Sneak Peek PIPES - Prologue
SNEAK PEEK PIPES - PROLOGUE
Pipes
Age 8
When they pulled the man out of the water, it looked like a corpse. Not that I’d ever seen a dead body before. I’m the one who found him, and I immediately ran to get Momma. She knew what to do. None of us had any idea that the dude was actually still alive. Barely, but when the paramedics arrived, apparently he had a pulse.
Momma pulls me backward, folding her arms around me. Not a lot happens around these parts, so having a man pulled out of the lake? It’s kind of a big deal.
“Will he make it, Momma?” I ask.
She kisses the top of my head. “We can only pray for him, honey. Pray that he will make it through the night.”
And that’s exactly what we do. That’s the thing with my momma. She’s always helping others out. Whether it’s the church, a friend in need, or at the local school, everyone loves her. She always has a big smile on her face, no matter what.
The gossip spread like wildfire through Bakeridge; the small town we live in with only a few thousand residents.
Who was the mystery man? Why was he in the lake?
Then, when he was released, he had nowhere to go. That’s where things took a turn.
He had no identity. All of his records were wiped. This man was literally John Doe, well, a living one at least. According to Momma, he had no collection of his past life, and the police didn’t help. It turns out, the man had amnesia, and had no idea who he was, or how he got in the lake.
All he had in his possession was a wallet with nothing in it except a photo of him and a child. The picture is creased and water damaged, so you couldn’t see clearly. When Momma saw some kids taking his stuff from the banks of the lake, she ripped it right out of their hands and sent them on their way. Bringing his one possession home she dried the photo, hoping to restore it so at least he had one thing to try and remind him of home.
The police conducted an investigation, plastering his face all over the news, flyers, interviews, you name it. Nobody came forward.
Of course, that wasn’t going to cut it with Momma; she was determined to help him get back on his feet and get his memories back.
“What if he can’t ever find his family?” I ask. I’m only eight, but even I know somebody out there has to know something.
“We all find our way back one way or another,” Momma says. “We shouldn’t worry about any of that.” She’s determined to help him, but that’s just how she operates.
A few weeks pass and then I overhear my Aunt Evelyn and Momma talking one day:
“Inviting him into your home?” Evelyn screeched. “Have you lost your ever loving mind, Rose?”
Momma stood her ground. “He has nobody else. He’ll go to a homeless shelter, and then what?”
“That isn’t your problem, Rose, you can’t fix everyone.”
“I… I know,” Momma stammered. “I’m not trying to fix everyone. But he landed on our doorstep. Joel was the one who found him for heaven’s sake. We have some moral responsibility to help him, don’t we? We can’t just send him off into the unknown armed with nothing.”
“You don’t even know this man!” Evelyn goes on. “He could be a criminal. A rapist. A monster. You have a son to think about?—”
“I know that, but he’s harmless. I’ve spent time with him. He’s no danger to anyone. I feel terrible for him. We went to see him at the hospital the other day, and he looked so lost, Evie, it broke my heart. Nobody has given him a chance. Just because he’s in this mess, they overlook him as if he could be some kind of danger to society.”
I can just about hear the eye roll as my Aunt laughs without humor. “Get a grip on yourself! You don’t owe him anything. Please, for the love of god don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”
I peek around the bannister, wanting to see my mom’s reaction. She straightens her spine, her head held high. “I’m a Christian woman,” she says. “And if I were to just toss him onto the street, what kind of person would that make me? The shelters are full.”
“There are authorities for that,” she argues. “You don’t have to take home every waif and stray because of what happened to Sawyer.”
My mom’s mouth clamps shut and I feel my knees buckle.
Sawyer.
My fifteen year old half-brother who went missing two years ago. We have the same mom but different fathers.. Momma and Sawyer’s dad broke up before I was even born, but they remained friends. I’ve never known my real dad because he took off before I was born.
When Momma speaks next, her voice is shaky. “I don’t take home every waif and stray, but if this man goes to the shelter, we both know he’ll end up in the system. He’s smart. Funny. The kids all love him?—”
“Wait, you’ve let Joel visit him?” Evelyn sounds bewildered.
“He’s not a monster. He just had an accident in the lake, I don’t know how you can be so cruel.”
“I’m not being cruel, but I do watch the news, and this kind of thing is a horror story just waiting to happen!”
“Fine. I’ll work something out with the parish.”
“So where will he stay in the meantime?” Oh, when Aunt Evelyn wants answers, she’ll get them out of you eventually.
Momma swallows hard. “We have space in the room above the garage.”
“Don’t even suggest it.”
“You’re being dramatic, Evie. I understand you’re worried, but you’ve nothing to be worried about. It’ll be for a few weeks until we can find something more permanent.”
“And what will he do for work?” she demands. “How will he support himself?”
She bites her lip. “I haven’t figured out all the details yet.”
“Clearly.”
“He poses no threat to us, if he did, I wouldn’t even consider it. The cops said he doesn’t have a criminal record —”
“They also don’t have any other details for him, or even an address, don’t you find that a little strange? This man just fell off the face of the planet?”
Mom shifts on both feet. She does that when she’s nervous. “It’s not his fault.”
“You don’t know that. It could be his fault; he probably ended up in the lake for a reason.”
But Momma won’t hear it. “That’s an awful thing to say. This is my final decision, Evie. I won’t see a man tossed onto the street when we have a perfectly good room just sitting there empty.”
And that’s what happened; Chris moved into our spare room.
Momma has a kind heart. Losing Sawyer broke her. Sometimes I hear her crying at night, praying that he comes home. She feels guilty because she was the one who grounded Sawyer one day after an argument, and he took off to his dad’s. He just never arrived. We searched everywhere. Everyone in town did, but the only update we ever got was that he got on a bus and never came back. He was fifteen.
I can’t believe he’d be stubborn enough to stay away for this long. Sawyer’s a good brother. I miss him, but he was angry a lot. He didn’t like school, and some of the kids used to pick on him. I just want him back. We check every week at the station to see if there’s been any news.
I guess Aunt Evelyn could’ve been right about my mom and the waifs and strays, because Chris moved in, and eventually got a job in town.
What I didn’t expect was that as the months passed, Momma and Chris got closer.
Chris wasn’t like any father figure I’d ever known before; he stuck around. He started to rebuild his life, and we were a big part of it. He became heavily involved in our church, and gave back to others, just as the community had done for him. He’s a good man.
Momma and Chris fell in love. We became a family.
I told myself, when Sawyer came home, he’d love Chris too, but Sawyer never came home. Even after several extensive searches, man hunts, sightings, campaigns and even interviews on the news, we never found him.
Five years later, we moved to New Orleans because Chris was offered a promotion to be an executive; it was a step up from the sales job he had previously. In five short years, he’d managed to rebuild his life and make something of himself. That’s when my little sister Genevieve was born.
I’d never seen a grown man cry until Chris, who I now call Dad, held her for the first time.
I wasn’t jealous of her, even if she did take up all of my parent’s time. She was just a little baby.
“You know you’re always going to be my son,” Dad said. “No matter what.”
That’s how he makes things better. Dad always knows how to bring people together and make everyone feel special. Dad never got his memories back, but sometimes he has flashbacks, violent dreams and night terrors. It’s happened for years, but he doesn’t know why.
When I asked a few times about the kid in the photo, and what we should do about it, he always smiles and says that one day, his other son will come back to him, just as Sawyer will come back to us, too. Somehow. Some way. When the time is right.
I hope so too. I sent a silent prayer that Sawyer would show up one day, just like Dad said.
Sometimes, I make believe that he’s okay, that he’s happy, content, and doing great. I don’t want to think about the alternatives. About Sawyer never coming home. Because that’s not a reality I ever want to face. If I know he’s okay in my mind, then he has to be okay in real life, too, right?
One day Sawyer will come walking back through the door, and it’ll just be like old times.
That’s the day I wish for, more than anything in the world.