The Family We Make

by Dan Wingreen

  “You never know what you might be missing if you don’t try,” she said. Then, in a roguish display of utter disregard for every piece of body language Spencer was sure he was currently displaying, Cass reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “You don’t need to find the perfect guy, Spencer. Just the perfect guy for you.”

  Spencer opened his mouth fully intending to give that kind of Hallmark schmaltz the scathing ridicule it deserved, but what ended up coming out was more bitter and honest than he was prepared for.

  “I’m not even sure those exist.”

  He pulled his hand back and glanced away. The last thing he wanted was to see the pity he was sure was written across her face.

  “Can we please just drop this?” he asked quietly.

  Cass sighed again. “All right,” she said. Spencer risked a glance a minute later, but she was eating her sandwich and not even paying attention to him anymore. He felt incongruously annoyed.

  “I’m gonna get back to my classroom,” he muttered.

  “Okay,” she said. Spencer waited, though he wasn’t sure what he was waiting for, but when she didn’t say anything else, he stood up and started to leave. “Spencer, hold on.”

  Spencer cautiously stilled.

  “If you’re really worried about Connor not having anyone to talk to, Dick helps run a youth center a few blocks away from where you live. It’s got one of those Big Brother Big Sister mentoring programs you could probably get him into.”

  Spencer was slightly thrown by the sudden shift back to his original concern, but talking about helping Connor was much more preferable than getting advice on his pathetic love life. “Isn’t that kinda like buying him a friend? I don’t want him to feel like a loser.”

  “The center’s nonprofit, so you don’t need to pay anything. The most they’ll ask is for a donation.” She took another bite. “Probably several if Dick is there.”

  “I can’t believe you’re recommending me a place your ex-husband works.”

  “He’s not completely useless. I kept his name after the divorce for a reason, after all,” she said with a shrug. Oh, please. The only reason you kept his name is because you didn’t want to have to get new credit cards again. “Besides, it’s a good center. Jason still volunteers there sometimes when he’s home from college.”

  “In this Big Brother thing?”

  “Mmhmm,” she hummed around another mouthful, swallowing before going back to her words. “He says it helps shy kids especially.”

  Spencer scrunched up his nose. “I dunno. Sounds kinda…institutional. I want Connor to have a friend, not a therapist.”

  “It’s not like that. Not really.” She finished the last of her lunch and glanced up, clearly noticing the skeptical expression on his face. “I’ll text you a link to their website later, and you can look it over. If nothing else, it’ll get Connor out of the house and used to talking to someone who isn’t you. Maybe that will give him confidence to talk to more kids his own age.”

  “Maybe,” Spencer allowed. He might have said more, but the bell rang, signaling the end of his lunch break.

  “And now I have to get back to my class.” Cass grimaced. “First cooking class of the year.”

  Spencer snickered. He’d heard enough stories about freshman home ec cooking to be very happy with his chosen career path. “Try not to empty out too many fire extinguishers.”

  Cass let out a noncommittal hum. “I’ll send you that link later.”

  Spencer nodded, then waved over his shoulder as he left the teacher’s lounge.

  *

  Spencer sat at his kitchen table with his phone in his hand, which was probably the first time in weeks him having his phone out had nothing to do with gaming or texting his son. The site Cass had sent him was a lot more professional than he’d been expecting when he heard the words “nonprofit youth center,” and even though it gave off kind of a retirement-home-recruitment vibe with all the pictures of laughing kids and fresh-faced adults with unrealistically wide smiles, he was still able to get answers to most of his questions.

  Cass had apparently been telling the truth about the Big Brother program. There was no therapy to be had, though the words “life coaching” had, distressingly, shown up more than once. If anything, the program seemed like free babysitting, which in a city probably filled with single parents, he had no idea why there was still a big banner reading Spaces Open! Sign Up Today! At first, he thought the page might be out of date, but there was a helpful bit of scrawl at the very bottom informing him the last update had been three days ago. The slight air of This Might Not Always Be Available implied by Spaces Open was almost enough to have him dragging Connor down to the center right then. It was the same weakness to marketing that had Spencer spending hundreds of dollars on collector’s editions of video games he didn’t even really want to play, but this time he managed to resist. He’d suffered through too many years of kiddie sports leagues when he was a child to sign Connor up for anything without talking to him first, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  “Connor!” he called. “Dinner’s ready!”

  A minute later, the kid thumped down the stairs, then navigated the smooth wooden floors in socked feet with unconscious grace, which Spencer had never quite gotten the hang of. He smothered a jealous scowl, but he couldn’t help longing for Connor’s first real teenage growth spurt and the inevitable gangly awkwardness that would follow. Connor, unsurprisingly, had already changed into his pajama pants and an oversized sleep shirt even though it was only six thirty. The kid hated wearing proper clothes at home—one of the many ways he’d taken after Spencer in more than just looks.

  Hopefully he doesn’t react the way I would to what I’m about to suggest…

  “Is that stew?” Connor asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise at the slightly steaming pot on the stove.

  “According to the package, yes, but I make no promises about the taste.”

  Connor glanced at him suspiciously. “You hate stew.”

  Which was true, more or less. Spencer hated any food with a strong smell. Connor’s constant complaints about their “bland” meals were as close as they used to come to reoccurring fights, and Spencer hoped that making the stew would put him in a better mood for their talk.

  “If you don’t want it, I could toss it and bake some chicken breasts—”

  “No, I want it!” Connor’s eyes widened in panic, and it was all Spencer could do to keep from bursting out laughing.

  “Get a bowl and sit down then.”

  Connor had the cabinet open and a bowl in his hand before he seemed to notice Spencer sitting at an empty table.

  “Are…you gonna have any?” he asked, hesitantly reaching up for another bowl.

  “Nah, I got something to eat on the way home.”

  Totally the wrong thing to say, judging by the reappearance of the suspicious look.

  “O…kay.” Connor closed the cabinet slowly. “Um, can I go eat in my room?”

  Spencer smiled. “Nope.” He kicked the empty chair across from him out from under their small kitchen table. “Fill up and take a seat.”

  Connor did so slowly, looking like he’d rather be doing anything else.

  “You’re not in trouble or anything,” Spencer said as the kid started eating. “I just wanna talk.”

  Connor didn’t relax one inch. If anything, he only tensed up more.

  “I’m not telling you their names,” he said quietly, staring down at his bowl. Spencer had to bite his lip to keep from demanding Connor do just that. Don’t start a fight. This isn’t about fighting.

  “That’s not what I wanna talk about.”

  Slowly, Connor glanced up through his long eyelashes. He was ridiculously adorable, like a furless berated puppy, and Spencer had to fight the sudden urge to pet his soft curls. “It’s not?”

  Spencer shook his head. Connor still seemed like he didn’t believe him. Which…hurt in a way Spencer wasn’t really prepared for. H
e’d always made a point to be honest with his son, ever since the very first day he’d laid eyes on him. Connor was even the first person he’d come out to, tearful and shaking, terrified the week-old baby lying on his chest would open his eyes and look at him with the same hate and disgust he saw every day at school. It ended up being the most liberating experience of his life up until that point, and for the first time, Spencer had felt like he could be honest. Not just with Connor, but with himself too. For the first year or so of Connor’s life, Spencer tended to treat him like a living diary, pouring out his fears, hopes, and dreams to his baby’s soft little face. He’d stopped after Connor started talking because Spencer had seen too many TV shows where the parrot repeated incriminating lines of dialogue at the worst possible time not to be paranoid about his secrets being spread through toddler talk. But even after he stopped pouring his heart out, he’d never once lied to him. He thought Connor understood that.

  “What do you want then?” Connor asked.

  All Spencer’s carefully prepared openers disappeared from his head like early morning fog in the midmorning sun. That was stupid because telling his kid about a program at a youth center didn’t nearly warrant this kind of stress, but then Spencer had always been amazing at making mountains out of molehills as his mom liked to say.

  Instead of trying to say anything, Spencer slid his phone across the table. Connor stared at its darkened screen for a moment, then glanced up, apprehension written across his face. “You’re not showing me something weird, are you?”

  “No!” Spencer glared. “Just…read the page I was on, okay?”

  Connor glanced nervously down at the phone, but miracle of miracles, he actually did what Spencer asked without any more lip. His expression turned to confusion when he unlocked the phone and then to dawning understanding after a few minutes of reading. By the time he finished, his face was impressively blank.

  “So?” Spencer asked, wincing when his voice was a bit too loud for the still silence in the kitchen. “What do you think?”

  Connor stared at the phone for a long while. When he spoke, his voice came out so soft Spencer could barely hear him. “Is this because I won’t tell you who’s picking on me?”

  “Not directly, no.”

  His son glanced up with tears shining in his eyes. “Then why are you sending me away?”

  Spencer felt like he’d taken a baseball bat to the chest. He reached across the table, almost upending Connor’s forgotten stew bowl in the process, and snatched the phone back. He had visions of some technical fuckup opening a page for military school or something equally horrible by accident, but no, it was the same page he’d spent the last forty minutes diligently scouring—which didn’t at all explain his kid’s reaction.

  “I’m not sending you away—”

  “Yes, you are!” Connor’s shout seemed to snap whatever control he’d had over his emotions because the moment the last word came out of his mouth the tears started streaming down his cheeks, and his breath came in quick ragged gasps. “You—you don’t—you don’t want me—anymore…”

  Dammit.

  “No-no-no-no-no.” Spencer got up and, after rushing around the table, scooped his son up out of his chair and sat down before pulling him into an aggressive cuddle. Connor struggled but not nearly as much as he usually did ever since getting “too old for hugs.” That alone would have showed how upset he was. “I do want you, okay? I’m not sending you away. I promise. You’re not going anywhere you don’t wanna go. I want you here. I’ll always want you here.”

  He kept it up, holding Connor tight and murmuring reassurances.

  Fuck, I hate this.

  It didn’t happen often, but every once and a while someone—usually Spencer—managed to do or say something to hit on some deep insecurity or fear Connor had buried inside him. When that happened, it usually came out the form of a sudden crying fit or a panic attack. Thankfully, they never lasted very long, and the one therapist Spencer had spoken to years back had told him they were nothing to worry about, that they were just the way Connor’s mind dealt with a manifestation of his dread or something. Of course, no amount of assurances made Spencer feel any less like a piece of garbage for almost always being the thing causing them. Especially since he was pretty sure going away to college had been what messed Connor up in the first place. Even though Spencer’s parents had done most of the parental stuff, Connor hadn’t dealt with Spencer being away for most of the year well at all. They even had to temporarily move the whole family five miles down from Spencer’s university for his last two years, just so Connor wouldn’t freak out. The kid had kind of clung to him ever since.

  And that probably means it’s my fault he doesn’t have any friends. Awesome.

  “Come on, breathe for me, okay? That’s it. In…and out. In…and out. Nice and slow. You’re doing great, raisin.”

  The old childhood endearment was familiar on his lips even though it had been years since Connor had very emphatically made it clear he’d outgrown it. No matter how much he claimed to hate it, though, hearing the old name when he was upset rarely failed to help calm him down. It worked this time too, and a few minutes later, Connor stopped hyperventilating and went limp in his arms.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, his voice thick with embarrassment. Spencer didn’t need to see his face to know his cheeks were probably bright red.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” Spencer said, giving him one last hug before letting go. Connor hopped off his lap immediately, taking a few steps away and rubbing furiously at his eyes. Spencer politely turned away, knowing how much Connor hated when he lost control like that, especially when tears were involved.

  “Why don’t you get some more stew?” Spencer suggested.

  “’Kay.”

  They both ignored the still steaming bowl sitting on the table as Connor busied himself with pouring a new one. The same way they ignored how it took him nearly ten minutes to scoop three ladlefuls of stew into a bowl and take a seat in the chair Spencer had started out the evening in.

  “You okay?” Spencer asked as casually as he could.

  “’M fine.”

  “Do you wanna talk about it?”

  Connor shoved a large spoonful of meat into his mouth and started chewing. Slowly.

  Okay then.

  After a few minutes of silent eating, Spencer pulled the other bowl over and took a small sip of the beef broth. Oh, God. This is disgusting. He made a face at the taste, and somehow managed not to collapse in relief when Connor’s lips twitch in amusement.

  “So,” Connor said around a mouthful of meat chunks, “what’s that thing about, anyway?”

  Spencer hesitated, but if Connor wanted to act like nothing had happened, then he’d take his cues from the kid and do the same. If nothing else, the tension following them around these last few weeks seemed to be gone now.

  So, Spencer quickly explained about the center and the Big Brother program, trying to emphasize the parts where it seemed cool for a fourteen-year-old boy to be friends with a college-aged guy and glossing over the mentoring and life coaching bits. Connor barely glanced up from his dinner the entire time he spoke, but that was pretty much normal, even without the kid feeling embarrassed. He seemed to be listening, and maybe even interested, although it was impossible to tell with teenagers sometimes.

  “So, what do you think?” Spencer asked.

  Connor poked at the dregs of his stew as he contemplated. “It kind of sounds like you’re buying me a friend.”

  God, I love you.

  “Nonprofit youth center. Everything’s free. Well, free for us anyway. Nothing’s really free since everything costs money, and that money needs to come from somewhere. Remember that when you get older. If someone is offering you free stuff, they’re full of shit. Especially if they’re running for office.” Spencer nodded once for good measure.

  “Still sounds like you’re forcing someone to spend time with me.”

  “They’re vo
lunteers, Con. They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t want to be.”

  “Yeah but…” Connor crossed his arms and let out a sound of frustrated teenage disgust. “Whatever. You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “You sound like Grandpa now.”

  “Grandpa’s pretty smart, so I’m gonna take that as a compliment. I’m also not gonna ignore the totally unsubtle way you just tried to change the topic there either.” Spencer pushed his own cooling bowl of stew away. He didn’t need that horrible stench right under his nose when he was trying to have a serious conversation. “Tell me what’s wrong, or I’m going to start guessing, and who knows what kind of crazy shit I might come up with.”

  Connor glared. “Have fun.”

  Stubborn little shit.

  “Okay,” Spencer said, meeting his glare evenly. “Could it possibly be you think that, while these volunteers might want to be there for kids in the general sense, there’s no way any of them would ever want to spend time with you specifically?”

  Connor looked like he’d been slapped.

  “I know we don’t talk about it a lot,” Spencer said, answering the question written all over his kid’s face, “but I’m not that much older than you. My days of teenage insecurity aren’t so far behind me, and, I’m gonna be honest, adult insecurity isn’t really all that different. Sometimes I look at you and you’re like this mysterious puzzle that exists in dimensions I can’t even see. Other times, I swear to God I’m looking in a mirror, and I can almost hear what you’re thinking because I’ve already been there, thinking the exact same thing. And you know what? In this case, I was just as wrong back then as you are now, raisin.”

  “Don’t call me that. And I’m not wrong,” Connor said, his voice quiet and sullen. “No one wants anything to do with me.”

  “That isn’t true at all.”

  “Must be why I have so many friends.”

  The glare had returned, but this time Connor spread his arms wide and made a point of searching around their tiny kitchen as if to emphasize all the friends he didn’t have. Spencer felt an involuntary pang of sympathy for anyone who’d ever had to deal with similar melodrama from him.