Hard Line

by Sidney Bell

  Because Church was more of a hero than he gave himself credit for being, he’d save the day. But that didn’t mean he should have to.

  A couple months ago, Church had finally succeeded in getting his abused mother to leave his father, and she was living with Church and his boyfriend—and eventual fiancé, Tobias suspected—Miller. The custom woodworking shop he was starting with Miller was going to have a grand opening soon, so they were working hard to get that set up. Church was taking a couple of carpentry classes, too.

  Church had a lot on his plate, was the point.

  Plus, Miller hadn’t walked away from the Krayevs unscathed, and Church would open a vein before he’d let Miller get hurt again. Even for Ghost. It would shred Church on the inside to make that choice, but Miller would win. It was right that Miller would win, especially considering that Tobias was here to handle the situation and was more competent than a baby rabbit, no matter what Church thought.

  He sent back: still no word.

  Technically, it wasn’t a lie, but he wasn’t proud of the hot, shameful rush of vindictive pleasure at being the one with information to withhold this time.

  Back at home, Tobias used the relative quiet to catch up on schoolwork. Actually, a more honest way to phrase it would be to say he spent a miserable couple of hours trying to catch up. He read the same paragraphs in his textbooks repeatedly before turning to his biochemistry study guide instead, only to stare at the words uselessly for twenty minutes.

  His phone rang, but the number wasn’t one he knew, and his pulse ticked up a speed. “Hello?”

  “Is this Tobias Benton?” Not Ghost. The caller was a woman, her voice tremulous and cautious.

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  Tobias frowned. “Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”

  There was the huff of a forceful exhalation in his ear. “Yeah, sorry. It’s me. Ashley Benton. Your, ah, your mother. Can we talk?” She paused, but it was tiny, little more than an allusion to manners, not that he could’ve summoned a response in that time anyway. He couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. “I just want to talk. Maybe it’s rude to call, but you weren’t responding to my letters and I... I didn’t know what else to do.”

  He stared at the wall. Listened to her breathe. Tried to breathe himself. “What do you want?”

  “Just this. To talk to you. To...maybe get to know you.”

  He shook his head, remembered she couldn’t see it, and said instead, “Why?”

  She didn’t respond for a minute. Then, “Because you’re my son. Because I... I love you.”

  “Are you—are you joking?”

  “Do you think I would go to all this effort to mess with you?” Ashley—he refused to think of her as his mother, absolutely refused—sounded affronted, and he found himself laughing.

  “I don’t know what you’d do. I don’t know you. I don’t know you because you threw me in the garbage. Your definition of love could use some work, Ms. Benton.”

  He was getting loud. He swallowed.

  It was a while before she spoke again. “I was sixteen,” she said quietly. “I was terrified and I’d just given birth alone and I had all these hormones...and I was sixteen. I know I did something unforgivable, and I’m sorry, you can’t imagine how sorry I am, but...”

  She kept going, but he wasn’t listening. His imagination had conjured up a picture a frightened teenage girl alone at night, an infant clasped in her arms, maybe still bleeding from giving birth in whatever motel she’d rented for the night so her parents wouldn’t find out. He imagined the panic she must’ve felt.

  Don’t think about that.

  “I lost more than half my life so far to prison,” she was saying. “And I know it’s what I deserve, and I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted nothing to do with me, but I can’t undo it if you don’t give me a chance. That’s all I want. A chance to make it up to you. That’s all I’ve wanted for years, it’s why I keep making these attempts even though your parents are—”

  Leaving aside his bewilderment that she thought she ever could undo what she’d done, that it was possible to make such a thing up to a person, his brain stuttered to a halt as she kept talking.

  “Wait, what? What attempts?”

  Ashley hesitated. “I’ve been trying to contact you for years, Tobias. Didn’t they—didn’t they tell you? No, of course they didn’t. Who’s the fucking perfect parent now?”

  Her words became aggressive, stabbing things in the space of a finger snap, and he tuned her out. It was easy; his heart was pounding so painfully loud that he couldn’t hear anything over it. He’d...he’d thought the letter was a one-time thing. That his parents had opened it, read it, and then decided not to share it because the contents would be poisonous for him somehow. It wasn’t an excuse, and it was still wrong, but he’d thought it was once. A rushed choice born of anger or fear, one perhaps regretted when a cooler head prevailed.

  But years?

  “I have rights,” she was saying, still too hard, still too painful. “Sure, she kept her word, huh, in the literal sense, but we both know she didn’t follow it in spirit, damn it, she knew why I wanted you to have my name, to keep me informed, and she fucking—”

  “I have to go,” he managed. It was getting hard to breathe.

  She stuttered to a stop, the air shocked between them, and then she rushed forward. “No, no, wait, I didn’t mean that, that’s not why I called, I just—I’ve been trying so hard, and this is the first time I’ve gotten through to you, and I can’t—I wanted to do something for you. I want to help or give you something, I want to make something better for you, I don’t care what, if you’ll let me, I’ll—it’s your choice, Tobias, not theirs, you can choose to—”

  She was right about one thing—it was his choice. Not his parents’, not Ashley Benton’s. And he chose to stop dealing with this before he had a panic attack.

  “If you really want to do something for me, don’t call me again. I’ve got your number, and I’ll—Don’t call me again.”

  “Tobias, please—”

  He hung up on her. He’d never hung up on anyone in his life, but he hit the disconnect button with his thumb with furious satisfaction. The world seemed to swim around him, going too bright and too distant, and everything inside him had gone bright and distant too. His fingers were trembling.

  He had no idea how much later it was when a knock came on his bedroom door and Papa said through it, “Come into my study, Tobias, I’d like to talk with you.”

  Before the call, Tobias would’ve had the same reaction he’d always had to one of his papa’s directives: the assumption that Tobias’s schedule didn’t warrant so much as a token question as to whether he was available would chafe, but he would say nothing because it was a tiny thing, and it would be ungrateful to raise a stink when his papa was going out of his way to help him.

  Now he felt a very strong urge to say words he’d never said to one of his parents before. The panic hummed under his skin, and he thought—still distantly, almost like the words were echoing in his skull—that he was on a precipice, that he was fragile in a way he’d never been before, and that he had to be careful, had to rope this in before he broke down.

  With numb fingers, he turned the knob. With shaky legs, he followed his father down the hallway.

  Andre Alcide’s tastes ran to the practical and meticulous, preferences never more on display than in his home study—the fastidiously organized and polished oak campaign desk, the thick oncology texts with their cloth bindings resewn at the first sign of fraying sitting on the shelves, the framed degrees hung in a line straight enough to satisfy a level. The only personal items in the room were the two paintings on the wall: one of a group of Haitian women in colorful skirts and blouses carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, and another of the Rada Loa hanging directly behind Papa’s chair. G
orgeous as it was, Tobias hated that painting—he couldn’t face it without thinking of countless lectures about school and ambition.

  Tobias’s father was thin and narrow. His skin was the color of acorns, and he had a sharpish chin and intelligent eyes with a propensity for disappointment. He was a man of high expectations—for himself, for his work, for the world at large, and it had resulted in considerable success for him. When he applied those high expectations to his eldest son, however, the results had to be far less satisfying.

  Tobias took a seat, every fiber in his body strung tight as piano wire, and Papa sat across from him, crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap.

  “I brought you in here to discuss your internship.” Papa’s gaze raked over Tobias. “But I see now that’s something for later. Are you all right?”

  This again. And again and again, it seemed. “How do you mean?”

  “You seem upset.”

  “Do I?” Tobias’s throat might’ve been lined with razor blades, the words came out so sharp.

  His father looked taken aback, but only briefly. “What’s happened? Are you all right? Has someone done something to you?”

  “Yes.” Something barbed and choking and vicious was rising within him. “You did.”

  His father’s gaze went flinty. His pupils expanded, and Tobias’s brain filled in the explanation for that absently—fight or flight response. Fear or anger triggers the release of adrenaline, and one of the side effects is greater pupil dilation to provide increased visual perception to aid in a dangerous situation. Nice to know his classes were good for something.

  “You’ll explain yourself now, please,” Papa said, voice as rocklike and heavy as his stare despite his calm intonation. That was the worst thing about his lectures, generally. He existed in a state of perpetual rationality, so that even a hint of anger or defiance seemed grossly out of place, and yet the whole time he gave off an air of dominance so strong that to do anything but obey seemed potentially catastrophic.

  It was so strong, in fact, that Tobias had yet to come across a more intimidating consequence in life than the disapproval of the man sitting across him. It seemed nonsensical, perhaps, that Tobias could love his papa, and know that he was loved in turn, and yet still dread being in Papa’s presence when he had to admit to some failing—when he’d gotten lost on a shopping trip as a small child; when he’d broken his arm falling from a tree when he was eight; when he’d come out to his parents at eighteen, so tempted to apologize that he’d had to press his palm against his lips to hold it at bay. And while his parents had accepted his homosexuality with gradually increasing pragmatism over the years, he’d never quite forgotten the potency of his fear when he’d first begun explaining. His hands had trembled so much that he’d been forced to sit on them.

  Now he waited for that familiar dread to overwhelm him, but instead he laughed. It filled the air, cutting as the crack of a whip and just as brief. He stood up and pulled the letter out of his back pocket. He dropped the stained, ragged thing on the desk between them so the address faced upward.

  “How long has she been trying to contact me?” he asked.

  Papa stared at the letter like it was an insect crawling toward him. “You don’t have all the facts.”

  “That’s an unfortunate side effect of being lied to.”

  “We had good reasons to keep her from you.”

  “Until I was eighteen, maybe.” Tobias spun the letter with one finger. “It’s a federal crime in this country to keep mail from someone, did you know that?”

  His papa finally looked up, aiming the full weight of his disapproval at him. It rolled off like soap bubbles, gone in a flash. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not criminals. We’re your parents. We do what’s best for you.”

  “That’s not for you to decide anymore!” Not once had Tobias raised his voice at his papa, and certainly not like this, with every muscle in his body coiled, with such volume that he heard Manman exclaim down the hall.

  Papa had gone still, his eyes two burning holes in his face. “You were fragile back then, Tobias. And there are things about your adoption that you don’t know—”

  “You mean the part where she threw me in a Dumpster, right?” Tobias asked, and Papa’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widening, and it felt so good to finally get a reaction. “Yeah, I know about that. I’ve known since I was ten, when Tante Esther let it slip.”

  Tante Esther was much younger than Manman, hip and bold and adored by his siblings, but Tobias’s relationship with her had always been rocky. Even now, almost fifteen years later, he wasn’t sure if she’d told him the truth about his adoption because she felt he deserved to know or if she’d simply been carelessly cruel. Not that it mattered at this point.

  “Esther,” Papa muttered. “Of course.”

  “I looked it up on the microfiche at the library afterward and read all about the case. And I—the thing is, I understand that. You didn’t want a kid to know that he’d been treated like garbage, and yes, I was angry at the time, but I understand it. This—these lies, for years, even once I was old enough...this I don’t understand.”

  “Tobias,” Manman said from behind him. He turned, and the letter must’ve become visible, because her confused gaze dropped to the envelope and went hollow with clarity. “Oh, Toby.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said quietly, and her expression twisted. He refused to feel guilty.

  “You protect family,” Papa said stiffly, and Tobias turned back to him, surprised at the response. It was so obvious, wasn’t it, that they’d done wrong? But perhaps not, and Tobias considered for the first time that the reasonable expression in the older man’s eyes wasn’t reason at all, but rigidity.

  “You’re not sorry.” Tobias couldn’t believe it. “You lied, and you’re not even sorry.”

  “You don’t understand—” Manman began.

  “No, you don’t understand. There is no explanation that makes this okay.” Now Tobias had yelled again, leaving them both staring at him, and he didn’t care. He didn’t want to try to calm down. He never would’ve managed it, and besides, this anger was both pleasurable and warming—he wanted to keep it. “You’re liars. This isn’t protection. This is control.”

  In the ensuing silence Tobias could hear Ruby crying in the living room.

  “You can’t behave like this around your siblings.” Papa climbed to his feet, and it should’ve been a sign of his impatience, a minor aggression even, but it wasn’t. Andre Alcide, for the first time in Tobias’s life, appeared small. “You absolutely cannot speak to me this way.”

  “No?” Tobias reached down and picked up his letter. “You keep forgetting that I’m old enough to do what I want.”

  Papa’s spine straightened, his gaze hardening. “While you’re here, as a member of this household, there is a standard of behavior, young man. I understand that you’re upset, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to handle it. You owe your best to the people who love you, to your dignity, and to your responsibilities.”

  And like that, Tobias was done. He was just...done. He tuned his father out and headed for the hall, gently edging his mother out of the way. In his room, he grabbed his backpack, dumping it upside down over his mattress so that everything spilled out. He shoved his laptop, his allergy pills, and a couple T-shirts and changes of underwear inside, not bothering to close the drawer again. He grabbed his wallet and his toothbrush and everything else that his shaking hands could grasp. After a brief hesitation, he picked up his textbooks as well.

  When Tobias shut his door behind him, his parents were in the hall, Manman begging with her eyes, Papa watching with his mouth flat and stunned.

  “I’ll come back for the rest of my things.” Tobias pushed past them, still gentle, because he couldn’t hurt them, not like that.

  Ruby was downstairs on the couch, her face sc
rewed up tight as she sobbed, her cheeks wet. Mirlande was beside her, rubbing her back, watching Tobias somberly. He sank onto the cushion beside Ruby, tugging her into his arms. She clung to him.

  “I love you,” he said. “So much. I’ll call you. Tell the others I’ll call them too, okay?”

  “Toby,” she gasped, shoulders heaving, and he kissed her forehead and peeled her hands from his waist.

  “I love you,” he said again. To Mirlande, he murmured, “Call from your cell if you need me.”

  She nodded, her hand landing warm on his forearm to squeeze once.

  “Tobias,” Manman choked out. “Wait, please.”

  He could sense Papa on the stairs watching, but Tobias didn’t look at him or say anything to either of them.

  He left.

  * * *

  The motel room smelled like cigarettes and wet dog.

  Tobias sat on the orange and blue duvet, his backpack beside him because he didn’t dare risk bedbugs by setting it on the floor, and stared at the blank screen of the television. The crickets were calling on the other side of the window. It was too warm; he should get up and turn the air-conditioning unit on, assuming it worked. But in a minute. He needed a minute. Right now he needed to sit on his hands until the urge to break something passed.

  He expected to feel guilty, but he didn’t. He felt wired. Like he was on one of those amusement park rides that spun and spun until the centrifugal force seemed on the verge of flinging you in to the air. Terrifying and thrilling at once.

  He needed something to do. Needed...something. Weirdly, what came to mind then was that strange moment on the sidewalk when Sullivan Tate had praised him. The feeling that rose in him at the memory was unfamiliar. He worried at the sensation, picking it apart, trying to understand, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He thought he liked it, though. It was warm and electrifying.

  He did know the name for what he’d felt when Sullivan stood next to him in the cramped dark, his warm breath puffing against Tobias’s ear and jaw, his mouth almost close enough to brush Tobias’s skin. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on that shivery feeling at the time, what with the bad guys who might be the same Krayevs from eight months ago in the other room.