The Passenger by Jacqueline Druga (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📗

calm after church because I feel at peace afterwards. That’s not to say in a few more hours I won’t be jumping out of my skin again.”

“I’m sorry.” He exhaled and embraced her. “I don’t know why I am so uptight about this. You know, it’s not like it’s unusual for him to go missing for a couple of days.”

“Maybe because you guys were arguing?” Cate asked.

“That’s probably it. You know …” He cleared his throat and stepped back. “When you and I talked about the tough love thing, you used to say you didn’t want to do tough love and distance yourself then carry the guilt if something happened. I didn’t get it. I do now. I have been doing this tough love with him since his last stunt.”

“Grant, you’ve been doing the tough love thing with Jonas his whole life.”

“Are you saying his problems are my fault?” Grant asked.

“What? No. Where is that coming from?” Cate spoke emotionally. “His problems are no one’s fault but his own. I’m saying you’ve always been firm with him. Especially the last several years.”

Grant puckered his lips some, drawing in his emotions. “It’s been hard. Everything he was as a boy has been overshadowed by what he has become as a man. And I stopped seeing that little boy. I miss him. I …. I don’t even know the last time I told him I loved him.”

“Grant …”

“No.” Grant held up his hand, shaking his head. “It’s the what if. What if we never see him again? What was the last thing we said to each other? I’ll tell you, we didn’t part pleasantly. I …” In his own frustration, he grunted and stopped speaking.

“When he did this two years ago … I couldn’t stop crying. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d see him in trouble. As much as I love Jonas, I can’t do this to myself again.”

Grant emotionally chuckled, “Are you saying you’re going to be the calm one?"

“I have news for you, you’re really not that calm. Just good at hiding it.”

Grant gave his silent agreement with a slight lowering of his head.

“Over the years, I have asked God so many times to send his angels to watch over him and I believe He did, that’s why we still have our son. I have no reason to believe He doesn’t have them out there with Jonas this time.”

“I wish I had your belief,” Grant told her. “I wish I believed it so easily and with so much faith.”

“It’s not as easy as I make it look. I mean like I give it to God, then you know, snatch it right back. But He only really lets me think I took it back.”

Once more, Grant stepped in and embraced Cate. “You gave it to God, I gave it to the police. Either way,” he said. “It’s out of our hands.”

ELEVEN

Nothing made sense to him. Not the small town he viewed from his hospital window, or even the fact there was a hospital in a place that didn’t look like it held a lot of people. But what did Jonas know? He was like a foreigner in a new land, only he was a foreigner in his own mind.

It had been four days since the accident. They told him it happened very early on a Sunday—he didn’t know that. Here it was Wednesday, and nothing had come back to him.

Although, it was only the day before the swelling went down. Doctor Jenner said it wouldn’t take long, something would make it click.

Nothing had yet.

Jonas stared at the social media account of Harold, he visited the friends’ pages hoping something, anything would click.

It didn’t.

None of the pictures of the trips Harold took or parties he went to.

Harold hadn’t updated his page in a long time, like he was hiding, which made him wonder if he indeed was Harold.

He saw the resemblance in the face even though Harold had to be seventy-pounds heavier.

The only thing Jonas remembered was seeing the mystery passenger’s face looking at him, saying. “I got you.”

Did that even happen? For all Jonas knew it was his imagination, because he knew nothing else about that night. How he got into the accident or even out of the car and to the hospital.

He was having feelings though, things he couldn’t make sense of.

If he was really Harold then once the grandmother showed up, perhaps she could fill in the blanks.

She was finally coming, delay after delay, last he heard from the Chief of Police she had landed at the airport.

Doctor Jenner still did not want to release him, but he heard from a nurse it looked as if his grandmother was rich, so she would move him somewhere better.

Anywhere was better, the Williams Peak Hospital was just so … plain and basic. Not that Jonas knew differently.

He spent a lot of time staring out that window, he probably knew every shop in the radius he could see from his room.

What else was he going to do? Look out the window, watch television, eat.

“If I am going to come here,” the woman’s voice entered the room. “I really prefer not seeing your fanny poking out the back of your gown.”

He slowly turned from the window to see the woman standing by the doorway. She was wearing a running suit. Not one she would exercise in, one more for comfort. She didn’t look rich.

“Are you the grandmother?” he asked.

“The … grandmother? Or Harold’s grandmother?” She stepped inside, set one of those paper shopping bags with the handles, along with her purse on the chair under the television. “No. I’m not.”

“I thought you might be her. She’s supposed to get me out.”

“I heard that, too.”

“I told them no visitors.”

“And I don’t care.” She stepped to him. “You look much better than the last time I saw you.”

Instantly, there was something calming about her. He didn’t know the woman, but her eyes were so genuine and kind.

“We spoke before?” he asked.

“Barely. My