"I'm not holding a baby," I said simply.
He gave me a strange look, probably wondering if I was crazy, since the woman in the picture was very clearly holding a small baby in a pink blanket sleeper.
"That's my mom, Derek. I'm the baby."
His eyes widened a little before he frowned and handed the picture back to me as if it had burned his hand. "That’s fucked up.”
I nodded. "That's why your father reacted that way. He felt like..."
"He was looking at her," Derek finished.
I nodded, but shrugged. "I guess it's probably because she died when she was so young, so nobody knows what she would have ended up looking like, but... that was her two years older than I am now."
"You look like twins," he stated.
"Yep. Strong genes,” I said lightly.
He shook his he
ad. "I had no idea what she looked like; I've never seen a picture of her."
I shook my head. "No, your dad didn't have any pictures of my mom. She had been planning to give him a framed picture of them together for his birthday, but... that was when he moved in with... your mom."
"Can we not talk about this anymore?" he asked. "It's kind of... weird."
"It's very weird," I agreed.
"How do you know all of this? I know you said you remember your mom, but there's no way you can remember that much. You weren't even born then, because I wasn't."
"My mom kept journals," I explained, leaning against a chilly guard rail. "I've read them front to back. Any piece of information about her life or their relationship, as long as she recorded it in those journals, I've read about it."
He grimaced. "Every aspect of their relationship?"
I smiled, knowing what he was thinking. "Nothing like that. My mom wouldn't write about those things, but even if she did... they didn't... your conception kind of put a halt to the progress of their relationship."
Derek nodded a little. "Yeah, I guess so. I don't really know, I've only heard your mom mentioned a couple times, mostly only during arguments."
"Did they argue a lot?" I asked, as I had always wondered. My mother speculated that they weren't happy, but I didn't know if that was just what she wanted to believe, or the truth.
Derek nodded. "All the time," he said thoughtfully, his thoughts seeming to wander.
I watched him, wondering where his thoughts were. Was he thinking about when his mother was alive? Did he have many good memories, or was it all bad?
I instinctively put a hand on his shoulder, meaning to offer him the subtle comfort he had offered me earlier, but it seemed to knock him out of his contemplation and he pulled away, frowning at me as he walked over to his car.
"By the way," he called after me, opening his car door. "Don't go thinking we're friends now."
I shook my head, stifling my smile and saying as solemnly as possible, "I wouldn't dare."
He glanced at me for a moment longer before sliding into the driver’s seat of his car and speeding off down the road.
I sighed, shaking my head ruefully and turning to look at the guard rail that I had been leaning on. I didn't know which one, but one of those guard rails had been the guard rail that my mother stood against many years before with Mike, gazing at him, basked in moonlight—the night he had finally kissed her, making her a very happy girl indeed.
Finally, I walked back to my car, thinking it was probably better that I didn't know which one.
Chapter Four-
Whatever had come over Derek when he decided to ride to my rescue, he apparently got over it by the next day.