Silver Brewer: The Silver Foxes of Blue Ridge

by L. B. Dunbar

  “When your mother had each of you, I struggled as well. She was so busy caring for each of you, it’s a wonder there was another one.” He chuckles, and I don’t want to consider my parents having sex, but within seven years, they had five children. “Motherhood was her dream, and her pride is wrapped up in each of you kids. Where did I fit in then?”

  I hold my breath, afraid for some reason.

  “I was her rock. She’s a strong woman, but even a mountain risks erosion, and when your mother felt herself crumple, she relied on me. I provided for you financially, but I like to think I had my own place in developing who you are. A boy needs a father to show him how to be a man.” He takes a breath and smiles to himself, and I grin as I had the same thought regarding Finn. “And a man needs to lead by example, by loving and cherishing his wife.” He narrows his eyes at me. There’s no doubt my parents have loved each other well over the years. They never spend a night apart despite him taking late nights at BRMP or working long hours at the brewery. “Your place is in her heart. In her bed. Are you the rock? The soft landing? The comforting shoulder? Wherever or whatever she needs from you, that’s where you fit in.”

  “I want to be all those things, but I want her here with me.”

  “You want the boy?”

  “Is that really a question?”

  “It is. Do you want the boy to be yours? He’s still a baby, right? And he needs a daddy.” He waves dismissively at me. “Oh, I know Letty can probably handle him as a single mother, but kids still need a father figure. Who will that be to him?”

  I want it to be me. I don’t want to even think of Letty with another man, or another guy becoming a dad to Finn.

  “Are you ready to love him?”

  “I was in love with him the moment I met him, just as I was with her.” The feisty woman leaning over her car, trying to talk me down. Name your price, Mr. Harrington. I could never have predicted it would be my heart.

  Then I consider Finn. His sweet smile when he looks at me. How he tips his head on FaceTime like he recognizes my voice. Letty grows frustrated when he settles for me so easily when I hold him, but I secretly love it. It’s as if he likes me back, and he knows I’ll never let anything hurt him. He’s safe with me. With us. I love my girls, but a boy… there are so many other emotions.

  My father is thoughtful for a minute before he speaks. “We have no Harrington boys, Giant. All my boys had girls. My girl had boys.” We stare at one another, thinking of James but not mentioning what happened to him. “Mati’s sons are just as much Harringtons, but they don’t carry the name.”

  I’m not certain where my dad is going with this.

  “Dad, he’s…uhm…he’s not white. Not that it matters to me or should to you, but I feel like I should mention it.” I also feel like an ass because I’m mentioning it.

  “If you want her, you accept what’s hers.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Blood is blood, son, and we all share it. The entire human race shares it. Family, that bond is what we make of it.” He taps his chest, understanding we Harringtons are tight, and that’s how he always wanted it to be. He stands without another word.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I call after him, still confused how to act or what to say. He pauses at the doorway to my office.

  “Can you name him George? If you decide to adopt him.” I sit up a little straighter. Adopt him? I’d thought it briefly before, but with my dad’s suggestion… If I marry Letty, I can adopt Finn. Even if I don’t marry her, if she doesn’t want marriage because she’s all I-am-woman-hear-me-roar, and we only live together, I could still adopt him. It would be a little extra security for him.

  “He’s already named Finnikin. Finn. She named him after some character in a book.” Finnikin of the Rock, she told me. He was a strong character who went after the princess and did all he could to bring her safely home where she belonged.

  Bring her home where she belongs.

  “Finnikin Harrington,” my father says, and my heart races as he speaks the name. “That’s a damn fine name, too.”

  32

  Mothers know best.

  [Letty]

  “I have a proposal for you.”

  My throat catches air as Giant’s voice rings through the phone. I hadn’t even said hello before he spoke. This isn’t how I envisioned being asked but—

  “I’d like to take three months off and come stay with you. Like my own FMLA. I can watch Finn while you go back to work. This gets him to nine months old.” His voice sounds almost giddy with the suggestion, and giddy is never a word I’d use to describe Giant. “I want to adopt Finn with you.”

  “What?” My voice comes out strangled in both shock and question. I look up at Marcus, who came to visit me when I got some distressing news. I hold up a finger and cross the living room for the hallway. The line remains silent a moment. I don’t know what to say. Giant adopting Finn was something I hadn’t considered. Well, I had considered it but only in my fantasies of family. But he isn’t even asking to marry me. He’s asking to adopt Finn. And on today, of all days. “Giant, I—”

  “I love you. You love me. This can work. I’ll come up there and stay with him and begin the process. Whatever needs to be done.”

  Giant doesn’t legitimately live here, so I don’t see how the courts would accept him.

  “Then what?” I wonder, my voice dropping as my head hits the wall behind me. I can’t have this conversation. Not today. You should tell him, my mind whispers.

  “I don’t know,” he says, his voice hesitant, the distance between us spanning more than a hundred miles. I’ve felt us drifting apart over the past few months. We talk every day, and I relish the time, but something has shifted between us.

  “Giant, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” his gruff question echoes through the phone.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think adopting Finn is a solution. Or even a plan. I didn’t foresee sharing him. Selfishly, I saw a baby for only myself.” It’s true, but it’s not. I never envisioned being alone. I wanted love and marriage, a baby plus a husband. A family of my own. It all came together so differently in my dreams. I want Giant but not out of duress. Suggesting he adopt Finn feels like a scramble, grasping at loose ends to hold onto something falling apart.

  “I don’t think this will work.” My voice drops even lower as I close my eyes.

  “What won’t work?”

  I don’t reply, a lump forming in my throat.

  “Don’t do this,” he quietly pleads, sensing where I’m going with my comment. I swallow the lump clogging my airway as I prepare to do what I think is best under the circumstances. I walk back into the living room and sit across from Marcus. Wiggling my fingers, I reach out for his hand. I need support. I need to be strong.

  Be brave. Be strong.

  “I found a nanny. She’s young, but she’ll come to the condo, and my work is flexible enough that I can do most of it from home. Frank isn’t allowing me to travel, so this is covered.”

  Marcus’s eyes open wide. He mouths, “What are you doing?” while I shake my head at him. I close my eyes, squeezing his hand.

  “I love you,” Giant mutters, his voice rough and low, so low I can hardly hear him. I swallow again, the lump now the size of a boulder and choking me. My heart feels just as heavy.

  “I love you both,” he says, and my breath hitches. Finn. He loves Finn?

  “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.” My voice cracks. “Along with Finn.” Finn comes first for me. He’ll always need to be first.

  “So that’s it?” he whispers. “We can’t even discuss this.”

  “I don’t see any other way.” Ask me to marry you. Ask me again to come live with you. Tell me everything will be okay. Don’t make it only about Finn, my son.

  A shuddering breath releases with my thoughts. I’m doing what I think is best as Finn’s mother. Don’t form sudden attachments. I am a
ttached, and I don’t want to lose him, though it’s a strong possibility. Giant’s grown attached to him as well, and a tear rolls down my cheek with the thought.

  I refuse to look at Marcus even though he’s tugging my hand, begging me through the physical contact not to do what I’m doing.

  “Goodbye, Giant,” I whisper.

  “Bye, Cricket,” fills the line, and then he’s gone.

  + + +

  “Tell me I did the right thing,” I say, still holding Marcus’s hand across my coffee table.

  “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” he asks, jiggling Finn on his right thigh. Finn is almost six months old, and he’s grown so much in the three months I’ve had him. Holding his head up, pressed against Marcus’s belly, the miniature human being with his dark, trusting eyes is a marvel.

  Did I do the right thing for you?

  “Lie to me,” I mouth, tears clouding my eyes as I stare at my son.

  “You did the right thing.” The lie hurts as much as the decision. For the past three months, Giant has come to see me every two or three weeks, and having him in my home has been amazing. He’s a great pseudo-dad, and my imagination ran away with me each weekend he was here, envisioning us as a family. But the more I imagined us together, the more unfair it seemed. We were on a one-way street, and we weren’t driving in the same direction. This—us together—only reinforced what I want deep down inside. I want love, marriage, and a baby in the baby carriage, along with happily ever after. I want it all with Giant while Giant has already had these things.

  I don’t want a weekend-only father for Finn. I lied to him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share Finn with another person. My little man could use a male mentor in his life, but I couldn’t let it be someone coming and going. I want stability for Finn. Stability I didn’t have as a child after my dad died and Uncle Frank played father figure when it suited him. Owen needed someone consistently, too, and so will Finn.

  After Giant’s one-time suggestion to move to Georgia, we never discussed the future again. I had all kinds of questions but didn’t ask them. Should I move away from Chicago? Did I want to keep selling real estate?

  I’ve thought a lot about myself since I’ve had time off from work. What do I want for me now that I have Finn? Is real estate really my calling? Is motherhood the only thing that will define me? What about the next forty years of my life?

  And when I am free of the adoption restrictions, what will I do about Giant and our long-distance relationship? Continue to travel once a month to see him with a small child? It doesn’t seem fair to anyone. We can’t keep playing part-time, weekend lovers…with a baby in the middle.

  I want to adopt Finn. What was he thinking?

  I didn’t ask. I don’t want to ask him to do something I know he can’t—live here. He’d hate it. He already told me as much, and as the owner and director of his company, he shouldn’t leave the brewery. And if I lose Finn, as today is hinting, there won’t be any Finn to adopt, which clears Giant of feeling any obligation or whatever he’s feeling to make this happen. I won’t tie Giant down. He’s the type of man to stick, but I don’t want him to be stuck. As much as he doesn’t admit it, he’s already been in that position. I don’t want to make concessions in my life as I’ve done with real estate and settling for a Hudson, and I can’t ask Giant to do the same. He wants an adventure with me, but what kind of adventure can I offer him—single mother compared to an empty nester? Another child when his are grown? He has grandchildren, for heaven’s sake. I had to make a choice, and for now, I choose me and Finn because I can’t lose Finn.

  Which reminds me of this morning’s phone call from the adoption liaison. The birth mother has been found. The mediator assures me they can get the biological mother to sign off on Finn, but I’m on edge. She’s abandoned him, yet she has all the rights to him. It isn’t fair. It isn’t just. I could use Giant’s support, but I don’t want to involve him. I understand this makes me wishy-washy when I need to be firm. Stable. Reliable. Here for Finn.

  “Can I tell you the truth now?” Marcus asks, interrupting my rambling thoughts. I haven’t been able to stay focused on any one thing over the past few months. “You look miserable.”

  The tears fall in earnest at his comment, and I release his fingers to cover my face with my hands.

  “I am,” I say into my palms, and Marcus shifts to sit next to me.

  “Honey, I don’t understand. You love him. He loves you. Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “I just…I don’t know what I want.” Another lie. “I don’t think I’m being fair to him by having him come here every other weekend, and right now, I need to prove stability. I need to show the system I’m the more stable choice.”

  My personal life is under scrutiny, and the adoption liaison suggested I remove any thing not solid in my life. Giant is solid, but he’s not mine to keep, and the process doesn’t want to see a part-time lover, part-time father figure coming and going from Finn’s life.

  “I thought Giant came willingly.”

  “He did.”

  “He washed your hair.” His voice softens, but I snap.

  “Stop reminding me how he is one of the most romantic men I’ve ever met.” I can’t tell Marcus how one weekend when Giant was visiting, we struggled to get in my bathtub together, and he did it again. Then he curled me over the edge of the tub and took me from behind. The images in my head make me miss him already.

  Marcus rolls his lips inward, staring back at me with wide eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I mutter, lowering my head again as the tears continue to fall.

  “Listen to me. That man did not travel hundreds of miles every few weeks because he didn’t want to be with you. He had no reason to come here, Letty, other than you and this baby, which isn’t even his, and he just offered to adopt him.”

  Marcus isn’t wrong, but I need to do what I think is best. I can’t have the liaison think I’m a flight risk or flighty with a long-distance relationship. I need to show I’m stable, concrete, and willing to stick for Finn.

  What will I do if the system takes Finn from me?

  Marcus held my hand to keep me steady in my resolve to end things with Giant. I know me. I was cracking under the tone of Giant’s voice, but I had to do the right thing.

  “He wants you,” Marcus states. “He wants Finn. I don’t see the problem. He just offered to play daddy while you return to Mc-Hell-in.” Mc-Hell-in is our nickname for Mullen RE although Marcus doesn’t really dislike his job as my assistant.

  “Play Daddy,” I remind him. “Not be a daddy.”

  “Don’t play semantics with me,” Marcus warns, lifting an eyebrow. “He just offered to come stay for three months.”

  “Three months, not forever.”

  Marcus glares at me.

  “And what if they take Finn from me?” I whisper. Marcus’s eyes soften. He knows the fear is real as he and his partner still haven’t been matched with a baby.

  “Don’t think such negative things. Be brave. Be strong. Think positive thoughts.”

  “If only it were that easy,” I say, swiping at the tears which continue to streak my cheeks. “I don’t want Giant to sacrifice for me, for Finn. I don’t want him to put his life on hold, especially under these new conditions. I can’t have a…a lover…living here. And say I do keep Finn, what happens after the next three months pass?”

  “He washes your hair?” Marcus teases in question, but when I scowl at him, his expression turns stern. “Why do you have to question everything? That’s what love does, Ms. Pierson. Gives. Holds. Sacrifices.” He doesn’t need to remind me Hudson did none of these things. Four years with one man, and nothing. Four months with another, and everything. Love is a strange beast.

  “When you’ve completed your six months,” he emphasizes with full confidence that I won’t lose Finn. “You get out of here,” he suggests, making it sound like a prison break. Like it’s just that easy to spring free. Quit the job. S
ell my place. Move several states away.

  “What do I do? Drop everything and go to Georgia. He hasn’t asked me to do that again, and I don’t know how to bring it up. I don’t want to suggest I move there if he doesn’t want that anymore. I don’t want to push him into something when he’s already done the marriage thing. He’s offering to come here to be nice because that’s the kind of man he is. He isn’t suggesting something long-term.” I sigh. “Besides, I have bigger concerns to consider right now.” I stare down at Finn on Marcus’s lap.

  “Letty, just stop it. You don’t think he can love again? He’s told you he loves you. You don’t think he wants this baby? He just suggested he’d adopt him. Maybe it wasn’t on his radar a few months ago when you hiked a mountain and slept with him in a tent. I doubt you were on his meter stick until you suddenly were.”

  “Marcus,” I warn him and his euphemisms.

  “Something happened right. You connected. No man travels hundreds of miles to see a girl if he doesn’t want her permanently. Nor does he wash her hair.”

  “Marcus!” I growl.

  “I’m just saying. Letty, so what if he hasn’t asked? It’s the modern age. Look at Peter and me. Ask Giant or, better yet, be your demanding self and tell him: I’m moving to Georgia. Ask him to marry you!”

  Marcus and his partner had this unconventional question. When you’re gay, who does the proposing? Marcus decided to ask Peter to marry him. Peter’s the one who proposed a child through adoption.

  “That’s ludicrous,” I admonish.

  “And so is throwing away the love of your life. And don’t tell me Hudson was him because I’ll never believe you. I’ve seen you with Giant.”

  Marcus met us once for brunch, and another time, we had dinner with him and Peter. He’s seen Giant and I together. We laugh. We stare. We touch.

  I exhale in frustration. “I didn’t do the right thing, did I?”

  “Want the truth this time?”

  I shake my head, but I’ll listen.

  “I don’t think so, honey.” His squinting eyes tell me I should have been honest with Giant. Told him the stress I was under. The news I received.