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

then downed it. He lowered the glass to the floor and the guy took it.

“I got it. Good show. Nice guitar.” The man pointed, turned and walked away. He waved to the few remaining patrons at the bar before leaving.

To Jonas, it felt like a strange encounter, then again, the entire night had gone off the rails. He finished packing up his stuff. He folded his guitar stand, tucked it under his arm and lifted his amp.

He carried them from the stage, calling out to the bartender that he’d be back in for that six pack.

The old beater car he had borrowed for the gig was parked in a spot in the lot not far from the building. Only three other cars remained, and they were near the door. He put his amp and the stand into the back seat then returned to the bar.

He walked straight to the stage, grabbed his guitar case and it was when he lifted and shouldered his gear bag he felt it.

A tingling ran across his forehead and a quick dizziness hit him as if he stood up too fast. Shaking it off like a cat, Jonas walked to the bar where he saw the brown bag waiting for him.

He set down his guitar case so he could reach for his wallet, but his fingers stumbled, and he dropped his wallet to the floor. Bending down to get it, he swayed some.

The woman bartender asked, “Are you okay?”

“Um, yeah, I just got dizzy for a sec.”

“Are you alright to drive?”

“Yeah, I had like one shot in the last three hours,” Jonas replied as he opened his wallet. Suddenly there were two wallets, his fingers fumbled for the debit card before he slid it to her. He blinked several times to clear the double vision.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Maybe you should call for a ride.”

“Nah, I’m. I haven’t eaten all day. The hotel isn’t far.”

That was it. The food factor. Jonas could feel his stomach twitching and his hand shook. The bartender handed him the card and a slip with pen. Jonas scribbled a tip and his signature, placing the card back in his wallet.

After saying, “Goodnight.” He grabbed his bag of beer and haphazardly tried to shove his wallet back in his rear pocket, so much so it dropped right from his pocket to the ground the moment he walked out the door.

TWO

Cate Truett had a connection with her son. With both her children actually, but mainly her son. Most mothers have it. A gut feeling, a worry that creeps up letting her know of something happening. A fine-tuned mother’s instinct that was a blessing at times, and at other times not so much.

No one could deny Cate’s instinct, not even Jonas, even though he tried. It was there, and sadly, it tended to only kick in where there was a problem or trouble.

Unfortunately, with Jonas for the past several years it was constant.

When he was a boy, of course, she worried. Normal stuff. How did he do with studies, with other kids in school, would he look both ways before he crossed the street?

The bumps, the bruises, broken bones and stitches, all the trips to the emergency room were Jonas being a boy. Where his sister Jess rarely caused worry, Jonas made up for that. Yet, it wasn’t anything major, nothing that would foretell of things to come.

Cate remembered her grandmother telling her, “When they are little, they break your things. When they’re grown up, they break your heart."

And that was nothing short of the truth.

When he was little, despite his misgivings, he was a good kid, he would never do anything to hurt anyone. However, somewhere along the lines of his life, when he was old enough to know better, Jonas decided he didn’t want to follow those rules any longer.

How? Why?

Maybe Cate missed the signs, viewed her children so much through rose-colored glasses she didn’t see it coming. How could the boy who would never say a mean word or hurt anyone, suddenly stand up his high school sweetheart turned wife, on their anniversary, and take off with some girl he met at Subway days earlier? Because she ‘got’ him, connected with him.

No one could have predicted that.

Well, almost no one.

Jessie did.

She told her mother Jonas hadn’t been happy for a while, that he married, got a responsible job too early in life.

Hurting others was no excuse.

No excuse for the path he decided to take. He was fired from his job as a music teacher, left his wife, dropped the clean cut look and transformed into something emotionally, mentally and physically unrecognizable.

Cate had known her son to have a beer here or there, and never did she know him to do drugs.

His ‘flip of the switch’ change was something she never would have expected.

He played in two or three bands, stayed wherever he could, drank day and night, slept very little, ate less and fueled his lifestyle with a destructive cocaine habit.

A drug habit, Cate found out, that started before he left his wife.

He had spent all their money, lost his job over it, and he just … didn’t care.

Cate did. He was her son and she loved him.

Every time he was in a fight, arrested, or found in some sort of ‘rage’ episode, Jonas would swear he was done. Finished. Over.

Cate would say the same. Never again. Tough love.

Then he would get in trouble again, call Cate and say, “Mom, I need you.”

She would be there.

Every time he said he wanted help, Cate and her husband, Grant, would do what they could.

They exhausted what they could of Grant’s 401K, took a loan against the house, set him up with the best rehabs, only to have him leave days later.

Jonas was addicted to the lifestyle as much as he was the drugs and alcohol.

Eventually, Jonas stopped the drugs, more than likely because he couldn’t afford it. He still drank and behaved badly.

There were moments of hope, a spark