Uninvited

(I wrote this for 3 Word Wednesday The words were: Deny, Smile, Uncomfortable)

E. Barclay Logan stared across the wide mahogany table, almost glaring now. The young man looking back at him was holding up a wallet-sized photograph. Logan snatched the picture out of the boy's hand, glanced at it, then thrust it back in the direction from which it came.

"Never saw her."

"Are you sure about that?" the young man shot back as he held up a second picture. Logan was growing more and more perturbed by the boy's audacity. Who was this kid to question the wealthy E. Barclay Logan. And in his own home to boot. But at the same time, maybe that was the very reason he'd not called security to remove the young man yet.

Reluctantly taking the second photograph, the gray haired man was stunned when he saw it. It was a picture of the woman from the first photograph standing next to a much younger version of himself.

This time he examined it a bit longer. And though there were no visible outward signs, for just a few seconds the old man softened. As he remembered the shiny brown hair and genuine smile, just a bit crooked with mouth slightly agape. He gathered himself, then spoke.

"What are you trying to pull here, boy? You got something to say? Say it," Logan growled, hoping to intimidate his uninvited guest. But for the first time in this meeting, he was the one feeling uncomfortable. He realized his hands had begun to sweat, his throat was parched.

"So you do know her?" the young man wasn't backing down.

"I knew her," Logan admitted, no longer able to deny it. "A long time ago. She was just a girl. There were a hundred of 'em. What's it to you?"

The young man got up from the table and started to leave. Pausing when he reached the door, he turned and looked at Logan with hazel eyes that were suddenly familiar to the old man.

"That was my mother."

The door closed and the young man was gone. His words still reverberating thru the otherwise silent room like thunder that just rumbles on and on and seems like it will never end.

"I was thinking I was angry, but I let it go. I was waiting on a miracle, but nothing showed..."