Chasing Kane

by Andrea Randall

  I nodded, taking a step closer to the table. “I’m sure they do.”

  “Can I answer any questions for you?” A bubbly, college-aged looking woman asked us.

  I cleared my throat. “We’re visiting from California,” I started, my voice shaking like I was riding a jackhammer. “And we were wondering if there were any organizations like this out there?”

  Stacey, as her name tag stated, tapped away on the computer in front of her. After a minute, she produced a printed list of websites and phone numbers.

  “Here are the groups in California we’ve worked with in the past. Certainly there are more, but we can recommend these as having good practices. Are you two considering fostering? Adopting? Both?”

  Dropping my hand to my side, I grabbed Georgia’s sweaty palm and squeezed it in mine. I looked down at her as she, again, looked up at me with a wide-eyed mix of pain and hope.

  This … thing passed between us. Our story. Our love. I don’t know what it was, but it felt like the time I stuck my tongue in a D battery when I was eight. Only this surged through my whole body as I stared at the woman who made my life exponentially more amazing than I thought it could ever be.

  Turning our attention back to Stacey, Georgia and I squeezed each other’s hands once more, and answered in unison.

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a second. Can we have a second?” Georgia asked, politely as she ushered me a few feet back from the booth. Stacey seemed unconcerned as she gathered sheets of paper and brochures into a manila envelope.

  “What is it?”

  Georgia’s eyes moved from me to the table and back again, I could see a million starts to a million sentences running through her eyes. “We just went through this whole … baby thing.”

  I nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah we did. But this feels … different somehow.”

  She placed her hands on her hips. “This kind of came out of nowhere.”

  Setting my hands over hers with a wave of calm washing over me, I kissed the top of her head. “Some of the best people do.”

  I grinned, watching the woman who fell backwards into my life when I was least expecting it.

  “We didn’t handle the baby stuff well before.”

  “But we know it was about more than the baby stuff,” I reminded her. We’d been through a lot of therapy, teasing apart our fears, anxiety and expectations.

  Georgia nodded, chewing her bottom lip.

  I sighed, smiling. “Maybe … maybe there’s a kid out there, already born, who needs us. Us.”

  She nodded, and a small weep escaped her throat as she pressed her forehead into my chest. “I think you’re right, Regan.”

  I swallowed my tears back, feeling emotional and calm at the same time. A feeling that told me to hang onto my wife, no matter what. Gently rubbing the back of her head, I spoke softly. “I think when we get home we call these numbers, get some information, and take it from there. And talk with Dr. Weeber. And each other. A lot with each other.”

  Georgia’s voice quivered. “There were kids in high school, too. I mean, Jesus.”

  “I know,” I sighed, “I saw.”

  She took a step back, expertly wiping mascara-stained tears way from her face. “Would you want a baby?”

  I hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to answer such a huge question. “I think … I think I want the child who needs us most. Whoever they think could put up with us,” I joked to lighten the mood a little.

  Georgia’s face lit up with a smile I’d missed in the last year. One that had only returned in the last month, or so. She looked up to the sky, holding out her hands as if she were caught off guard. I think we both were. “Oh my God.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Are you ready?” I took her hand and tilted my head back to the table where Stacey was waiting expectantly.

  With a deep breath, Georgia’s smiled morphed to an assured, soft grin. “I am. Are you?”

  Giving her hand a small squeeze, I nodded. “I am. Let’s do this.”

  It was, of course, just an envelope filled with names, numbers, facts about fostering and adoption, and brochure upon brochure that created more questions than answers, but it was a start. Georgia and I knew the road would be a long one as we pored over all the information in front of us, but it was a road we were willing to walk together. As we sat on a rocky ledge, taking a few minutes to gather ourselves before heading to Ernie’s tent, I took a quiet moment to think.

  I knew there would be sacrifices and tears and heartache along the way, but as I stared at one of the strongest women I knew—one I was lucky enough to call my wife—I knew deep down that we would be okay. We were Regan and Georgia Kane, for God’s sake. A quirky couple who had already fought their way through a thousand thorny mazes filled with trapdoors in the name of our love for one another.

  We had an opportunity to build something great on the foundation we forged through years and hard work. A family. One as unlikely as the two of us were. One as unique and in love as we were with each other.

  “What are you thinking about?” Georgia asked quietly, sliding the last of the paperwork into the envelope, folding the brass fasteners to seal it.

  Standing, I held my hand out, helping her to her feet. “I was thinking … I was thinking that there has never been a man as happy and in love as I am this moment.”

  “Not even you on our wedding day?” Georgia challenged sardonically.

  I shook my head, arresting her with a serious glance. Her face froze as she seemed to hold her breath, waiting for my next words.

  “That day doesn’t hold a candle to this one. That was just the beginning. This?” I wrapped her into a warm hug as the cutting ocean wind broke over us. “This is where it gets good.”

  Thirty-Five

  CJ

  “Jesus I’m nervous,” I said out loud for the first time in my entire fucking life.

  My palms were sweaty and I’d already had to change my shirt—thank God my mom lived close by so I didn’t look like a complete Neanderthal.

  Frankie shifted on the rocks next to me and put her arm around my shoulders as we stared into the Atlantic. “You’re doing the right thing, CJ.”

  She sounded brave enough for the both of us.

  It had been one hell of a ride having Frankie finish out this half of the tour with us—on the bus with me, at all the concerts, everything—but it hadn’t been completely carefree. Something changed between Frankie and me that night in Chicago when I spilled my guts in front of her in my hotel room, revealing more to her about my dad than I’d ever told anyone in my entire life.

  Not to mention all the crying I did. Jesus.

  “What time is it?”

  Frankie looked at her watch—she was the only person under forty in my life that I knew wore one. “Ten of.”

  “Shit …” I huffed, standing. I needed to pace away this nervous energy. Ten minutes was a long time when the previous ten years hadn’t exactly been a picnic. “I wish there was a way I could just, you know, meet him without having to see him.”

  Frankie winced sympathetically, standing to follow my erratic wanderings. “Yeah, but Provincetown during festival time isn’t really the place to just leave a ten-year-old boy.”

  I hadn’t been able to push the thoughts of my half brother out of my mind from the moment my dad spilled the beans about his existence. As pissed as I was about how this kid got to have the life I’d always felt was mine—one in the big beach house with married parents and annoying siblings—I felt a strange pull to this faceless, nameless boy.

  Frankie listened. And listened, and listened, and listened as I tortured myself over this kid. What did he look like? What was his name? Was he really into music, or was that a ploy by my dad designed to tear open guilt? I didn’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I did know one important fact about him—he had an asshole for a father.

  Maybe my old man had changed. I mean, he’d already been married to his new wife longer than he
was to my mom—maybe it was time to stop calling her new. I had my doubts, though. It takes a special kind of monster to walk away from an otherwise happy family. I’d talked about it a lot over the years with Regan and Georgia and as we got older we realized no one ever really knows what goes on deep inside a marriage. But, I knew it wasn’t bad enough to warrant abandonment. Not after watching the way my mother fell apart for a couple of years afterward.

  “You forgave me,” I said to Frankie, stopping to light a cigarette. I was working on quitting again, but today was not the fucking day. “I don’t know if I can forgive him … ever.”

  Frankie sighed. A long, soft, slow sigh signaling an adult life-lesson was on its way. “You know … Forgiveness isn’t about the other person. I wanted to stop resenting you. I wanted to stop the knots in my stomach and the anger and the awfulness that I was carrying around in my chest. I’d decided to forgive you long before I went to Chicago.”

  She’d told me this before, when we’d talked until sunrise her first day in Chicago. She explained that all of that forgiveness stuff, but said she was caught off guard when she saw I’d clearly become a changed person—clearly was her word, not mine. In that moment, she told me, she was able to completely forgive me and begin to imagine a life with me again.

  “Yeah …” I didn’t know why I was clinging to the hate in my chest like a life preserver. I’m sure any psychologist worth their weight would say it was pulling me under more than keeping me afloat.

  Frankie grabbed my hand, lacing her fingers between mine. “At the very least, what you’re doing right now is not transferring the hate you have for your dad onto a kid who didn’t ask to be born in the first place.”

  I squeezed her hand, taking one last drag of my cigarette before burying it in the sand. “He doesn’t deserve that,” I agreed. “He didn’t do anything wrong and, you know, he might need me someday. Like if our dad turns out to be the same guy he always was and leaves him, too.”

  I used to think I wanted that. I wanted my dad to abandon another family as punishment to them for taking him away, as if he wasn’t the one who packed his own damn suitcase. I didn’t think I thought that anymore, though I couldn’t be sure. Revenge is a tricky, slippery thing.

  Frankie sighed again, but soft enough to make me think she was trying to hide it. “And even if he doesn’t leave this family …” she prodded.

  “A kid can never have too many adults on their side,” I admitted. “Even if we’re playing fast and loose with the term adult.” I laughed at myself, releasing Frankie’s hand to wipe my palms on the back of my jeans.

  “And I’m not saying you ever need to befriend your dad, CJ. I want to make sure you know I’m not suggesting that. What he did was emotionally abusive, traumatizing—”

  “I know,” I cut in, facing her as time ticked slowly. The wind blew long wisps of brown hair across her face that she kept trying to tuck behind her ears. Lifting her chin with my index finger, I gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “And that might be where I’m headed with him … I don’t know.”

  Setting up the meeting with my little brother—a term that was still hard to come to terms with—happened through a series of awkward texts and tense phone calls. I texted as much as I could, avoiding phone communication at all costs until my dad insisted on vocal communication. He said he wanted to ensure his son would be safe. I had to refrain from asking which one he meant.

  We agreed to meet at a pier near the festival, and I could go off with the kid for a couple of hours—if we both lasted that long. I was clear from the outset that I didn’t want to have a big father-son day with him and, if that’s what he was hoping for, we’d scrap the idea entirely—I told myself I didn’t need to meet my brother that badly.

  But I think I did, even if I couldn’t articulate why.

  Still, my dad agreed and said his wife did, too. They seemed overeager, in fact. I didn’t doubt that my dad was hoping this would somehow open a port of communication between the two of us. In the interim it did—as we had to coordinate this meeting—but I always felt sick at the end of our interactions—ill from pushing rage and tears down my throat.

  “What are you guys gonna do?” Frankie asked, tugging me back to the present.

  Now it was my turn to sigh. “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

  Frankie’s breath caught in her throat as she gasped, looking over my shoulder. “Better think fast,” she whispered. “They’re coming.”

  My stomach sank and my heart pole-vaulted into my throat in perfect time with each other, leaving me wanting to throw up and pass out at the same time.

  “Stay for a second,” I blurted out, throwing our plans for her to dart away immediately right out the window. I hadn’t wanted to bear the stilted introductions and awkward pauses that would certainly follow when we were all face-to-face.

  Her eyes widened for a split second before she reached out and grabbed my hand. I was oddly calmed by the fact that her palms were sticky with sweat. “You got it. Ready?”

  I let out a hard chuckle, looking down. “Nope. Let’s do this.”

  I turned around and, sure enough, my dad was walking toward us with a boy who was clearly his son by his side. I had no idea what average ten-year-olds were supposed to look like, but I had to suppress a grin at the fact that this was no average soon-to-be fifth grader. He shared my DNA through and through. While he did have sandy hair like his mom, he was built like I was at ten: tall and lean, moving with an awkward gate that I remember came with rapid growth. I couldn’t tell from as far back as they were, but he was easily over five feet, which I did know to be tall for a boy of that age, because I was. He was dressed in standard kid-jock wear: black Nike shorts that went to his knees, a sleeveless neon yellow shirt that also sported the Nike swoosh and, yes, black Nike basketball shoes—even though we were on a beach.

  I was dressed more like my dad—almost exactly like him, actually—but my black shirt was sleeveless. I wore tattered old Teva flip-flops that had served me well for longer than he did.

  I had to swallow back a rush of emotions, as they got close enough for me to make out their faces. My dad had aged, but well. Fine crows feet framed his eyes, but his skin was holding up well otherwise. Salt-and-pepper scruff dusted his chin and jaw, but his hair was as black as I always remembered. I was used to seeing him in suits, so the casual khaki shorts and black T-shirt threw me for a loop, but only briefly. He was smiling, but I was glad to see he looked a little nervous, as the smile didn’t quite reach his hopeful eyes.

  Frankie gave my hand a squeeze as my dad extended his.

  “CJ,” he opened with, a little breathless that was likely more from nerves than athletic ability—he looked remarkably fit, especially for a guy nearing fifty. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Hey,” I answered after an attempted swallow through my cotton-dry mouth. I shook his hand—we all had sweaty palms, it seemed. “Uh, this is Frankie, my girlfriend.”

  She smiled, shaking his hand. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

  My dad smiled sheepishly. “Callum,” he said, nodding once. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Sorry about showing up—”

  Frankie waved her hand, gracefully sweeping the stumbling apology aside. “It’s no trouble. I’m glad we could meet.”

  “Hey,” the boy cut in without an ounce of nerves, it seemed. He even held out his hand toward me. “I’m Danny.”

  I cleared my throat, hoping that would cover up the involuntary quiver of my chin. It helped a little. Simultaneously, Frankie and my dad stepped back, giving Danny and I some space.

  “Hey,” I replied, looking into the hazel eyes of a younger me. “I’m CJ, it’s nice to meet you.”

  His handshake was firm and sure, and it left me wondering how much he knew about what it took to get to this point—since the three adults standing around certainly hadn’t assumed it would ever happen.

  “Good to meet you. Dad talks about you all the time—says I might ev
en get to try out your drums?”

  “Danny,” our dad cut in with a cautionary tone.

  I laughed to beg the tears away, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “I think I might be able to arrange that.”

  Dad talks about you all the time …

  I looked at my dad, Callum, Sr., whose eyes volleyed between his two sons expectantly, and wondered what he talked so much about in regards to me. I had flashes of guilt and anger vying for attention inside me, quickly reasoning now was not the time for such a discussion with dear old dad.

  “Callum,” Frankie said, socially aware enough to realize we needed help toward the next step, “would you like to come grab lunch with me while the boys do their thing? There’s a hell of a clam stand—sorry,” she corrected herself, blushing, “heck. There’s a heck of a clam stand on the festival grounds.”

  Dad laughed, firmly patting Danny on the shoulder. “He’s said worse in church before.”

  Danny rolled his eyes, looking a little sheepish underneath tween angst.

  “That’d be great,” my dad continued. “We’ll meet you guys back here in, what? An hour, hour and a half?”

  I nodded and shrugged at the same time, a move Frankie said is specific for decision-disabled men. “Sounds good.”

  He smiled, patting my shoulder this time. It didn’t hurt like I thought it would, but I couldn’t look him in the eyes. “Text or call if you need anything. Either of you.”

  Danny and I nodded and watched Frankie and our dad walk away for a few seconds before I realized another human being was under my care—God help us all.

  “Welp,” I started, turning toward Danny and gesturing in the direction he’d just walked from, “ya hungry?”

  I didn’t know what to say, but figured food was a good place to start.

  He shrugged, “Sure.”

  I chuckled. “You’re probably always hungry, huh?”

  He mimicked my laugh, following me as I led the way down the worn-down boardwalk. “Yeah. You look like you’re always hungry too.” He seemed to try to hide the grin that took over his face.