by Dale Mayer
“I don’t know.”
And, with that, he headed to his room, completely unconcerned, and she wondered how a child could just let things go. Adults hang on to issues for a long time, toss them around in their brains, until they looked at everything from every angle and still came up with nothing. Her son seemed to be remarkably free of all that mental turmoil that she saw with so many teenagers. She didn’t know how he managed it, but somehow he seemed to just walk through life, light and easy. Her son returned to the kitchen, reaching for more pepperoni sticks, and asked, “How long is he staying?”
“Who?” she asked, shaking her head and looking up at him.
“Your friend.”
“I’m not sure. He really is looking for the War Dog,” she said. “After that, I don’t know.”
“That’s so cool,” he said, “just to think about what training that dog has had.”
She looked up at him, noting the admiration in his voice. “That’s true,” she said. “The dog has been through a lot. Do you know anything about the dog?”
“Nah,” he said. “Wish I did though.”
“Well, thanks for not making up something so you sound like you know more than you really do,” she said in a dry tone.
He laughed. “Yeah, that’s not my deal. That’s other guys’ deal.”
“So what is your deal?”
He shrugged. “I just get along with everybody.”
“Why is that?” she asked, realizing something important was here.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just figure, if I get along with everybody, then I won’t have to worry about not getting along with anybody.”
She frowned at that. “Meaning?”
“Meaning nothing,” he said. “When’s dinner?”
She groaned. “Every time we get to a meaningful conversation, I feel like you avoid it.”
“It’s only meaningful to you,” he said with the same flippancy that she’d come to recognize whenever he got close to an issue.
“Does it bother you that you don’t have a father?”
“Only sometimes,” he said. “It’d be kind of cool if I did, but I don’t know what I would do with one after all this time. I mean, it’s not like he’s come looking for me.”
“I told you that he didn’t know about you,” she said, “so don’t go changing that story.”
“I know, but still, if you have a relationship with a girl, you come back and check on her, don’t you?”
“No,” she said in surprise, “most of the time not. You move on. You have another relationship, and old relationships just seem to fade away.”
“Is that what happened when you met this guy from today?”
She looked at him, shocked. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s obvious you two were close, and I’ve never met him before, so I don’t know where he came from or what type of relationship you had.”
“He was a really good friend in school,” she said.
He nodded and stared at her with that odd look in his eyes. “What are you saying? Is he my dad?”
And her chest collapsed. This was so a day of unwelcomed and unintentional emotional overload.
When she didn’t answer, he continued, “It’s just … you haven’t had a relationship really, that I know of, since I was born—at least not in the last many years. You don’t date,” he said with a wave of his hand. “And you’re really attractive and all that, so there’s really no reason why. And, if this guy was a friend in high school, and you had me just after high school, and I saw the way the two of you looked at each other …”
“I see,” she said in a faint voice.
“And then there’s the look of him.”
“Meaning?” She tore her gaze away from her hands to face her son.
“I look like him,” he said bluntly.
“Yes, you do,” she said, taking a deep breath, “and, yes, he’s your father.”
He stared at her, and something she didn’t know—but maybe anger—was in that gaze. He no longer looked like a young teenager. Something very painful and very adult was in that gaze.
“He just found out about you too,” she said quietly.
“Right now? Today?”
She nodded. “Yes, right now, today.”
“Wow. Damn, that’s heavy.”
She stared at him, hating the language, but realizing it wasn’t the time to bring that up. “I think he feels that is pretty heavy right now too. He’s alternating between angry, betrayed, and overjoyed.”
“Angry at what?” Jeremy asked belligerently. “That I’m a boy, not a girl?”
“Angry at himself that he didn’t check up on me. Betrayed by me that I didn’t tell him and betrayed by the world maybe in some ways too because this is how life panned out. It’s not what he intended. It’s not what I intended either,” she said quietly, feeling part of her shrink inside. This conversation was not how she intended it to go. It wasn’t in any way, shape, or form the way she wanted it to be. Anger emanated from her son, and she wasn’t sure who it was directed at. “Because he didn’t know anything about you, it’s been a bit of a shock.”
“But he left today, didn’t he?” And he turned and flung open the fridge with a snap.
“Yes, he left,” she said. “He was also shot at today.”
At that, Jeremy spun so fast to focus on her. “What?”
“Those five guys, who you know, attacked Kurt at the gas station. He beat one up earlier, and then they came back with a gun and shot him as he was driving.”
“Well, how bad is he hurt?” he asked, as if his thoughts were suddenly realigning.
“Not too bad. He wouldn’t go to the hospital. So I stitched him up here before you got home,” she said, staring down at her hands. “He didn’t want to go to the cops.”
“Why?” he asked, suspicion immediately flaring in his voice.
She smiled, looked up at him. “Because he has a very rough history here with the local police, and they already have a long file on him. He was a troubled teen after his mother died, and he was taken away from his drunk father when Kurt was young. About your age actually. He was the epitome of a bad boy and always in trouble,” she said. “He hated authority, and the cops hated him because he was forever getting into trouble.”
“So maybe that explains why no police, but why no hospital?”
“I understand why he did that too,” she said. “He was badly injured in the navy and spent months, almost a year, in a military hospital. He’d do just about anything to avoid them. So I stitched him up. It wasn’t bad.”
“But still …”
She could sense the doubt and the judgment in her son’s voice. “You don’t understand what he’s been through either,” she said.
“Is he still a badass?”
“Yes, but in a good way he is, was,” she corrected herself, “a Navy SEAL.”
His eyes lit up, and she could see hero worship about to start.
“He joined the navy from high school. That was always his plan. So, when I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t tell him because he was leaving in two weeks,” she said. “I knew that his life here was so bad and that he needed to get out of town to straighten up.”
“Did he?”
She watched as Jeremy’s fingers slowly clenched and unclenched on the counter behind him, and she nodded. “He did, and he did a beautiful job of it,” she said with a smile. “He always was a good person, even in his teens, but now everybody can see that he’s a good man too.”
“Are you still interested?”
She stopped and stared. “What?”
“Are you still interested in him?” he said. “It’s obvious that you guys were close before. I just wondered if that’s still there.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I literally saw him for the first time today.”
“But you should know,” he said, “because, like I said, it was very obvious to me that you already had a thing.”
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“We had a thing,” she said, “yes, but we don’t still have a thing.”
“But you could,” he said, staring at her with that same intensity that she’d come to recognize when he needed an answer.
“We might,” she said, “but I have no idea because I don’t really know how he feels about me now. I don’t know if we have that same bond.”
“Maybe. Have you discussed me with him?” he asked with that same studied indifference that she recognized and that he was trying rather hard to ignore.
“Outside of the fact that you are his son and having to explain how and why—which I did explain all that to him—we talked a little bit about you,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean that we discussed anything in the past right now. I think I gave him an awful lot to think about. He’d also been shot. He’s dealing with a pretty rough scenario here presently, and I don’t think he’s terribly impressed with anything in life right now.”
“I guess it’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it?” he said. “Finding that you’ve got a son?”
“He was upset that he had missed so much of your life, how he didn’t get to be there for the time you were born or your first birthday or your fifth birthday,” she said with her hands out, palms up. “And, of course, that just made me feel worse.”
“Well, it shouldn’t,” he said fiercely. “You did everything you could.”
“And I agree I did,” she said, “but I didn’t let him in the process.”
Jeremy nodded slowly. “It’s one thing to make his own decision to have nothing to do with me. It’s another thing when that choice was taken away from him.”
She slowly nodded. “Yes,” she said, “that’s about it.”
“Well,” he murmured, “the troubled webs we weave.” Then he looked at her and asked, “Is dinner ready yet?”
She rolled her eyes and said, “No, not yet, it’s early.”
“I’m hungry,” he complained, and he returned to the fridge, pulled out more pepperoni sticks, and said, “I’ll go back to Frank’s.”
“Fine,” she said quietly, knowing that it was his way of going off to deal with his own problems. “Dinner will be ready in an hour and a half.”
“Make it an hour,” he said. “Like, I’m really hungry.” And he waggled his eyebrows and left.
She stood in the doorway and watched him race down the road. Tears were in her eyes, but they were good tears. Kurt might not have been there for all the milestones with Jeremy, but she had been. And she had done a damn good job as a mom. And Jeremy was a hell of a good son. She was so grateful to have him in her life.
Later that evening, Kurt picked up the phone and called her personal cell phone number.
“How did you get this number?” she asked sleepily.
“Sorry. I didn’t think that you might be in bed this early.”
“It’s been a pretty tough day. How is the shoulder?” She bolted awake at the thought.
“It’s fine,” he said, reassuring her. “And I don’t know why I called. Guess I needed to hear your voice.”
“Well, that’s an interesting thought,” she said. “After thirteen years of not hearing my voice, now you need to hear it?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I did. I had so many questions and so many thoughts all day long. They just kept running around in circles in my head.”
“You and me both. I told him.”
“You told Jeremy?”
“Yes,” she said. “I told him. He actually guessed.”
“Really?”
“He’s not stupid. He put two and two together.”
“So not too many people in your life since then, huh?”
“No,” she said with a laugh, “and that’s pretty well how he figured it out.”
“Was he upset?” he asked cautiously.
“Only when I said that you were feeling a bit betrayed.”
“And he was upset?”
“He was upset that you would judge me for it.”
“Good,” he said, “because nobody should judge you for that. Nobody was there to hold your hand or to help you out. You made the best decisions you could at the time under those circumstances, and nobody can fault you for that.”
She snorted. “Plenty of people have,” she said. “Starting with those who judged me for even dating you or getting pregnant in the first place. Although I didn’t tell anybody, everybody assumed it was the no-good lazy bum who had already taken off on me.”
“Well, that was partly correct,” he said. “I was always a hard worker but not necessarily one who stuck around, was I?” he said.
“How are you feeling about the whole thing now?” she asked cautiously.
“I’m feeling better,” he said. “I’ll head out to the truck stop early in the morning. Will you be at the coffee shop?”
“I often stop there in the morning, yes. Why?”
“I just thought I could meet you there,” he said, “have a morning coffee with you.”
“That would be nice,” she said warmly. “I’ll be there somewhere around seven-thirty.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ll be there quite a bit earlier because I want to see if I can catch the dog early.”
“Got it.”
“See you in the morning.” And he hung up. As he sat here on the edge of his motel room bed, he took off his shirt. His sore and bandaged shoulder kept throbbing. Still, a smile was on his face. She’d always done that to him. He forgot how much he missed it, missed her. Back then they were a twosome—a special twosome—but always knowing that their time apart was rapidly approaching.
It was hard to look back on those years, but he needed to move forward because moving backward wasn’t possible. All he could hope was that he had a chance to rekindle a relationship with her and a chance to get to know the son he didn’t know he had. And, with that, he rolled over, stretched out on top of the bedding, and turned out the light. He had already checked in with Badger and updated him on everything, including Kurt’s new family.
For the moment everybody was quite content. All he could hope was that Sabine was somewhere safe and that she would hold on until he got there. He didn’t want to get sidetracked by the rest of this personal stuff; it was too important to make sure that Sabine was taken care of and had a safe place to go. But, at the same time, he also needed to make it all work together, not just one or the other.
He’d lost enough already.
He didn’t dare lose any more.
Chapter 5
Laurie Ann woke up the next morning, showered, dressed, and was in the kitchen, staring out the glass doors, when, behind her, she heard the sleepy voice of Jeremy.
“Are you meeting him?”
She turned slowly to look at him. “Yes,” she said, “we’ll meet for coffee.”
He nodded slowly, as if contemplating it. “I thought about it a lot last night.”
“And?”
She really didn’t know what kind of relationship she and Kurt had at the moment, but she was willing to keep the lines of communication open. She also refused to accept any blame. Life happened, and this was just one more example where it happened the way people hadn’t expected it to. She’d never regretted her decision and wouldn’t start now.
“I’d like to meet him,” he said.
“You mean, more than you have?”
He nodded. “I’d like to spend time with him.”
“Fine,” she said. “I think he’d be happy to hear that.”
His gaze held an expression of almost swift relief at her words, and she realized just how much Jeremy was hoping that he wouldn’t be rejected. “He didn’t know about you,” she said quietly. “So there’s no rejection on his part.”
“Of course there is,” he said with the wave of his hand. “I can handle it.”
She kept her quiet smile to herself. “I’ll mention it to him. Do you want me to invite him over for the weekend?”
He looked at her in surprise. “You mean, for dinn
er or something?”
“Or even just coffee, if you want to start small.”
He thought about it and then said, “He might as well come for a meal. At least then it won’t feel quite so awkward.”
“Bonding over a meal is an age-old tradition,” she said with a bright smile.
“Can I bring Frank?”
She thought about it and realized that he was looking for support outside of her. Feeling a small twinge, she nodded. “I think that works,” she said. “How about burgers for four on Saturday?”
“That works,” he said. “Now I’m going back to bed.”
“I’m leaving soon. Have a good day,” she called out.
“You too, Mom.” And, with that, he disappeared upstairs. She tossed back the rest of her coffee, picked up her purse, and walked out the door. She didn’t know what the future held, but she could feel her son trying to find his way. But then so was she. With any luck so was Kurt. Nobody had answers to this mess. No matter how much they tried, there just wasn’t a perfect right or wrong answer in this scenario.
When she arrived at the coffee shop twenty minutes later, she wasn’t surprised to find him already sitting at a table against the window. He lifted his hand in acknowledgment, just to show her where he was seated. She walked toward him, the waitress already meeting her partway with the coffeepot.
She smiled and said, “Yes, please,” as she took her seat across from Kurt. After the waitress left, Laurie Ann asked, “How’s the shoulder?”
“It’s better,” he said. He gave a casual shrug with the other shoulder but kept that injured one still.
She studied him for a long moment. “Do you always have to be a tough guy?”
He laughed. “Goes with the territory.”
“Maybe,” she said, unconvinced. “I wanted to invite you for burgers tomorrow night, Saturday,” she clarified, “at the house.” She watched the surprise and then the joy light up his face.
“I’d be delighted.” Then he hesitated and asked, “Does Jeremy know?”
“Yes, and he would like to spend some time with you.”
“Good,” he said. “I’d like to get to know him.”
“I don’t know how much one gets to know anybody in a short time frame,” she joked, “but it’s a start.”