by Sunniva Dee
“Yeah. And he told me stories about you too. Made it sound like you—Never mind.” I press a fist against my mouth like I’m thinking, but Mom senses my sadness the way she did when I was little.
“Shh, baby boy. I know your father. The truth gets twisted in his mind until it becomes what makes sense to him.” She doesn’t look at me as she flips us forward. Maybe her grudge is too raw on her face. She hides it well, or maybe she’s an angel.
The photo album is full of me, of Paislee and me, of Mom kissing me, smooching me. There are photos of me leaning away, pressing chubby hands against her chest to keep her from hugging me too tight. She laughs in them. The pages blur.
“Damn,” I manage, sniffling. “You liked me, huh?”
“Let’s just say you’ve been my favorite son ever since I got you.”
“Doesn’t take much. You only have one. Right?” I add to be sure.
“True, but that changes nothing.”
The album ends with a photo of me at six. My eyes are big and serious, and Paislee’s got her hands on my shoulders as if she’s making me stand still for the photographer.
“I knew I’d lose you here. Your father and I’d had a last big blow-up while the two of you visited your grandparents. This picture was taken right after I picked you up.”
“I look like I’m about to attend a funeral.”
“Yeah. Your mood used to reflect mine, and I was already grieving. I knew your father would take you with him. I never expected him to sever all bonds between us though.” My mother extracts pins from her bun, hair loosening further and forming around her face like Paislee’s. It’s weird how similar they are.
With an air-swat, she minimizes what happened, fingers lingering high before her hand drops to the comforter. “That was then. Now is now. You’re here, and you’ve grown into this handsome young man with… an interesting haircut.”
I laugh, and she smiles too. I lean in enough for my cheek to meet hers. It makes her sigh. It’s a happy sigh, I think, before I climb off the bed and straighten my clothes.
“Sleepy?” She sits up.
“I’m getting there, yeah.”
Mom slides off the bed, feet hitting the steps and backtracking her way down. Soon, I’m in her arms. She’s hugging me again, so many hugs today, making up for lost days and months and years. “Sleep tight, my little boy. I’ll see you in the morning, right?” A glint of insecurity flashes through her gaze.
“Deff. I’ll be your morning coffee-cook.” My mother used to like coffee. I hope she still likes coffee.
“Good.” Her pitch breaks.
We’ve got to stop this feeling-thing. I open the door, careful to not disturb Markeston next door, but as I exit, my burst-out comes anyway. “What did you feed me on those night-time snacks when I was a baby?”
She answers right away. “That’s my biggest regret. I didn’t know we would get you until a month prior to your birth, so I didn’t have time to prepare for you in the natural way. I could have induced lactation with hormones and such, but instead I had to stick to formula.”
She purses her lips in a tempered smile. “But me feeling guilty made it so that whenever you opened your mouth, I’d have a lukewarm bottle ready for you. And you, baby boy, never said no. I’m pretty sure it’s why you became such a chubberonski during the first months.”
In my room, I dodge messages and missed calls and go straight to Facetime. Nadine appears on my screen instantly, eyes too big for the time of day. “Did I wake you up?” My voice is not trustworthy tonight.
“Yeah, right. You knew I’d be waiting.”
“Hmm, I almost forgot about you.” I aim at a playful wink.
“What? You dick!” Her smile grows. “So your sister?”
My nostrils drip, so I wipe my nose. “Yeah?”
“She’s good?”
“Deff good.” My smile wobbles too.
“And your mom? Just dandy?”
I huff an overwhelmed laugh. “Crazy dandy.”
Though I’m tired, I can’t sleep so Sunday morning arrives quickly. Dad has tried to call, making a last ditch attempt at getting me to show up in South Beach for his heist. When I switch my phone on, I listen to a clipped voicemail that gives me an address and nothing else.
His text messages are five all together. The first is informative and short, of the kind only I understand. The last one was sent at two a.m. while I thought of nothing but Mom and Paislee and cakes and celebrations, and it’s the antithesis of the brightness that’s been filling me since I got here.
You bailed on me again.
Bail. The association to jail is automatic. Still, my father is nothing like Ryder and the guys with their stupid fingerprints up at the swamp hut. He’s an old fox, a lucky old fox, and the law will probably never catch up with him.
I get to the kitchen before anyone else. Apparently, we had a few fighters sleeping over too. One named Jaden pops his head into the kitchen, eyes red with lack of sleep and too many cocktails. “Coffee? Oh you’re god-sent. Can I grab some?”
“Knock yourself out.”
He does. Lifts his cup in greeting, and lumbers off again.
It’s only eight, but Paislee enters the kitchen next.
“Morning!” Her smile is wide at seeing me up. “I thought Mom would beat you down here.”
“Naw, I’m an early bird. Was going for a run, but now you’ve ruined my big plan,” I say.
“Oh sassy as always, huh?”
“Was I?”
She shrugs, beaming out a not really while she settles in with a coffee at the breakfast bar. She crosses her legs, the ball of a foot against the steel bar of the stool.
“How’s Keyon?” I ask.
“He took off at six, groaning over having to leave so early. He’d be lynched if he didn’t show by eight over at Alliance Cage Warriors.” My sister is funny. Over a decade hasn’t changed her sense of humor.
“So…” she starts. From her expression, this might not be comfortable. It’s the slow arch of one eyebrow as she glances into her cup.
“So?” I encourage, because I’m done being a coward with my family.
“What are your plans now that you’re out of high school?”
“Hardware.”
“Hardware?”
“Yep.”
Paislee’s face blanks. I shrug, fear of the future causing my scalp to tingle. “Well, I’d applied to a few universities and what have you, but I’m going to sit it out to work at Al’s.”
“How come?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, options. You’re young. Ready for life and all.”
“I was hoping for a football scholarship and didn’t get it.”
“Why not?” Confusion and interest mingle in her gaze.
“Because it’s competitive. There are so many great players out there.”
“Oh right, it’s hard to get good enough.”
My emotions flare. “No! I mean, yes, it’s hard to get good enough, but that wasn’t the issue. I got offers. But then I was injured and had to sit out most of my senior season. So yeah. That’s why,” I finish awkwardly.
“Whoa. So did someone tackle you or something?”
“No. It was just stuff with Dad.”
Paislee’s brows bunch together. “Is he violent now? I mean, I remember his temper. He’d yell at us, but I don’t recall him getting physical.”
“No, he didn’t hit me. I’d have just whacked him right back.”
Her eyes, so similar to Mom’s, glitter at me. “That’s not how it works. If you grow up with abuse, whether it’s physical or mental, it’ll take you a while to stand up.”
I breathe, void of answers.
“So what happened?”
“Dad and I were on an outing late one night.
” I cut myself off. The last thing Paislee needs is to hear about our father accidentally shooting me. “Yeah, and I got that, injured.”
“But how did you get injured?”
Right. This is the same Paislee who once found me at the bottom of a heap of preschoolers. We were fighting over a Yu-Gi-Oh figure, and Paislee dove right in and didn’t give up until she stomped off with both me and the toy. I don’t even think it was mine.
“If it was Dad’s fault, I’m making him pay,” she promises now.
“Yeah? What would you do? Go to Newbark and smack him in the head?”
Her expression darkens by the second.
“We shop for a living,” I blurt.
“Most of us work for a living. Then we shop.”
“Yeah...”
“You’re being cryptic, little rat. Spit it out.”
I rub my face with the back of my hand. Rest it over my eyes wishing for oblivion. But between my fingers, I glimpse my sister when I admit, “We rob houses. That’s what shopping means to Dad.”
“Who’s calling you?”
“None of your business.”
“Don’t talk to me like that. I haven’t raised you to be ungrateful.”
“I’m off to work.”
“There’re an awful lot of phone calls lately,” Dad shouts after me as I climb into the wreck. “They can’t all be from Bear and your girlfriend.”
It’s become increasingly difficult to live at the prefab. I keep quiet and to myself, but it’s like he can smell that something has shifted. In the meantime, Step-Cynth tries to smooth over the tension between us.
I roll down the window while I back up and stick my head out. “Who I talk with is none of your business.”
My father freezes in the doorway, but I back the wreck out of the driveway and speed off, the gravel crunching under my tires until he disappears from my mirror.
I wasn’t lying. I am going to work. But first I’m returning my sister’s call, then Keyon’s, and then Mom’s, because whenever we try to talk at the prefab, we’re cut short by my father.
It’s been two weeks since Tampa, and others’ plans for me have erupted and bred since then. Paislee didn’t listen when I begged her to keep my secret. She’s not going to the police about Dad, but only because it would hurt me, she says. It makes me feel guilty and unworthy—and yet there’s hope flapping in my chest now instead of anxiety.
Mom knows. Mom is mad. At herself for not fighting harder to keep me, and at Dad for dragging me into crime. We’ve had group convos with me calling from the playground and Mom and Paislee accepting in Rigita. My reality is on everyone’s mind, it appears, and it is baffling. In one call, even Keyon joined us from Tampa:
“Mom, stop blaming yourself,” Paislee said. “Dad procrastinated your adoption papers on purpose. He wanted Cugs to remain only his.”
“Yeah, I wish I hadn’t believed Dad’s version and reached out.” Not once have they reproached me for that, and I almost wish they did.
“Main thing is it’s over,” Keyon said. “You’ve finally reconnected, and now it’s time to focus on the future.”
Each time we group-talk, the regret repeats itself. We wish things had been different. We apologize. We tell each other there’s no reason to apologize.
“When do you think we’ll get over the non-adoption deal?” I ask now, on the phone with my sister.
Paislee giggles. “She’s a mother. She needs to learn how to numb herself to how wrong stuff went for you after us. But I’m working on her. By the way, you’re lucky you don’t have to deal with her mouth diarrhea, like, every day. She’s all, Blah-blah-blah over it. I mean kill me now!”
My chest inflates with happy-air, and my laughter is a Halloween mixture of comedy and tragedy. I’m slowly absorbing that there are two people on this planet I’ll love from birth to death and these two feel the same about me.
“Anyway, as soon as you get out of Dad’s house, things will get better.”
I have to hang up because it’s my turn in the McDonald’s drive-thru. I should save every penny, eat breakfast at home, but it was a bad morning with Dad in my face and I love Egg McMuffins.
I get a small coffee with my treat and park outside of Al’s Hardware. Ketchup from my hash brown smears on the phone. I lick it off while I call Paislee again.
“Cugs?”
“Yep, sorry I hung up so fast. I just wanted to say ‘have a good day.’”
“Aww, you too. Did you fill out the FAFSA?” she continues as if she hasn’t bugged me about it for days already.
“No, I haven’t decided yet. Why apply for student loans if I’m not sure?”
“You need to be sure. Look at me. I’m twenty-three, and I have no education. I quit after high school and went straight to the mirror factory.”
“That’s worked out well for you, though.”
“Not as well as you might think. If I had an education, I’d have a much easier time finding something to do in Las Vegas. I don’t want a casino job. You know what I mean?”
“But do you need something full-time? Keyon’s salary is good enough for you to just be in charge of your boss’ website long-distance, you said, right?”
“Whatever, Cugs. Just freaking don’t dawdle.”
I huff a laugh, because I haven’t heard that word since Gramps in Alaska. “Stop dawdling, kids.”
“Cugs, listen to me!”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Mom doesn’t have an education. She’s still a waitress at the same coffeehouse she worked for when you lived at home. Minimum wage. Not much in tips. She cleans the mayor’s house as an extra job, and that’s how she pays rent. Don’t you think she could have been better off? She wishes she could pay for you to get out of Newbark. She wishes she could pay for your education, Cugs, and she talks about that every day.”
I can’t find a reply while she breathes to overcome her emotions. I manage a gravelly mhmm of agreement.
“And what if our father had pursued an education past high school? College, vocational school, freaking whatever. He could have been a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter. Any sort of diploma would’ve kept him away from crime as a career.”
“True, but—”
“What if he’d studied law? He could have been a lawyer. How different would our childhoods have been if Mom hadn’t struggled to make ends meet? Ha, our dad could have ended up as the mayor of Rigita instead of Keyon’s dad. Mom could have been the first lady.”
“Keyon’s father is the mayor of Rigita?”
“Yep.” She laughs. “My BF’s parents now live at the Coral Mansion.”
“The pink palace we used to skate past?”
“Uh-huh, that’s the one. But don’t chatter us away from this. What’s your first choice? Gainesville, University of Florida?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’d love to play football, lots of it, and if I could do that with Bear, life’d be insane. Bear’s playing for the Gators,” I add as if it’s going to help me.
“So University of Florida. Great, and to take classes there, you need to apply for student aid.”
“I have nothing to show for myself, sis. I’m from the bottom of the barrel.”
She snorts. “You need to listen up: the thing about grants and federal student loans is that they’re there for you, much more than for the top of the barrel. Which makes sense, because the richies have college funds and we don’t.”
“Paislee.”
“Look, I’m not kidding. I know this because I’ve researched for myself. I’ll start taking classes in Las Vegas and work on a degree as well. And now I’m glad I’ve done my research, because—flippin’ put in for that FAFSA, little rat, and call me back after.”
“You don’t mean now, right? I’m in the parking lot for work.”
“Just s
tart it on your phone. This is your ticket to freedom.”
“Anything?” I ask Ben. As usual, he starts the day off by adjusting his uniform in the mirror. He’s happy with what he sees and gives himself a slow, one-eyed wink before he swivels to me.
It’s a morning routine by now, me asking how his job applications are going and him answering in less-than-exciting terms.
Today, he replies, “S’looking better and better.” Tipping his chin up, he grins and reveals a spot the razor can’t reach. Fine and long, the same cluster of hairs has remained between his Adam’s apple and jawline for the last week.
“Nice. So what’s the latest?”
“I’m in the top fifteen for a factory where they specialize in fish balls.”
Not sure what that is. Turns out I don’t have to ask, because over the next minutes, Ben proceeds to describe in detail the process of creating fish paste, then fish balls, then which parts of Asia and Scandinavia are obsessed with the dish. I zone out but wake up as he says, “I’ll have an answer tomorrow.”
“Damn, you could end up getting that job, huh?” The possibilities roam in my head. I could be offered paid work at Al’s Hardware. The salary would be enough to give me some freedom. I could save. Or move out of the prefab.
On impulse, I pull out my phone. Hold it above our heads and ask Ben to show teeth with me. He complies without a word, and I send the pic off to Nadine.
Former Tool & Paints employee, Ben, and me—new employee. Maybe.
She instantly texts me back. Good pic, but screw that.
What’s wrong with Al’s? I’ll send you our website.
B.S.
Her response is inconvenient and sexy. I think of Paislee talking about the FAFSA, of moving. Of being close to Bear and maybe even walk on for the Gators. My brain buzzes.
“You up for some heavy lifting?” Al’s bald head appears from behind the metallic paint shelf.
“Couldn’t be more ready.”
Pressure isn’t my strong side. It’s followed me for most of my life, and it tends to grow too big.
—Your father is stressed out. I hate to see him leave for jobs he’s uncomfortable doing on his own.
