Small Treasons by Mark Powell

Author:Mark Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

Part Four

He Who Made the Lamb

32.

Kayla sat in the parking lot of the Smoky Mountain Outlet Center beside the Ann Taylor Factory Store and waited. It was almost nine and the Black Friday crowds had just started to lessen, the four A.M.-ers beginning to wane and flag, trudging back to their cars with bags hooked over their forearms, throwing away their Starbucks, calling husbands to make sure the kids had breakfast. Flocks of mothers and sister and girlfriends, attractive women in their leggings and Pinterest-worthy boots. Kayla watched their solemn egress with some relief, a little less manic with every big SUV that pulled onto the highway.

The place was still crowded, the parking lot still near capacity, but it felt more manageable now and that was what she was waiting for. She’d been in the car since before eight, drinking coffee and trying to get control of herself. Somewhere here was Tess Maynard, her father’s wife and Kayla’s—could this actually be true?—maybe Kayla’s stepmother, if that wasn’t too weird a thing to imagine which, yeah, it pretty much was. Particularly since there was less than a decade between them in age.

They were planning to meet by the central fountain at nine.

Kayla was on Thanksgiving break from school, but had to trade shifts at the gym in order to make it happen. So she would work the desk from four to midnight tonight and then be back at work the following morning at six. It was worth it.

She knew about her father’s family, had even met Tess and the two boys—Laurie wasn’t yet born then—at Kayla’s grandparents. That day had been a happy accident and it had thrilled everyone, she thought, but her dad. Her dad had hovered over everything, moving to some corner and then moving out again, hands floating but never actually touching. As if he were stranded halfway between the need to act and the need to disappear. Which, of course, he had been.

Kayla was sympathetic. She knew how awkward it was for him, how apologetic it made him, how that sense of lingering unrealized apology confused him.

She regretted that.

She regretted that because she loved him, and also because she held nothing against him. She was sure of that. Not even in some buried Freudian chamber was there any trace of resentment. That he had another life, that she had another life—she had long since accepted that, and was happy with it. She loved her life, loved her grandparents, loved her friends. In a way she wasn’t sure she fully understood, she knew she loved her dad’s new family, too. Loved them without necessarily needing to be a part of them. Still, it would be nice to be acknowledged as a daughter, and not some inconvenient reminder of tragedy.

She cranked the car and let the heat blow on her hands and feet. The window had iced again so when her hands were warm she let the defrost blow until the glass cleared and it no longer appeared as

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