“No.”
He was telling the truth. I knew him at least that well.
“I’m protecting you from your memories. There were things . . .” How far was I going to go? Was I going to tell him everything? “I don’t want you to remember the day you lost your mother.”
“But maybe I want to remember her.”
“You saw some pictures on the computer. Did you recognize her?”
“She’s on the show with the purple house.”
“I have a box of things from her. We can talk, and you can see if you remember the good things.”
“What’s in it?”
I hadn’t looked at it since the day Phin called me Dad and I didn’t correct him. A month after the murder of his biological parents, he’d struggled to figure it out by placing the mantle of “father” on me, and I took it. His father hadn’t been around much, and I’d played that role as long as he could remember.
“Some pictures. A bracelet. An Emmy.”
“She won an Emmy?”
“Yeah. Her residual checks pay for your school.”
That held no meaning for him. I was trying to show him how she was still in his life, taking care of him, but I’d already tried to wipe her clean. Bringing her back would take more effort.
“So you’re really my uncle?”
The term felt like a slap in the face. I’d been thinking of him as my son for so long, I’d forgotten he wasn’t. More than forgotten. This wasn’t a slip of the mind; it was a change of heart. Uncles were nice, but the term didn’t fit me and Phin.
“The minute you came into my life, you were mine. I want you to know that. When you were a baby, your dad walked away from your mom. I changed your diapers and kissed your feet, same as any father. When your mother and father died, you became mine. I’ve never thought of you as anything less than my son. So I don’t care how the blood flows. You’re everything I ever wanted in a little boy, and now that you’re almost a man, I’m as proud of you as any father. That’s the end of it. You’re my son. I won’t take anything less.”
He still fit under the bed, and his eyes were as big and green as a child’s, but he was becoming a man. The wonder drained out of him every day. No matter what his hormones did, he was almost grown. I couldn’t tell him what to think.
“If you don’t want to call me Dad anymore, I understand. But you can’t call me Uncle Carter.”
His nod was horizontal against the carpet.
“Maybe you can do what Grandma thinks everyone should do. Call me by my first name.”
The hurt of my own words cut deep. My mother wanted to deny her age. I was giving Phin the option of denying my relationship with him. It was his choice, and he had the power to wound me.
He untucked his hand and held his fist out to me. I bumped it, then laid my hand over his. He closed his eyes. I thought he was thinking, but his back rose and fell slowly. He’d fallen asleep, as he often did when he was overwhelmed.
I got up and went downstairs. Emily was asleep on the couch. I put a blanket over her, tucking it around the edges, making sure it covered her beat-up dancer’s toes.
I was sure everything was ruined. Whatever she and I had almost been to each other, it was over. Who would want to be with me? A man who lied to a child. Stole him away from his mother’s memory. Bad enough I needed Phin’s forgiveness. What would she think of my life and lies?
With Phin coming to know the truth and Emily sleeping on my sofa, I knew my life had taken a hard pivot. I wished I knew which direction it had turned.
CHAPTER 48
EMILY
Talking.
Banging.
Hissing pipes in the walls and whooshing traffic just outside the window.
The click of the stove before the gas came through the burner and the clatter of plates.
Aching back and chilly feet.
Mouth like a slab of yuck had settled between tongue and palate.
I usually woke to silence or the first threads of my radio alarm. Light through the drapes in the warmer months.
I never woke to the sounds of other people. I stayed still on the couch, shifting only to ease my back, and listened to Phin mumble, Carter bark orders, Brenda in the bathroom upstairs, running the plumbing.
Moving would have disrupted it. Opening my eyes would have shattered my dream-state appreciation of the irregular beat of activity. I didn’t want to observe it. I wanted my ears and body to be filled with it.
Half-in, half-out of consciousness, I didn’t have the self-awareness to ask why I enjoyed the presence of other people so much. Why I felt comfortable instead of awkward. I just lived in it like another ingredient in a nourishing soup.
The hard click of an open door woke me fully.
“Shh,” Carter whispered. “You’ll wake her.”
“I’m up,” I said, opening my eyes. Phin stood at the front door with a huge pack, and behind him, his dad stood, preshower, in jeans and a light jacket. I remembered what I’d learned about him last night, but seeing them together, all I saw was a resemblance.
“Sorry,” Phin said, cringing.
“You’re going to school?” In half sleep, I had no filter.
“He insisted,” Carter said defensively, as if he would have kept him home after the night before and needed me to know what a gentle dad he could be.
“Have a good day, then.”
“I’m dropping him at the bus stop.” Carter looked at his watch. “Five minutes.”
Phin opened the screen door, stopped himself, and addressed me.
“Sorry about last night.”
“Why?” I rubbed the gunk out of my right eye.
“That was a little intense.” Phin rolled his eyes at himself, making light of what he’d been through.
“But I learned how to hack the LA County Registrar or whatever,” I said. “Totally worth it.”
He laughed, agreed, and walked out with his dad. Uncle. Both.
I watched them through the window. Carter looked back at me as he got into the car, as if he knew I was there. I waved. He winked.
Brenda padded down the stairs in yoga pants and a tank top. She was a beautiful woman with her hair up in a twist and no makeup. That must have been where Genevieve got it.
“I was hoping you were the lump on the couch I saw last night. Did he make coffee?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“Six thirty.” She disappeared into the kitchen, and I threw myself off the couch, untangling my legs from the blanket as if it were attacking me.
I folded it, laid it on the back of the couch, and went into the kitchen. Brenda put a cup in my hand before I had a chance to tell her I was calling a cab so I could make it to work by eight.
“Thank you for being here,” Brenda said. “Last night was a big deal.”
“I felt like an intruder.”
She shook her head. “Trust me. You were a nice buffer. I knew the shit was going to hit the fan someday. I figured I’d be the one with the stained shirt.”