Much More Than Ordinary Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Secrets


“Kaia, it’s time for dinner, honey,” mom spoke softly, waking me up.

I sat up, still dazed from my sleep. I could have slept the whole night through, I was so tired. “Why’d you wake me up?”

“It’s dinner time,” she said again. She reached over to the nightstand and turned on the light.

My eyes stung while they adjusted. “I let you sleep for a couple hours but we need to get some food in your stomach. Real food,” she said, looking pointedly toward my junk food filled tote.

“You went through my stuff?” I exclaimed. I got up from the bed, throwing a couple ruffled pillows aside that had ended up on top of me in my sleep. Not only had she found my goodies but my luggage was piled neatly next to the door, empty.

“I didn’t go through your things, Kaia,” mom said, rolling her eyes. “I just saved you the trouble of putting them away. You were sleeping.”

The thought of her touching my underwear was uncomfortable. Dad and I had started doing our laundry separately as soon as I was able to reach the dials on the washer. But, if it wasn’t for her I would have lived out of my suitcases for the next three months.

“Thanks, I guess,” I muttered, shoving my way around her. I went to the vanity to take my contacts out and put on my glasses. My eyes were dry and itchy. Dad had bought the thick framed glasses that I wore only on these occasions. They made me look like a librarian so I didn’t wear them if I didn’t have to.

I slowly made my way to the dining room, taking the time to let the cool carpet caress my bare feet. I sniffed in the lavender and exhaled. Mom had lit a few candles in the candelabras along the wall. The soft light flickered over the many pictures the hallway was decorated with.

One wall was dedicated entirely to me. I stopped short at a black and white photo of me in preschool. My hair was in short puffy pigtails that sat crocked on my head, messy most likely from a day’s play. I smiled remembering dad doing my hair when I was younger. I guess during this picture, he was still trying to do it himself. He eventually started taking me to a hairdresser every week. But, nevertheless, I still looked as happy as can be as I smiled up at the photographer who was most likely my dad.

The other walls were strewn with pictures of other people in my mom’s life. A lot of the people, I didn’t know, some I had seen around during our rides in town. There was one picture that always fascinated me more than any other. It was a picture of a middle aged woman.

She smiled, serenely, down from the photo as if her smile was only for me. The picture was taken outside, maybe on a porch, and from the way flowers bloomed, outrageously around her; she was in Gardenia. I always wondered who she was but I’d never asked mom. She may have been someone important because mom had quite a few pictures of her.

Mom had the usual dinner of salad and rolls set up in the dining room. Great!

“Is this it?” I called out to mom, reaching for a roll and some butter. I could hear her filling glasses with ice.

“Oh, no it’s not,” mom sang from the kitchen. A few seconds later she came in to the dining room carrying a tray full of steaks, fried onions, potatoes and two glasses of ice cold lemonade.

Yum, I thought. My stomach started to growl at the smell of it. She sat it down at the center of the table and I immediately reached for a steak.
She stopped my wrist mid grab and said,” Use your fork, Kaia.”

She was looking at me like I was one of her kindergartners. I shook my wrist free. I sometimes forget that I have to act a certain way with her. At home, I ate just as Caveman-ish as dad did. Using my fork, I stabbed a steak and plopped it on my plate. Now, where was the A-1 sauce?

Just before I could ask, mom walked back in with just what I was looking for plus a dish with a couple baked potatoes. Wow, I thought. I never ate like this when I was here.

While I slathered my potato with butter and sour cream, mom sat across from me biting meekly at her dry salad. I felt like a pig but it didn’t stop my fork from lifting to my mouth. I wondered how she learned to cook so well for someone who never ate anything except raw veggies.

She chuckled. “You know, watching you eat reminds me of your father.”

I almost choked on my water. Did I hear her right? She was bringing up my dad again and as casually as if she talked about him all the time. Normally, when I mentioned him she always politely and smoothly changed the subject. This was unusual and so was that dreamy look on her face.

I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to get some information out of her though. “What do you mean?” I asked as innocent as I possibly could. My heart was beating like crazy and I concentrated hard to steady my hand as I cut my second piece of steak.

She played absentmindedly with her salad and said,” I was just thinking back to when we got our first place. We made this rule for ourselves that we would save money by only eating out once a week. That was, of course, before I realized that your dad couldn’t boil noodles without it coming out wrong.”

I chuckled imagining my dad, younger, attempting to cook in order to impress her. He was still a sorry cook at thirty nine.

“So, I ended up having to cook every single night and I watched him devour every crumb. There were never any leftovers. And how dare I make him eat some vegetables?” She laughed at her memory. “But he never gained a single pound. I couldn’t help but be jealous. You’re just like him, a junk fanatic.”

“Well, I don’t keep the weight off quite as good as him,” I stated, tapping my belly. I’ll probably never fit in a size six but my body is tight and firm with the pounds I do have from playing softball the past four years.

“You’re perfect, Kaia,” mom muttered softly.

Even though I was flattered that someone as beautiful as mom would give me such a nice compliment, I didn’t want to stray from my mission. “So, when did you and dad decide to move in with each other?”

She finished chewing and said,” I was in my last year of college and your dad had just graduated. His dad gave him a nice amount of money as a graduation present and we used that to put the deposit down on a very small apartment above a Laundromat. It was the cheapest and nicest we could find. Plus we got to do laundry easily and sometimes for free and the place always smelled like fabric softener.”

“How long had you known each other?” I dared myself to ask. This was getting interesting. For as long as I’d been visiting her, I’d been trying to get information on their past out of my mom. But just like dad, she refused to talk about it. I’d complained to both of them that it was unfair not to tell me. Didn’t all children want to know about their parents happily ever after? Well, I guess in their case it isn’t an ever-after but they had to be happy at one point. And I had the right to know about it, didn’t I?

Despite my continued protests, they hadn’t wavered. Until now. “Oh, about three years. We’d been dating for only two years. It took your dad a year to convince me to date him. I thought he was trouble.”

My eyebrows rose an inch. “You thought dad was trouble?” Dad was the most easygoing guy in the world. Trouble was the last word I would use to describe him.

She smiled at me. It was weird. Talking to her now was like having a conversation with one of my friends at school. Our conversations never lasted this long, probably because I didn’t allow them to.

“Well, you know how your father is. He can be loud and all over the place at times. I thought he was always like that and being from a small quiet place like Gardenia, I wasn’t use to somebody like him. So, it took me a while to see the soft, intelligent, caring side of him.”

“So, is that when you fell in love?” I asked then.

At that moment something changed. Her face turned from dreamy, to sad and lastly blank all within a couple seconds. She was silent for a while before she drew in a deep breath and finally looked up at me as her normal self. And I mean her annoying normal self.

She sighed. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this?” I asked her for clarification.

“Is there anyone special in your life?” she asked, attempting to change the subject.

“Why shouldn’t we be talking about this?” I said confused. She had shut down on me again and now I felt deflated from the excitement I felt from hearing about their past. All I wanted were some answers.

Mom took a few last bites from her salad and rose from her seat. “When I say that we shouldn’t be talking about it, I mean leave it alone, Kaia,” she said grabbing her glass and heading to the kitchen.

I threw down my steak filled fork and went after her. She wasn’t getting out of this that easily. When I reached her she was digging so deep into the fridge that half her body had disappeared into it. Talking to her behind I said,” Why can’t we talk about it? All I asked was how you fell in love with my dad. It’s not that hard of a question to answer.”

She continued to ignore me as she looked for whatever it was that she’d forgotten in the refrigerator. “Were you ever in love with him?” I asked.

I needed some answers, badly. I had no history on where I came from, or where my parents started or even how they ended. These thoughts and questions roamed around in my head every day. I never dared to mention them to my dad, they upset him too much.

As I’ve gotten older, it’s gotten harder to keep my worries to myself. How was I supposed to grow up and become an adult if I didn’t know who I really was?

Mom shimmed her way out of the tight space and turned to me. She held her prize down by her side in her right hand. A bottle of red wine. I’d never seen her drink and I never took her as the type that would. I wondered why it was so important she get to that bottle so quickly.

She must have noticed me eyeing the bottle because she looked at it herself like she had forgotten it was there. She raked her hand through her hair and walked the bottle to the counter where she set it down.

She smiled a sad smile and began saying,” I love -.” She stopped and closed her eyes gathering herself. She drew in a deep breath and shook her whole body like she had the chills. She opened her eyes again and restarted,” I loved your father more than I could ever put into words. He is the only person that ever made me feel like it was okay to be myself and I loved him for that and so many other things.”

“Like the fact that he gave me you,” she muttered, turning her attention back to the bottle.

A tear sat at the brim of my eye daring to fall. “Then why aren’t you two still together?” I begged for an answer. The tear fell and I wiped it away before it could leave a cold trail.

“Kaia, we shouldn’t-,” she stopped herself at the sight of my now smoldering eyes. If she tried to pull that ‘we shouldn’t talk about it’ bit again, me and her were going to fight. She sighed. “Kaia, I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

I crossed my arms. “Then when?”

“One day you’ll know everything you need to know, I promise.”

“When is one day?” I asked aggravated. “That could be one month or three years from now?”

“I hope that it’s soon honey,” she muttered. Before I could scrunch my face up in confusion, she turned away to open the cupboard. Reaching high for a wine glass, she said to me over her shoulder,” I really can’t talk about this anymore Kaia. Please, go eat the rest of your dinner. Your dad is probably having a heart attack about now and I’m sure the flight is catching up to you again.”

Dammit! I forgot to call dad. The realization almost deterred me from the current conversation but I’ve been known to be stubborn.

“I want answers now,” I said crossing my arms again. Maybe if I was really stern with her, she would give in.

Mom slammed her glass down, slopping wine over the rim. “I said leave it alone, Kaia,” she practically yelled. I’d never seen her mad. She was always so happy like the rest of the people in her town. I must have pushed a button but I only wondered why.

She stood staring into nothingness trying to steady her breathing. “Go to your room, Kaia, if you’re not going to finish your dinner. I’ll be out back for a while.” Without another word she went through the door that connected the kitchen to the patio.

I decided not to follow her and let it go. For now.



“Hi, daddy,” I sang lying back on my pillows, pulling my plate up on stomach.

“Kaia,” he exclaimed, obviously bewildered. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?
Where have you been?”

I’d had missed six calls from dad in the past two hours. I was lucky enough to catch him before he hit the road, headed to Gardenia. “Hi, daddy,” I said again. “How are you?”

He wasn’t dumb enough to fall for my distraction. “Kaia!” he exclaimed once more. “Your plane landed four hours ago. What the hell is going on?”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” I sighed chewing on a fried onion. “Chill out.”

“Chill out?” he exclaimed. “I thought we agreed for you to keep me updated. You were to notify me the moment you met with your mother.”

I sighed and put my fork down. “Dad, you make it sound like I’m on some secret mission or something. I’m with mom, okay? Not with the FBI.”

“Did we agree or didn’t we?”

“Yes,” I muttered solemnly. I didn’t want him to be mad at me the first night I was away from him. I could tell that he was really worried. “I’m sorry, I fell asleep the minute I got here and then we ate dinner. I’m really sorry, daddy.”

After a silence, I heard him sigh. “How was your flight honey?” he asked turning back to my normal sane father.

“It was a blast,” I lied picking up fork and finishing the last of my dinner. I could sure use some dessert.

“What are you eating?” he asked. “One of your mom’s classic salads?

“Actually she made a pretty good meal tonight,” I commented. “I know what a surprise.”

“Yeah, that’s different. Maybe she’s learning.”

“We had a pretty interesting conversation before she started getting all weird on me.”

“Weird on you, how?” he asked a little too quickly.

“Oh, nothing unusual, you know she’s always weird,” I stated. I decided not to say anything about mom opening up to me about how they met. He might call her and scare her into quieting up again.

He laughed. “Well at least you’re talking to her and not being your normal sassy self.”

“Who said I wasn’t being my normal sassy self?” I asked.

“Oh, my bad, I forgot, it’s impossible for you not to be,’ he joked.

I laughed. “I miss you already, daddy. You all ready for you trip?”

“Yeah, we had another meeting to get down the itinerary. We’re gone to be busy but it’s going to be a ton of exposure.”

“Don’t forget the fun,” I mentioned. Sometimes dad could get so swept up in the business side of his music that he forgot to have fun with it. I didn’t want him to become one of those miserable artists they have features for on VH1.

“Having fun is the easy part,” he said. I rolled my eyes. He was such a terrible liar.

Dad didn’t keep me on the phone for long. He said that he had some songs to work on before sending another demo out.

I sat my empty plate on the nightstand and stretched to strip down to my camisole. After sending a quiet prayer out for my fathers’ dreams I rolled over to my side and drifted off easily into slumber.



Urgent whispering woke me from a sound sleep. I looked around my shadowy room before realizing that the voices were coming in through my open window. I frowned as I turned to get out of bed. More pillows had ended up on top of me in my sleep. I threw them to the side as I got up.

My glasses were on the nightstand, I grabbed them before walking slowly to the window. The sheer lavender drapes blew in the midnight breeze. Though the wind wasn’t cold, I felt goose bumps pop out on my arms. I pulled one of the drapes aside and poked my head out of the window.

The wind blew faster outside. My hair flew wildly, covering my face so that I couldn’t see. I quickly took the tie from my wrist and jammed the mess into a ponytail.

There, I thought. I was finally able to see who had woken me up. Having to stretch to see over the gardenia bushes, I leaned as far out of my window as possible. In the clearing between our houses stood mom and Old Lady Frona, talking over the railing of her porch.

“Something big is about to happen, Regina,” Frona said in an excited voice. “I can feel the energy of the atmosphere changing, can’t you?”

Mom nodded as she crossed her arms. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Yeah, I feel it,” she muttered.

Frona looked frustrated. “Well, you could act a little more excited about it.”

“I’m a bit more scared than I am excited.”

“Scared of what?” Frona exclaimed. “We’ve never been this close to being restored to our rightful place. It’s been centuries and centuries of…”

The remainder of Frona’s sentence was cut off because the wind began to pick up. I waited patiently for it to quiet down as I watched them talk intensely.

“….and what if it’s wrong again?” mom asked. “What if we do all this preparing, only to find out we’ve been deceived again?”

Frona shook her head. “That will not happen. The prophecy was misinterpreted before. We were all too eager then.”

“And we’re not eager now?”

“Yes we’re eager,” Frona said exhausted. “But we’ve learned from our mistakes. We’ve went over it again and again and there is no way we’ve gotten it wrong this time. Even you said that you can feel the power festering inside of her.”

Mom turned her face toward the sky, the glow of the moon bouncing radiantly off her face. “Since before she was born,” mom said dreamily.

I gasped. My eyes popped wide open, along with my mouth. I sprang up in shock and hit my head on the windowsill. Ouch! I thought, rubbing the tender spot on my scalp, temporarily forgetting about the current situation at hand. Once my brain stopped wiggling around inside my head, I checked outside to see if mom or Frona had heard any of my commotion.

They were gone!

Dammit, I thought. I didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. I jumped back from the window and leaped into my bed as quietly as possible. I’d had years of practice from when I used to listen in on dads poker nights.

Now that I was comfortably in bed I had time to think about what I just overheard. Prophecy? Powers? That was all movie stuff and yet they spoke about it like it was happening. These people in Gardenia really are crazy.

I remained silent as mom opened my door and called out my name. After a few seconds of waiting, she closed the door behind her.

My mom was keeping secrets and Gardenia was proving, already, to be a lot more interesting than meets the eye. My mind was racing from thought to thought about what I’d just heard. I couldn’t understand any of it. From what they were saying, unless mom had another kid hidden somewhere in another part of America, the one with the festering powers since before birth, was me.



Thank you so much for sticking with me and reading Chapter 3! Chapter 4 will be up shortly, I promise! Don't forget to read, review and become a fan if you want to know when the next chapters up! Thanks. S.R Brunson

If you plan on writing a review... Do you think the last part of the chapter came too early? When I start to reveal the town mystery and Kaia over hears it? Did you read it and feel intrigued by this or did you scratch your head? I just don't know if I should wait for Kaia to hear this when she has met more people in Gardenia or when she's been there longer. Just wondering... any feedback would be great!