Lunch was a blur. I couldn’t tell you what was said, other than Seth’s favorite food was french fries. I don’t think I even dogged that. Ruthie would have been proud.
Words were like background noise, humming along to my thoughts and my chewing. To the visuals as I stared at the two men across the table. Linny got us a booth by the bar so she could frequent it, and Noah and Seth sat across from me and Shayna.
It was brutal. And all I could do was shovel food in so I’d have something to do with my hands. Not only was it surreal to see my son across from me, grown up and talking about the world with my mouth and Noah’s hair and eyes and everything else, but just seeing the two of them sitting together—it killed me. They were so alike. Not just in looks but even mannerisms and personalities. Already joking like best buddies that had hung out for years. I’d taken that away from both of them.
Even though I knew now that Seth had a happy life and probably brought incredible joy to the family that loved him, I felt a severe hit to the gut that we missed it. That Noah never got to teach him to throw a ball or swim or ride a bike, like Hayden had with Becca.
And then there was the constant work of avoiding Noah’s eyes. It seemed that every time I looked his way, he’d be looking at me, and we’d stick like that for a few seconds, turning my insides to a shimmying mess. I’d shove more food I couldn’t taste into my mouth and stare at my plate like it was food from the gods until Shayna would occasionally pipe in with something, and then I’d catch Noah smiling at her and want to throw it all back up. It was the longest meal of my life.
“So, if you want to go back to your house for a while,” Noah was saying, as sound went with the look he was giving me, “I’ll swing by later.”
“What?” I said. He was coming over? All nerve endings went on sweat mode.
Noah looked at me questioningly, and I looked back and forth between them for clarification.
“You can have him to yourself for a little while,” Noah said slowly. “And I’ll pick him up later to go get some dinner and a beer.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “That sounds great. Absolutely.” I wondered if he’d want to start drinking early. Since my baby boy was now suddenly past drinking age. My brain needed massaging. And something to do. So I grabbed my phone.
“Put your heads together,” I said, not even letting myself think about it first. We needed new pictures of him. The look in Noah’s eyes as he looked at me for the photo was a sacrifice I’d have to make when I looked at it five hundred more times that night. Right.
“Good idea,” Shayna said, pulling her phone out to click away as well.
Noah chuckled. “Good luck over there,” he said, nudging Seth.
“Hey,” I said, tossing a carrot at him. “Be nice.” Food fights were progress, right?
“Just saying, if your daughter and grandmother show up, he’ll have three generations of women on his plate.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “I so hope you have a daughter, so you can truly have all that testosterone handed to you in a pink teacup and tiara.”
Both men laughed, Noah’s face and body relaxing. For that one tiny second, even for me, it was easy. Till he looked at Shayna and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I looked at her and she’d gone white. Like gray-white. “Shayna?” I said, touching her arm.
“I’m okay,” she said, smiling it off but not too convincingly. “Just feeling a little puny is all.”
“Can I get you something?” Noah asked, grabbing her hand. Six inches from mine. Not that I noticed. At all. “Need to go home?”
“Hey, y’all go ahead,” I said. “We’ll head to my house from here.”
Noah paid the check and I didn’t miss the look of enormous relief that came over his features when Shayna got up and we weren’t side-by-side anymore. Guess it was a little wiggly from his side, too.
He slapped Seth on the back. “See you later, bud,” he said.
Knowing him, he’d thought about that since we’d sat down. What to say to sound nonchalant. He couldn’t say son, and Seth was so two hours ago. Bud would work. Perfect mix of affection and respectable distance.
I also didn’t miss the slight hesitance in his step as he passed me and the melting look he gave me. I ran a hand through my hair and waited for the feeling to come back to my tongue. Damn him and those looks.
Of course if I hadn’t been looking up at him . . .
Yeah.
“You ready?” Seth asked, a hint of a knowing smile playing at his lips.
“Sure,” I said. “A stop or two first.”
We ducked into the bookstore for a bit so I could introduce him better to Ruthie. She cried again, hugged him whether he wanted it or not, and gave him two fresh-baked peanut butter cookies and a book to take with him.
That’s what made her Ruthie.
I called Nana Mae, but there was no answer, so I left her a message.
“I figure you’re probably out walking, so call me when you get this, or come by the house. And just so there’s so cardiac arrest involved, I have more than pictures now.” I glanced at the man in my passenger seat. “Seth is here. In person.”
“Makes me sound famous,” he said. “Like Pink. Or Usher.”
“See, I would have gone with Sting or Madonna,” I said. “Maybe Cher. But I’m old.”
“Touché.”
“And you are famous to us,” I said. “You’ve been the secret on the shelf for too long. You coming out to shine makes it the best day ever.”
Seth took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m glad. You never know what reactions might be.” He raised his eyebrows as we turned into a residential section. “I read so many horror stories online about meet-ups gone wrong. I nearly turned around and drove back home the second I got here.”
“Seriously?” I said, feeling the tug at my insides. “But you said Noah’s dad got in touch with you.”
“Yeah, but that was just a grandfather. It wasn’t you or Noah.” I stopped to meet his eyes at a stop sign. “He wanted to surprise his son. That could have gone twenty different ways.”
“Wow, you’re right,” I said. “I bet that was scary. Thank you for not going home.”
Seth smiled, a little crooked, and the Noah of two decades ago peeked out. “Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t.”
I faced forward and continued driving, determined not to get mushy. “So, Detective,” I began, trying to lighten the subject. “I don’t see a wedding ring on your finger. Anyone special in your life?”
And my attempt at lightening was probably the most awkward thing ever to come out of my mouth. All these years, he’d been a baby. A child at most. Here he was a man, and I was asking him if he had a woman. I might as well check his wallet for condoms while I was at it.
A sigh laced with a bit of frustration came from his side of the car. He raked his fingers through his short hair.
“There was.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. Don’t be awkward a second time. It was a harmless question but might not be to him. Might be huge. Might be too personal to talk about with someone he just met a few hours ago.
“I was engaged, actually,” he continued, canceling out my self-flogging. “For a whole four months.”
“I take it it didn’t end well?”
“No,” he said on a sigh. “Best way to kill a good relationship is to put a ring on it,” he said, smiling at his joke. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “We were together for three years before that. We should have just dated for life.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hate to hear that.” I was. I wanted to go beat up the girl that hurt my baby and made his eyes look like that.
“It’s all good,” he said. “I should have known it was too easy with her. Too good to be true.”
“There’s something to that,” I said. “Sometimes it’s the harder relationships, the complicated ones you have to fight and claw for that have staying power. May give you gray hair and bruises, but, you know.”
Seth laughed. “Probably one of the things that spurred me on to find where I came from. I needed a diversion. And a connection.” He paused and looked my way. “I’m really glad this went well.”
“Me too,” I said, rounding onto my street. Becca’s car was in the driveway. At one in the afternoon on a school day. I blew out a breath. “Hold on to that thought, babe.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Not sure, but my Spidey sense is all twitchy.”
I pulled next to her little blue car and got out, staring a hole in the front door as I approached it. The door wasn’t locked, and we were greeted to a dancing Harley as she viewed Seth as new love. He instantly went to one knee and got acquainted, all the while absorbing the room in seconds.
“Becca?” I called.
The thump from above didn’t give me a warm fuzzy. Then her door squeaked open at the top of the stairs.
“Yeah?”
Yeah? Seriously? “Becca!”
A sigh that had an audible eye roll with it traveled the stairs. “I’m coming.”
The door closed, and she headed down, her steps quick. Her lopsided hair swung out to the side as she came into view and opened her mouth to argue, but whatever words she had at the ready stuck there when she saw Seth petting Harley. She glanced at me in question.
“Why are you home?” I asked.
Her eyes went back to him. “Why are you?”
“Becca.”
Thank God she still had respect for “the tone.” I didn’t use it often, wanting it to be the sound of doom that would stop her in her tracks when I really needed it. This qualified. She straightened up and fiddled with the railing in front of her.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” she said.
“Are you sick?”
“Might be.”
“The school didn’t call me,” I said.
“Well, I just—” She paused and her eyes darted to Seth again. He stood up, causing Harley to climb his leg in protest.
“You just came home without telling anyone,” I said, rubbing my forehead. When would it stop?
“It’s not a big deal, Mom,” she said. “You make too much of it.”
“Actually, truancy is a big deal,” Seth said, causing her head to snap in his direction again. “Sorry,” he said, raising his hands to me in apology. “My thoughts get away from me sometimes.”
“And you are?” Becca said, coming down the last three steps with what I guessed she thought was sudden seniority.
“Seth,” he said, holding out a hand with a half smile on his face. “Nice to meet you.”
Becca’s mouth fell open. Boy, I was glad I’d told her, as she looked at me and back at him again. “Like, Seth? That Seth?”
He chuckled. “There I am being famous again. Yes, that Seth.”
“Oh, holy shit,” she said under her breath as she walked forward slowly and took his hand. “You’re my brother?”
My heart slammed against my ribs. God, what a sentence and what a sight. I never in a million years expected to look at the two of them standing in the same room. I almost stopped being mad at her.
“That’s the rumor,” he said softly, a smile playing at his lips.
“I just found out about you two days ago,” she said.
“I just found out about you two hours ago.”
Becca laughed, and even as that put my heart at ease, I saw Seth’s eyes narrow a little.
“So, do you have any other brothers or sisters?” she asked. “Like, that you grew up with?”
Seth’s eyes glazed over a bit. “I did,” he said. “I had a little brother who was adopted, too. “His name was Shon.”
“Did?” she asked, picking up on something I hadn’t.
“Yeah, he died six years ago,” he said, averting his eyes.
“Oh—” I said, my chest contracting. The pain in his expression was palpable. “Seth, I’m so sorry.”
He nodded and put his hands in his pockets, a self-protecting gesture that made him suddenly look younger.
“It was a stupid accident,” he said. “He was—”
A thud from overhead halted his words.
“What was that?” I said.
Both hands were out of his pockets and he was at the base of the stairs in insta-cop mode in two-point-five seconds. I would have followed, but I was watching Becca. And she wasn’t startled. Her glance upward wasn’t questioning or scared, it was panicked.
It was busted.
“Who’s upstairs?” I asked.
My tone was calm, and in that moment I was very proud of my control. Seth stopped his progression mid-step and looked at me.
“Nothing!” she said defensively. “Nobody.”
Her worry over where Seth was standing, however, told otherwise. As did a second thump and the subsequent creaking.
“Becca, who is in this house?” I repeated. The tone was making a comeback. “Alone with you. In the middle of a school day and work day when you didn’t think anyone would be home.”
“Mom, it’s not like that,” she said, holding up her palms.
“Please tell me what it’s like, then,” I said. “Before I go find out for myself.”
“Mark, come down!” she yelled upward, darting one look at me and then at the floor.
“Mark,” I whispered, closing my eyes. Not because I was being nice. More because my rage had taken the power of speech away.
“Mom—”
“Becca Ann White,” I began, not caring anymore that Seth was seeing all this. So damn be it. “What is the rule on boys in this house?”
“Downstairs, I know—”
“And what about when I’m not home?” I said, hearing the rise in pitch.
“No one at all.”
“And during school hours?” I said. No—I yelled it. I did.
Her eyebrows dipped into a frown. “During school hours? There’s not a rule for that.”
“Exactly!” I said, walking closer and enjoying the look on her face that questioned my sanity just a little. Good. She needed to worry. “Because you are supposed to be there.”
“Okay.” The death glare.
This was why wild animals sometimes eat their young.
And the boy still hadn’t made an appearance. “Mark!” I yelled. “The stairs aren’t that hard to find, young man. Please get down here.”
“Oh, my God,” Becca said, her eyes filling with angry tears. “I hate you right now.”
“Well, good,” I said under my breath as a little piece of my soul broke away. “I’m doing my job. What the living hell are you thinking, skipping school and bringing him here?”
Feet appeared in my line of vision. Big sneakers, followed by baggy jeans and a jersey sweatshirt. The face it was all attached to looked worried. Well, at least he was that smart. He paused at the bottom as Seth stared at him for a beat before letting him pass.
He stood next to Becca, who did nothing but glare at me through her tears. Disgusted, I thrust my hand into the boy’s hand.
“I’m Becca’s mom, by the way,” I said. “Since you are too rude to step up, and she’s too rude to introduce you, I’ll do that myself.”
Becca’s mouth fell open, as if she couldn’t believe I could still shock her. Mark mumbled something including his name and how nice it was to meet me. I think. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Seth grin and look away. I wondered if his—mother—had ever had to do the same.
“Mark, I would’ve liked to have met you a different way, but since I didn’t, let me fill you in. Becca isn’t allowed to skip class. Don’t know if you are, but she’s not. You aren’t allowed in her room. Ever.”
Echoes of my mother’s voice rang in my head, but I was too far gone to think about that.
“You will respect those things, and keep all your personal property in your pants, and we will get along just fine.”
“Mom!” she yelled, tears fully streaming down her face, black eyeliner coming with it.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” Mark said, his words barely heard over Becca’s carrying on.
“You can go, Mark,” I said.
“I drove,” Becca said through her sobs.
“He looks like he can handle a six-block walk, Becca,” I said. “Mark, have a good day.”
He wheeled around with big eyes and briefly squeezed her hand as he passed. Didn’t make it three more steps, however, before Seth deftly plucked an object from the side cargo pocket of the baggy jeans.
“Don’t think you’re quite old enough for this,” Seth said.
A stainless steel flask. Joy. Becca’s face contorted as if she’d seen death up close and personal.
“Unless you have lemonade in here—” Seth unscrewed the top and sniffed. “Whoa, most definitely not lemonade.”
“Hey, that’s mine,” Mark said, attempting to bow up with whatever he had under the three-sizes-too-big clothing.
“Really?” Seth said, holding up the flask. “Yours? You bought this yourself? I’m impressed. You must have one hell of an ID.”
“I’m twenty-one,” Mark said.
Seth laughed. “Yeah, I can see that. Why don’t we call the school and see if maybe they have something different.”
“Shit,” Mark muttered. “Okay, it’s my dad’s. Just—can I have it, please? I’ll leave.”
“Sure,” Seth said. “Kitchen?” he asked me in passing. I pointed, and he walked around the corner, leaving a perplexed kid in the entryway. I heard the sound of liquid going down a drain, and then he was back. “Here you go,” he said. “Tell your dad he has good taste.”
“You have no right acting like this,” Becca said. “You’re not family.”
To his credit, he only faltered a second. Me, on the other hand—I saw ten shades of red.
“You’re right,” he said, putting a hand on my arm before I could say a word. “But I am an officer of the law, so . . .”
“You’re a prince,” Becca said, acid dripping from her tone.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” he said, opening the door for Mark.
When he closed it back, I focused on Becca. On her hate, her embarrassment, and my own disappointment and absolute mortification that the meeting with Seth went so sour.
“Drinking, Bec?” I said, my voice cracking. “Seriously?”
“We hadn’t even had any yet,” she said.
“Yet,” I echoed. “Where’s your head?”
Her fists went up in her hair, like she wanted to pull it out. “Oh, my God, I wish I was anywhere else but here!”
“You were supposed to be. Clean yourself up and get back to school,” I said, feeling all the inflection go out of my voice. I was so angry that she’d blown my trust. Again.
She swiped at her face, essentially just smearing black around. “Are you kidding me? There’s like an hour and a half left.”
“Then you’d better hurry it up,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes and scoffed and wheeled around in disgust. “I can’t believe you,” she said on her way up the stairs. She stopped and I had the feeling something profound was coming. “You humiliated me today.” Or that.
“Ditto,” I said through my teeth.
Becca glanced at Seth and back at me. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Awfully high and mighty on the subject of boys, aren’t you—since your stellar example of restraint is standing here?”
I felt all the blood drain from my face, and the quiet was deafening. I saw it—the moment that passed through her brain when she knew she’d gone too far. I had a fleeting thought through the pounding in my ears that that was at least proof she still had a conscience. Then I turned and walked to the kitchen.
I pulled two glasses from the cabinet and started to fill them with ice when I heard footsteps behind me. Heavier footsteps than Becca’s. Slower.
“I have sweet tea, water, and orange juice,” I said, opening the fridge. I stared at the pitchers without seeing them and grabbed one of them without feeling it in my hand.
“Sweet tea is fine.”
I turned to look at my son. A man. Standing in my kitchen. Not too many days back, I was in awe of seeing his father occupying that same space. It was surreal.
He pointed at the pitcher I was holding. “That’s fine,” he reiterated.
I looked down at it and realized it was the tea. “Okay,” I said, pouring into both glasses.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. I wasn’t. I was numb. I was standing in my kitchen, talking to my son. Talking to my son. A miracle of all miracles. And I was mortified and horrified and distraught. Where had I gone wrong with her? How could she talk to me that way? How did it get this far?
“Juliann—I mean—” Seth stopped and let out a wary breath. “I just realized I haven’t called you by anything yet. What do I—”
“Most people call me Jules,” I said. “Your gran—” Yeah, I was doing it, too. “My dad gave me that nickname when I was little and it stuck.”
“Well, Jules, you don’t seem okay,” he said, pulling up a nearby stool. “And that would be okay if you’re not. You don’t have to pretend anything. That was pretty intense.”
“Intense.” I sank onto a stool and buried my face in my hands. “I am so sorry you had to witness that,” I said. “That thing you said about never knowing how these things are going to turn out—well, I guess I just made your case for the dark side.”
“Not at all,” Seth said, resting his elbows on the counter. “Y’all have been great. And Becca’ll come around. Was she upset about me when you told her?”
I shook my head. “Not about you. I think she was kind of intrigued by the idea, actually. It was my keeping it from her all this time that hit her buttons.”
“Why did you?” he asked.
