"My father?" asked Jeremy.
He hadn't heard anything from his father in 20 years and then suddenly within three weeks, he'd heard of him in some form or fashion. Twice.
"Yes," Sonya replied, "your father had a big hand in these operations at one time. My own father used to work here, in a different department, but when I was about 7 or so, he stopped bringing me to work with him. He told me things here were getting very busy and he didn't want me to be in the way.
During the time I was allowed to visit, I would often go up to your father's lab. I didn't know he even had a family at the time. He never spoke of you or your mother. He never had pictures like the others did or drawings. Nothing."
Jeremy thought back to the art he gave his father to take with him to work and wondered what he had done with them all.
Sonya continued. "Right around the time my father told me I couldn't go back to work with him, I had gone to your father's lab to see what he was working on. He would usually greet me with a smile, tussle my hair, and say 'Sony, how does it fair?' but this time he just stayed bent over his desk working. I walked up to him and cleared my throat. When he looked up, I wished I had never disturbed him.
His eyes had this glaze. He seemed like he wasn't there, which was silly since I was looking right at him, but his face...his face just seemed devoid of thought. Of emotion. Then he stepped toward me while placing his hand into his labcoat pocket. When he took it out, there was a syringe. It was full of some sort of light green translucent liquid."
Sonya visibly shivered as she recalled.
"He didn't say one word to me. I was so confused that I didn't think to run. I mean why would I? He had never been like that before. I remember being scared not just for me, but for him as well.
Then he grabbed my arm. He raised the other arm with the needle high above my head and just when I though he was going to inject me, he stopped."
She paused for a minute and seemed to be trying to sat composed. Then she continued.
"His eyes cleared then he seemed to shake his head clear. He looked down at me with this expression that was almost a combination of confusion and horror.
I remember asking him if he was okay. I was still in shock as I'm sure he was as well. He looked away from me and then brought both his arms down.
When he looked back at me, he had a smile on his face. The smile I knew.
Then he said 'Sony, how does it fair? Did you like my mad scientist impression? Scary right?' I nodded my head. I still wasn't sure what to think.
The last thing your father ever said to me was 'Now don't tell your father what happened, or you'll spoil the surprise. He won't be scared when I play the trick on him. Now go on Sony...I have work to do.'
He tussled my hair and turned back to his desk. I turned to go. When I got to the doorway, I turned around. Your father was standing in front of his desk with his head down. His shoulders were slumped like a man who had no hope. Both his hands were covering his face. That image still haunts me sometimes. It wasn't until I was older that I realized he was crying."
Sonya wiped the tears from her face. Jeremy had been so engages in her story, that he hadn't even noticed. He found himself reaching out to touch her face. He wiped away a tear.
"Sonya," he began, "in all those years before he left, I had never seen my father cry. He was always happy. He always had a joke or a word of wisdom when I was feeling bad. If my father was crying after what he almost did..."
Jeremy's voice trailed off. He remembered in his father's letter a mention of a little girl around his age having something to do with him being sick, with him leaving. Could she be the girl his father was referring to? The one he turned his back on the organization for? From the sound of Sonya's story, she just might be.
Jeremy cleared his throat. "What did my father try to do to you?" he asked. "Did you ever find out?"
"No," she replied. "My father never gave me an explanation as to why I couldn't come back. I never told him what happened in the lab that day, but I am sure he had good reason for me not to come here. He never spoke of your father or his work after that. Life went on. Then when I graduated from college, I received a letter from the organization stating I had been hired as an employee in the Research and Development Department."
"How did your dad feel about that? " asked Jeremy.
"I wouldn't know," said Sonya. "My father passed away while I was in high school."
Jeremy looked at Sonya with a hint of sadness in his eyes.
"Sometimes I wished my father were dead. " He said. "It would have been easier to know he was dead than to wonder what happened all these years. To find out everything you thought was a lie or at least not the whole truth." He shook his head slowly. "I don't understand what my father did here. I don't understand what happened to him, but I know he was a good man. He even tried to keep you from getting hurt. He wouldn't do what ever it was they wanted done to you. He even ran away to protect you. He left me and my mother..."
Jeremy stopped talking.
He didn't know if he had said too much already. He was beginning to piece together a picture, vague though it was, of what may have happened to cause his father to leave everything behind, and in the center of this...
was Sonya.
© 2009 by Laira Reid
