, then that means.”

He dismissed the thought. “I already have a daddy, and he's coming to get us. He's on his way now.”

Tears filled June's eyes because she could feel the hurt her son was feeling. But, she had come too far to turn back.

“Baby, I know how much you want to go home, but we have to go to Micanopy first.”

“Why?”

“So you can finally meet your father,” June answered.

“Dad is my father,” Trevor cried. “Dad is my father!”

The heartbreak in Trevor's eyes revealed the consumptive betrayal he was feeling. The confusion. Anger. And his horrific fear of any other truths she might be ready to tell him.

“I'm sorry, Trevor,” June said and reached over to wipe the tears from his eyes. “But I had to tell you the truth.” He pushed her hand away. “Please don't run,” she begged. “Please don't run away from me now. Not now.”

But he ran, just like his father had ten years earlier, when she unknowingly forced him to deal with a truth he couldn't live with. “Dad's coming for me.” Trevor sobbed and retreated to a place where her words could not harm him. “He's coming.”

Alex wasn't on his way to Micanopy like Trevor thought. He was sitting on the dock behind their house in Grosse Pointe watching the drizzling rain disappear into the lake. He'd dreaded this day since the first time he held June in his arms and felt the fullness and unfathomable depth of his love for her. From that moment,
he knew he would not be able to live without her if she ever decided to go back to Keith. Alex never thought he would be able to let her go, but somehow he found the courage to set her free.

Then his son called.

“Dad! Dad! Ma's sick! You need to get here! Hurry up, Dad,” Trevor yelled through the phone.

“Slow down, Trevor,” Alex whispered and walked out of the den to keep Kathryn and Lucy Kaye from hearing the conversation. “Now what's going on?”

“Ma's sick, Dad! She's real sick!”

“What's wrong with her?”

“She's having real bad stomach cramps. She had them before we left, but she made me promise not to tell you!”

“Where is she now?”

“She's down the hall waiting for me.”

“Does she know you're calling me?”

“No,” Trevor answered. “Leave now, Dad!”

There was no doubt in Trevor's mind that Alex would be on the next plane out of Detroit because his dad came running whenever he called. This time, however, Alex said he was on his way, but he wasn't. After he hung up the phone, he walked out to the dock and waited for Kathryn and Lucy Kaye to pack for their trip home.

Alex felt numb after lying to Trevor, but he couldn't stop June. Not now. She'll see Keith, ask a few questions, shed a few tears and realize that his hold on her had nothing to do with loving him. Rather, it was a desperate need to know the truth. That's what he hoped. If he stopped her, she would never know why he ran away, which meant she would never be free of him. Knowing that she was sick worried him, but not enough to stop her.