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Chapter or Story
Chapter 4
Miss Parker was sitting on her bed and trying to pretend like she wasn’t listening to the sheriff playing his guitar. It could not be denied—even by her—that he was a very good player. He had played some rollicking songs of the sort you’d expect to find in a backwoods town like this, though with some surprisingly complex fingering, and then he had struck suddenly into something very classical, maybe Spanish, and now he was playing something mournful and haunting. He gave her a running commentary on them, whether she was listening or not. Jarod had taught him the Spanish piece, though where Jarod had learned it when he had never picked up a guitar before was a mystery. Now when he was done with his last melancholy piece, Andy Taylor said, “Jarod sure liked them sad songs. He said they reminded him of his lost childhood. You know, for a fellow who liked his fun, he sure had him a sad side.”
“Oh, the poor baby,” Miss Parker snapped. She was sick of hearing about poor little Jarod. Everywhere he went people sympathized with him. Mothers wanted to take him home and feed him, and psychiatrists wanted to solve all his problems. Mostly women, but a lot of men, too. “That boy sure was messed up,” one man said admiringly. Everyone was on his side and wanted to help him. Why doesn’t anyone care about me? she wanted to scream at the kindly-eyed sheriff. Why doesn’t anyone care about my lost childhood and my motherlessness? It’s all about what the Centre stole from poor Jarod. Well, what about what they stole fromme? Meanwhile, Jarod is still out there, free, flaunting his freedom at me, while I’m still in prison! And she didn’t mean this pathetic, doily-infested jail. She could get out of here in two twists of a hairpin, and she was going to, as soon as everyone went home for the night. Too bad she couldn’t blame this one directly on Jarod. He would have loved it if he had known her own stupidity got her locked up by the sheriff he had helped to reinstate. She could hear him saying, “Look at it as a symbol, Miss Parker. You continue to play into the Centre’s hands, and they continue to keep you locked up.” The truth was, Jarod cared. She wanted to tear his eyes out with her fingernails, and he kept…helping her. Sending her information about her mother, seeing past her angry surface to the child who wanted nothing more than to have Mama back. Would he still do it if he had no personal reason for keeping in contact with the Centre? Probably.
Andy was playing another sad piece of music. “So, how do you and Jarod know each other, Miss Parker?”
“We’re pen pals,” she said viciously.
“Then you’ve never actually met? You should. You’d like him.”
“Oh, we’ve met.” The problem was, she probably would like him, if they had met at a club or worked together. He would make her laugh, help her to see life beyond trauma and manipulation and imprisonment. She would have no reason to hate him, and then maybe the fact that he could see the real Parker inside her would be attractive instead of dangerous and infuriating. Was he the only person who cared unconditionally? In some tiny, unacknowledged portion of her mind, she whispered, “I hate you, Daddy, for what you’ve done to us.”
Andy Taylor seemed to understand something in her expression, for he said no more but played on.
