by Marie James
My kid doesn’t rush past me to his room the second he steps inside which is what I was expecting. He lingers in the kitchen, making himself something to eat before bringing a bowl of leftover spaghetti into the living room. In an effort to show he’s still pissed, he sits on the opposite end of the couch from me rather than his normal position in the middle.
“I want to know the truth,” he says before shoveling spaghetti into his mouth. “All of it.”
“I—” I focus on my hands, twisting my fingers around each other. “I don’t know where to start.”
“From the beginning,” he mumbles around a mouth full of food.
“The beginning,” I whisper, a small smile playing on my lips, because no matter how much I ended up hating Ignacio in the end, everything up to that point was incredible. “Ignacio Torres was a troubled teen. Before we moved here with my nanny, he did all sorts of bad things. He ran with the wrong crowd.”
“He dealt drugs,” Alex adds.
“Yes. He associated with the wrong people, but I never saw much of that. I mean, I knew people respected him. I knew people would walk away and keep their distance when he walked into a room, but I didn’t know the extent of his troubles for a very long time. Even when I heard things from people, girls whispering in the locker room or kids at school saying things about how he was, he wouldn’t confirm if they were spreading rumors or speaking the truth.
“He tried to get me to notice him for weeks, but those whispers were always swirling around me, and it was like the atmosphere changed whenever he was near. It took me a while before I gave him a chance, and once I did, I knew I was in love. I gave him—” I clear my throat, uneasy with having this conversation with my son, even though I know he’s grown up way too fast not to know about sex. “Everything. Two days before graduation, Pop told us that he got a new job in Dallas. It had the ability to change everything for our family. We wouldn’t have to live in this neighborhood. He would have insurance for the entire family. It was the break he’d been waiting for, for over two years, but I didn’t want to go. If I did go, I wanted Ignacio to go with us, but I knew asking was out of the question. Pop hated that man.”
“He didn’t.” I look at Alex. “He didn’t. I asked him once how he felt about my dad, and he told me that he was grateful for a man that gave him such a wonderful grandson.”
Tears well in my eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah.” He chews another bite of spaghetti. “I was like five or six. We were at the park kicking the soccer ball around. I noticed another family there, a dad with three sons. I came home later that day and asked you about my father. I wanted to know if he was the type of man who would play at the park with me if he were still alive.”
His voice cracks on the last word and it multiplies my pain and regret.
“Keep going,” he urges.
“I didn’t want to tell Ignacio about us leaving. By that point, I figured I could convince Pop to let me stay behind and help take care of Nanny. I was graduating soon, and I didn’t think he could really stop me, but the idea of leaving south Houston for something better was nagging at me. When I told Igna—your dad—about the new job, he didn’t take it the way I thought he would. He didn’t feel for me that same way I felt for him. He said some mean things, and even though I knew about you that night, I didn’t tell him. I couldn’t.”
“So, because he didn’t love you, you didn’t want him to love me?”
Pain spears me once again. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Uncomplicate it for me.” He places the fork in the empty bowl and situates it on the table in front of us. With one hundred percent of his focus on me, I can’t help but look away again.
How do I explain bitterness and years of anger to my son? How can I make him understand that I thought I was making the right decision back then?
“I was so angry with the things that he said to me that night. I didn’t feel like he deserved you and was certain that you deserved better than a foolish man who played games with a teenage girl’s heart.”
“So, you lied.”
“Over and over, and the lies just got bigger and bigger, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed if you knew who he really was, the way he was when I walked away from him that last night. I wanted to save you any pain that he’d cause.”
“Growing up thinking my dad wasn’t only dead but a gangbanging drug dealer was painful, Mom. You should’ve picked better lies.”
“I hated him too much to make you think he was some kind of hero, Alex. I can admit that was a mistake. I should’ve been mature enough to tell him about you that night, but that’s not how things worked out.”
“He deserved to know.”
He sounds exactly like my damn mother right now.
“I knew we were leaving. He may not have thought he could ever escape south Houston, but Pop assured our way out, and I didn’t ever want to look back.”
“You didn’t expect to get caught in a lie,” he corrects.
“That, too,” I agree. “But please know that I wanted to give you more than Ignacio Torres could’ve offered you by staying. I imagined a better life for both of us, and we had that for a while.”
“Until Pop died.” I nod my head in agreement, but the pain of losing my father stems from more than just his death. We lost everything—the house, financial security, our biggest cheerleader. We weren’t rich by any means, but we also weren’t living on ramen three days before every payday either.
“You made a mistake,” he says, anger being his go-to instead of showing pain and vulnerability.
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do, Mom. He went into the Army for eight years. The man speaks over thirty different languages. He works for some security firm in St. Louis. He isn’t a drug dealer. He isn’t a gangbanger. Did you see his truck? His clothes?”
“He told you all of this today?”
I did notice his clothes and his truck. I noticed how handsome he still is and how other than thin laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, he doesn’t look much different than he did in high school. His face isn’t worn and tired, betraying hard years of struggling the way mine does. Although I should probably be grateful the man who showed up to demand access to my son isn’t a strung-out criminal, I’m also bitter that he’s done so much better for himself than I ever could’ve imagined.
Instead of answering me, Alex stands. “He’s doing just fine. We could be doing just fine, living in St. Louis instead of this shitty house in this disgusting town, but no. You had to fuck it all up because your feelings got hurt. Thanks a lot for ruining my life before I was even born.”
He storms away, slamming his bedroom door before I can even get on to him for his foul language. The tears, now a familiar part of my daily life, begin to fall. Despite my kid only ten yards away in his bedroom, I already feel like I’ve lost him.
I want to rail on Ignacio. I want to put all the blame for this entire situation, for every messed-up thing in my life on his shoulders, but how fair would that be? I’ve been living behind my lies for years and years, and I only have myself to blame. Alex is right. I ruined everything because my feelings got hurt. As much as I’d like to think I’d do things differently if I were a little older, a little more mature when that confrontation happened with Ignacio, I know we’d end up right back here. My stubborn streak is a mile wide, and my broken heart would make me act the very same way.
Chapter 11
Ignacio
I hate to admit the amount of time I spent sitting in my truck around the crappy gas stations in town just waiting to see if Alex showed back up. I hate that I haven’t seen him in three days, but I’m also ecstatic that he isn’t out on the street dealing. I wouldn’t put it past Cedric to have relocated him, though. Poppa always had a plan to keep business rolling when heat was coming down in different areas. I don’t imagine things have changed much since I’ve been gone. From what I noticed, there is much less police presenc
e around here than I remember, but I was a diligent, paranoid kid, and probably felt like I saw more cops than I did. Also, as a man wanting more cops around, of course it doesn’t seem like enough. There could be two on every corner and I’d still spot areas that could use three.
With Alex not showing up over the weekend or yesterday, I pray the kid is in school. I crank the truck and head in that direction. I can’t talk to Tinley right now because we can’t seem to have a conversation without blowing up at each other, but I know there’s information I can obtain from Mike Branford.
After talking with Wren last night, I woke to an email filled with family law rules in Texas. I spent the better part of my morning familiarizing myself with the information, and I’m confident I’m going to walk away from the school today with exactly what I need.
I hate building a case against Tinley, and I only plan to use it if I’m forced to so, but this isn’t about the love I once had for a girl. My son has become my number one priority in my life, and there’s no way I can leave him in a volatile situation. It’s only a matter of time before he gets arrested or worse, killed because of the work he’s doing for Cedric Ramirez. I can’t stand by and let that happen.
A light, afternoon drizzle is falling from the sky, making steam rise up from the cracked asphalt parking lot as I walk toward the school. The humidity in Texas is something I never wanted to experience again, and if things go my way, I won’t have to deal with it much longer.
The same receptionist glares at me from her desk chair, but her hand is picking up the phone before I can even open my mouth to make my request.
“He’s helping out in a class right now,” she explains as she lowers the receiver. “You’ll have to wait a while.”
I nod in understanding and take a seat. The chairs are empty this afternoon, but I know that probably won’t last long. I sit in the middle spot instead of possibly forcing two kids who may have issues with each other to sit side by side. I know I would’ve hated that as a kid and would probably have ended up in another altercation in the middle of the office if I was forced to do so.
Five minutes turns into fifteen, and then into forty-five. The overhead bells ring three different times, and Mike Branford never darkens the door. I replay the way he looked at me, the way he spoke about Alex that first day, and it hits me that he either knows for sure, or suspects that he’s my son. I’m sure he’s had enough interactions with Tinley because of Alex’s behavior to realize who she is. We were inseparable in high school, and Mike’s science class was no different. I loved his class in particular because instead of desks, the room was filled with workstations—a long table with two independent chairs. It meant I could pull her close, position her chair between my legs so she could lean against my chest comfortably for the entire class period. If he knows who Tinley is, then he knows Alex is mine. That may be the reason he leaves me sitting in the front office waiting for him until the final bell of the day echoes through the halls and all the kids hustle to get away until they have to do it all over again tomorrow.
Another half hour goes by before the receptionist assures me that he’s on his way before gathering her things to leave for the day herself.
The school is eerily quiet, and it makes me think back to the time several of us broke into the building to vandalize it. I’m not proud now of the things I did back then, but I can admit that I had fun while it was happening. The thrill of getting caught while doing something that bad made me want to seek that adrenaline rush over and over. I was a holy damn terror back in the day.
“You’re still here?” Mike asks as he walks in, offering his hand to shake.
“Hoping I’d be gone already?”
He huffs a humorless laugh.
“You know why I’m here.”
“I imagine you came back and found some things out. Sorry to hear about your grandfather.”
I haven’t thought about the reason that brought me down here in days. Mateo Costa was cremated after he passed last week, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to leave his ashes behind in the house with all of his other possessions when I leave town again.
“I’m not here to talk about him. I want to know about Alex. Did you know he was my son?”
“I suspected,” Mike says as he walks through the front room toward his own office. He stops by a filing cabinet, pulling a thick file before settling behind his desk. “Tinley all but confirmed it the last time he got into trouble.”
“You didn’t call me or tell me?”
“I didn’t know you didn’t know until that day you showed up here. When he ran into you, there was no recognition on your face.”
“I never knew.” I feel like I have to say those words to this man. He’s helped me more times than I can count, gave me way too many breaks. I don’t want him thinking I abandoned my child and just walked away. “She should’ve told me.”
“I agree. She should’ve, but if I know Tinley, and I think I do, I know she was a scared young woman back then. From what I heard around school and how you acted after she left, you didn’t exactly make it easy for her to confess something so life changing.”
Of course, it would get back to him how I told her I was using her the entire time. I told it to my friends more than once before I left—drunken words from a heartbroken boy who wished things were different. Back then, I was still saving face for a crowd that had no bearing on much of my life in the two plus years I spent with that woman.
“I didn’t, and I was already gone by the time she decided I needed to know.”
“Well, we can’t change the past, but I hope you’re here to do something about the future.” There’s a challenge in his eyes when he looks up from the folder to me.
“I am, but I need to know what I’m getting myself into.”
“Does it make any difference? Does the information in this folder have the power to change anything?”
“Not a thing.”
“Then let me tell you about the kid I know, rather than the black and white of how he’s reacted to the problems in his life.”
I nod in agreement, watching as he slides the folder to the side before steepling his hands in front of him.
“Alex is a smart kid. I think he’s a little too smart for his own good. It’s made it easier to manipulate people, adults and peers alike. He’s realized a smile and a little charm go a long way. Sound like anyone you know?”
I give him a grin.
“He loves baseball. He’s actually a really good player, could be the star on the team if he didn’t get into so much trouble. University interscholastic league rules of the state make him ineligible when he’s suspended. The coach takes things a little further and benches him an extra game every time he’s sent to the office. It worked for a while, but Alex is very close to giving up.”
“Is the coach a dick?”
“Not at all. Hard on his players, yes, but Brian is one of the good guys. He wants these kids to succeed, but he can only do so much from the dugout, you know?”
I can understand what he’s saying, but tough love doesn’t always work, especially for a group of kids where tough is all they’ve ever known. Things are hard enough at home. They shouldn’t be difficult when it involves something positive that they enjoy.
“According to his records from elementary school, Alex showed up in Texas with an attitude. School is hard, kids are just mean. They all have something going on. Every one of them has a chip on their shoulder, and putting kids like that together when each one is trying to scratch their way through life makes it even harder. Alex seems to have come out on top in that regard, but he has to fight daily to stay there. There’s always another kid who is tired of being beat down and walked on. There’s always a challenge, some reason he thinks he needs to prove himself to his peers.”
“Sounds familiar,” I grumble.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but it was the same for you. You had struggles. Cedric had struggles. Every kid has them. No disrespect
, but you weren’t alone. You weren’t the only one who needed help. You’re just one of the few that was eventually willing to accept it.”
“And Alex?”
“Alex is in desperate need of assurances. He needs out of south Houston. He needs a chance to flourish where he isn’t getting into trouble. Where he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder terrified that someone is going to jump him to prove a point.”
“I know.” And I do. I want all of that for my son, but I can’t just swoop in and save the day, walk up to the kid and tell him he’s coming with me. First off, Tinley would never allow it, and as shitty as what she’s done to me, I know she’s a good mom, doing the best she can with the hand she’s been dealt. I push down the pain and anger over her lies and meet my mentor’s eyes. “How do I start?”
This man knows what it’s like to build rapport with an angry kid who has had more life experience by middle school than many adults have had.
“He’s at practice right now. What you have to prove to him right now is that despite not being there, by no fault of your own, you aren’t going anywhere now.”
“That I can do.”
“He needs consistency but expect pushback. He’s had to be strong for himself, for his mother and sick grandmother. He doesn’t know any other way. Accepting help from you will make him feel weak, and you know what happens to the weak ones around here.”
They get eaten by the wolves.
“Build trust through presence, but don’t try to force anything else. He’ll let you know when he’s ready for more.”
I thank him, shaking his hand once more before leaving the school and heading to the baseball field. The facilities around here are shitty at best. Grass covers much of the diamond, patches of weeds threatening to engulf the dirt, but the boys on the field don’t seem to mind, and why would they? They know nothing else. Sports, well, any sanctioned activity was never my thing. My grades were never good enough and when I brought them up after Tinley moved to town, all I could see was her. There was no way I was wasting my time hanging out with athletes when her arms were waiting for me.
