His chin quivers, and I hug him to my chest. He cries into my shoulder. I know it hurts. It’s people doubting the truth. I’ve felt that.
When people claimed my dad molested me.
That pain drove me to relapse.
And maybe it’s our fault for putting it off. For a long time, Connor and Rose have pled with all of us to tell the children about our histories. Lily’s sex addiction. False rumors. The most we did was talk about alcohol addiction, but the rest, we just kept saying let’s wait.
They’re too young.
Maybe Connor and Rose were right after all. Maybe there’s never a perfect time. Maybe we can’t blame ourselves for not knowing when to surface adult issues with kids. Is it too early? Is it too late? There’s no known calendar for this shit.
We just do what we can, the best we can, when we can. And we hope that’s enough.
Moffy dries some of his tears and lifts his head up to me, my hands on his shoulders. Ready to pull him to my chest if he needs me too again.
The ice machine groans nearby, cutting through the silence.
“Where’d you hear the rumors?” I ask quietly.
“A Tumblr site.” His face contorts, wincing, but he’s stopped crying. “They compare me with you and him.”
I haven’t seen the photos, but I’m sure Moffy is placed side-by-side next to my brother and me. My gaze roams the small vending area where we sit, but my mind travels somewhere else. “You shouldn’t be on Tumblr.”
We have celebrity gossip sites blocked on parent control. Just like Tumblr and Twitter. So we can keep our kids from seeing shit said about them.
Protect their mental health.
Moffy is older, and he has more access to these things than our other kids—but not Tumblr. His throat bobs. “A guy showed me at school.”
I tense. “A friend?”
“Not really.” Moffy pauses. “I mean…I thought he was alright until then, but he’s just like the rest of them.” I hear the endnote.
Untrustworthy.
Moffy scrutinizes my hair for a second. My muscles bind and sear. Is he taking note of the color? How it doesn’t match his? Then he touches his hair, almost the same cut as mine. Slightly shorter on the sides. Longer on top.
His chest collapses. “How could you let me dress like him?”
I’m confused. “What?” My voice is sharp.
“As a kid, I always dressed like Uncle Ryke. Right in front of you…I did that to you…”
“No, bud.” I shake my head heatedly. “You didn’t hurt me. I love my brother. I love that you admire your uncle. For Christ’s sake, I admire him. He’s a goddamn superhero.”
“You’re a goddamn superhero,” Moffy says strongly.
It brings tears to my eyes. “Moffy, your uncle, my brother…” I choke on my words. I don’t want him to hate Ryke. I never thought this would happen. I thought it’d spin the other way. I thought he’d hate me, doubt me. Instead, he believes me beyond everything else.
“If I wear sunscreen all the time, will I look more like you?”
Yes. I can’t say it.
His plan starts churning in his eyes. Knowing I’m not as tan as Ryke because I don’t spend hours outside like him. I see these ideas feverishly crawl into my son’s eyes.
I can wear sunscreen.
I can dye my hair to light brown.
“Don’t do it, Moffy.”
“I don’t want to look like him!” he yells, gripping his shirt like his heart is breaking.
“Because of other people? Don’t let them drown you. Don’t let them change you, Mof. Would you want Luna to change who she is because people say things?”
He’s hauntingly still, and one tear rolls down his cheek. He shakes his head, eyes flitting up to me.
I clasp his shoulder again. “I need you to know something.”
Moffy breathes heavily, but he nods like go on.
And I tell my son, “My brother saved my life. I wouldn’t be sober if it weren’t for him. I might not even be here. Your mom might not be here. We wouldn’t have had you. He helped me become a better person.”
Moffy relaxes at every syllable, every word, trying hard not to villainize the person that we all love. If he should hate anything, he should despise the media and what it tries to do to us. He rests his back against the Fizzle machine.
I follow suit next to him, our arms brushing. “You know what—I might be a superhero, but there is no question, Ryke Meadows is one too. And he’s standing right by my side, heaven and hell.”
Moffy seems older. In this one moment. Life aged him, and he turns his head to me, more at peace with all this knowledge that would capsize most people. It would’ve crushed me.
I remember the day he turned eleven. He took a Harry Potter quiz, and he was sorted into a wizarding house.
Maximoff Hale is a Hufflepuff.
And he’s so goddamn strong.
I can feel one unspoken question billowing in the air. “You have another question.” I don’t ask it. He nods, but before he can speak, I say, “You want to know if your mom is a sex addict. If that’s a lie too?”
His brows pinch. “Is she?” he wonders. I think he realizes that he can’t find the truth online or from other people. Only we have the real story, and most of it is documented on We Are Calloway. A show we haven’t let any of the kids watch. “Some people at school…they mention it. I didn’t want to upset Mom, and I thought, maybe it was just another rumor.”
He was ten when I told him about my history with alcoholism. I explained addiction, dependency, abusing liquor, and how his grandfather had been sick too. But how do you explain sex addiction to a child?
“You know how I’m addicted to alcohol,” I start out slowly. Moffy stares straight ahead, lost in thought, and I finish, “Well, your mom is addicted to sex. That part is true.”
Moffy is still in a daze.
“Moffy,” I call out, trying to keep my voice level. “I don’t want this to affect your view of your mom.” My insides compress and explode, anguished at the thought—Lily. Lily. She’d be devastated and wrecked if he treated her differently.
Just because of her addiction.
“She’s still your mom. She loves you like you’re a part of her goddamn soul. Nothing has changed. It’s just something that she deals with like I deal with alcohol.”
He doesn’t say a word. Goddammit.
“Moffy.”
“You’re my dad?” he asks again.
Don’t fucking cry.
“I’m your dad,” I say forcefully. “Your mom and I have a monogamous relationship. That means she’s not with anyone else but me. She doesn’t have sex with anyone else.”
Moffy is confused. “Then how is she a sex addict?” He grinds his teeth and scratches at his arm. He looks hollowed out.
I think he wanted this to be a lie. So he could tell his friends to fuck off. To get over themselves and stop spreading rumors.
“This isn’t something to be ashamed of. Your mom’s not ashamed. Okay? It’s a part of her. The same way my addiction is a part of me.” He can’t love me and hate Lily. I might as well be sawed in half.
“Then why hasn’t she told me?” He frowns. “You both usually tell me everything.”
“Maybe we should have,” I admit that, “but we didn’t want you thinking about sex in that context, Moffy. It’s complicated.”
He weighs this knowledge.
“You love your mom?”
His eyes fill to the brim while he nods repeatedly. “It’s why this is so hard, you know? I don’t like thinking that she’s struggling with something like this…”
I was wrong about him being ashamed of Lily. That’s not the track he was going down.
Moffy just didn’t want her to be sick.
Goddamn Hufflepuff.
“I can explain her addiction better, if you want me to.” I don’t know what it must be like for him. This is his mom. I didn’t even have a mother.
He breathes easier and nods. “Yeah, can you?” He licks his dry lips, realization crossing his face. “Is this why you got so pissed over the pop-up porn on my computer?”
“Yeah.” I bend my knees, both of us at ease. “Sex addicts can be compulsive about porn. We’re just cautious.”
“That makes sense…” He swings his head to me. “One more question.”
“You can ask as many as you want.”