by Sarah Remy
“To call your ma and let her know you’re not dead on a back road somewhere.”
Now he had to wiggle, a little. “She’ll just come right over and pick me up.”
She’d be all fire mad. And she’d probably cry again when she thought he wasn’t looking. The thought made Chris’s stomach hurt so he bit his lip and reminded himself that he was almost twelve, and twelve year olds didn’t get all snuffly at the drop of a hat.
“Then you’ll have to talk fast,” Everett replied. “Go and sit down.”
Chris trailed across the pine boards he’d helped his mom sand and into the parlor. The room was mostly empty except for a card table and two plastic chairs. Chris thought the furniture looked like it had been picked up at a garage sale.
His mom had furnished most of the big rooms. He thought maybe Everett could use some help decorating the smaller rooms, too, if the parlor was any example.
Papers covered the table in sloppy piles. A smooth little laptop hummed next to something that looked like a poster sized spread sheet. There was a calculator with about a million buttons, and the number in the window was big enough to need about an hour of long division.
Chris picked the nearest of the plastic chairs, and dragged it across the room to the hearth. He sat down, extending his feet to the fire, and closed his eyes. He sat as still as possible and waited for the sound of Everett’s return, but he’d forgotten his host was barefoot, and he didn’t hear a noise until Everett slipped into the room.
“I woke your mom up.” He didn’t sound very happy about it. “She didn’t even know you’d gone. She was ready to rush over but I told her to wait until she was clear headed enough to drive.” He collapsed into the other plastic chair and thunked his beer bottle onto the table. “So, you’d better tell me what this is about before she shows up and tans your hide.”
Chris studied his fingernails and groaned. “She’s really mad. Spitfire mad, ever since this afternoon. Ever since I told her I emailed my dad.”
“You run over here to avoid a whuppin’?”
“She doesn’t whup me.” Chris said, shocked at the idea.
“She might after this stunt.” Everett didn’t exactly seem pleased, but some of the lines in his forehead had softened. “You’ve made her feel pretty rotten, keeping this thing with your daddy a secret.”
Chris tightened his hands in his lap. “I thought maybe you could help with that. I thought maybe you could explain to her so she’d understand.”
“Me?” Everett widened those really green eyes that Chris had thought at first were colored contacts. “Why me?”
Chris thought about what he’d overheard his mom say about Edward and his son, and tried to figure out how best to say it without seeming rude.
“Because you were dirt poor, once, too,” Chris burst out, figuring maybe shortest was sweetest. “So you understand.”
Everett’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair. “You’re not dirt poor, kid. You’re got a nice warm house and good clothes and food on your table every night, and a mom who’s willing to pay for soccer lessons.”
Chris’s tongue wanted to stick to the roof of his mouth. He stared at his fists so he wouldn’t have to see the strange expression on Everett’s face. He rushed ahead. “But it wasn’t always that way. When I was little we were hungry all the time, and mom had to get our clothes at Good Will.”
He picked at a hang nail. “She came from dirt poor and I know she hated it. She says we’ve been really lucky but I guess she’s afraid.”
“Afraid?” Everett picked up his beer and took a long swig.
“Yeah. Of, like, going back. To the way it was.” Chris explained as carefully as he could. “She worries about it all the time. She wants me to go to a good college. And she’s scared about what will happen if her business doesn’t work.”
There was a crescent of dirt beneath one fingernail and he scraped it away. “Sometimes at night I’ll get up to use the bathroom, and she’ll be sitting at the kitchen going over bills. Sometimes she stays up all night long.”
Chris stopped and looked up. Everett propped his elbows on his knees, and stared back. “What’s this got to do with your father?”
This was the hardest part. Harder, even, than walking up the drive to a dark and spooky house.
“My dad’s rich,” Chris said. “He’s real rich.”
“He told you that?”
“No.” Chris felt the flush of embarrassment rise along his cheeks. “No, I don’t think he remembers I exist. But he’s a banker. In Richmond. And when I got his address off the internet I showed it to some kids at school, and they said it’s a real posh neighborhood.”
When Chris looked up to check his audience a second time Everett didn’t say anything. He just watched without moving.
“Anyway.” He took a deep breath. “I thought maybe if I wrote him, maybe. Maybe we could be friends, or something. And maybe he’d think I was smart and good at school. He’d see how great I am on the debate team, and I could show him some soccer moves and my report cards. And maybe he’d like me enough to help out a little with college. Since he’s rich, and all. And I’m his son.”
Still Everett didn’t say a word. And Chris was too afraid to look up again.
“I wouldn’t ask him for much.” He tried to talk quickly, before all the fluttering in his stomach made him sick up. “Not for a car or anything like that. Just enough so maybe Mom won’t worry so much. After all, he’s got a responsibility to his kid...doesn’t he?”
The last words were said with as much bluster as he could manage. Queasy with fear and embarrassment, he peeked up under his eyelashes, and saw that Everett was standing up.
“I thought maybe you could explain to Mom without hurting her feelings,” Chris said, more quietly. “Because you grew up together and she likes you, and she listens to whatever you say. You might make her understand. Without hurting her feelings about being poor,” he repeated the most important point.
Everett walked around the plastic table, and stared into the hearth. “That the only reason you wrote your daddy? For money?”
Chris had thought up a reply to that one while he’d stood out in the rain hitching. Because he knew that, if Everett hadn’t asked it, eventually his mom would.
But he’d already told a fib once tonight, about taking a cab, and somehow he just wasn’t up to another.
“No.” He said, hardly louder than the wind outside. “Mostly, it was because of the money. But I wanted to see if I could make him like me. Not all the kids at school have dads, but those that do, they seem pretty nice. I guess a guy doesn’t need a father to grow up right, but sometimes it helps.”
“Sometimes,” Everett said, still staring at the flames. “But sometimes, kid, it’s just not meant to be.”
That wasn’t the answer Chris wanted to hear. But he was afraid, deep down, that it might be the truth. At least in his case.
Not meant to be. And twelve year olds didn’t cry over not meant to be.
Still, he had to glare into the fire himself to keep his eyes and nose from running.
Chapter Fourteen
CHRIS’S MOM BLEW INTO THE HOUSE with a bang and a clatter. Her footsteps sounded hard and loud in the front hall. Chris squirmed in his chair, and glanced over at Everett.
He stood still and straight in the middle of the room, one hand stalled halfway through scrubbing blonde hair, his eyes fixed on the door. His face was mostly blank, but Chris noticed the way the corners of his mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh. Or spit out an especially nasty cuss word.
Then Chris’s mom stormed into the parlor, and he saw Everett’s face change, just for an instant. His mouth stopped twitching and curved instead, and those weird green eyes went sharp as lasers.
Chris thought he looked a little like a pirate. Or maybe a soldier in General Lee’s army. Bright and fierce and ready for battle.
But Chris’s mom ignored Everett completely. She swooped across the room,
and the expression on her face made Chris clench his teeth tight.
Maybe she would whup him after all.
“Christopher Allen Ross.” She sounded gruff. From crying, Chris thought, with a twitch of guilt. Or maybe shouting. Maybe she’d shouted her way all along the James, practicing her scold.
“What are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?” She crouched in front of him, and he saw that beneath her meeting clothes she’d exchanged high heels for yellow rain boots. The ache behind his breast bone threatened to turn into a hysterical giggle.
Chris swallowed it down and shook his head.
“Because if that’s your goal, you’ve come mighty close. One more shock like this, young man, and I’m liable to be out like a light.”
Now her voice trembled. Chris glanced quickly at her face, trying to determine whether the quiver was anger or tears. On the whole he thought he’d prefer anger.
“I left a note. Right on the kitchen table.” He’d planned to keep quiet until she’d blown herself out, but he didn’t want to look like a jerk in front of Everett.
His mom snorted. “‘Be back in an hour’, it said. Not a word as to where you’d gone. And on a night like this!”
The fire popped and flickered, and for the first time Chris saw the smear of dried tear tracks across her cheeks. His heart lurched, and his stomach began to hurt again.
“I’m sorry.” He balled up his fingers until they hurt, and stared hard at the irons in the fire place.
“You will be.” She stood up all at once. Putting a firm hand on his arm, she tugged him from the chair. “We’re going home.”
This was when Everett was supposed to break in, settle things down, start to explain what Chris didn’t know exactly how to say himself. But the man remained silent, a shadow in the background.
“Wait-” Chris squirmed, and looked desperately back over his arm.
“Wait, nothing.” His mom snapped. She moved her hand to the small of his back, and steered him to the parlor door. “It’s past your bed time and there’re a few things to settle before either of us gets any sleep.”
“Mom!” Chris set his heels against the wood floor. He tried to catch Everett’s eye. “Just wait a minute.” He couldn’t believe Everett would fail him. Not after he’d just spilled his guts.
His eyelids pricked, and he took a deep breath, sucking back tears he was too old to shed.
“Abby.” They were two steps into the hall before Everett finally spoke.
Chris felt his mom stiffen. She paused but didn’t look around.
“You’re too het up to go, yet.” Everett crossed the room. “The kid’s practically in tears, and you’re too mad to see any sense. And the wind’s blowing so hard it’s like to tear my roof apart, let alone your ma’s old car.”
His mom let go of Chris so quickly he bobbled. “Your roof’s in no danger.”
Chris saw Everett’s mouth curve again, but his eyes stayed steady. “You know that, do you?”
“It’s forty year shingle.” She growled. Her foot tapped in a yellow rain boot. “And I walked every inch of it myself.”
Everett nodded. “Because you’re a careful woman, when you’re thinking straight.”
She huffed out loud. Chris almost closed his eyes in relief. Because that sound meant she was listening, even if she didn’t like what she heard.
Everett must have understood, too, because he seemed to relax some. He nodded at the chair.
“Let the boy sit back down. Give him a chance to consider what he’s done and whether or not he’ll get his butt blistered.” He waited, then leveled a look at Chris’s mom. “Come and help me start the coffee.”
She shook her head, but Everett’s hand drifted to her shoulder, and she froze.
“You’re still seeing crimson,” he murmured, quiet like so Chris could barely hear. “Once you’re calm you can go straight home. When I’m sure you can find the road past the blood in your eye, Abby.”
She huffed again, and turned to give Chris a freezing look. “Don’t you move from that chair. We are not nearly finished.”
For the first time in a whole day Chris felt the muscles in his neck unclench. He nodded, relieved. Because he knew Everett could make her understand.
“I’ll stay,” Chris promised.
Chris kept his promise for almost five minutes. Then the butterflies returned to his stomach and sent him tip toeing after.
“He’s a good kid.” Everett poured coffee into a mug. “Just a little mixed up.”
“You know what he’s thinking, do you?” Abby took the mug with a scowl. The steam wreathed her chin. “Because I haven’t got a clue.”
Chris, hovering in the shadows just outside the kitchen, held his breath. His mom looked angry enough to boil water. She took a sip from her mug, but Chris was pretty sure she didn’t even taste the coffee.
“I can’t quite figure out how you’ve suddenly become an expert in my son and what he needs.”
Chris winced a little. She looked mad enough to give Everett a tongue lashing. He worried that Everett would snap back and send her away. But the man only poured himself a cup of the coffee, and leaned against the counter.
“He talks to me.”
“Of course. He talks to you. Which makes perfect sense as you’ve only been in town four weeks. He makes you his confidant. And he refuses to talk to me, his mother of eleven years.”
Everett shrugged.
“I know. It’s some sort of guy thing. He talks to Jackson about sports. He talks to you about his feelings. He asks me what’s for dinner.”
“He talks to me about sports. And other things.”
Chris’s mom set her mug on the counter with a clunk. She brought her hands to her hips. “Fine. What is it this time? Drugs? Booze? You can tell me. I can take it.”
Chris’s mouth dropped open. He saw the glitter in his mom’s eyes, and almost ran into the room to reassure her. But Everett spoke first.
“It’s not drugs, or booze. I told you, Abby. He’s a good kid. He just wants to know his daddy.”
Chris waited for Everett to explain about the money, but he didn’t. Instead, he walked across the room until he stood next to Chris’s mom. Not quite touching. But Chris saw Everett’s breath puff her hair.
“I almost think you’d prefer drugs or booze.” He spoke so quietly Chris had to strain to hear.
“No.” She sniffed. Everett reached across the sink, and grabbed a paper towel. Abby snatched it from his hand, and wiped her nose. “Of course not. Though an ex football hero, investment banker daddy with a tall, blonde wife is almost as bad.”
“Only almost?”
To Chris’s surprise and relief, his mom laughed through her tears. Not a big laugh, but still, a real laugh.
“Sit down.” Everett pointed.
She hesitated, and then climbed onto a bar stool, pulling one knee up to her chest the way she did when she was unhappy. Like a pill bug, Chris thought. Curling up to hide.
“I’m having a party.”
“Of course,” his mom said in that stiff voice she usually used with clients she didn’t like much. “To celebrate my failings as a mother?”
Chris watched Everett cup his hand to the back of his mom’s head. She leaned back against his fingers, resting for a moment, and then she tucked her chin on her knee.
“Alright,” she said, sounding a little less scratchy. “I give. A party?”
“A company Christmas party.” He left her and opened the fridge, digging out milk. “Last year it was New York. The year before that, the Space Needle.” He poured a dollop of milk into his coffee. “This year we have a reservation at the Mauna Kea.”
“Hawaii? That’s some party.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Your check book will thank you, I’m sure.”
“I’m having it here.”
Chris watched his mom. She didn’t move, even when Everett added a splash of milk to her own cup. Then she shrugged. �
�Williamsburg is lovely in the winter, especially if we get snow. Not exactly tropical paradise. But CW does it up right with bonfires and holly wreathes and seasonal costumes.” She paused, “The hotels are probably all booked up by now.”
“Not a problem, because I mean to have it in this house. Which will need to be fully furnished. I’ll want caterers and wait staff. Valet cars back and forth between Richmond. Flagstones laid on the back lawn, and heaters, and a tent for seating. We should have rooms set up to sleep ten, twelve if possible. Not everyone will want to stay in Richmond for the week.”
