by Trina Solet
"Dinner. Oh, no. I can't eat," Mr. Morton said, shaking his head.
"That's fine as long as you had lunch," Leon said pointedly.
Mr. Morton looked up at him guiltily.
"I can just order something simple you can eat without even taking your eyes off those files," Leon told him. "And you might need coffee too."
Instead of arguing, Mr. Morton sighed in defeat. "Thank you," he said then he frowned at Leon. "You missed dinner too. Order anything you like and put it on my credit card." He handed the card to Leon.
Leon ordered in from a nearby sandwich place – a roasted vegetable sandwich for himself and turkey for his boss plus two salads so it would seem more like a proper meal. He took in the food when it arrived. Pulling out the salad and the turkey sandwich and setting them on Mr. Morton's desk, Leon lingered. Then he sat down in the chair opposite from Mr. Morton and unwrapped his sandwich. It was a bold move, but Leon decided to risk it.
"You probably didn't mean for me to eat it here, but I have a feeling you won't eat a thing if I don't keep you company." It seemed wrong to Leon to leave him alone at a time like this and in the midst of this heavy, dark furniture with the rest of the office deserted.
"I appreciate..."
"How many times have you gone over the files?" Leon asked to cut off any arguments.
"I haven't been counting." Mr. Morton eyed the files, the look on his face both anxious and forlorn.
"Taking a break will help you take a fresh approach to things. Always helped me when I had trouble with stuff at school or figuring out my first tax return," Leon told him.
Mr. Morton took up his sandwich and leaned back.
"You and your brother must have been very different," Leon said to give Mr. Morton an opening in case he wanted to talk about him. He had noticed the difference in the pictures in the file. Mr. Morton's brother seemed carefree, unshaven, with a loose stance and a cocky grin. In one photo he had a leather jacket slung over one shoulder and an arm around a blond in tiny shorts and halter-top while they both leaned against a yellow sports car.
"True. He was the wild child." Mr. Morton smiled sadly.
Seeing him like that, Leon realized that his impression of his boss had been turned on its head. From guarded and cold to distraught, Mr. Morton had showed him a more human side. Leon only wished it wasn't over such a tragedy. But Mr. Morton was still quiet and reserved, not a sports car and leather jacket kind of guy, and not someone who spilled his guts. Leon was surprised he could get him to reveal his heartache. While sitting with his boss like this, he felt like they were under a spell and he didn't want to do anything that might break it.
Chapter 3
Wild child, that was Tony. Looking back at him over the years, Phillip could see that little boy screaming and running around their back yard. At five, he was trying to climb the fence. Phillip pulled him down only to end up in a wrestling match with him on the grass. He loved causing trouble.
So restless and eager to explore, Tony always wanted to go where he shouldn't and climb too high. Quiet games didn't interest him. They never managed to play a single board game without it dissolving into chaos with pieces everywhere.
It wasn't fun for Tony if it wasn't crazy and loud. Scrabble was a game of how many bad words he could sneak in. Bedtime and bath time were war. Tony had to be hunted down and cornered before he would surrender.
"You were the good boy," Leon guessed.
"You could say that. That's why we clashed once Tony got older," Phillip admitted. "We lost our parents when Tony was twelve and I was sixteen."
Phillip remembered how that late evening turned into a late night with him and Tony home alone, waiting for their parents to return from a party. Then there was a knock on the door, but it wasn't their parents.
They left in their fancy clothes, trailing the scent of Mom's perfume and never came back. As he had listened to the news of the car crash that killed them, Phillip touched his cheek. His mom had kissed him at the door before she left. Maybe his cheek still had a trace of her lipstick.
To bring himself out of the abyss of that dark moment, Phillip continued speaking. "Moe and Franny Massimo, friends of our parents' became our foster parents. They were an older couple with no children. Moe and Franny were the ones who came to tell us our parents had died. They had been at the same party. They were still wearing their party clothes as they delivered the news with pained faces. Tony told them straight out that they were lying. He refused to accept that our parents could be gone just like that. After that it was as if Tony never forgave them for being the bearers of bad news. Franny and Moe were such good friends to our parents. I can only imagine how hard it was for them to tell us."
"Not as hard as it was for you to hear it," Leon pointed out.
"But when you are looking at a face of a child..." At the mention of a child, Phillip trailed off. He picked up the thread of what he was saying like he was grabbing for a lifeline. "They were really good to us, but Tony was pretty difficult. No matter what they did, he accused Franny and Moe of trying to take the place of our mom and dad. Whether they were kind to him or strict, it was the same story. While they tried to reach him, he was always pushing them away. I think he was afraid of losing the connection to our parents."
Tony treasured every scrap of their former lives. He was devastated when their house was sold. "Why don't they just tear it down?" Tony had asked angrily. "Why does everyone want to erase them?" He couldn't be reasoned with. He only became more difficult as he got older.
"When he started high school, Tony expected more independence, a lot more. He wanted to stay out all night with his friends. When Moe and Franny put their foot down about that, he rebelled. Not only did he stay out all night, he didn't come home for days. That went from being a way to assert his independence and turned into a habit. He always came back home eventually in those days. By then, I was away at college and he often stopped by to see me."
At unpredictable and inconvenient times, Phillip had found Tony waiting in front of his dorm or wherever he was working after classes. They would grab something to eat and walk around. Tony would talk his ear off about everything he had been up to and how old and unreasonable Franny and Moe were.
If a cool car drove by, Tony would stop in mid sentence and mid step and stare, entranced. Any parked sports car would get a close inspection. He had a way of looking at a car both reverently, like a man in love, and critically, like a serious aficionado. He'd show off his knowledge and rattle off some facts for Phillip's benefit.
"I wanted to be his safe haven. I wanted him to know that he could come to me no matter what," Phillip said. He just wished it had been enough to anchor Tony and keep him from doing anything too crazy.
"Sounds like you were close," Leon said.
"In some ways. But that didn't mean that Tony listened to me. I would tell him to be more considerate to Franny and Moe, and he would tell me, 'I can't sit at home every night. I have to do my own thing.' It was all harmless fun until one night he stole a car and went joyriding. It was sheer luck that he escaped serious charges. But what about next time? I could see him spending his future in prison if he didn't end up dead. He didn't know how to slow down. It's like he was never afraid, so I was afraid for him, terrified really." Phillip remembered how fear had gripped him. He couldn't lose him too. "After the joyriding incident, I reacted rather strongly, told him he was ungrateful to Moe and Franny. I asked him, 'Do you think Mom and Dad would be proud of you for acting like this?' I just wanted to get through to him, to protect him from himself. He wanted his independence so badly, but I told him he couldn't be trusted and I was transferring schools to come home to watch over him. 'Don't bother because I won't be there,' Tony said then he stormed away."
They were both angry. Phillip hoped he hadn't meant what he said. "Whenever he stayed out after a fight with our foster parents, I always worried that he might run away for good. Every time he talked about going off somewhere for a taste of fr
eedom, I was able to pull him back. That's why I tried not to fight with him so I could keep him grounded when he wanted to fly away. The next day after our fight, I got a call. 'I'm on a bus and I'm not telling you where it's going. I'll call you when I get somewhere good.'" Phillip stared off into the distance as he repeated his brother's words. He looked out his office window as if Tony might still be out there somewhere, always running farther away. Stars and city lights winked in the distance as the world sank into an even deeper blackness.
"You must have looked for him," Leon said and brought him back to the present.
Phillip turned to face him but kept his head down like there was a weight on his neck. "I did but I couldn't find him." Even when Phillip had a good job and the money to hire private investigators, it got him nowhere. Tony was difficult to track down, moving all the time. Only a few sporadic phone calls, sometimes months apart, kept Phillip from thinking the worst.
Their separation had been painful to bear even when Tony was alive, not getting to talk to him for months. "He did call me from time to time, usually around Christmas. Each time I let myself hope that he might be ready to return. Tony always hung up before I could talk him into coming back. Tracing the calls didn't do any good. Tony was always long gone."
"It sounds like you tried your best to be there for him," Leon pointed out.
"But maybe if I had taken a different approach, he might have come back, or maybe he wouldn't have left. If I had been more understanding." Phillip shook his head before the "what ifs" could take hold of his imagination and break his heart all over again.
"He lived his life the way he wanted to, didn't he?" Though he didn't know him, Leon was right about that.
"He did. It was always his dream to go out there in the world, somewhere where there was no one telling him what to do." Tony's eyes would shine when he talked about it. "I would just go and never stop. See every place you can drive to." He dreamed of the freedom to go anywhere he wanted, do anything he wanted. Most of the time that meant driving too fast and taking too many chances. "He was living dangerously and it caught up with him. I was called to identify the body." Phillip stopped, clenched his jaw. He fought against the memories and just kept talking, but not about that terrible phone call or what he saw at the morgue. "And I saw his wrecked car. According to the police, Tony had won the pink slip in an illegal race. A beautiful machine once. Bright red. It was a mass of twisted metal, a killing machine. It killed my brother, flipped and mangled him." Phillip shut his eyes tight against the painful images of his little brother dead and alive. His fists closed around the pages of the file still spread out on his desk.
"I'm so sorry," Leon said in a kind, hushed voice that barely seemed to disturb the silence of the deserted office. He cautiously placed his hands over Phillip's and gently pried them open so he wouldn't crush the papers.
Phillip opened his eyes. As he looked into Leon's sad, hazel eyes, he felt so confused for a moment. Was he looking at the past or the future? He was seeing his own pain reflected but there was something more. He wasn't sure what he saw there besides endless compassion before Leon let go of his hands and Phillip's vision cleared. Taking a deep breath, Phillip felt as if merely taking in a lungful of air hurt. It seemed impossible to just keep living.
No. Even if he didn't know how, he would keep going and find out if Tony's child existed. But right now, he had to get a hold of himself and stop taking advantage of his employee's kindness.
"Thank you for staying and listening to me, but you should really go home now," Phillip put just enough firmness into his voice so that Leon would know he should listen.
Leon got up. He made sure that Phillip didn't need anything more from him then he left. Once he was gone, the office seemed more forbidding and empty than before. It echoed with voices from a long time ago. Surrounded by so much gloom, Phillip almost regretted sending Leon away, but he really shouldn't have kept him so late in the first place.
He wished that he had realized sooner that it was past Leon's quitting time. It was a miracle he realized it at all. Phillip was so immersed in following the trails of Tony's search for his child. He might have gone on like that all night if Leon hadn't pushed him into having dinner. Asserting himself like that, his new assistant surprised him. He had seemed so listless his first day on the job.
It had certainly been a strange day. Phillip hadn't planned to have his unenthusiastic, new assistant handle any of the matters relating to Tony's possible child. But when he arrived at his office, Phillip felt like he might collapse under the strain of grief and that tiny hope that Tony's child was alive out there somewhere.
With Leon right there and ready to help, Phillip gave up some of his natural reserve. He just needed to lean on someone a little bit until he regained his equilibrium and could stand on his own two feet.
He never thought he would tell him about Tony either. Something about Leon made the words spill out. Tony came alive again, talked a mile a minute, got fired up over every new thing. Phillip's eyes fell on the name in the file – Tony Mortoni – and he remembered Tony's face when he saw the family tree their grandfather had drawn up decades before.
It was a thick, rolled up paper yellowed with age. The lines of ancestry had been made very straight and at the top, instead of Morton, it read Mortoni. When Tony saw that, he was ecstatic.
"Hey! Check it out. Our last name used to be Mortoni then some idiot in the early 1900s changed it to Morton," Tony said. "Oh, man, Franny and Moe will get a kick out of this too."
"I was going to show it to them next," Phillip told him. He was the one who had found the family tree.
"Ha! My name is Tony Mortoni. Tony More Tony." He laughed. "Come on. It's priceless. I'm changing it back. You should too. Phillip Mortoni. That sounds way cooler. Do it, man. We'll be the Mortoni brothers. It will be awesome. Do it with me. Come on."
It still made Phillip smile to think of that. It reminded him of all the times Tony tried to draw him into some scheme. Tony was always looking for an accomplice, but in Phillip, he only found an overprotective, older brother.
Tony would get so excited, talk fast, grab Phillip by the shoulders. It was like he could move mountains just by the force of his will. But his enthusiasm never lasted. He always moved on to something else – another project, another girl, another car.
After years of it, Phillip knew not to take him too seriously. He expected Tony would grow out of it, stop doing crazy things and settle down. Maybe he would have one day. He might have been a dad to that kid and maybe many more. Now only one little life might exist, all that remained of Tony, and that's why Phillip had to find Tara West and her child.
If only he had known sooner, he could have helped Tony find them. But Tony didn't come to him. The gulf between them always seemed to be widening. Phillip's stuffy existence was as alien to Tony as Tony's rootless life of thrills was to him. No matter how far apart they might be in outlook or physical distance, they were still brothers.
Phillip looked over at the mostly uneaten sandwich that Leon had gotten for him. Tony never left food on his plate or anyone else's plate either.
"You gonna finish that?" he would ask if Phillip so much as paused between bites.
He could hear him say those words then start stuffing his face with whatever was on Phillip's plate. He was so real and alive but only in Phillip's memories. Tony would never again pick food off his plate but refuse to get a second helping.
"Nah. I'm good," Tony would claim, talking with his mouth full.
Phillip couldn't come to terms with the finality of losing him. For years he held out hope that Tony might one day show up on his doorstep, maybe ask to sleep on his couch. He didn't know how to stop expecting him. He didn't know how to stop hoping that every unknown number on his phone might be Tony calling from God knows where.
All Phillip could do was bury himself in this search that Tony had sent him on. He took up the files from Mr. Poller, and he pored over every useless detail.
Phillip didn't think he could sleep at all, but he fell asleep at his desk. He opened his eyes as pale sunlight filled his office. Everything looked gray. For a moment he was disoriented.
Where was the green grass and the back yard fence that leaned over and fell when Tony tried to climb it? Phillip blinked away bright colored dreams of Tony as a child, and stood up from his desk on unsteady feet.
In the early dawn hours, Phillip headed home to shower and change. It was close to the start of the work day. People would be coming into the office soon, and Phillip didn't want his new assistant to find him still at his desk and start worrying about him again.
*
From sitting across from Mr. Morton then driving down nighttime streets, Leon had gone to his small, one bedroom apartment. All that time his head was filled with Mr. Morton's voice and the secondhand vision of what he had and what he lost. Leon had been lost in his eyes, yearning to reach across that desk to comfort him.
That's why he spent all night dreaming about him. Now it was morning and time for a cup of coffee and a reality check. Standing in his living room full of thrift store furniture, a makeshift bookshelf and a sagging couch, Leon tried, but he couldn't really imagine what it would be like to be with a man like Mr. Morton. He closed his eyes and put himself in Mr. Morton's arms, strong as steel, wrapped around him tightly while Leon looked into those kind, sad eyes.
Damn, but his boss's pain got to him. Leon wanted to shout to him, "I'm here." But what could he really do – not give him back his brother, not erase whatever he blamed himself for. Maybe he could offer him some kind of sexual distraction. Sure he could if he didn't have a meltdown as soon as a guy touched him.
Just as well that a relationship between them was out of bounds since Leon's sexual history was so scant. Failed dates, close encounters that went nowhere – Phillip Morton might turn into another one of those. And then Leon would be mortified and want to quit a job he barely started.
