Forgotten Times 14/17
By Debbie Eng (wan-ping@juno.com)

******

	They were having a family meeting in the kitchen..  Everyone was
there, Kermit, the Ancient, Todd and Carolyn, and the Blaisdells. 
Everyone except Peter.  Peter was out walking Paul and Annie's
grandchild.  Kelly told them about what had happened before.  

	" Damn, " Kermit swore, " We should have realized what he was
going through. "

	" All we can do now is love, Peter, this Peter, " the Ancient
said, " Young Peter must remember on his own.  We can not force him to
remember. "

	" But what can we do? "	

	" This is all Anderson's fault, " Kermit muttered.

	" Anderson? " the Ancient asked, " Who is that? "  He had not
known Peter until after he had already reunited with his father.  He did
not know of Peter's history after he, Ping Hai, had given Peter to the
orphanage.  He only knew that Peter had been adopted.

	" Anderson, " Paul explained, " Was that creep who adopted Peter
before we got him.  He physically and emotionally beat up on Peter, until
Todd here called the authorities.  He's the reason why Peter has such a
low sense of self worth."

	" Actually, Peter wasn't always like that, " Kermit said as he
pulled a disk out of his jacket pocket,
" In his heart, he knew it all to be an accident, but Anderson managed to
convince him otherwise. "

	" That man, deserves to be shot, "  Todd said, " He beat it into
Peter that it was his fault that his wife had died.  I doubt it took
Peter long to believe that. "

	" How do you know this, Kermit? " Annie asked.

	Kermit slapped the disk against his hand, " In my hand here, I
have a disk with a copy of a letter Peter tried to send to me.  Only it
never got sent because Anderson threw the laptop against the wall before
Peter could send it.  I found it when I ran a scandisk on the laptop
after I fixed his screen.  It was saved as a lost file.  The letter Peter
sent was asking me if I thought that it was possible that it was Peter's
fault about Mrs. Anderson's accident."

	" What happened to this Anderson person? " the Ancient asked.

	Everyone looked at each other.  After the arrest of Anderson,
nobody had bothered to keep track of Anderson's whereabouts.  No one
knew.  Except one person.  

	" He's been out on parole for 5 years now.  He lives in that
apartment complex near 8th and Woods, " Annie said.

	" How? " Paul asked his blind wife.

	" Hey, you don't hang around a mercenary without picking up a few
things," she smiled, "And there was no way that I was not going to keep
track of that man! "  Paul smiled back at her.  She sounded like a
lioness defending her cub.

	" Wait, a minute, " Kermit said, " Maybe Peter would get his
memory back if he saw Anderson again. "

	" What you want to shock it out of him?  Get real, Kermit, "
Carolyn scoffed.

	" He has a point, Carolyn, but the question is, how will Anderson
react? " Paul said.

	" And more importantly, how do we convince Peter to see him? "
Kelly replied.

	Standing outside unnoticed, near the kitchen window was Peter,
with tears in his eyes.  He and the baby had just come back from their
walk and was about to go in when he had heard himself being discussed. 
If they didn't want me, they could have just said something.  They didn't
have to continue lying about it.  Hell, they don't have to convince me to
go back to Anderson, he thought.  I'll....I'll go on my own.  I just hope
that this works and it'll....make them happy.  Peter carefully parked the
stroller on the porch.  Then strengthening his resolve, he rang the
doorbell.  As he heard footsteps approaching, he ran.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------