I'm not really sure what it was about the little group that caught my eye. At first glance, they were just your average father and sons on a day outing to the zoo. Simple. Ordinary. Unexciting.

Unexciting and ordinary were why I was there myself. It was my lunch hour, but I rarely spent it at the zoo. I was much too busy. Lunch meetings or too long put off errands filled my free time. Conducive to heartburn, indigestion and climbing the professional ladder, but little more. You run out of gas after a while if you don't pull off the road and refuel now and again. The zoo was my pit stop.

I liked to get a couple of "slaw-dawgs" from the vendor that set up near the reptile house and find an empty bench in the shade and just...stop. Stop everything for one too-short hour. Sometimes I had trouble turning it all off in my head, leaving it at the office, but I found it helped to focus on something small and innocent, letting it become my world for that hour. Usually it was the animals, the monkeys or the black bears or the lemurs or whatever was close enough to my bench to study them without having to do anything.

Today, on a whim, I wandered a little deeper into the zoo than I normally did. I found a centrally located bench where I could observe the chimps, the gorillas and the baboons with just a turn of my head. I had a special affinity for the baboons. I think it's because they reminded me so much of some of my co-workers.

I finished my slaw-dawgs with forty minutes to spare, so I sat back and cleared my mind, content to simply observe.

That's when they caught my eye, or rather the smallest of the trio caught my eye. They were standing at the fence that surrounded the gorilla habitat. It was a high fence and the smallest boy was having trouble seeing over it. He was a tiny thing, couldn't have been much more than four or five, if that. Wild, unruly brown curls framed a delicate, angelic face that sported a broad, uninhibited smile. From where I sat, I could easily hear his giggles as he hopped up and down like he'd swallowed a pogo stick, trying to see over the top of the rail.

The other boy, a year or two older perhaps, was as polar opposite as a two brothers could be. A white-blond bowl cut framed a pale, delicate face that neither smiled nor frowned. He reminded me of a Kewpie doll, pretty, but not practical. He was a carbon copy of the father.

The older boy stood on tip-toes, peering over the railing at the gorillas. "Can't see, Daddy," he complained loud enough for me to hear clearly.

The father bent down and scooped up the boy, raising him over his head and settling him onto his shoulders. The boy grabbed hold of man's ears as though they were handles and grinned happily.

The smaller boy giggled and wrapped himself around the man's leg. "Me, too! Me, too!"

I found myself smiling at the little fellow's unbridled enthusiasm. Had I *ever* been so young and carefree? My smile quickly faded, however, when the father reached down and pulled the boy loose by the collar of his well-worn tee shirt.

"Stop it, Blair," he snapped, his tone laced with impatience. "You're going to make me fall."

The boy -- Blair -- lost his smile. He stopped bouncing and stared up at the happy child perched on his father's shoulders. Blair's bottom lip poked out in the most heartbreakingly adorable pout I've ever seen, but it lasted only a few seconds. The smile returned in full force as the boy went back to jumping up to peek over the fence rail. He seemed perfectly content with the quickly caught, brief glimpses of the gorillas.

But my dander was up on the boy's behalf. How could a father so callously play favorites? And why had the younger son so quickly accepted it?

I closed my eyes and counted to ten very slowly, the whole time telling myself it wasn't my problem. When I opened them again, I deliberately didn't look in their direction. I was here to relax, and I fully intended to do so.

I managed two whole minutes before my head swiveled back toward the gorilla habitat. The father, his older son still perched high on his shoulders, had wandered down to the end of the fence to give the boy a better view.

The younger boy, unaware or uncaring that his family had moved away, had given up on his imitation of a kangaroo and was now attempting to climb the rail. His little feet, clad in sandals, were having trouble finding purchase on the smooth metal of the fence rail.

I was contemplating going to his rescue when he plopped down on his backside on the ground and quickly pulled off the offending footwear. His feet now found easy leverage on the fence and he scrambled effortlessly to the top, swinging one leg over to straddle the rail. A small whoop of triumph cut through the air.

I couldn't help smiling as I watched his antics. The boy looked part monkey himself, with his little toes wrapped around the metal posts of the fence.

I darted a glance at the father, hoping he'd take note of his son's precarious position and order him down before he could fall, but the man had moved on to the chimp habitat, his attention solely on the boy riding high on his shoulders.

Muttering under my breath about people who didn't deserve children of their own, I stood and quickly made my way to where the boy was excitedly jabbering to the gorillas. Yeah, I know, none of my business, but how could I just sit there and watch him fall? He was in no danger of falling into the habitat -- there was a buffer zone between the fence and the edge of the pit that surrounded the area reserved for the gorillas -- but a fall to the concrete below the fence could do some serious damage to the little tike.

I moved to the railing, close enough to the boy to grab him if he teetered, but far enough away to avoid looking like that's what I was doing. No sense getting involved if I didn't have to.

"Hi!"

I turned my head and was met by two of the bluest eyes I've ever seen. Deep blue, like the sky on the clearest of summer days, and shining as bright as the sun. So much for not getting involved. A toothy grin was turned in my direction as the boy waited for my response to his greeting.

"Hi," I answered with a smile of my own.

"I'm Blair," he announced.

Hadn't this kid's parents taught him about talking to strangers? "Glad to meet you, Blair. I'm Pat."

"You like g'rillas?"

I nodded. "Sure do. What about you?"

"They're my next favorites."

"Next favorites?"

"Yeah." He turned his attention back to the large creatures moving around the grassy habitat. When he continued, his voice was almost a whisper. "Not my first ones, but my next ones."

I chuckled at the phraseology. "Why are you whispering?" I asked, avoiding the more obvious question for the moment.

"Don' wanna hurt their feelin's."

"Oh." Of course. Lowering my voice to match, I asked, "So, what're your favorites?"

"Wolfs," he said matter-of-factly. "But I like g'rillas almost as much. They're nice to me."

My eyebrows lifted a bit at the odd comment.

"The daddy g'rilla just hollers, but the mama one is nice."

Confused, I stared at the boy, but his attention was on the apes.

"NO!" he shouted suddenly, making me jump. "I can't!"

"Can't what?" I ask, assuming he was talking to me, though goodness knows why he felt the need to shout and take a year off my life.

He threw me a look that I couldn't decipher, then turned back to the gorillas. "Can't get in there with 'em. The baby g'rilla wants me to come play with her."

I look into the habitat and sure enough, the youngest gorilla was pacing back and forth along the edge of the pit between the apes and us, and her -- his? -- attention did seem focused on the little boy sitting on the fence rail. How odd.

"I can't!" Blair shouted again and the young gorilla stopped her pacing, stared for a long minute, then picked up a stick and tossed it into the pit before stalking off to sit behind one of the larger apes. "She's mad."

I chuckled, because it did look for all the world like she was having a temper tantrum. "You're very perceptive, Blair." I looked down at him. "How old are you?" He *looked* four or five, but he talked and acted much, much older.

"I'm six," he said wrinkling up his nose as he looked up at me. "What's per...persebshib?"

"Perceptive," I corrected. "It means...figuring things out without someone telling you."

"Oh." He seemed to mull over the explanation for a minute. "She did tell me, though."

It was my turn to wrinkle up my nose in confusion. "She told you she was mad?"

"Yeah."

"She talked to you?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of?"

"She don't know people words, just g'rilla words, and I don't know g'rilla words."

"Then how does she talk to you?"

"With pictures."

"Oh." Made sense, in a completely off the wall, too much TV, overactive imagination kind of way. But the kid seemed so serious that I figured I'd better just play along. "You said the mama gorilla was nice. Did she talk to you, too?"

"Uh huh. She tol' me to get down off the fence before I fall off. She didn't want me to git hurt."

I couldn't help it, it was funny, so I laughed. It was such a "mother" thing for her to "say"! This kid's imagination was wild!

Blair laughed with me, though I'm not sure he completely understood what I found so amusing. "And why did the daddy yell at you?"

"He wasn't hollerin' at me. He was hollerin' at Barry."

"Barry?" I followed Blair's gaze to the blond man who had moved over to the baboon cages with apparent little regard for the fact that a stranger had taken up a conversation with his younger son. "Oh, you mean your father."

"Barry's not my daddy," Blair said, turning back to the gorillas. "I'm a bastard. I don' haf a daddy."

The casualness with which the statement was made broke my heart. A six year old shouldn't even know the meaning of such a word, much less be applying it to himself in such an indifferent manner.

"He's my mama's boyfriend," Blair added to his explanation.

I bit back what I really wanted to say, choosing instead to redirect the conversation. "And the daddy gorilla yelled at him?"

"Yeah. He thinks Barry's stupid."

I mentally snickered. The ape wouldn't get an argument from me.

"He hollered at Barry to pick me up, too. I tol' him Barry has to pick up Craig cuz he's his real son. 'sides, Craig can't climb up like I can."

If I'd missed the note of pride in the boy's tone, which I hadn't, I certainly would have noticed the way his little chest puffed out. The action caused him to lose his balance momentarily, slipping to the side. I grabbed his thin shoulders, holding him until I felt him regain his balance.

He looked up at me with wide, awe filled eyes. "Wow, mama g'rilla was right 'bout you."

I stayed close, not quite sure he wouldn't tumble again. "She was? What did she say?"

"She stopped fussin' at me to git down when you got here. She tol' me you'd catch me if I fell."

This boy was going to grow up to be a writer, I was sure of it. He was a storyteller in the truest, old fashioned sense of the word. "She was right, then, wasn't she?"

"Yep. She was right."

Before I could ask another question, Blair's head jerked toward the gorillas, his little brow furrowing in concentration...almost as though he was listening to something only he could hear. I laughed at my own foolish imagination. It would be easy to fall for this little one's stories, I could tell. Heck, we'd been talking less than fifteen minutes and already he had me half-believing he was a miniature Doctor Doolittle.

Blair's head swiveled around, looking behind us toward the baboon cages. A look of panic crossed his features, and he swung his leg over the railing, dropping gracefully to the ground. "Thanks!" he yelled.

I followed his gaze and saw that Barry and son were heading down the path toward the reptile house. Anger infused me. The man had made no attempt to call Blair to follow. I wondered if he even remembered he had another charge.

Blair looked up at me as he quickly slipped his sandals on. "Mama g'rilla tol' me Barry was leaving. I gotta go." He started off after the man who so obviously didn't care about him, but stopped after a few steps, looking back over his shoulder. "Bye, Pat. See ya."

"See ya," I called after the little fellow as he raced to catch up with his caretaker, knowing that I probably wouldn't. There was very little chance our paths would ever cross again. "Shame," I muttered to myself. I'd kind of taken a shine to the little boy.

My thoughts came back to the present with a jolt.

No. It isn't possible. It was too long ago -- my memory was playing tricks on me. It had to be. But even as I tried to rationalize it, I knew better. The image of that little face with the intense blue eyes framed by a riot of curls was as clear in my mind today as it had been that August day, twenty-four years ago.

Why now? It wasn't like I'd only just met Blair Sandburg, I'd known him for close to three years now. So why today, after all these years, was I suddenly reminded of that day at the zoo?

I thought back to the person I was twenty five years ago, a person who'd had the time to stop and talk to a lost little boy. A person who'd taken a few minutes to think of someone else. I compared that person to the one who had, just days ago, spoken to that same young man, an adult now, with what could only be considered cold-heartedness. And I didn't like what I saw.

Quickly, before I could reason myself out of it, I called to my receptionist. Maria stuck her head through the open door.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Get me Blair Sandburg."

Confusion wrinkled the girl's brow. "Ma'am? Blair Sandburg? But you..."

"...fired him, yes, I know. His home number should still be in the files. If you can't reach him there, try the Cascade PD. I don't care if you have to go there personally. I want to talk to him. Now, Maria."

"Yes, Chancellor."

I had no taste for cold crow. It was tough to chew and harder to swallow. But if that's what I had to do, then eat it I would. I owed it to a little, curly-haired boy I'd met at the zoo almost twenty-five years ago.

Back