Lyrics of a Small Town by Abbi Glines

Eight

It was one of those moments when so many thoughts hit you at once and you had to wade through them to decide which one was the most important or made the most sense. I stared at Rio with the setting sun behind him and the waves crashing on the shore and tried to figure out a link between tool boxes, his pop, him, his mother, and me. Things that I knew were not possible crossed my mind, but in the end, I simply asked, “How did you know that?”

He sighed then and his shoulders rose and fell with the action. He looked out over the waves instead of at me, as if he needed to gather his thoughts. I waited patiently, but it also gave my mind more time to make up possibilities that I didn’t want to believe.

“I found a box of letters about a year ago in the attic. They were mixed in with other things like concert tickets, a dried rose, a silver ring with a small stone in it, and a piece of torn fabric. The box had been my mother’s. She had several shoe boxes stuck in the attic at my grandparents’ house. They were full of her memories. I read the letters. All of them. It told me more than I had ever known about my mom and my father.” He shifted his gaze back to me.

“Majority of the letters were ones written to my mom from my father their senior year of high school. They weren’t lengthy or very informative. Mostly just the guy responding to whatever letter my mom had left him. It was their method of texting it seemed. Anyway, the last three letters were from someone else. A girl, younger than my parents. She was a sophomore from what I read and the letters were not meant for my mom. She was writing them to a guy. I am assuming was my father, but she never addresses him by name in the letters. How my mom has them I don’t know. What I do know is the girl was scared and she was pregnant and it was this guy’s kid. The girl signed the letters Lyra. I found my mom’s senior yearbook and looked up a Lyra in the tenth grade. There was one. Lyra Warren.” He stopped talking then.

I said nothing. I wasn’t sure what all this meant or if I was connecting the dots correctly. It was more complicated than I had first assumed. When a moment passed and he said no more, I knew he was waiting on me.

“You think your mom had the letters my mom wrote because my mom had written the letters to your mom’s boyfriend?” I asked to clarify things.

Rio nodded.

“I don’t even know my dad’s name. My mother wouldn’t even talk about him.”

“My mom wouldn’t either. However, in the letters she calls him, Rebel. There is no Rebel in the senior class that year. I can only assume it was a nickname,” Rio explained.

“How did your father die?” I asked then, wondering if this would link up our stories.

“Drug overdose,” Rio replied.

“Mine was a motorcycle accident,” I told him.

Rio didn’t look convinced. He gave me a sardonic smile. “And you believe that?”

“Do you believe yours died of a drug overdose?” I shot back.

“Nope. My mom lied to me all my life about my father and that was if I could get her to answer my questions.”

We stood there silent for a few moments. I didn’t know what to think about this or the letters. I wanted to see the ones my mother had written. I wanted to show them to her. Make her explain them. Both Rio and I needed some honest answers.

“I spent a year researching. I found very little. My grandparents shut down whenever I ask them anything. The photos I found of my mom when she was in high school all have the guy that would have been in the photo cut out. There is nothing in the yearbook or my grandparents’ attic that tells me the name of my father. The only thing I managed to do was find out who your mother was, that her mother still lived in town, and that your mother did have a daughter my age. When Drake mentioned you living in your grandmother’s house, I had started thinking up ways I could meet you. Then you come walking into the market with tools for my pop. I just, I don’t think it was a coincidence. I think it was orchestrated,” he said.

I stared at him a moment and wondered if he was right. Had Gran done this? Had she known? Was this a secret my mother had kept from me and if she had kept this from me then that meant… I had a brother.

“I don’t.” I shook my head. “I don’t think Gran would have kept the fact I had a half brother from me my entire life”

Rio shrugged. “Maybe not but if she had and she’d done it at the request of your mother then wouldn’t it make sense for her at her death to make sure you found out?”

There was one simple answer to that. “Yes.” Because Gran would want me to know. This could very well have been her way of putting me in the right place to make connections in hopes that the truth came out. A truth she wanted me to know. A truth I deserved to know.

“How do we find out who this Rebel is?” I asked.

Rio shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking there might be answers hidden away somewhere at your grandmother’s. I’ve exhausted my grandparents’ house.”

I inhaled deeply and exhaled before running my hand over my face. This was a lot. So much of it made sense, yet so much of it seemed unlikely.

“Can I see the letters? Just the ones my mom wrote?” I asked him then.

He nodded. “Yeah. We can start there.”

We. There was a we to this. We both wanted answers we had never gotten from our mothers. Yet, what if the secrets were there for a reason? To protect us? Should we dig into something we might not want the answers to?

Gran had sent me there. Rio was right about that. She had sent me to take tool boxes to Lloyd. Had she been hoping a connection like this one would happen? If she wanted me to know the truth then it couldn’t be that bad. Right?

“Okay, yeah. That’s where we will start,” I finally said.

“Sun has almost set. It’ll get dark soon and the crabs will be out. Want to walk back to the house. The crowd will either have thinned or moved inside. Depends on Saul’s mood,” he said as he started walking back that way before I could even answer.

I fell into step beside him and even though my mind should be turning with all this new information, instead I was thinking of someone else. “Why does it depend on Saul’s mood?” I asked.

Rio chuckled. “Because it is Saul’s house. Drake and I pay rent. Everyone will gauge Saul’s mood before deciding to stay or not. Typically he’s the first to leave a party.”

I had no reason to be so intrigued by Saul but hearing he owned that house only made me more curious. If he could afford a house like that then why did he drive an old beat-up truck? “How does he afford that house?” I asked bluntly.

Rio shrugged and for a moment I thought he was going to say nothing. I was being nosey and I understood if his shrug was the only response I would get. “That’s Saul’s story to tell,” he said finally.

I said nothing more and we walked back in silence. My thoughts finally moved from Saul back to the letters that could possibly lead to information about my dad… and Rio’s. Was it possible he was my brother? The idea seemed so insane I didn’t even take it seriously. But what if? How would that feel? And did my mother know?

If Rio was my brother and my mom knew about him, I wasn’t sure I could forgive her for not telling me.

The pool and deck appeared empty from down on the sand. Rio glanced up and then back at me. “Saul must have been done,” he said with a smirk then headed for the stairs.

I slipped back on my sandals, after dusting the sand from my feet, and followed him up the stairs. Rio had reached the top step when he said, “Run them off already?”

Saul was sitting in one of the teak double lounge chairs with a bottle in his hand. His gaze was on the crashing waves, but he turned his head in our direction at Rio’s question.

The moonlight cast shadows, making it hard to see his face clearly. “Drake called a poker night. Most are inside around the table,” he said.

“Ah, should have expected that with Benji back in town,” Rio replied. Then he glanced down at me. “You any good at Texas Hold ‘Em?”

“I’ve never played,” I replied, hoping he didn’t want me to go learn.

“Mind if I go sit in a few hands?” he asked.

I didn’t mind at all, but I also wanted a ride home. The reason I had agreed to come tonight was done. Staying here in a house that belonged to a guy that did not want me around didn’t sound like a good time. Telling him all of this with Saul watching us, however, was difficult.

“Uh,” I replied, trying to decide how to word this.

“You can keep me company,” Saul said and then put a cigarette I didn’t know he had to his lips.

I stood there unsure what to say.

“Great, I’ll be back after I take some of Drake’s money,” Rio said and gently patted my upper back before walking toward the door. He was just going to leave me out here. Alone. With Saul.