Blackbird Flies Read online

  Blackbird Flies

  Chynna Laird

  Contents

  Untitled

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About the Author

  Blackbird Flies

  By Chynna Laird

  Published by Clean Reads

  www.cleanreads.com

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  BLACKBIRD FLIES

  Copyright © 2016 CHYNNA LAIRD

  ISBN 9781936852161

  Cover Art Designed by AM DESIGN STUDIO

  To every kid out there who just needed someone to listen and believe in them. Hold on to what makes you, YOU!

  One

  A train whistle echoed into the frigid night. By 3:00 a.m., most of the passengers had been lulled to sleep by the swaying of the steel wheels slicing through the snow. Not everyone was enticed to sleep as easily.

  Fifteen-year-old Payton MacGregor stared out his window. He pressed his forehead against the frost-fogged glass then attempted to stretch out his legs. Man, it was like trying to get a giraffe comfortable in a station wagon! Designers of passenger train cars must have gone to the same engineering school as airplane designers: all passengers should be able to fold themselves into the two-foot space between rows of seats.

  Payton twisted around until he finally settled into sitting with his legs bent up, his shins leaning against the seat in front of him, and keeping his head against the window.

  Excellent, he thought. By the time the train stops in Edmonton, I’ll be numb from butt to ears.

  He squinted out into the darkness, then closed his eyes, his head vibrating against the window. John Lennon crooned through his headphones about someone named Julia. Who was the song about again? His mother? A girlfriend?

  When I cannot sing my heart…I can only speak my mind, Ju-u-u-ulia…

  Payton laughed. Speaking his mind was what got him on the train in the first place. All his life he tried singing his heart, but nobody listened. When he finally spoke his mind, he got into trouble. Well…not trouble exactly.

  His grandparents had decided the week before that it was time for him to ship off and meet his father—a man who’d run off to join the army and left Payton with his alcoholic, bipolar mother. Not a phone call or a letter or a, ‘How the heck are ya, son?’ Just…gone.

  “Yeah, that’s a guy I’d love to get to know,” Payton had said, picking a hangnail on his thumb.

  Grandma’s fork froze at her lips. “There’s no need for sarcasm, young man. Especially not at the dinner table.”

  Payton rolled his eyes. “Grandmother, you told me what a jerk Dad was and how he ran out on me and Mom. Why would I want to go and ‘get to know him’ now?”

  “Because he’s your father,” Grandpa had said around a mouthful of roast beef. “And mind your tone. You’ll respect your elders.”

  “Yes, sir,” Payton said, softening his tone. “But why? Where was he when Mom went manic and left me? Where was he when she drank and took off?”

  His grandparents had stopped eating and looked at each other. Grandpa reached over his plate and squeezed Payton’s shoulder. “We just think it’s time for you to know both sides of who you are.”

  “I have no interest in getting to know yet another person who never wanted me.”

  Grandpa fiddled with his knife. “He wanted you, son. But he should be the one to talk to ya about it. Grandma and I think the only way you’ll become who you’re supposed to be is to see where you came from.”

  Payton’s eyes brimmed with tears, but he wouldn’t let any fall. “What if I refuse to go?”

  Grandpa picked his fork back up, and continued eating. “You’re going. We already got your train ticket. We’ll take you to the station on Friday, and your dad will meet you in Edmonton on Sunday. End of discussion.”

  Payton stared into the living room. “What about my music? Does he at least have a piano?”

  Grandma gripped Payton’s forearm. “I’m pretty sure he’ll make sure you’ll have access to your music. You have to give him a chance, Pay. You need to do this. You shouldn’t be so negative and pessimistic so young.”

  “I’m not negative or pessimistic, just realistic. At least I don’t see things through rose-colored glasses.”

  Grandpa had put his fork down. “Now listen here, son. We raised your mother. We know. And for the record, we’ve raised you too so we know. There are no ‘rose-colored glasses’ in this family so you mind your attitude. And I said end of discussion.”

  After that, Payton had excused himself from the table, and had then run scales on the piano as a way to release his anger. It had always been his release.

  Always.

  So, that Friday, as promised, the teenager was packed up, carted to the train station, hugged and shoved onto the train.

  Just like that.

  Music…the only gift his mother ever gave him…music always helped him…

  A train conductor grabbed Payton’s shoulder, startling him out of his daydream. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore.

  “S’cuz me, young man. Edmonton’s comin’ up. Best get ready.”

  Payton nodded with a weak smile. He rubbed the frozen numbness out of his forehead. He put his MP3 player back into his canvas carry-on bag.

  He descended the staircase off the train, almost whacking his head on the metal doorframe, then shuffled out onto the platform. There were squeals of excitement as people greeted one another. People hugged, some crying tears of happiness, and he searched, wide-eyed, for a Dad-person whose eyes were the same as his.

  His heart pounded. Then somewhere from the crowd he heard his name.

  “Payton! Payton! Over here!”

  He turned to see him—“Dad”—waving from the other side of the crowd. Payton guessed his father had to be at least his own height, six foot two, because they both had a full-head height advantage over most of the other people on the platform. His father lowered his arms behind his back and stood in an ‘At Ease’ military stance. Payton squinted at the man’s wire-rimmed glasses, with bottle lenses, from behind his own. They had the same dark blue eyes, similar pale skin tone, dark hair, buzzed short (only ‘Dad’s’ was salted with gray) and identical big, red-tinged noses.

  How weird to look so much like someone you hardly know, Payton thought, repressing a shiver.

  ‘Dad’ rubbed his lips together, his bushy moustache sweeping against his lower lip. Payton froze. His body wouldn’t allow him to move forward. He stood there—with crowds of squealing, hugging, crying people—as his father did the same.

  How does a person greet someone he hasn’t seen his entire life but, oddly, for whom he’s also secretly longed to meet?

  His father moved toward him, slow shuffle, then stood in front of him. For a few painful seconds, neither man said anything. Just stood there on the platform looking into each other’s eyes.
Then his dad finally spoke.

  “Let’s start this way,” he said, sticking out his hand. “My name is Liam.”

  Payton stared at Liam’s hand, chewing the inside of his lip. Then he shoved his hand into the rough, meaty palm and said, “Payton.”

  After a firm handshake, he pulled his hand back. Liam picked up the bag containing all of his son’s precious possessions and flipped it over his shoulder.

  “Hungry?”

  “Not really,” Payton said. “But I could use a good, strong cuppa coffee.”

  Liam smiled. “I didn’t sleep much either. Let’s go to the coffee shop drive-through on the way back.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Payton watched as Liam did a casual, quick march towards the end of the platform. The people around him still hugged and cried.

  “You can tell a lot about a man from his handshake,” Grandpa had said often.

  Payton pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, and stuffed his hands deep inside the kangaroo pocket. He shuffled down the platform at a comfortable distance behind Liam.

  Handshakes are a good place to start.

  For now.

  Two

  Only a handful of words were exchanged between the two men during the half hour ride from downtown Edmonton to St. Albert. At the time, St. Albert was a newer suburb on the outskirts of the Edmonton city border. Payton found it odd that his father worked on the military base on the North End of the city, but had chosen to live as far away from it as possible. Payton remembered hearing something about the PMQ’s, and the military life on the base, and how his dad avoided that. He wanted…normalcy.

  Payton got that.

  Liam drove a black, full-ton, four-door pick up. Even though the truck was about two years old, it still had a new car smell. And it was clean and organized. Almost anally so. Noting the car seat and booster seat in the back, Payton expected a more lived-in feel.

  Although the truck was a much more comfortable ride than the train had been, Payton wasn’t sure he liked the luxuries. The buttery-smooth, beige, leather seats had seat warmers. The sensation under his butt resembled what he thought it must have felt like sitting in a wet diaper. He casually palmed around the seat hoping to locate an ‘off’ button.

  “Double-double?” Liam asked, pulling into the coffee house drive-through.

  Payton bounced his legs, his knees knocking against the dashboard. “Sounds good.”

  The line to the pick-up window was five cars long, and wasn’t exactly speeding along. Leaves skidding along the icy driveway beside the waiting cars were going faster. The stifling silence in the truck didn’t make things any easier.

  Liam tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “So, um, Katie and the kids can’t wait to meet you.”

  Ah, the stepmother and half-siblings, Payton thought. Yet another fun twist in this forced new chapter of my life.

  He’d heard his dad had remarried some young chick from the East Coast. New Brunswick, maybe? He’d never wanted to hear the details. Now, part of him hoped he hated them all. Maybe if things were tense and impossible, his grandparents would let him go back home.

  Yeah, right. That would be way too easy.

  Payton repressed a yawn. Liam cleared his throat, then turned on the radio. Mozart’s Prelude in C, K. 394 blared through the speakers, startling Payton.

  His father jerked forward, turning down the volume. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I…like listening to classical on my way to work. Has to be loud on the highway.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Payton said, turning the volume back up. “I like it. This one is great.”

  “Really? Can you play this one? I mean…if you’re still keeping up with your music.”

  “Yes, it’s the one constant in my life. And yeah, I can play this one. It was one of the first longer pieces I learned to play when I was a kid.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I guess.”

  Payton closed his eyes, leaning his head into the pillowed headrest. For a few minutes he forgot about where he was, who he was with and what he’d left behind. Right then he allowed himself to be taken back to his grandparents’ living room in Winnipeg.

  He pictured himself sitting at the keyboard of the luxuriously shiny, black-lacquered baby grand piano. It was positioned right in front of the floor-to-ceiling window facing Kenaston Boulevard. Grandma sitting on her couch, her toes moving to the rhythm. Grandpa in his green-checkered barrel chair strumming his fingers. When Mom was still alive, on the good days, she and Payton often played duets for their small, adoring audience.

  His chest tightened picturing his mother’s beautiful face. She had always laughed while she played. Her smile lit up her whole face. But it wasn’t the same anymore.

  It was…cloudy…faded.

  Payton shook his head, clearing the entire image away. The piece ended, cuing the radio announcer’s monotone voice. He was suddenly aware of an intense heat spreading across his left knee. He instinctively reached down to rub his leg. Instead, his hand made contact with the cup holder tray, almost knocking over its contents. He scrambled to steady everything, including the coffee he never heard arrive.

  “Sorry,” said Liam. “I thought you were falling asleep. Figured the coffee stays warm forever and you could drink it later.”

  Payton enveloped the steaming cup between his hands. “Thanks.”

  He popped the lid open, blew over the dark creamy liquid, and then slurped up as much as he could before his tongue went numb.

  They continued driving on for the next ten minutes in silence. Only the sounds of the purring engine, the radio and Liam’s occasional humming whenever a Celtic tune came on filled the void. In a way, Payton was grateful his father wasn’t the sort of guy who engaged in verbal diarrhea. One of the things that irritated Payton the most was when people tried desperately to keep a conversation going that should have died quietly much earlier.

  They turned off from the paved highway onto a long, narrow gravel road. The tires skidded, and Liam slowed down. Payton leaned back in his seat, pushing his feet against the floor, gripping the door handle so hard his knuckles turned white. He hated gravel roads. Unless a person paid close attention, control of the vehicle could easily be lost. Tiny rocks were thrown up against the belly of the truck. They caused the tires to skid more, pulling the truck from side to side.

  Suddenly, a car came towards them from the other direction, and Payton held his breath. The road was so narrow he thought, for sure, someone would end up in the ditch. Both vehicles shook and rattled past one another, then he released the air from his lungs in one, long blow.

  Liam laughed. “I didn’t think I was that bad of a driver.”

  “No worries,” said Payton, rubbing his palms on his thighs. “Crazy roads around here.”

  “Well, just a bit longer then we’ll be back on paved again. Almost there.”

  They drove by one farmer’s field after another.

  Geez, this is worse than the train, Payton thought. At least the view zoomed by faster.

  He pondered putting his headphones back on, then decided against it. May as well try to be sociable.

  Liam finally steered onto the main road and, after many seemingly endless winding turns, pulled in front of a modest-sized bungalow nestled in the middle of a crescent-shaped lot.

  Payton unfolded himself from his seat.

  Well, this is it, he thought, staring at the front door. Home away from home.

  He pulled his hood back up, and shuffled up the sidewalk behind his father. Everything was so…clean in the neighborhood. Flowers were planted in neat rows, lawns were perfectly mowed in those irritating diagonal lines. Even the garbage cans looked shiny clean.

  Liam opened the screen door, wedging it open with his foot, then fumbled with his keys. Just as he found the right one, the door swung open, leaving him standing momentarily with his key still in the air.

  Payton coughed away a laugh.

  A tiny, freckle-f
aced woman greeted them with a huge smile and wide-open arms. “Well, here he is! Kids, Payton is here!” She pushed by Liam and threw her arms around Payton. “We’ve so been looking forward to you getting here. Are ya hungry?”

  Katie, the ‘bonus-mom,’ talked into his chest. Her dark, auburn hair smelled like lilacs, falling down to just below her neck. She looked like a ‘jeans-and-t-shirt’ type of girl, really young too. Much younger than his dad. Her eyes were emerald with flecks of brown that sparkled when she spoke or smiled.

  The hug lingered a little too long for Payton’s comfort.

  “Um…not really. Thanks anyways.”

  Two little heads popped around Katie’s legs.

  “This here is Dahlia, and this handsome, young thing is River.”

  Dahlia looked up at her big brother, her eyes widening. “Whoa! You’re huge! You’re huger than Daddy!”

  “That’s ‘cuz I eat my veggies,” Payton said, laughing. He tugged his hood off, then crouched down to her level. “Who’s your friend there?”

  River peeked out from between Katie’s legs.

  “That’s not my friend,” Dahlia said, rolling her eyes. “That’s just my little brother, River. He’s small.”

  Payton smiled. Kids amazed him. Actually, most of the time, he got along much better with kids, the elderly, and animals better than with people his own age or adults. And he certainly enjoyed their company much more. Kids were ignorant to the ugliness that stained the world, so they weren’t riddled with bitterness the way most adults were. He loved their innocence and honesty. Most of all, he loved their wide-eyed wonder of the world.

  Liam ruffled Dahlia’s hair. “Hey, why don’t ya take Pay here inside and show him around.”

  “Okay,” she said, grabbing Payton’s hand. “Let’s start with our play room!”

  Payton stumbled forward trying to keep up with the little girl’s excited run. Katie moved out of their way, then he felt another tiny hand wrap around his pinkie. He looked down to find River staring back up at him with a little smile.