His father’s face leered back at him.
Lance’s heart rolled across his ribs. The blue eyes he’d last seen wide in panic and fear stared back at him. The blond hair like straw in the low light, the mouth just a line drawn tight across the lower part of the face, one end twisted in a sneer. And then it was gone, sliding behind the rock partition that separated the tables.
“What?” Mary asked, noticing Lance’s expression. He hardly heard her, all the sound in the world became muffled—his chair falling and cracking hard on the floor behind him, his footsteps clicking on the wood below his feet, Mary’s question again.
The pillar loomed before him. He could see his father’s shoulder hunched forward over the table. The rest of the body came into view. A white head of hair, a large nose, two hands holding a fork and knife over a piece of steak.
The elderly couple at the table looked up as Lance stepped close and shifted the wild sockets of his eyes between them.
“Can I help you?” the man said, his brow furrowed.
Lance looked at him, words of apology hanging on the back of his tongue. He turned his head toward the woman at the table—a grandmother most likely, her matching white hair tied tight into a bun and her lips pinched together.
Lance opened his mouth but shut it again. He looked past the elderly couple. He could see shadows beneath several tables and other pillars. He started to walk toward them, to find where his father hid, but hands grasped his forearm and he spun toward them, sure he would see Anthony’s smile there. Instead, Mary held his arm, a questioning look on her face, her delicate eyebrows knitted together. Lance shook himself and looked back at the table beside him.
“I’m … I’m sorry. I …” He turned away from the couple and let Mary lead him back to their table, where the waitress had righted his overturned chair and waited, wringing her hands on a small towel.
“We’re fine, just give us a few minutes,” Mary said, guiding Lance back into his seat. He sat there, feeling waves of shock roll over him and welcoming their distraction, as Mary sat down across from him.
“What the hell was that?” she asked, leaning over the table.
The words registered and he brought his unsteady gaze up to meet hers. He couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder at the pillar and then sweep the room in general. When nothing leapt out at him from the rest of the restaurant, he felt reality begin to weigh on his shoulders like a lead cape. The image of what he must’ve looked like a few minutes earlier ran through his head. He breathed deeply and felt the urge to weep flow over him before he swallowed it down and looked at Mary.
“I thought I saw my father,” he said.
Mary leaned back in her seat, confusion taking the place of indignation. “Why? Is he here visiting? Were you expecting him?”
Lance breathed out an effort at dark laughter and shook his head as he looked at the floor between his feet. When he raised his eyes to her face again, he felt the first trembles of anxiety prodding at his mind, but when he spoke, he only heard his voice waver once.
“No. I watched him die twenty-two years ago.”