Chapter 25
Jonas must've grown half a foot - although the way he was slumping it could've been more. He'd apparently been allowed by his father to dye his light brown hair black and it was frankly a mystery to me how his trousers were staying up, so low-slung and hung with chains were they. His characteristic thirteen-year-old too-cool facade dropped completely as he saw me, though, and I was awarded with a broad grin and a tight hug as we reached one another mid-driveway that actually made me tear up a bit.
"Hey, you," I murmured, hugging back just a little longer than he probably wanted me to before letting go. "What is this?" I added, reaching to rumple his hair. "Hm?"
"Pretty sure it's hair," he said in his 'duh' voice as he pulled back, readjusting the overnight rucksack he had hanging off one shoulder.
"Ah, of course," I replied with a smirk. "Have you thought about where you'd like to go to eat? Anywhere you like."
I got a shrug in response. "Don't care," he replied.
"Okay, well, let's go see what we can find, mm?"
We eventually settled on a nice bistro near the centre of town where I could get a good risotto and Jonas could get the 'proper burger and chips' he'd apparently been craving for months.I knew better than to expect any conversation when the food had arrived, so I made the most of the wait by immediately asking the questions (well, some of them) that I had been dying to ask. "So, tell me more about your trip. What was the most exciting thing you did?"
"Umm..." At first Jonas shrugged, and I worried that my son really had been completely replaced by a recalcitrant replicant only capable of monosyllabic grunts (something I'd been warned would happen by several friends and colleagues). It seemed, though, that no amount of hormones could completely replace my progeny, and though it was hard to discern there was a definite note of excitement to his voice as he answered.
"I think either the time when we went white water rafting down the Patagoania River in the Futaleufu Valley, or maybe when dad had to pass a bribe to get us past a border control with some samples dad says we probably weren't meant to have. The guy had a huge semi-automatic."
I nodded; far from admonishing him about the latter situation I had to admit it was something that was far too common - and I knew Keith would have done everything he could to keep Jonas safe. "And did you make it to the Villarrica Volcano in the end?"
"Yeah, we got there - it was pretty awesome. I'll have to show you all my photographs when we get to your place." To 'make up' for having failed to arrange for me to see Jonas as I'd asked to, Keith had gone a step further and 'arranged' for him to stay overnight. Of course this had entailed a lot of mad rushing around arranging bedlinen and clearing space in my second bedroom (which had until then been a study-cum-general-storage sort of room) but I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to have Jonas stay.
"Definitely. And you kept your travel journal up-to-date?" Our only requirement of Jonas when he came with us on trips was that he keep a journal of everything he saw and did - it had originally been my idea, as I wanted him to be able to remember the places he had been in his own words, not just through what we told him. It had started out a large notebook full of his childish scrawl and incredibly detailed pictures; now he had graduated to keeping most of it on his computer, complete with digital pictures and other media.
I got an eyeroll for my trouble, but he nodded. "Yep. There's some handwritten stuff from up the mountain that I haven't scanned in yet, but other than that I'm all good."
I grinned at him, just happy to be on the same continent, much less in the same room. "Great. I'm sure all your blog fans will be thrilled."
"Yeah, whatever."
My suspicions had been correct - once food arrived there was very little talking but a lot of enthusiastic chewing. Not that I minded, and indeed my son had better table manners than some of the men I had gone out with over the past six months. Once we finished we headed back to my flat, as I wanted to give Jonas plenty of time to settle in.
I hadn't yet found my long-term accommodation when Keith had left, so Jonas had never seen my new home, and so I was a little nervous as to what he woud think - not that he would be cruel if he didn't like it, but I wanted it to be somewhere he felt comfortable and at home. As it turned out, I needn't have worried.
"I like the stone," he said, nodding toward the exposed stonework wall before trotting over to the couch and flopping down on it. I took this to mean he loved the place.
"I got some DVDs," I told him, gesturing towards the hardwood entertainment center. "And there's satellite as well. I've got to do some work to get ready for my meeting tomorrow, but I'll be right here if you need anything." I had set up my laptop at the dining room table, wanting to be near to Jonas even as I did my work.
"Can I check my email?"
"Hm? Oh, of course, sweetheart. You can use my computer if you didn't bring yours."
"I've got mine - where's your network key?"
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully enough - Jonas complained that I didn't have any good snacks in the flat, but beyond that seemed happy enough to be there. I took a break so that he could show me his pictures from the trip and we spent a good hour watching the slideshow on the flatscreen television. I will admit a certain feeling - annoyance? jealousy? - seeing pictures of Keith and Keira together in front of towering mountains and rushing rivers, but I tried not to let on, not wanting to make my son feel uncomfortable about something that was patently not his fault.
Perhaps he picked up on it, though, because he seemed to put any freshly-teenaged attitude on hold for the evening and was as sweet natured as I'd ever seen him, even getting up to fetch me glasses of water and 'rabbit food' (as he called my chosen snackfood of carrot and celery sticks with hoummus.
Eventually we wrapped up; I had to get back to work, and Jonas had to get to bed. He went willingly enough, and I'll admit, I did the typical 'mum' thing of sneaking into his room later to watch him sleeping like a baby in the sofa bed I had made up for him earlier.
I was surprised on returning to my little study to find that I'd receieved a text message - not something I get very often - from Alex of all people.
Smiling, I pulled out my chair and sat down at my laptop. It took me several minutes to type out a reply, but eventually I had one ready to send back.
It was another few minutes before I got a response.
This didn't surprise me, really, but I still felt a momentary twist on reading it - was everybody coupled up except me?
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