Apple of My Eye (An Owen Day Thriller) by Rachel Ford

Author:Rachel Ford [Ford, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

The kids got cones, and Owen paid. All in all, from entering the line to getting the cones, it took twenty-five minutes. He still hadn’t heard anything from Michael, which he noted with a guilty sense of relief.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s eat while we walk.”

The kids didn’t object, so they picked their way slowly through the crowd toward the food vendors. Owen’s phone dinged with a new message. It was Hannah.

Hey, we’re swamped. I’m sorry, but I’m going to be a few minutes late.

He paused to type back, No problem.

Thanks Owen, she wrote. Then, in a new chat bubble, See you soon.

The kids took a few steps until they realized he wasn’t with them anymore. They turned and found him on his phone.

“Is that Hannah?” Maisie asked.

Owen frowned. “What?”

Daniel glanced away from a large drip running down the side of his cone to survey Owen. “It is,” he said matter-of-factly.

Owen didn’t know how either of the kids had arrived at that conclusion, and he didn’t inquire. “She’s going to be a few minutes late,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of customers.”

“That’s okay,” Maisie said. “I want to finish my ice cream anyway.”

“We can figure out what we want to eat.”

They took their time, strolling lazily along the busy streets, making their way through the bustling crowd. Some people passed burdened with bags as Owen was, and others with exhausted kids in their arms. Some held coffee cups or carried festival food. But no one seemed empty-handed.

He watched the faces as they passed: eager, weary, annoyed, excited. They spanned the range of human emotion, from the overtired parents to their overeager children. Some took slow, careful steps and others walked with a skip.

So many people. So many emotions.

Owen felt in a way separate from this great body of humanity, from their joys and sorrows, their excitement or annoyance – from all of it. Even in the heart of the crowd, he felt like an observer on the outskirts rather than a participant.

It wasn’t a new feeling, or a strange one. It was just how he processed the world. There might have been a neurological explanation or component. A several-hundred-dollars-an-hour psychiatrist probably would have found a psychological explanation stemming from childhood trauma or PTSD or whatever.

But he wasn’t a psychiatrist or a neurologist. He didn’t know the physiological or psychological reason. What he did know was that crowds exacerbated the sense of distance, of otherness, he assigned himself.

The more people around him, the more alone he felt.

Maisie slipped her hand into his – an awkward gesture, since he had multiple bags. But he’d slipped the handles over his wrist so he could check his phone periodically, so his hand was free.

“I’m sorry I was mad at you, Uncle Owen.”

“It’s okay, Mais.”

They walked in silence for a long moment. Then Maisie said, “I miss Dad.”

“I miss him too,” Owen said.

Daniel nodded. “Me too.”

“Mom says we’ll see him again, in heaven. Is that true?”

Owen thought about his own life, and his mom and dad and brother – all dead.

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