by Bijou Hunter
“I ordered you japchae, which is Korean stir fry,” she says and then opens another container. “This is bibimbap for Keanu.”
“Why is there an egg in there? Gross.”
“Don’t be a baby,” she says, tugging at my hair.
“What’s this?”
“Galbitang is short rib soup. I think it’s yummy. Now before you write off this new food, can I give you a little motherly advice? Try a little of everything and then you can order your pizza.”
“Yes, Mommy,” I whisper in her ear. “Hey, maybe that’ll be our next role playing game.”
“Now you’re being gross.”
Harmony pushes me away, but I catch her grinning. She gets the food ready at the tiny kitchen table and then calls Keanu to wash his hands. He’s still jumping around and doesn’t stop even while soaping up his fingers.
I watch him get settled in his chair and look over the food.
“Wow,” he says to his toy man.
“Doesn’t take much to impress him.”
Harmony gives me a mama bear frown before joining Keanu at the table. I consider sitting with them, but there’s no damn room. I look over the stir fry and decide I’ve eaten worse. More than once, I’ve left pizza out for over a day and still chowed down. Of course, I was usually drunk when I fearlessly ignored the wellbeing of my life and stomach.
“It’s pretty good,” I say, eating near the sink.
Keanu smiles with his mouth full. He’s cute when he grins that way. The kid looks just like his mom, and that woman’s so beautiful she’s got me eating strange food and thinking about redecorating my condo.
To my surprise, Harmony inspires me to upend my entire life to make room for her and the kid she made with another man.
Twenty Eight - Harmony
My mom’s thick dark brown hair goes up in a bun as soon as spring hits and the weather warms. It stays in the bun until late fall when the leaves change. I love how predictable she can be.
All my life she remained a constant, despite her changing jobs and occasional men. Her consistency is why I know I’ll hear a speech soon about how Dayton means well, but I need to think about what kind of role model he is for Keanu.
She waits until Dayton’s spent two nights at my place before ambushing me in the parking lot once I arrive home from work.
“You look so pretty,” she says, fixing my shirt.
“So do you.”
Mom smiles softly. “I see Dayton’s Harley isn’t here yet.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Is he living with you now?”
“I would have mentioned if he was.”
Mom caresses my arm where Millie dug her nails in yesterday.
“How is Keanu handling a man around?”
“He thinks Dayton is weird. He says the same thing about Billy and Camden. I think Bonn is the only man he doesn’t feel is odd. Interesting, huh?”
I start walking toward Charlie’s trailer where Keanu waits. Mom follows along, silently plotting.
“Spill it,” I say when we reach the trailer.
“I haven’t quite figured out my angle. I think I’ll wait to see how far this thing goes with Dayton.”
“I appreciate your honesty, but I am aware Dayton is a wild card. I’m rolling with things now since I deserve an adventure in my life.”
“I worry about Keanu.”
“I survived your various boyfriends, and Ruby survived when you married Daisy’s dorky dad. Kids are tough.”
Mom narrows her gaze, realizing I’m too prepared for this discussion.
“You know what you’re doing,” she says, not believing her words for a minute.
“And I know if something goes wrong, I’ll have you there to help me pick up the pieces.”
Nodding, Mom gives me a sly grin. She underestimated how much I’d expected her meddling. Next time, she’ll be better prepared.
I knock on Charlie’s door and wait for her to unlatch the screen door. Keanu arrives first and yells my name. I lean down to where he smooshes his face against the screen.
“Did you miss me?”
Keanu shows Carl to me. “We ate macaroni and cheese.”
Charlie appears behind Keanu and unlocks the door. “He had two bowls.”
“I was hungry,” Keanu says, diving into my arms.
While I carry my little man to our trailer, Mom remains with Charlie. I think I hear them talking about Dayton, but I might just be paranoid.
Once inside our place, Keanu takes off my shoes. He’s really into laces lately and thinks my colorful tennis shoes are cool.
“Baby, is it okay if Dayton comes over later?” I ask once we’re barefoot and chilling on the floor.
Keanu nods and shows me the puzzle he wants to play.
“Do you like Dayton?”
“He’s big.”
“He is big, but do you think he’s nice?”
“He gave me pepperoni.”
“Yep.”
Keanu isn’t interested in talking about Dayton. He’s waited all day to tell me about his dream about poop. Plus, there are puzzles to play, and he needs to fix my hair by sticking plastic flowers in it. Yeah, my boy has plenty of plans for tonight, but none of them involve worrying if my boyfriend might be a bad influence on him.
Twenty Nine - Dayton
Funny how quickly a man can become obsessed. I used to think of Harmony a lot. Daily. Okay, probably hourly, but fantasizing about her sexiness was a comfortable feeling. I managed to go through my day with her constantly in my thoughts yet never feel distracted.
Now I’m restless whenever away from Harmony.
My problem isn’t my dick. Dealing with a hard-on is something I’m used to after two years without sex. Fuck if I haven’t become a ninja masturbator. I’ve nearly hit the point where I jack off just with my mind.
No, I miss knowing she’s nearby. I try thinking about her at work, but I have no frame of reference about what her job’s like. So, I imagine her back at her overheated trailer with the boy. Except she isn’t there, and I can’t join her.
I even get to thinking about Keanu. Is he napping? Eating child-sized food? Watching a bright movie with too much singing? I still hate how he reminds me of Hwan, but I dig how he reminds me of Harmony. He’s her kid, and I’m warming up to how he’s part of the package.
By the time I finish painting the walls with JJ at the refurbished building, I’m ready to get away from his annoying ass and spend time with my woman and her boy. That’s a solid way to end a day, and I get why Camden chases Daisy around like a trained dog.
I arrive at the trailer, ready to convince Harmony to go out for dinner. She won’t have to cook, and I can get a break from the hot box she calls a home.
Her front door stands open, and I hear agitated voices. I pick up my speed, ready for a fight. I look inside to find Harmony on her knees, searching under the couch. Keanu is pulling toys out of his play box.
“Where is he?” Keanu asks, wide-eyed. “I lost him?”
Harmony searches behind the pillows on the couch, “Mama will look for Carl.”
“What’s Carl?” I ask, still ready to punch whoever caused their panic.
Harmony looks at me and then stands up. “His LEGO friend. You know, the little toy he carries with him everywhere. We can’t find it.”
“Doesn’t he usually take it with him to daycare?”
“Yes, but Charlie couldn’t find it this afternoon, so we’re looking here.”
Keanu follows his mother around the trailer as she searches every corner, under every piece of furniture, and behind every toy. The longer they can’t find it, the more freaked the kid gets. He finally stands in the middle of the living room and starts bawling.
“I lost him!” Keanu wails, tears running down his face.
Harmony picks up the boy and walks to the couch where she holds him against her.
“Grandma is looking at her trailer, and Charlie is looking at hers. Billy is looking a
round the park. Even Aunt Ruby is looking at her condo, just in case.”
“I lost my friend,” Keanu sobs against her.
“I know it hurts, baby, but it’ll be okay.”
Unsure what to do with myself, I walk into the bedroom and look around. I remember the LEGO man was like two inches long with a sorta bald head and a red shirt. I only saw the top of him since Keanu always had the toy gripped in his tiny hand.
I find plenty of LEGOs scattered around the place, mostly under the bed, but none are people. Returning to the living room, I find Keanu sliding off his mom’s lap.
“Maybe he’s in my bed.”
The boy runs to his room, leaving a clearly depressed Harmony.
“He loves that toy so much,” she says, nearly in tears.
For whatever asshole reason, I turn into my fucking dad and say, “Well then maybe he should have taken better care of it.”
In a blink of an eye, Harmony’s sad gaze shifts to anger. She looks at me like I’m scum on the bottom of her shoe.
“If you have no heart, what are you good for?” she hisses.
Despite the anger in her voice, tears fill her pale green eyes. She’s brokenhearted over a piece of plastic. That’s how much her kid matters to her. He’s miserable, so she is too.
This is how Harmony loves. It’s how my mom was when I was growing up. Fuck, the woman still makes me pies and does my laundry. Good mamas love to their core, and that’s how Harmony is with Keanu.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask when she stares with her wet, pissed eyes. “Do you want me to say it kills me to see you and the kid cry? Well, it does, but those are just words and words don’t fix shit.”
“Not everything can be fixed, Dayton. Sometimes, it’s just about surviving the pain and learning to live with it. Yeah, it’s a toy, but it’s his friend. He doesn’t have many things he loves. First Daisy leaves and then Ruby and Elle move away. In his life, a ten-minute drive might as well be a million miles away. Now he’s lost the friend he’s talked to every day for a year. It’s his favorite thing, and I can’t fix his pain. I can only give him lots of love until he accepts Carl is gone.”
“I can run to the store to get him a new one.”
“He doesn’t want a new toy. He wants his friend. You still don’t get how you can’t fix some things. Not with money or words. You can only give someone love while they adjust to their pain.”
I realize she’s talking about more than the toy. She lost her dad and Keanu’s dad. She didn’t love them, but she missed out because they’re gone. But she didn’t stop moving forward. A poor chick like her can’t stop living and working and existing because of heartache and loss. That’s what Sally taught her kids. Life doesn’t always work out, but you need to keep going.
My parents bought their way out of problems. They got new things to replace old things. My father didn’t like marriage, so he banged random chicks. My mother lost her first husband, so she got a new one.
That’s how my life has been until I messed up with Harmony. No matter what I did, I got a do-over. A second chance was always handed to me because I’m Dayton Rutgers and my mom is a Hallstead and everything can be fixed with enough money, violence, or power.
Now I’m a useless hump while my woman consoles her kid as he walks crying out of his room. I hate the way his face crumples up, and he whimpers in her arms. I can’t stand the way Harmony fights against her mama bear tears. I want to run away and search for a fix, but I don’t run and not only because there is no fix.
I don’t run because there’s nowhere else I belong.
Thirty - Harmony
I think maybe I’m not cut out to be a mother and have a relationship. Other women handle it, but I completely shut down with Dayton while dealing with a heartbroken Keanu. My mama bear instincts make everything else fall away.
Dayton doesn’t leave the trailer even though he must be bored and frustrated with our evening. I hold Keanu who alternates between watching his favorite movies and crying over his missing friend.
Every sound outside causes my baby to stare full of hope at the door. My mom and her friends are still searching for the little LEGO man. Every time he gets his hopes up and then no one knocks on the door, Keanu looks to me for comfort.
Knowing he won’t sleep without Carl, I don’t even attempt to put him to bed. Instead, he dozes off in my arms a little before ten. I carry him to his room and consider joining Dayton back in the living room.
But I don’t.
Crawling into Keanu’s bed, I cover us with a blanket and listen to him sleep. I know if I return to the living room that I’ll start crying and I don’t want to give into the urge.
My son needs me to be calm. Dayton does too, and if he says something stupid or cruel, I don’t think I can keep from kicking his ass out the door.
So, I avoid starting a fight with a man still trying to figure out how to care about someone other than himself. I can’t give him any of me tonight. It all belongs to my sleeping son.
Around midnight, Keanu wakes up once and looks for Carl.
“I dream he came back,” he mumbles.
“We’ll look for him again tomorrow,” I promise, caressing his soft skin and praying the toy shows up.
The rest of the night is quiet, and I sleep well despite resting on a bed not suited for my length. Waking before Keanu, I walk into the kitchen and start the coffee. I know Dayton didn’t take off because I see his boots at the front door. Peeking in on him, I find the handsome man spread out on my bed.
I leave him to sleep while I take a shower and get ready for work. Soon, I wake Keanu and dress him for daycare. He asks about Dayton, but I don’t let him check on the naked man.
Charlie opens the door to her trailer and gives Keanu a big smile, but I see something in her eyes. She leans down to look at him and then reveals Carl in her hand.
“You found him!” Keanu cries, taking his toy.
“The dog got hold of him. Got rough too.”
Keanu looks at his toy’s face and finds it riddled with bite marks. Showing me, he looks ready to cry.
“Mama, you fix him?”
I run my fingers over the plastic and exhale sadly. “No, baby. I don’t think I can.”
Keanu rubs the messed-up part and then starts sobbing. I don’t know what to do since I need to go to work, but my baby craves his mama. Hell, maybe I’m not even capable of holding a job while being a good parent.
Charlie picks up Keanu and tells me to go to work. She promises he’ll be fine soon and they’ll call me in an hour. Despite her reassuring words, I’m in tears while I walk away. Keanu reaches for me, begging his mama to stay and make things better.
After bawling my eyes out on the way to the group home, I’m a red-faced mess when I arrive. The overnight staff member waits until I clean up and get my shit together. I’m in the middle of my early day routine when Charlie sends me a picture of a smiling Keanu holding Carl just like old times.
Kids are resilient. More so than adults, considering I still feel like crap for the rest of the day. I nurse my cry-induced headache until three when my shift ends, and I can finally head home to Keanu.
“We played, Mama,” he says, showing me the battered Carl in his hand. “He’s okay now.”
Smiling, I pick him up and carry them both back to our trailer where I expect to find Dayton. Though the trailer is empty, the fans remain on.
I make Keanu a snack before sitting down to text Dayton. He didn’t message me all day, and I avoided engaging with him while in a bad mood.
“Where are you?” I text twice before he responds.
“Sometimes a man needs to get stone cold drunk to make sense of his life.”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t wait up.”
I text him again, asking where he’s at and if he’s okay. I don’t know why I’m worried. Dayton’s a big boy. He is a fan of the bottle, and I wouldn’t blame him for needing a break from the drama
at the trailer.
Despite the good reasons to let Dayton be Dayton, I can’t help worrying he’ll realize the meaning of his life doesn’t involve Keanu and me.
Thirty One - Dayton
I leave Harmony’s trailer with the intention of getting a shower in a decent-sized bathroom where I don’t bang my elbows on everything. I’ll pick up clean clothes and shave. Finally, I can stop by a ribs place and eat a big lunch.
That part goes according to plan, but I get to feeling weird when I’m eating. My mind wanders to the crying from the night before. I was a useless shit with both Keanu and Harmony. Shit, I could have fucking disappeared, and no one would have cared.
What kind of man is so worthless?
I still think buying the kid a new toy should fix the problem. That’s not the right answer, though it should be. I don’t get why something so small should create such trauma in a family with bigger problems.
Harmony’s job ought to be considered an issue. She gets hit, scratched and even bitten by her clients, but shrugs off her injuries even while crying over a lost piece of plastic. To me, that’s her number one problem to be fixed.
But my view isn’t the only one that matters in a relationship.
That’s why Camden puts up with Daisy’s three cats. Or why Mom accepts Erik’s weeklong hunting trips a few times a year. And no doubt compromise is why Bonn still lives in the condo when he clearly wants to move to a house.
Except I don’t know how to be a selfless guy. I never shared growing up. I certainly didn’t fucking share once I was a man. If Camden wanted something from me, he had to take it by force. Same went for me. That’s how things work in my world, but now I’m part of Harmony’s, and her rules are different.
I stop by Red Barn to get a drink and think about how simple my feelings once were for her. I’d been fooling myself for sure, but a million times I’d sat in this place and imagined taking her home. In my mind, I figured getting her to take a chance with me was the difficult part. Once she got a taste, I assumed she wouldn’t be able to say no to me again.
