Love Will

by Lori L. Otto

  Shea takes my hand in hers.

  “Who are they?” she asks.

  “My half-sisters,” I tell her, staring at their long pigtails as they blow in the wind, their backs to us.

  “You didn’t tell me, Will. I won’t use my…” she stammers. “Will, I won’t.”

  “I know,” I tell her, squeezing her hand, unable to take my eyes off the girls. One of them turns around–the older of the two. She stands up, brushing the dirt off her knees.

  “Who are you?” she says, scratching her arm. The younger one’s curiosity gets the best of her, and she cranes her neck to see us.

  “Ummm… is your dad here?”

  “He had to go to the store. He’s gonna be right back. Who are you?” she repeats herself.

  “What about your mom?” Surely they didn’t leave them here alone like this.

  The little girls are both standing now, holding hands, looking afraid.

  “It’s okay,” Shea says, letting go of me and squatting down to their level. “We’re here to talk to your dad. Is it okay if we wait here with you?”

  “You’re Laramie?” I ask, hoping I got it right. Max has talked about them in the past and Callen met them when he was here, but I never made an effort to get to know my father’s second family because I never thought I’d meet them.

  “I’m Laramie, and this is Harmon,” she says.

  “I’m Will,” I tell them.

  “My daddy’s William.”

  “I know.”

  “You look kind of like him.”

  I walk toward the sandbox slowly, cringing as I lean over to dust off the log that forms the edge of it, and then take a seat. “That’s because he’s my daddy, too.”

  “No, he’s not!” Laramie says, laughing. Harmon joins in.

  “He is, too. I pinkie-swear. Do you know how to pinkie-swear?”

  Laramie’s eyes widen as she nods her head and holds her tiny finger out to meet mine. After we latch our pinkies together, I do the same with Harmon, only I have to help her out. I think it’s her first pinkie-swear.

  “I’m your brother. Your oldest brother. You actually have two.”

  “Really?” Laramie asks.

  “Nuh-uh,” Harmon says, not understanding.

  “It’s true.”

  “He doesn’t lie,” Shea says, joining us.

  “Who is she?” the older sister asks.

  “This is Shea. She’s my girlfriend.”

  “But she’s black.”

  I can feel my nostrils flare as I inhale, angry at what my father has obviously taught her. “I’m sorry,” I say to Shea softly.

  “It’s okay.”

  “She’s just beautiful to me, Laramie. You don’t treat your sister differently because her hair is a different color than yours, do you?” I ask.

  “No,” she says, as if it’s a completely stupid idea.

  “Well, where I come from, we see skin color as the same thing. It’s just diversity.” Shea gives me a look. “They’re just differences. Things that make it so we all don’t look the exact same. So we’re all unique.” Of course race is much more than that, but I think I’m dealing with a five-year-old and a three-year-old, so I’m trying to relate as best as I can. “Don’t you think she’s pretty?”

  I get head nods from both of them. I’ll take that as a little progress.

  “Where do you come from?” Harmon asks me. “Are you from the moon?”

  “Yeah, Daddy tells us bedtime stories about a boy named Will who lives on the moon.”

  My stomach drops as I lose my breath. “He does?” I ask them, looking at Shea and trying to steady emotions I hadn’t expected to creep up. “What does he say about this Will on the moon?”

  “That he’s really smart and reads a lot and he lives alone and he’s lonely and he can’t find his way back home, so he looks for ways to travel to all the other planets,” Laramie says.

  “He used to have a little brudder named Max,” Harmon adds, “but an alien took him away.” Her bottom lip juts out, a genuine frown appearing on her face. I’m sure it matches mine. How dare the asshole have my brother abducted by fucking aliens!

  “That’s why Will’s lonely now,” the older sister says. “He wasn’t always lonely.”

  “Do you like the moon?” I ask Harmon as her attention shifts toward the sky, her eyes squinting to shield her sight from the bright sun. She nods her head enthusiastically. “I do, too. I study the sun and the moon and the planets, but no, I’m not the boy from the moon. I’m from New York.” I wonder if I should tell them their other brother is named Max, too, or if that will ruin the bedtime stories they seem to love.

  “Like Daddy,” Laramie says.

  “Just like your dad.”

  “And your dad,” she corrects me.

  “Yes.”

  “Is my mommy your mommy?”

  “No. I have a different mother.” This concept seems to confuse her. “Your dad knew my mom a long, long time ago. Before he met your mom. I’m a lot older than you, you know…”

  The older sister’s face falls suddenly. “Are you here to take my daddy away?”

  “Oh, no no no, sweetie, no…” When she starts to cry, I look at Shea for guidance. She motions for me to hug her, so I do, patting her on the back. After Harmon joins in, clearly just mimicking her sister, I take her in my other arm and do the same.

  This is a situation I never–in a million years–saw myself in. Shea smiles at me encouragingly.

  “Who the hell are you?” The gruff voice startles me, but is a welcome sound to my sisters.

  “Hi, Daddy!” they call out to him, letting go of me and waving from across the yard.

  I hold Shea’s hand and stand up to face him, my heart racing and my mouth dry. I pull my girlfriend into me closely as his eyes narrow in recognition and I sense how unwelcome I am here.

  He touches his left eyelid, clearly pointing out the bruised eye and stitches. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh? And here I thought you’d made somethin’ of yourself.”

  I choose to ignore him. He doesn’t deserve an explanation. I study his appearance to see how he’s changed since the last time I saw him. He’s put on weight and grown out his facial hair. He looks healthier. He looks happier… but he still looks mean as hell to me. Laramie was right. I do look like him, but the anger that I can physically hide is etched into his face.

  “You came all this way and got nothin’ to say to me?”

  “I don’t even know where to begin, to be honest with you.”

  “Can’t do no better than a colored girl?”

  I look at her, my jaw taut and teeth gritted. “If you go with the girls behind the house, I’ll take care of this. I just don’t want them to see me go ballistic on his ass.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” she says. “Don’t stoop to his level.”

  I take a few deep breaths, trying to figure out my next move. I decide it has to be something defiant, so I place one hand behind Shea’s neck and the other arm around her back and pull her into me, putting all the love I have ever felt into this one kiss, making sure my point is clearly made. I think she knows it’s not just for show, and she returns the embrace.

  “Girls, go get the water hose,” he says.

  He is even worse than I remember or imagined he would be. When we break apart, I walk up to him and take his plaid shirt in my fist, standing about three inches from his face. We’re the exact same height.

  “If you’d like to refer to my girlfriend, you can call her Shea, but nothing else. That word was fucking archaic before you were even born. How much effort did it take you to work that into your vocabulary, huh? How much hate do you have in you to think that’s worth your while?”

  “If I were you, son, I’d get your hand off’a me.”

  “I’m not your fucking son,” I say, pushing him back as I release him. I keep my voice low as I speak to him. “If you’d like to address me, you can call me by my name. As for you, i
t’s just gonna be asshole from here on out, so if you’d like to protect your daughters’ innocent ears, I’d suggest you send them in the house.

  “But who am I fucking kidding? I learned all the best words from you–surely they’ve heard them all already.”

  “I’m a changed man, Will.”

  “I’m sure you are, asshole.”

  “Girls, what did he say to you?” he yells to his daughters, keeping his eyes trained on mine in a staring contest I’m intent on winning.

  “That he’s our brudder,” Harmon says.

  “Is that true, Daddy?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “He can’t very well be your brother if he ain’t my son, so I don’t guess it is. I’d say the man’s a liar… and a trespasser.”

  “You act so tough, like you don’t want me here, but I know about the bedtime stories you tell them.” He flinches and shows his weakness. That little bit of knowledge gives me so much power, because now I know that anything I say actually does have the ability to affect him, and if I’m lucky, hurt him. “Do they know about your past, asshole?” I ask him. He doesn’t respond, which is a good enough answer for me. I turn toward his daughters. “Hey, girls! Do you know what jail is?”

  “Yes…” they say together.

  “Will…” Shea says, taking steps toward me. “What will that accomplish?”

  “It’ll make me feel better.”

  “It will scare them,” she pleads with me.

  “Are you from jail?” Laramie asks.

  “Me?” I ask her, then laugh, looking at their father. “I’ve never seen the inside of a jail cell. No. Never been arrested. In fact, I have never. Even. Committed. A crime. What about you, asshole?”

  “Nope, me neither.”

  “Oh, you son of a bitch. You think you can just move to a whole new state, start going by one of your fucking aliases, raise an entirely different family, and live some fairytale life that belongs to someone else? You think you can get away with that?”

  “Been doing it for years. Yeah.”

  “Except now I know where you are.”

  “I did you a favor this summer by hiding that faggot for you, and I never said a word,” he tells me.

  “Another word only cretins and uneducated fuckwits use. And I wish I’d never asked for your help. It’s my fault you cut off contact; not Max’s. You never would have known Max was gay if I hadn’t sent Callen here in the first place.” I push my hand into my ribs, purposefully bringing on pain to distract myself from tears that lie just under the surface.

  “What do you want, Will? Why did you come here?”

  “I owe it to Max to tell you what a piece of shit you are. You stopped taking my calls, and you deserve to know how much you hurt my brother. No matter how many times you missed his birthday, or forgot to come on the weekends, or call when you promised you would, that boy gave you the benefit of the doubt and made fucking excuses for you every damn time. He was determined to prove to me that there was something good inside you. He couldn’t wait to prove me wrong. He doesn’t remember how you would denigrate our mother every opportunity you could. Any time she was weak enough to let you in the front door, the happy reunion would only last for about ten minutes before the abuse started. He never saw you when you were stoned out of your mind, in a full-on brawl with people who were your best friends hours before.”

  I remember how Max cried the night this man told him not to call anymore. How he’d crushed his spirit. How his eyes lost a little of their fire that night; fire that has never returned. How I felt partly responsible for that.

  The self-inflicted pain isn’t working anymore. My eyes start to water.

  “How did you find out?” I ask him.

  “The kid told me he was a close friend of Max’s. When he up and left, I asked Tonya to try to find out who he was… and he wasn’t hard to find. Carter McNare’s kid? That was big news. She told me about all the rumors, but I didn’t believe ‘em. Maybe that could be true of Jack Holland’s kid, but not mine. But then Max told them reporters he was gay, like it wasn’t no big deal. Just fuckin’ disgustin’,” he says with a grimace.

  “How could you do that to him?! Up until then, he only knew how to love–to love unconditionally–and you stole that beautiful quality from him.”

  “Someone else fucked up how that little fairy loves. I had nothing to do with that.”

  His reflexes are quick and he’s strong as an ox, so he catches my arm before I can punch him. His daughters squeal in protest at my attempt to physically attack their father.

  “I’m guessing nobody taught you how to fight. You gotta have an element of surprise. I saw that comin’ from a mile away.”

  “I’m sure you learned in jail.”

  “Don’t bust up your hand, Will. I know you play guitar. Have a little sense and stop being so hot-headed. Words never hurt nobody.”

  “You are such a dick. Your derogatory language is Paleolithic, at best, and it just shows how much better off we were that your narrow-minded ass was nowhere near us growing up. Max is already so much more a man than you will ever be. And your homophobic and racist comments do hurt people, and the fact that you’re teaching them to your little girls is disgusting to me. You want them to grow up to be just like you? Is that the bar you’re setting for them? You want me to have some sense?”

  I turn around and walk back to Shea, whispering in her ear. “Go talk to the girls and teach them my name. Teach them Max’s name. Teach them Jon’s name, too. I want them to know how to find us, should they ever want to.”

  “Okay.”

  I walk over to my father intensely and stand so that his back is now facing his daughters. I speak quietly to make sure they don’t hear me. “If I let common sense guide me, I’d call the authorities right now, have you arrested, and take those girls back to New York with me, where they’d be guaranteed to have a better life with so many more opportunities and exposure to diversity that children their age should have. So are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “I don’t like you makin’ these kinds of threats, son.”

  “Will!” I yell, correcting him. “It’s awful to know that you had anything to do with my existence, but now that I’m older, it’s nice to know I owe you nothing for that. It’s nice to know how little effort a man actually puts into it in the first place. No child owes an absent father a god damned thing.

  “You know what the best thing is? Knowing that you can’t have any more kids. Knowing that the ‘Rosser’ name ends with you.”

  “What, did you go and change your name, too? You’re a grown man. Shit, you’re already making a name for yourself,” he says with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, and I don’t want history books to give you any credit for anything I do with my life.”

  “So you took the last name of a man who didn’t even want his own son?” he asks, referring to Jon’s father. It’s not a lie. When he’d found out our mother was pregnant with my oldest brother, he’d initially asked for an abortion. Once Jon started learning things, his dad found a way to connect with him, and they had a unique bond until he passed away when Jon was a teenager.

  “No different than you, though, right?”

  “If Max had made different choices, and you hadn’t sent a homo to live with me in my house, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  I shake my head at him. “I think you’re wrong. I think this day was inevitable. And we took the name of a man who wanted his brothers to succeed in life, despite the odds that were stacked against them at fucking birth. So thanks for that.”

  “You gotta get over that anger, Will. With me? With your mom? It’ll kill ya.”

  “This is me getting over it. I’ve forgiven Mom. We’re good. And you? This is it. I’m writing you off. Tonight, you can have aliens abduct me, too, so you can forget about me, as well.

  “But I’ll find a way to keep an eye on those two,” I say, pointing to Laramie and Harmon. “I can’t say what’s be
tter for them: not having a father at all or having you as a father. I know Max and I were fucked either way, but you say you’ve changed. I’ll take you at your word. That’s the only reason I’m not turning you in today. I don’t want those girls going through a life even half as hard as what we had.”

  “Thank you,” he says simply.

  “I would recommend expanding your cultural horizons, though, and eliminating the hate speech from your vocabulary. Those girls need to be learning about art and historical heroes and math and science–not your antiquated racist, sexist, homophobic beliefs. If that’s how you understand that Bible you used to quote to us, I think you need to find a better translator. Right now, the only god that’s got your back is keeping the furnace going downstairs–since I know you believe in that sort of thing.

  “Get right with yourself. Fuck. Get right with the world, and don’t do any more damage to children you’ve put on this planet. It took me twenty-four years to get here. Max is just starting to deal with the turmoil.

  “Good ol’ ‘Rosser legacy.’ What a way to make your mark on civilization.” He doesn’t have anything to say to me, and I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t care or if he just has no clue what to say.

  “Want Laramie and Harmon to end up like you? Or like me? I’ll just leave you with that thought.” I turn around and pull my hands into my stomach to hide the shaking. Shea’s sitting on the edge of the sandbox, still talking to my sisters. I stop next to her, leaving no space between us. She puts her hand on my calf muscle and moves her thumb up and down.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Will J. Scott.”

  “And your other brother?”

  “Max Scott.”

  “And who’s their older brother?”

  “Jon Scott.”

  “And where do they live?”

  “New York City.”

  “That’s enough girls. Go in the house,” the asshole says.

  I bend over as best as I can, my arms outstretched for hugs from each of them. “When you look at the moon, think of me,” I tell them as I envelop them in my grasp. When Harmon pulls away, she has a look of awe and surprise on her face. I nod and smile. “I’ll do anything for my sisters, okay? Travel to the ends of the earth for you. Always remember that. No matter what anyone else says.”