by Harlow James
Shayla’s eyes find the floor as I’m sure she recalls that day. “When she told me she was your wife, all I could think about was my mom. She warned me that you had skeletons, that I shouldn’t trust you. And literally a week later I find out you were married. You have to understand what that did to me, Wes.”
I reach for her hand. “I do. And I’m so fucking sorry. But I swear, it’s over. I don’t want her. She was jealous that the man I’ve become is someone that you get to be with, when she wanted me to be that man all those years ago.”
“How long were you married?”
“A little under two years by the time the divorce was final.”
“Was she with you when your grandfather died? I mean, she obviously knew where his house was.”
“Yes. But by that time, we were separated. It wasn’t a fairytale marriage, Shayla. And it sure as hell wasn’t anything like what you and I have.” I tilt her chin up with my thumb and forefinger so she can see the sincerity in my gaze.
“Okay. So explain the boy and the woman. Tell me what I saw a few days ago.” She pulls away from me, as if erecting a shield between us, preparing to be slaughtered by the rest of my truth.
I take a deep breath and then begin. “The day my divorce was final, I was anxious to celebrate my freedom from Trinity, and no one was more thrilled about that than my father. He was already salty about the fact that he wasn’t named the heir to the company, but when I fucked up and married a girl after knowing her for such a short time, he insisted it was reason enough that I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of being CEO. But when I came to my senses and Trinity and I decided to divorce, he was more than supportive.”
“I wanted to tell him in person and I knew that he was up here in Santa Barbara taking care of a few items with my grandfather’s estate—at least that’s what he told me—so I made the drive up the coast to see him. I planned on visiting my grandfather’s grave and having a drink with him too, even though he warned me toward the end of his life that I needed to get my head on straight. But on my way up here, a buddy of mine called and we made plans to meet up later instead so I could get plastered and celebrate my divorce in style.”
“Was it Hayes?”
I shake my head. “Contrary to what you might think, Hayes actually was encouraging me to stop drinking by that point. He saw the path I was headed down and saw the writing on the wall before it happened.”
“Okay. Go on.” She sits up straighter as I lean forward, bracing my hands on my knees, recalling every detail of that day vividly.
***
Santa Barbara. This place used to be a sanctuary for me. Now it’s just a reminder of memories with my grandfather that I’ll never get again. I turn down State Street, passing by McConnell’s Ice Cream just as a pang of guilt hits my chest.
I’ll never get ice cream again with Gramps. I should have taken him here one last time.
With my teeth clenched to fight off tears, I signal to turn on the street up ahead, waiting at the traffic light when a familiar face on the side walk catches my attention.
Dad? What the fuck is he doing here? In the middle of the day? With a woman and her—kid? He’s supposed to be at the house, not having a lunch date.
I watch them speak, sensing a serious conversation taking place as the little boy colors a paper on the table and my father and the woman converse with one another, their necks stretched out as they lean forward over the table so they don’t have to speak loudly, I assume.
Well, since the bastard is right here, I might as well get this over with so I can get back to Santa Monica in time to get shit-faced at a reasonable hour. I find a public parking lot just down the street and pull my Aston Martin into a spot far away from other cars. No need for my baby to get messed up.
I trudge back up the sidewalk to the restaurant on the corner, noticing my father move to stand while the woman holds the boy in her lap. The kid can’t be more than three of four, maybe? What the hell is he doing talking to her?
“Dad!” I call out as he spins around and takes me in. His face registers shock as I close the distance between us and land right in front of him.
“Wes? What the hell are you doing here?”
I grin up at him before glancing down to the woman and her kid. “I was in town and just wanted to let you know the divorce is final. Trinity and I are officially done.”
“Good, son. That’s—that’s great.” His eyes bounce back and forth between me and the lady still staring at us.
“Wesley Morgan,” I say reaching out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Oh. Lydia James,” she replies, returning my handshake. “And this is my son, Nolan.”
“Nice to meet you kid.” I bob my head at him as he stares up at me.
“You look like my dad,” he says as his eyes dance between me and my father. And that’s when the reality of the situation I walked up to all clicks.
“Your dad?”
He nods. “Yeah. That’s my dad.” He points at my father, Paul Morgan, the man who’s done nothing but belittle me for my life choices in the past few years and now hates me because I was granted a responsibility that he wanted, but low and behold, seems my father has his own choices to be held accountable for.
Fury rolls through me while I reign in my reactions to this news. “Nice,” I say as my heart pounds and my anger builds. “How often do you see your dad?” I ask, glancing back at my father as I take a seat at the table, planning to milk this kid for all the information I can gather.
I feel my father’s hand clutch my shoulder in warning. “Wes.”
Glaring up at him, I shoot him my own warning. “Excuse me, I’m trying to have a conversation with my brother,” I grit out.
“Please, Wes. Don’t make a big deal about this,” the woman chimes in, taking my attention away from my dad.
“I’m not making a big deal. Although, maybe you should be. Do you even know who he is? Who our family is?”
“Yes, I do. And I also know that it’s not the worth the circus it will bring to mine and my son’s life if word gets out about this. So I beg of you, leave this alone.” I see a mother staring back at me, fighting for her child’s safety and normal life—and in that moment, I can’t help but revere her. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to deal with the pressure that comes with this god forsaken name.
“Okay,” I agree, moving to stand. But we’d better get out of here then before we cause more of a scene.”
Lydia, Nolan, and my father follow me back to my car as I prepare to say goodbye.
“Mommy, look at his car!” Nolan shouts as his eyes gleam with appreciation for the powerful machinery in front of him.
I crouch down to his height so I can see it from his perspective. “Pretty cool car, huh, Nolan?”
His head twists to face mine, his smile, and eyes so pure, not yet tainted by the chaos and pain that can occur in life. “Can I go for a ride in it? Pretty please?” he whines as I look up at Lydia and my dad.
“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Lydia mutters in that suspicious way only a mother can insinuate.
I drift my gaze back to Nolan just as my father chimes in. “Well, if Wes takes him, you and I can finish talking on the way back to your house. It is just up the road.” He shrugs as Lydia contemplates his suggestion.
“We do live close by,” Lydia explains. “Are you okay with this?” she asks me.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” my dad adds. “Plus Nolan will have a blast riding in that thing.” He directs his attention back to me. “Do you mind taking Nolan to Lydia’s house and we’ll meet you there?”
“I guess. But you and I need to discuss a few things too, Dad,” I grate out as he swallows and nods in agreement.
I turn my attention back to Nolan, the kid whose eyes are filled with hope and excitement. And for a moment, I remember what it was like to be young and unaware of all of the shit that comes with growing up—the responsibilities, expectations, and
decisions that have to be made whether you like them or not.
I smile over at my half-brother, a kid I never knew existed until about fifteen minutes ago. “Sure. I can do that.”
“Yes!” Nolan shouts, vibrating with excitement.
Lydia retrieves his booster seat from her car, and then I help him in the back seat, buckling him in safely. She tells me her address and I type it into the GPS app on my phone before I shut the passenger door and then glare at my dad. “Don’t think you’re off the hook here.”
“We’ll talk later, Wes. I promise.”
I slide inside of the car and fire up the engine, pulling out of the driveway and back out onto the street, knowing the sooner I deal with this mess, the sooner I can drink it away.
“Does this car go really fast?” Nolan asks as we cruise along a few miles over the speed limit.
“It sure does.”
“Can we go faster?”
I glance at his face in the rearview mirror, his eyes turned to watch the city fly by out the window. After surveying the traffic around us, I realize it’s fairly quiet for this time of day, so I rev the engine and then press on the gas pedal, speeding up the road as we hit green light after green light.
“Yes! This is so fun!” he yells in the back seat, giggling as I roll down the windows and let the breeze come in, whooshing past us as I gain even more speed.
I have a little brother. My father has another kid, with a woman that isn’t my mom. My grandfather is dead and I’m supposed to be the boss now.
What the fuck is happening? How can life get any more complicated?
I guess Gramps had a crap shoot to choose from when it came to who was going to take over and he picked the lesser of two evils with me—although I’m not sure either decision would have been the right one as this point.
I wonder if Gramps knew about Nolan? Or did my father keep that detail from him as well to protect his ass? How is this going to work? What the hell am I going to do with this information now?
No. This kid is not your problem. Just drop him off and forget about this. You have a couple bottles of vodka waiting for you to drown in and you can pretend this day never happened.
As a barrage of questions pummels my mind, I take one more glance in the rearview mirror and watch the young boy casually take in the moment. Maybe he has the right idea. Enjoy the ride and hope that you end up where you’re supposed to be.
My eyes stay focused on him though when they should be on the road. But as soon as I drop them down, something hits us out of nowhere—an impact on Nolan’s side of the car that leaves the sound of crunching metal and his screams on a soundtrack that plays over and over again in my mind for years to come.
***
“Nolan suffered a SCI, short for spinal cord injury, paralyzing him from the waist down,” I explain after I retrieved some tissue for Shayla. The both of us shed a few tears as I recounted the accident, the aftermath, and learning about Nolan’s injury.
“I injured my own brother, Shayla. Took away his ability to walk. All because I was reckless and just wanted to drop the kid off and get to a party so I could get plastered.”
“Wes,” she says as I stand from the couch and start pacing. “So is that why you’re building this facility for him? To help him recover?”
“There is no recovering for him, Shayla. He’ll never walk again. He’ll never run, or play sports like a normal kid. That’s the physical reality. But mental recovery is just as important and is something that constantly has to be worked on, kind of like battling alcoholism. There are days where I feel impenetrable. And then there are days like today where I buy alcohol for the first time in six years.”
She watches me silently, so I keep talking.
“The facility will be like a rec center for kids like Nolan—kids with physical disabilities as well as mental ones. It’s meant to be a sanctuary for him and kids like him, somewhere they belong and can participate in activities adapted for their physical limitations.”
“Were you showing it to him the day that I saw you?”
I nod, and then hang my head. “Yes. I told him when I reconnected with him and Lydia shortly after I returned to Santa Barbara. Coming here was about making amends, Shayla—cultivating some good out of a choice I made that caused so much harm.”
She stands and then walks over to me. “What you’re doing is remarkable for him, Wes. That boy—the way he looked at you?” She shakes her head. “He looked at you like you were his superhero.”
Tears sting my eyes from her words, the ones that have more of an effect on me than she’ll ever realize. “I’m no superhero, Shayla. Just a man trying to make up for his past.”
She places both of her hands on my cheeks, forcing me to look into her eyes. “It was an accident, Wes. And it was also a wake-up call, one that apparently you needed. At least you’re trying to bring something positive out of this situation, and the facility will help more kids than just Nolan.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I move around her and sit back down on the couch, mentally and emotionally drained after revealing everything.
“Can I ask you something?” she says, taking her seat back as well.
“Of course. I don’t want to keep anything else from you ever again.” I reach up and trail my fingers down her cheek, feeling lighter just from her presence.
“Why now? Why come back now and not years ago?”
I sigh, knowing that this is the hardest part to explain. “The police department in Santa Barbara kept the details of the accident under wraps since one of the cops on scene was a friend of my grandfather’s, so the media never really found out about it. And believe me, money can hide a lot of things. About a week later, I got so plastered from the guilt that I got pulled over for a DUI. It provided a logical reason for me to enter rehab, and really was the last straw anyway. I was set to take over the company in a matter of weeks, and certainly couldn’t do that without being sober.”
“Why did your grandfather leave the company to you and not your dad?”
I sigh, contemplating that reason myself. “I’m not exactly sure. But I know their relationship had been strained for years. Gramps always felt that my father didn’t understand how hard he worked to build the company and took his upbringing for granted. A part of him felt guilty for not being around more when my father was younger and instilling the same work ethic in him that he did in me, even though he ultimately hired him to work for the company but never truly gave him a ton of responsibility. I think part of the reason he invested so much time in me was to make up for his shortcomings with my dad. And even when I turned to alcohol, he kept telling me that he was proud of me, that I would be successful one day, which just drove me to drink more because I felt like I was letting him down. Then when he died and we found out about his decision, my father took out his fury on me, and our relationship turned sour until the accident.”
“It was like, now all of a sudden, you two had this secret to keep for each other, huh?”
I nod. “Exactly. My father busted his ass to come up with some plan to appease the board for delaying the takeover, effectively covering his ass as well and keeping Nolan’s existence from getting out. Apparently while he was in Santa Barbara, Lydia and he were making a plan to limit visitation for a while since the media was having a field day with my imminent takeover. And Lydia wanted no part of the circus. My dad told me he was thinking of severing ties with them completely just so it wouldn’t be a problem ever again.”
“He was just going to abandon his son?”
“I guess, but my father was desperate to keep his indiscretions hidden. Seems when he would come up to visit his dad, he was visiting Lydia as well and then she got pregnant. The only other people that know about Nolan are Hayes and Waverly, but my father doesn’t know that. I’m the one that told them.” I had to. I needed someone to confide in and I wanted them to know how important it was that I came back here.
“After I got out of rehab and was sob
er for the first time in over a year, the last thing I wanted to do was draw more attention to me and any tie to what happened here, so I stayed away. I focused on the company and keeping my head down low, but I kept in contact with Lydia, checking up on Nolan’s recovery. I paid for all of his hospital bills and a new home that was better suited for his needs. But I couldn’t bear to see him, see the reality of what I’d done, at least not while I was struggling to maintain my sobriety.”
“I can imagine.”
“But last year I was randomly going through paperwork in my office at home and saw a note that my grandfather had given me shortly before he died—before I was sober and wanted to listen to his plea to clean up my life. He would write to me toward the end, when he couldn’t talk anymore because the cancer had moved up into his throat. It said, “When you make a mistake, there’s only three things you should do about it: admit it, learn from it, and never repeat it. And if you can, turn it into something positive. Sometimes superheroes cause harm before they can do good, Wes. Do something good with your life.”
I feel tears in my eyes build again when I recall finding that note. “It was as if my grandfather were giving me a sign in that moment that it was time to own up to what I did and make something positive come out of it. I had a handle on my sobriety, or so I thought, and part of me knew it was time to come back. That it was time to face it all.”
“He was talking to you, Wes. He knew you needed this.”
I nod. “When I told Grace my plan to return, she and I started discussing how I could help Nolan and Lydia. I was in contact with Lydia as well, and the three of us came up with the idea for this facility. It would help having somewhere local where she could take Nolan instead of driving all over southern California for doctor’s appointments and supplies for him, and places that offered activities like we will. I started researching buildings that could be converted to follow all ADA guidelines, and the one we’re working on right now seemed like the perfect fit.”
“I want to see it,” Shayla says as she flashes me a small smile.
