It was now or never. Nathan couldn’t miss Franny’s show. She needed him. Liam needed him. Pastor Fry would have to drag him away. Damn it, he was a Foster.
He gave himself a confident nod in the bathroom mirror.
“There you are,” Liam said to him when he returned to the lobby. He peered into Nathan’s eyes. “What is going on?”
“Liam, I…I have to tell you something.”
“The show’s starting.”
“It can’t wait.”
“Nathan?”
It couldn’t be.
“Nathan?” the firm voice said again.
Nathan assumed he’d gone into some catatonic state of shock, or perhaps this was all a dream he was about to wake up from, because staring back at him was his father, pissed the hell off.
Chapter 28
Nathan
His dad charged into the center of their conversation. It’d been a while since Nathan had seen him. He almost didn’t recognize his slimmer body and tanned face, which was scrunched and red at the moment.
“Nathan, what in sodding hell are you doing halfway around the world?”
“What are you doing here?” Nathan asked.
“You said ‘Catch me if you can,’ and I caught you. I want to know what is going on. Do I need to take you back to rehab?” His dad grabbed his arm.
“Excuse me.” Liam stepped in and took hold of his dad’s wrist. “Get your hands off him.”
“Who are you?”
“His boyfriend.” Liam tightened his grip around his dad’s wrist, making him buckle under the pain.
“Well, I’m his father, and it’s time for Nathan to come home.”
“What? No, you’re not.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“His father died of cancer years ago.”
Nathan’s dad slowly turned to his son, a mix of shock and hurt spreading on his face. “Is that what you’ve been telling people?”
That same mixed expression took over Liam’s face, like a virus that was quickly spreading. The few theatergoers still in the lobby formed a circle around them. They were getting two shows for the price of one.
“What is he talking about?” Liam asked.
“I’m not dead. I’m alive and kicking and here to bring my son back home to London before he causes anymore trouble.”
Liam went into a daze. “Your father’s alive?”
“I’ll do a sodding DNA test if I have to!” His booming, frustrated voice brought more people out from the theater.
“Liam, I can explain.”
“Why would you lie about something like that?”
“I…” It made sense in the moment, but like a drunken night, it made him cringe in the daylight.
“Did you come here and make up a whole new identity?” his father asked, instantly thinking the worst of him.
“Guys, the show’s about to start,” Mark said.
“This is…Nathan’s father,” Liam said.
Another look of shock greeted Nathan. The room spun around and became stifling and hot.
“How did you find me?” Nathan asked his dad.
“I tracked your credit card purchase for a ticket to New Zealand, and then I got one of the IT guys from my old company to go through your computer. I don’t care that it was an invasion of privacy. You had me worried sick. You were fresh out of rehab. I didn’t know what kind of trouble you’d gotten yourself into this time.” His dad unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket. It was a print out of Nathan’s missed connections post. “And it was so much worse.”
“What is that?” Mark took the piece of paper from his dad.
“Nathan, what have you done? We could’ve discussed this,” his dad said.
“Mark, what is it?” Liam asked.
But Mark didn’t answer. He was completely absorbed, his eyes expanding in shock as he read each line, as he looked at that old photo.
“Mark,” Liam said roughly.
Nathan’s dad watched Mark’s expression change, and as the pieces of this sordid puzzle clicked for him, he went into his own state of shock.
“Oh dear God,” Nathan’s dad said.
“Will somebody please explain what the fuck is going on?” Liam yelled, silencing everyone. All heads turned to Nathan.
It was now or never.
“I’m Mariel’s son.” The tears instantly sprung to his eyes. “She shagged my dad at a festival in the nineties when she was studying in London. Nine months later, she left me on his doorstep.”
The crowd erupted in gasps. Even though most of them had no idea who he was talking about, it was still gossip to feast on. Mark went as pale as a ghost, while Nathan’s dad seemed to take all of his color. And Liam…Liam’s face was a block of stone, betraying nothing.
“I’m not preparing for a film role. I came here to find out more about my mum and why she chose never to have contact with me. My whole life, I’ve never fit in with my family. And I thought maybe there was another family waiting for me somewhere, a mother who loved me. I wanted to find out who she was, and I wanted to know what I did wrong.”
Mark had a sorrowful look in his eyes. Walt clung to his side.
“All I’ve done since I arrived is lie, but I didn’t know how to tell you the truth. How do you tell this wonderful family who took me in that I am their bastard child? I fell in love with you, with all of you, and I didn’t want to let that go. For the first time, I felt part of something special. I liked who I was.” He wiped tears off his cheeks. He hated all these eyes on him. All eyes on him except for Liam who stared at the wall, his jaw set and tight.
“Mark, I am so sorry,” Nathan eked out.
Mark hugged Walt tight against him. He was at a complete loss of words.
“Liam?”
He reached out for Liam’s hand.
“You lied to me. This whole time…”
Nathan nodded yes. It was true, and he was done making excuses.
“We should get back inside. The show’s about to start,” Liam said. He led Walt and Mark back into the auditorium, not once looking back at Nathan.
Two ushers came over to officially break up this scene and get people back to their seats. The auditorium doors swung closed on the darkened theater just as the first notes of the Into the Woods overture bellowed out.
“Let’s go, son.” His dad put his arm around Nathan, and they left behind the Fosters for good. At least Nathan wasn’t leaving alone, but he still felt hollow.
Chapter 29
Liam
The post-premiere dinner celebration for Franny was cancelled. Mark waited until Franny took her bows to break the news about Nathan to her, but she’d heard whispering about the fight that took place in lobby just before the curtain rose. Liam’s heart ached watching Franny absorb the shock. Mark didn’t seem as hurt. If anything, he had an intense focus, like he was running on adrenaline to keep his family together.
The Fosters returned home once the show was over. Mark disappeared straight into the basement without saying a word. Liam and the kids stood around in fumbling silence for a few minutes before Walt admitted he was hungry. Liam heated up cans of soup in the kitchen for the kids, and a cup of tea for himself. It was a welcome distraction from the pain and anger colliding in his chest. He had gotten the last pieces of the Nathan puzzle.
“Mark, I heated up some soup,” Liam yelled down into the basement.
“I’m not hungry,” Mark yelled back.
Liam served his niece and nephew.
“So you had no idea?” Walt asked him.
Liam shook his head no. But maybe he should have. The lies started to make sense, but they were still lies. The love he felt for Nathan, their intimacy, was clouded over by falsehoods. Did he even know the real Nathan?
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Franny said over her bowl of uneaten soup.
“Don’t curse,” Liam said, though he shared her sentiment. “I’m sorry this came out on your opening night.”
/> She shrugged. She still kicked ass as Cinderella, though Liam couldn’t fully enjoy her performance since his mind was elsewhere.
“How are you guys doing?” he asked. “I can understand if you’re angry and hurt. Nathan spent a lot of time with us under false pretenses.”
“What would you and Dad have done if he told you the truth when he first came?” Franny asked. “Would you have let him stay here?”
“I don’t know.” He tried to picture Nathan as a stranger from halfway around the world ringing the doorbell and saying he was Mariel’s son. And then he thought about baby Nathan on his father’s doorstep all those years ago, how scared he must’ve been.
“I have an older brother. I think it’s cool,” Walt said.
“I do, too,” Franny said.
Liam squirmed in his seat. “He’s related to you, but I wouldn’t call him your brother.”
“Why not?” Walt asked.
“It’s complicated. You see the relationship your dad and I have with each other and your other uncles. There’s a bond. It’s not just blood.”
Walt shrugged. “Nathan was funny. I liked him.”
“He helped me with the bullies at school,” Franny said. “Didn’t my dad used to stick up for you when you got teased at school?”
“Most of my teasing came from your uncles.” But it was Mark who made them stop when their jokes got to be too much, or when roughhousing got too rough. It was Mark who would check on him at night, flicking his light switch on and off to see if he was still awake, or waking him in the process. It wasn’t as bad as an ice bath to the ass.
Liam shook the memory out of his head. It was made of lies.
“It’s going to be okay. It’ll get better. Everyone is in shock. But shock wears off. And soon enough, we’ll forget Nathan was ever in our lives.”
“I don’t want to forget.” Walt didn’t mince words. His assuredness, which he was too young to realize he had, rattled Liam.
“Yes you do!”
“Why?”
“Because.” Liam scratched at his beard. “Nathan isn’t a part of our family. He’s an interloper.”
“What’s an interloper?”
“It’s someone who doesn’t belong. An intruder.” Liam pressed his palms against the table, like a lawyer making his case. “Nathan intruded on our lives and did nothing but lie and spin stories. He made you lie for him, Walt.”
“I get it now. He wanted to know about his mum,” Walt said in between intentional slurps of his soup.
“So?” Liam swirled his spoon in his tea. “That doesn’t excuse what he did.”
“If I didn’t know anything about my mum, I would want to know, even if I had to lie,” Walt said.
“Mum was the best. I can’t imagine never meeting her,” Franny said.
She dipped her spoon in and out of her food. Liam was too invested in this argument to tell her to stop.
“Uncle Liam, you kind of remind me of Javert,” Walt said.
“Who’s that?”
“He’s in Les Miserables.” They had watched the video of Mariel’s performance multiple times since Nathan had arrived. “Javert chased Jean Valjean for years because he stole a loaf of bread. He only stole it because he was starving, but Javert didn’t care. He only saw Valjean as a criminal. I’ve taken things from my sister’s room. I don’t think that makes me a criminal.”
“What stuff?” Franny asked.
Walt shrugged and slurped his soup.
“Walt?” she pressed.
“Am I Javert in this scenario?” Liam asked, getting them back to the topic at hand.
Walt and Franny ate a spoonful of soup at the same time. Their slurps spoke volumes.
Life wasn’t a play, no matter what they thought. Though perhaps there was a kernel of truth in there. What would Liam do to learn about his mum? What if he had secret siblings scattered around the globe? He had never been in Nathan’s situation.
But was everything a lie? The nights and mornings together? The kisses? The sex? Liam didn’t want to take a chance to find out. He had hit his limit with deception.
The outside screen door screeched open, then the front door. Pastor Fry and Brenda came inside, giving Liam a solemn look like they’d just come from a funeral.
“Where’s Mark?” Pastor Fry asked.
“In the basement,” Liam said. He didn’t know what Mark was looking for, but he dared not interrupt him.
“This is awful. Brenda has been crying the whole car ride.”
Her face was a red, splotchy mess. Liam handed her a tissue box.
“We need to talk about this.” Pastor Fry sat across from Franny and Walt. “Kids, I understand you must be in shock. You all must be.” He turned to Liam. “It’s torn us up inside for decades.”
“You knew about this?” Liam asked.
“Mariel panicked when she discovered she was with child. We were afraid she would try to terminate the pregnancy. We flew to London immediately, and she decided that she wanted to give the baby up for adoption. She believed God had given her this child, but that he was destined for another family. She knew about the members of our church who’d had trouble conceiving, and she wanted to help couples who wanted to be parents more than anything. She was very giving, your mother. She found a lovely family in London for Nathan.”
Mariel hid a secret from Mark, from Liam, from the world. All those dinners and holidays Liam had spent with her, she never revealed anything. She carried this secret to her grave.
“Our daughter was young and scared. She’d made a mistake, but she tried doing the best thing she could. And when she left London, she knew that Nathan was not her baby, that he was with his real family now.”
Franny and Walt seemed to understand as well as two kids could. Pastor Fry was trying his best with a kid-friendly explanation.
“I understand this is a great deal to take in, kids, but at least now you know what happened,” Pastor Fry said.
“Except none of that is true.” Mark emerged from the basement holding a dusty journal triumphantly in the air and one tucked under his arm. Streaks of dust covered his clothes and clouded his hair.
“Mark, what were you doing down there? You should be with your family,” Pastor Fry said. “We need to discuss this together.”
“We do. Everyone deserves to be heard.”
“Precisely.”
“Even Mariel.”
Liam traded curious looks with his niece and nephew. “Mark, what are you talking about?”
“Your brother is under a lot of emotional stress. Mark, maybe you should go upstairs and lay down. We can talk about this in the morning,” Pastor Fry said.
“No, we are talking about this now!” Mark was never one for yelling. His booming voice shut everyone up. “Mariel kept journals all throughout her life. I remember watching her write in them at school, around the house. When she died, I couldn’t go through them. It was too painful to look.” He showed off the two journals to the room. “I found her journals from when she studied in London.”
Liam bobbed his head up. That must’ve been why Nathan was in the basement. He was desperately trying to untangle the mystery of his life. He caught Walt looking at him, the same thing appearing to run through his little mind.
“Mark, dear, those are personal,” Brenda said.
“Not anymore.”
“Mark, stop it. You are acting wild, and disrespecting my daughter’s name.” Pastor Fry reached for the journal, but Mark snapped them away. He had a look of madness in his eye—or was it clarity?
Mark flipped open the first journal. “September second: Fuck. I’m pregnant.”
Walt and Franny snickered.
Mark continued reading: “I am the worst girlfriend. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I am so scared, but at the same time, I already feel love for the person growing inside me. He or she is a part of me. I’ve been thinking of holding this baby in my arms and picking out baby clothes and telling off snobby mums
in play circles. But what am I going to tell Mark? He loves me. I am ashamed for doing this to him, but I love him so much, and maybe, someday, he will understand.”
Mark turned a chunk of pages. “September twenty-eighth: I told my parents, and they reacted even worse than I expected. Twenty minutes of Mum crying and Dad calling me a whore.” He flicked his eyes at Pastor Fry. “Telling me what a horrible mistake I made, then bringing up every mildly rebellious thing I’d ever done in my life, down to putting on lipstick when I was five. He refused to let me come back to New Zealand in this condition. He’s paying for me to stay in London until the baby is born. Free holiday! The catch is I can’t tell anyone back home about the baby, especially not Mark. Dad said this was for my own protection, so I could go back to my life, but I knew he was mostly worried about what his congregants would say about him. He said if Mark ever found out, he’d dump me, and the whole community would want nothing to do with a whore. There was that word again. He and Mum would disown me. How can I not tell Mark? How can I not bring this up when we chat on the phone?”
“Mark, that’s enough,” Pastor Fry said.
Mark ignored him and flipped to one of the last pages. “March seventh: I had my final ultrasound. There is a baby inside of me. A baby boy! I cry every day thinking about giving him up, about not knowing how he’s doing. I have dreams about hearing him cry but not being able to hold him. I found the father. He’s a businessman in London. He deserves to know about his son. So does Mark. Dad and I had another blowup about it, and he said he would have me committed to an institution if I uttered one word of this back home. I wasn’t crazy, but that wouldn’t stop him. Mum then got on the line and said Mark would never speak to me again, neither would my friends. I would never be able to act. My life would be over before it begun.”
“Stop!” Pastor Fry ripped the journal out of his hands and threw it against the wall. “Your children are here!”
“What would you have done if she told you?” Brenda asked. “Would you have married her, had these two beautiful children? I meant what I told her all those years ago. Her life would’ve been ruined.”
Outside Looking In: A Browerton University Book Page 19
