[July 15, 1992]

The kitchen phone rang during dinner, and Karen answered it. She was silent, and then said, "May I tell him who's calling?" Pause. "And may I give him a name?" Pause. She covered the receiver. "Eric, a woman is calling for you. A woman who refuses to furnish her name."

Eric, with a look of confusion on his face, rose and took the phone. He listened. "Yes, this is Eric Taylor," he said.

Karen sat back down and resumed eating. Tami cleaned up Julie's spilled cup. She was trying to transition from a sippy to an open cup. It wasn't going well.

"Yes, my middle name is David." Eric sunk into the kitchen desk chair. "Yes, that's my birthday." Pause. "Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler." He listened. He occasionally said "yes" or "oh." Then he said, "I just wanted to know some things."

Mr. Taylor stopped eating and stared at his son. Tami looked up from the paper towels she was using to sop up milk.

"You are?" Eric asked. "This Saturday?" He swallowed. "I uh...I guess I could...yeah. I could meet you for lunch. Anywhere in or near Dallas." Pause. "What's it called again?" He grabbed a pad of paper off the kitchen desk and scribbled down some information. "I'll look up the address. Yeah. I'll be there."

He hung up the phone. He just stared at the kitchen wall for a moment.

"Was that her?" Mr. Taylor asked. "Was that your mother?"

Karen looked at her husband nervously.

Eric nodded numbly.

"Why in the hell does she have my phone number?"

Eric turned in the desk chair. He looked at his father. "Sorry. Tami called her from this phone yesterday." It had actually been the day before yesterday, but not as far as Eric knew. "She told Tami never to call her again and just hung up, but then I guess she changed her mind. She has that Caller ID thing. It told her this number."

Mr. Taylor asked, "You're meeting her?"

"She's going to be in Dallas on business this weekend."

"Well that's quite the coincidence." Mr. Taylor's voice was more than skeptical. It was angry.

"She's a lawyer. Her firm has offices here, in San Diego, Chicago, and New York."

"She told Tami never to call her again," Mr. Taylor said, "and then she called?"

"Yes," Eric said, still clearly reeling from the shock.

"And you agreed to meet her?"

"How could I not?" Eric asked.

Mr. Taylor slammed his palm down on the kitchen table. It rattled, the silverware clanking against plates. Karen gasped and Andrew started crying.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Taylor muttered.

Karen released Andrew from his high chair to comfort him.

"I'm sorry, Karen," Mr. Taylor said. "I didn't mean to startle him." He stood. "I'm going to the garage."

After Tami and Karen put the kids to bed, Mr. Taylor was still in the garage. "I'm going to check on him," Karen said. "Y'all have a nice night." She was no doubt anticipating a long conversation.

Eric had already disappeared into the bedroom. Tami joined him. She stripped to her t-shirt and underwear and lay next to him in the darkness, where she knew he was wide awake.

She thought about what she should say, but she didn't say anything.

Eventually, he spoke. "I'm going to meet my mother."

"I know."

"I'm twenty-two, and I'm going to meet my mother for the first time."

She rolled to him and held him. "I know."

"Why do you think she changed her mind so fast?" he asked.

"I don't know," Tami said, though the question troubled her.

"She said she wants to meet me. That she wants to get to know me. She wants to, Tami."

"Yeah," Tami said softly, but the darkness felt so very heavy, and stones of fear seemed to be weighing down her stomach.

[Saturday, July 18]

"How do I look?" Eric asked Tami. He looked incredibly nervous, but she knew that's not what he was asking. He'd put on a pair of khaki pants, and he had on a button down, short-sleeve shirt.

"Handsome," she said, and draped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? Karen's home this afternoon. She can watch Julie."

"I appreciate it, but I need to do this on my own."

Mr. Taylor had not spoken to Eric today about his plans to meet his mother. After slamming his hand against the dinner table, he had not mentioned the topic again. He'd slept in late, and then gone straight to a job site.

Tami stroked Eric's cheek. "Don't expect too much," she told him.

"I won't. But maybe she's changed. Maybe she's sincerely sorry she walked away from me."

Tami literally bit her tongue so she wouldn't start crying. "Maybe, sugar," she said softly. "I love you so much." She kissed him, and then she let him go, and when he closed the front door, that was when she cried.

[*]

When Eric came back, Tami handed him a beer and sat on the couch next to him.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"Your dad is still at his job site, and Karen took the kids to a playdate at the neighbor's. How was it?"

He smiled. "She was pretty, Tami, classy, like a 50's movie star. No one is like that anymore. She just had this..." he shook his head. "This presence about her. And she was really nice. Just so nice. And funny. The smart kind of funny. And she said she was really sorry for just…that she was a confused teenager, afraid, and she wished that she'd stayed in touch. She said she tried to find me for years, but she couldn't find my dad's number after he changed it."

Tami wanted to stop him, to tell him not to get ahead of himself, to proceed with caution, but she listened instead.

"She doesn't have any other kids. She's married, to a banker, but they decided they didn't want kids. And she's not going to be asking me or my dad for money, that's for sure. She's a tax lawyer! She's going to be in town again in two weeks. I'm going to meet her for brunch, if that's okay with you."

"Shelley's wedding is that Saturday." Tami hadn't worried about her sister's upcoming ceremony for a few days. She'd been too busy worrying about Eric. She suddenly remembered she was supposed to go in before six this evening to get her bridesmaid dress fitted. Shelley had ordered it in Austin but had it delivered to a nearby store.

"Well, she'll be here the whole weekend. I could meet her Sunday after church."

"Okay," Tami said. "Just...be careful." She put a hand on his shoulder. He'd gone from having completely written off his mom for years, to searching for her, to writing her off again, and then to this excited chatter. There seemed to be no anger in him now, but also no caution. How often in his childhood, she wondered, had he secretly fantasized of meeting her, of hearing her say she was sorry, of giving him some reason why he wasn't worth staying around for? "I love you, Eric," she said, and she almost cried when she said it.

"You a'ight?" he asked. "You seem sad."

"I just love you so much, that sometimes it makes me…" She shrugged. She kissed him deeply, to hide her fear.

He broke away, set his beer on the coffee table, and then returned the kiss fervently, pushing her down against the couch.

"No," she said. "Not on this couch."

He looked down at it. "Oh yeah. Ewwwww….."

They went to the bedroom to fool around instead.

Eric was happy, and Tami let herself be happy. She pushed aside her misgivings and worries and enjoyed the playful love making.

They frolicked in bed for an hour, until they heard Karen re-entering the house with the kids.

[*]

When Tami returned from her dress fitting, dinner was already in progress. She helped herself from the pot on the stove to the chili Eric had made (it was his night to cook) and sat down at the table with the rest of the family.

Mr. Taylor was talking to Karen about the pool of applicants for the administrative assistant position. "I've narrowed it down to three. Will you look over the resumes and give me your opinion?"

"Did they come with photos?" Karen asked.

"I think a request like that might have violated some law."

"But you've interviewed them all personally?"

"Yes."

"Then just pick the one you find least attractive, darling."

He chuckled. "Be serious. I want your opinion. Will you look at them?"

"I'll look," she promised. "How did the dress fit, Tami?"

"Apparently Shelley thinks I'm fat. It needs to be taken in quite a bit."

"Easier to do than letting it out," Mr. Taylor said.

"I didn't know you were a fashion expert, darling," Karen teased.

"My grandfather was a tailor."

"I know, all of the men in your family were Taylors."

"No, a tailor. T-a-i-"

"I was teasing, Garrett."

He smiled at her.

"So, Dad, I take it you aren't going to ask about my meeting with my mother," Eric said.

Garret and Karen's smiles faded. Tami felt the tension tingle out to the tips of her fingers. Even Andrew stopped toying with his food and looked from face to face. Julie however, continued to hum while she ate.

"And how was your meeting with your mother, son? Did she crack out her snake charming flute?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Hell!" Julie exclaimed.

Tami didn't look at Eric with scolding eyes, as she might have in some other circumstance. She ignored her daughter's echo. So did everyone else.

"She wasn't like anyone you'd ever met, was she?" Mr. Taylor asked. "You felt alive just to be in her company."

"I liked her, yes. She was very...likeable."

Mr. Taylor took a slow sip of sweet tea. Then he put his glass down and looked right at Eric. "You don't find it odd that she hung up on Tami and then immediately turned around and called you and asked to meet you?"

"She was startled by Tami's call. And she was worried how her husband would react when he found out about me. Because you were right about that. She didn't tell him she'd had a child. But she thought about how much she's wanted to get in touch with me, and she came clean with him, and he was understanding. She's wanted to find me before now."

"Has she? Then why didn't she?"

"Well," Eric muttered, "Taylor's such a common name."

"There are a lot of Wendy Durants, and you still found her. You've been in the news, son. You were under consideration for the NFL draft. You've been on the radio, in newspapers, on TV. You shouldn't have been that hard to find."

"Well, she wasn't looking recently. She was looking from the time I was five to ten or so. I wasn't in any papers then. She looked for five years, but she eventually gave up."

"Eric, until I moved here, I lived in Tyler my entire life. The house you grew up in is two miles from the house I grew up in. I've advertised my handyman services. If she was looking, I shouldn't have been that hard to find."

Eric pushed his plate forward angrily. "So what are you saying? Why do you think she wanted to meet me?"

"I can only assume she wants something."

"Wants what?" Eric half shouted. "She makes more money than you do! And I don't have anything. What could I have that she could possibly want?"

"I don't know, son. But it doesn't sit right with me." He looked at Tami. "And if you asked your wife, I bet she'd say it doesn't sit right with her either."

"No she wouldn't." Eric turned to Tami. He must have seen the worry in her face, because his expression changed. "You don't think she wants something, do you?" he asked.

"Eric, I don't know. I hope not. I hope getting to know her makes you happy. I want you to be happy. Just don't expect too much, sugar, okay?"

Eric shook his head. He pushed back from the table and threw his napkin down. "I'm going for a run."

Tami sighed when he was gone.

"I hope there's no sociopath gene," Mr. Taylor muttered.

"You don't really think she's a sociopath, do you?" Karen asked.

"I think she's a poster child for it," Mr. Taylor said and stood and took his bowl and spoon to the sink.

"Well Eric certainly didn't inherit that, darling. And is it possible that your anger over her rejection might have clouded your judgment of - "

"- No." He flicked on the water and began scrubbing. When he was done, he turned and leaned back against the sink. "Tami, hear me when I say this. I know it's too late to stop him from getting to know her. But you need to be ready to pick him up from the fall. Because she will make him feel like he's on top of the world. She will make him believe in her. She'll lift him up to a pinnacle, and then she'll drop him down."

Tami pushed her bowl forward, away from her suddenly sick stomach, and hugged herself.