by Chase Potter
Alex makes no move to push me away, and I don’t particularly want to move either. But somehow I find the willpower to get up. “Call me soon,” Alex says as I prepare to leave.
I swallow hard because I know that I will. “Okay.”
Chapter Ten
Nine years earlier
I pull my not-quite-new car into the driveway of my dad’s place. The grass is overgrown, and I know better than to park anywhere except in the middle of the gravel driveway. Broken glass and rusty nails lurk all over this yard. The old push mower we had would hit them with a crunch before spitting them back into the grass.
Sweat collects on my face from the moment I leave the air conditioned comfort of the car and survey Dad’s house. It’s about ten years overdue on every sort of home maintenance. The shingles are curling, the siding is disintegrating, the trim is rotting, and one of the front steps has actually collapsed. It never used to be quite this bad when I lived here.
The man holding the screen door open has more gray in his hair than I remember, but other than that, not much has changed. The sun is roasting, and I don’t wait any longer to cross the yard.
“You’re late,” he grumbles.
“Sorry. You have something going on later?” I ask. If I’m extra nice, he might actually ask how I’m doing.
“Nope.” He moves past me to the fridge, and I notice the back of his white t-shirt is wet like mine. “Beer?”
“Sure. Since you know, I’m actually of age now.” I’m twenty-three, so mostly that’s a joke.
He bends over to peer into the fridge before handing me a can of Bud Light. “Never mattered to me if you were.”
I feel a familiar pull toward frustration, but I ignore it. Getting pissed at him and storming out of here can’t change any of the things that happened years ago.
“Sit down,” my dad says. It’s not really an offer.
I do as he says, and after setting my beer on the card table he keeps in the kitchen, I pull back on the top until it opens with a crack and a hiss. My dad sits down across from me and takes a long drink of his beer. His white shirt is stretched over his gut as it rests against the edge of the table. I look away and take a drink.
My gaze gets caught on a pair of eyes peeking around the corner of the living room. They belong to a little kid, and I nearly choke on a mouthful of beer. My dad is nowhere on the list of nice people who should have a young child living with them.
“Who the hell is that?”
The man’s jowls stretch as he turns to follow my stare. “Damn it, Carson. I told you to stay in your room.”
The little boy flinches at the order, but he refuses to move.
“Carson?” I say the name slowly. “As in, my half-brother Carson? I thought he lived with his mom.” Which is why I’ve never actually met him before.
Distracted by my question, my dad ignores Carson’s disobedience. “The bitch dropped him off for the summer. I’ve had him since the end of May.”
I frantically do the math in my head. “He’s been here for ten weeks? What does he do when you’re at work?” I demand.
My dad shrugs. “Same thing as you when you were a kid. Stay home. Except he listens even worse than you did.”
Memories dump into my mind, and my stomach fills with a nauseating fear as I remember what my dad used to do when I didn’t listen well. “Carson, buddy,” I call softly. “Come on over here.”
“Matthew,” my dad warns me.
I shoot him a look that says back off. He might have been able to control me when I was twelve, but he’s nearly an old man now. I have no qualms about hitting the old son of a bitch if I need to.
The boy comes slowly around the corner. Every window in here is covered by blinds, and my eyes strain to see him. His steps closer are even more tentative as he gets near and finally stops in front of me. He’s wearing a pair of plaid shorts that used to be cute but are now covered in stains, and his shirt is equally messy.
That’s all an afterthought though, because he has a dark patch on the side of one eye.
Rage boils over so fast that I don’t think to check my language in front of the boy as I turn my voice against my father. “What the hell is that bruise from?”
“Look, Matt. The boy is a little shit. Through and through.”
Carson sniffs, and when I look at him, his eyes are bright red and he looks like he just got hit all over again. I can hear the tears in my voice when I speak again, and I hate that even after all this time, I still can’t hide my emotions from my father. Weakness, he would call it.
“He’s my brother!” I shout, and in that moment I can’t tell if my anger is for Carson or for my own broken childhood. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
“Half-brother,” my dad corrects me, and I could fucking kill him. He stares me down and I stare back. “What is it, Matt?” he demands. “Do you want him? You can have him. He’s a goddamn pain in the ass is what he is.”
Before he’s even finished speaking, I’m out of my chair and kneeling in front of the boy. I bring my hands to his sides, holding his arms. “Carson, listen to me.” I’m fighting to keep my voice clear. “My name is Matthew and I’m going to take you with me. Is there anything you need before you go?”
He sniffs again, and a tear slips from the edge of his eye. It slides down his cheek, but halfway down I nab it with my thumb.
“My bear,” he barely manages to get the words out through his tears.
“Okay, Carson,” I tell him. “We’re going to get your bear, and then we’re going to go. All right?”
“All right,” he whispers.
Without waiting another second, I pick him up. It’s obvious now that he really needs a bath and that makes me feel even worse as I carry him to his room. Just like the boy it belongs to, it’s a mess and doesn’t smell very good. A child’s mattress lies on the floor in the corner of the room, and the sheets have come off one of the corners. His bear is sitting on top of the pillow. I grab it, and now we’re moving quickly, out of the bedroom, through the living room and kitchen and out of the house.
The screen door slams shut behind us, but I don’t look. My footsteps pound across the yard of broken glass and rusty fucking nails, and I’ve never been so angry in my life. Angrier than I ever was when my dad used to hit me. I don’t know if that makes sense, to be more upset about something when it happens to someone else, especially someone I don’t technically know. But still I am.
My father wrecked my childhood, and I’m not going to let him do that to anyone else. Especially someone who shares my blood. Half of it, anyway.
Opening the passenger side door of my car, I strap Carson in.
Before I’m in front of the wheel, my father yells from the front door, “Never trust a woman who says she’s on birth control!”
I slam my door and start the engine, and it whines as I back down the driveway. I don’t look back at the house or the broken man standing in the doorway, because I’m never coming here again, and even one more look is too much.
As I pull onto the road I dial a number on my phone. It rings twice and then a familiar voice answers.
“James,” I say quickly. “I need the best custody lawyer you know.”
* * * * *
Like a metallic horizon, the steel bar stretches from one side of my vision to the other. And just above that line, staring down at me, is my brother Carson. His hands are poised in the air, ready to help.
Lowering it evenly, I let the bar lightly touch my chest, and then I push. My hands grip the bar even tighter, and my arms and chest tense with the effort. The small of my back rises an inch off the bench, my butt presses against the padding, and the bar begins to rise.
“You got this, Matt,” Carson says, his voice cool as his hands rise with the barbell. I grunt and force my body to work harder. This is the last rep of my third set, and every muscle fiber is burning with exhaustion. Still the bar continues to ascend through the air.
At its apex, Carson grabs
the bar and pulls it back onto the rests. “That’s a new max for you.” He sounds impressed, and I like that.
I lie there, chest heaving, and I manage to get a single word out between my breaths, “Yeah.” My forehead is threatening to bead up with moisture, and I wipe the back of my wrist across it.
“All right, scoot.” Carson waves for me to get off the bench. He still has his own third set to do, but he’s my little brother, so he can damn well wait. More out of principle than anything else, I lie there another ten seconds before getting up.
Carson shoots a look at the wet pattern on the bench, and he wrinkles his nose. “God, you sweat a lot.”
I shrug. “Deal with it.”
He grumbles something as he lies down, but I don’t bother trying to guess. With teenagers, it’s best to just ignore some things.
“So you want me to take off, what, a hundred?” I ask.
He glares and I smirk.
“Try fifty.”
After I’ve lightened up the bar, he starts his set. My brother is focused, but my mind insists on wandering. Unbidden, it finds the past and the memories I never visit. Carson is four reps into his second set and going strong when a question weasels its way out of my mouth, “How much do you remember about when you lived with Dad?”
Carson’s face is already tense from the workout, but the flicker of irritation is unmistakable, and a moment later, he drops the bar back onto the rests without finishing his set.
“Why would you bring that up in the middle of a workout?”
The floor sways beneath me, and somewhere in my chest I can sense the beginning of regret for bringing this up. “Sorry,” I say quickly. “I’ve just been… thinking about it lately.”
My brother stares up at me, his face upside down from my perspective. It doesn’t make it any easier to understand his expression, which can be tough to read at the best of times. Carson sits up on the bench and turns to face me, and the gym’s soft music bumping in the background is suddenly too loud. He crosses his arms over the front of the tank top I bought for him when we started working out together three years ago.
“Why?” His expression is hard but his eyes are not.
I take a seat on the closest bench, and he turns to face me. “I just…” I trail off before finding my words again. “I know we’ve never talked about it.”
“So why now?”
The truth is that I’ve been carrying around pointless anger for years, and that until a couple days ago, I didn’t realize how good it felt to get even a little of it out. But I’m not about to tell Carson that my emotional release was with a guy, and I’m sure as shit not going to tell him that it came on the coattails of a physical release that I’m embarrassed to even think about.
Between a lie and the truth, I find a middle ground. “I’ve been really angry with Dad for… a long time. And I don’t think that kind of stuff just goes away on its own. I don’t want you to have to go through that too.”
Carson sighs, and the tank top falls with his shoulders. His words come out softer than I expect, “I don’t remember all that much…” his voice fades as a guy walks past on his way to the dumbbell racks.
“Nothing?” I guess it’s possible he could have blocked it out.
He swallows hard. “I remember being miserable until you showed up.”
I’m caught by a sudden swell of emotion, and my words grow thick. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Carson’s eyes cloud, his lower lip trembles, and everything in my chest drops a few inches as I realize he might be about to cry. His voice is husky when he manages to say, “You’re the one who got me out of there.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t still be sorry,” I say quietly.
Carson stares up at me from the bench, and I see myself in him. I wish that neither of us had to go through what we did. Especially him. But more than anything, I’m upset that I waited so long to talk to him about this. Maybe I wasn’t ready, but that’s a shitty excuse.
* * * * *
Carson is quiet the whole way home from the gym, but I know better than to push the subject with him. He watches the city whizzing past, and I watch him — the way he clutches his gym bag to his chest, and the way he doesn’t ever seem to look back at me. Digging around in the past can be painful, I understand that. Hopefully he just needs some space.
The moment I pull into the parking space beneath our building and turn off the engine, Carson tells me he has homework to do. Then he’s out of the car and walking toward the elevator.
I want to talk to him again about our dad, but now isn’t the time. Unmoving from my seat, I take out my phone instead.
“Hey, you,” Alex answers after two rings.
His voice is all it takes to draw me away from my foray into the past, and my grip on my phone relaxes. “You… uh, free sometime this week?”
“Not really.” He sounds apologetic, and I can feel new worry starting to pile up inside me. Did I screw this up somehow?
“I kind of need to concentrate on work for a few nights.”
“Still that zoning thing you’re looking into?” I ask casually.
“Yeah, and other stuff too. I’ve been getting a bit behind, and I definitely didn’t get anything done the other night.” There’s a grin in his voice.
And relief in mine. “Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t be. I just need a couple nights to catch up.” He hesitates, then adds, “I even sort of stumbled onto a lead for that zoning thing.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah,” he sounds almost excited. “I felt like I was looking into everything for weeks and found exactly zero useful information. But this might also be nothing,” he finishes vaguely.
It feels like someone is stepping on my throat, but still I manage to say, “Um, neat.”
“We could hang out this weekend though?”
A sticky layer of anxiety covers my thoughts, and I give him an off-handed reply. “Sure.”
He holds his breath, trapping us both in a fleeting silence. “Promise you won’t disappear on me or anything?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice feels tight. “I promise.”
“I’ll check back with you in a couple days.”
“Perfect. See you.”
And then I’m alone and left feeling lost. Part of why I called Alex is because I wanted to ask if he had any insight on the issue with Carson. Not that they’ve ever met, and not that we’re close enough that I should even be sharing things that personal with him, but… I don’t have anyone else I feel comfortable talking to about Carson.
And instead of finding a life preserver, I got a bowl of shit. What the hell is that lead he’s found?
* * * * *
“Mr. Archer?”
I jump and my knees whack into the underside of my desk. The thud echoes inside the glass box of my office. “Jesus, Edith. You snuck up on me.”
“I’m an overweight smoker. I don’t sneak.”
“You’re… not unhealthy,” I argue futilely.
Her hand waves my statement away as she takes a seat at my desk. Glancing to the boxes of papers that have been separated out into stacks, she says, “I can help with filing, you know.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re actually volunteering?”
“I suppose I am. Please don’t expect it in the future,” she says with the hint of a rare smile.
I actually really like Edith, despite her typically surly temperament. There’s something calming about having a secretary that doesn’t get riled up by anything. But with this, I don’t want her help.
“That’s fine,” I say. “It’s rather… um, subjective how I’m organizing them.” Regular documents go back into the boxes, potential evidence goes to the stack by the shredder.
“Are you sure? Last chance, Mr. Archer.”
“Quite sure, yes.”
She folds her hands together, and her gaze wanders all around the office before she asks, “Why did you ask for me to come in?�
��
Oh, right. “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, Edith?”
Her eyes widen, and the hands folded neatly in her lap seem to tense. “I’m sixty. Just two years from retirement.” Clearly I’ve struck a nerve. “I would really like to stay at the firm until I retire.”
It takes me a second to catch her meaning. “Goodness, Edith. I’m not firing you.”
Worry falls from her shoulders and thuds to the floor. “Oh, good. I just about had a heart attack there,” she confesses. “I know I can be a bit of a hag, and now you’re doing all this filing yourself, and —”
“Edith,” I cut her off, trying to keep a straight face.
“Yes?”
“Don’t worry about your retirement,” I assure her. “I just wanted to know your age for a little project I’m working on.”
“Oh… okay.”
“That’s all,” I hint.
“Right.” She gets up and leaves my office.
Regardless of what happens, whether Alex sends me and James and God knows who else to prison, or if we all skip away from this wealthy and free, I want to have a plan for what happens next. Which might include shutting down my business.
But I refuse to screw over Edith by either forcing her to take a lousy job or be unemployed until she can start taking social security. Regardless of experience, I know it’s never easy for anyone to try to get back into the workforce for a year or two just before retirement. Especially for someone like Edith.
I find myself sporting an involuntary grin as I think about all the off-color comments she’s made over the years. Whenever we do part ways, I’m going to miss her.
Opting for my cell instead of my office phone, I dial up one of my lawyer buddies. It rings once before he picks up.
“Matt Archer, always a pleasure.”
“Likewise Tom. Question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“If my firm’s assets were seized, would severance agreements be paid out to the employees?”
Silence consumes the line. Then, he asks, “Excuse me, but did you just say in the event that Archer Development’s assets are seized? As in, government seizure?”
