But a loud smack jolted me back from the shock. There was a cry from outside the bathroom. Jordy’s mom! I rushed out, and guided by the soft sobs from the far side of the house, I made my way to the parlor. I heard a man and a woman talking behind the door.
“Where are you going to take him this time?” barked the man, who turned his eyes to me the moment I walked in.
“Mississippi,” answered Jordan’s mom softly. “The contract was signed two months ago…”
“What!” the man cut in sharply. “I told you I am the one who has to approve all his contracts!”
“But you weren’t home. And those people had been waiting for four months.”
I could only watch in horror as the man suddenly struck Jordan’s mom hard on the cheek. I clenched my fist. He would regret doing it for the rest of his life! I was a boy and I was not going to let him get away with it!
“How dare you!” I screamed, pounding on the man’s back. But it didn’t help at all. Instead, he turned around and glared madly at me. I looked up, trembling.
My mom grabbed me from behind. “No, please Mark!” she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks, one of which was red where the man had slapped her. “He’s your son!”
I nearly choked. Son? He was my father? Or, rather---Jordan’s? A beast like that---his father?
* * *
Everything blurred suddenly. Apparently I had blacked out again. I gasped and opened my eyes. I was lying on the ground this time, amid the ruins of the plane, with bright lights blinking from the top of ambulances and fire trucks, and the hurried, urgent bustle of the rescue workers around me. But I was alive…and myself again. Slowly I moved my right hand and found it still in someone’s grip. Jordan’s.
I stirred and quickly checked for his pulse. Thank God, he was still alive. There was nothing I could do now but wait.
I still vividly remembered what I had just gone through. I wondered if it was a dream, or a memory; and whether there was something in the way we were holding hands that transferred his thoughts to me.
I pushed his hair back from his forehead and looked at the frown that he wore even when he was unconscious. The poor boy. I knew now how he felt. It must have been awful, keeping all those nightmares from the whole world. In silence.
