Dallas, Texas

"Look, you seem nice, but I don't know you and I don't feel it's any of your business."

Shutting down her curiosity before she even really began to explain herself, everything about Cliff Barnes felt unfamiliar. He didn't speak like anyone she knew, his office was nothing like those she was used to visiting, and studying his face, she saw very little resemblance between them, but they were family, or she thought they were. He was at least a decade older than she was but even in the younger graduation portrait on his desk, she couldn't see any similarity.

"Please Mr Barnes, I just need to know."

"I don't see why. We're not public figures, no one is going to want to read an article about us, nor do I want them to. My family is my family, what happened in the past is private and I intend for it to stay that way."

Having already bent the truth about why she was there, losing confidence the second she'd come face-to-face with him, she was tempted to just scrap her story and tell him the truth about who she was, however, the fear of his attitude worsening stopped her.

"Even if your mother was alive?"

Dangling the information in front of him, she waited for his reaction, disappointed when he replied not with immediate interest but continued hostility.

"Even then. I don't know what any of this would accomplish. My mother left my father and her two young children, I was five, my sister was barely a year and a half old. The woman left us, just walked out the door one day and never came back, daddy said she died not long after, whether or not that's true I don't care, I wouldn't want to see her even if she were alive. She betrayed our family, that's unforgivable."

Listening, she could generally understand his hurt and frustration with the situation, he had been young when their mother left and that had to have hurt, but to be so sure about not wanting to reconnect with her now was difficult to comprehend. His father was gone, his sister was gone, and she guessed from the lack of family photographs on his desk that he didn't have anyone else.

"What if she had a good reason?"

Believing what he said he felt, because that was his experience, she didn't want to believe that her own mother could be so cruel and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps there were other factors in her departure.

"Like what?"

"She couldn't cope with raising children."

Making a suggestion, she remembered the many nannies she'd had throughout her lifetime in addition to her mother and grandmother being present and she tried hard to imagine that there was anything behind that behaviour other than it was what was normal for the social setting she'd grown up in, however, she just didn't. She and her mother disagreed on things sometimes and she was sure it was probably a lot easier to be a mother with help than it was to do it all alone, but there had been plenty of times in her life that she'd been under her mother's sole care and she'd never doubted that she was in safe hands. She found it difficult to believe that her mother, Rebecca Wentworth, couldn't cope with two children, she'd always known her to be a very capable lady.

Shaking his head, Cliff indicated he didn't believe it either. "She'd have to be completely heartless to leave her two small children with my daddy, I loved him dearly but if anyone couldn't cope with the pressure of raising children it was him."

"She had to have had some reason."

"I'm sure she did, but nothing valid. There's no excuse for what she did. She was selfish to leave us, end of story."

"Maybe…" starting to speak, she didn't really know what to say. It was difficult to defend something she didn't really understand, and it was difficult to deny that what Cliff was saying from his own perspective was wrong.

"Maybe nothing. If she wanted see me, she'd make contact. It's too late for her to make amends with Pam or Digger, if that's not a wakeup call then I don't know what is. For all I know she could be dead, but if she's not then that's on her, not me."

"You're right."

Conceding that he had a point, that there was nothing stopping their mother from revealing herself to her son, even just in private, she had to assume that their mother's pride was what mattered most to her, not her family.

"I know I am."

"What was Pamela like?"

Changing the subject, she asked about the other common relation they had, this time getting a far more positive reaction.

"She was warm, generous, confident…" leading with positive characteristics, he paused and then laughed to himself, "and stubborn. She married Bobby Ewing knowing it would be an unpopular thing to do, but she loved him and that was what mattered."

Smiling weakly, she empathised with him, feeling that her, "I'm sorry for your loss", comment didn't even begin to cover how genuinely she felt for him. He'd lost a sister, so had she, but he'd actually known what he was losing and she could only begin to grasp what sort of person Pamela had been from the short descriptions people gave her.

"She didn't deserve what happened to her. She must have been terrified…" looking beyond her, she knew he was talking to himself more than anything, which she didn't know how to respond to, so she didn't.

Thinking about it, she gathered that he was talking about Pamela's final moments, although she didn't have the details to really understand what fears she would have been facing.

Feeling it rude to ask exactly what had happened to Pam and her son, she changed the subject again, hoping Cliff might be a little more receptive to her question this time.

"What was your mother like?"

"I don't want to talk about her. Pam is one thing, my mother is another."

Understanding his reluctance, she tried once more, relating it back to Pam. "I'm sorry, I'd just like to understand. Do you think they were alike?"

"Pam and our mother? I wouldn't even begin to try to compare them. Pam was wonderful, our mother is in the distant past, whatever she was back then was all erased when she left."

Gathering that he wasn't going to give her any more than he already had, she started to wrap things up.

"I understand. Thank you for your time."

"Will this be published?" circling back to the little white lie she'd told him when she'd introduced herself, he looked about as uncomfortable with the idea of the public reading his thoughts as she was sure their mother would be.

Shaking her head, she smiled and reassured him, "no."

"Good."

Unsure of where they stood seeing as she'd avoided the truth about who she was and was now set to leave him, with no good excuse to return, she hesitated for a moment, but just as quickly the time to explain herself passed and before she knew it, he was seeing her out.

To be continued…