by Sophie Stern
“But he doesn’t have to go to school,” I tell her. “He can sleep in.”
Alicia shakes her head.
“That’s not how little kids work, Cage.” She looks to Orlando again and jerks her head toward the bathroom. “Time to brush your teeth. Let’s go.”
I’m a little rankled by her just brushing me off. I mean, I’m his dad, too. He’s got two parents, now, and I feel like I should be able to have a say in how this goes.
When she comes back from brushing Cage’s teeth, I decide that I’m going to do it. I’m going to double down. Alicia has always been wildly stubborn. She’s always tried getting her way, but I’m tired of that. Why can’t I get something my way for a change?
“Tell Cage goodnight,” she says gently, but I shake my head.
“He should stay up more,” I tell her.
Alicia looks at me. For a minute, I think she’s going to argue with me, insisting that he needs to go to bed on time, but she just shrugs.
“Sure,” she says. “But you have to get up with him in the morning.”
“Not a problem,” I say, grinning, glad that I’m getting my way. “What do you say, kiddo?” I ask Orlando, ruffling his hair. “Want to stay up and play trains?”
“Trains!”
“Then we’ll sleep in tomorrow and have a great day together,” I say.
Alicia rolls her eyes, but she does it so subtly that it barely registers. Why does she think I’m not going to be a good dad? I’ll definitely make a good dad.
Orlando takes my hand and leads me into his room, where he’s got piles upon piles of toys.
“You’ve got a lot of trains,” I tell him. Alicia appears in the doorway and I look over at her.
“Your mom was very generous,” she says. “I never could have afforded all of this.”
“She liked Orlando, huh?”
“Adored him. They spent a lot of time together.”
“That surprises me a little.”
“Well, your mom had a lot of time to think after you left,” she says gently, and I get what she’s trying to say.
“You mean she calmed down a little bit.”
“A lot, actually. When you left, she basically broke. She was devastated.”
“I don’t know why. It’s not like I lived with her before I took off.”
I’d moved out the second I’d turned 18 and I never looked back.
“A mother never really stops loving her child, Cage. You two may not have been close, but she still cared for you. She loved you.”
“I should have called her,” I say, watching Orlando run around and pick up various trains.
“Probably,” Alicia says, and I suddenly have even more respect for her. She’s not letting me get away with my bad behavior. Most girls would say something to justify the behavior. I’m glad she’s not like that.
“Was she mad that I didn’t?”
Alicia considers the question before she answers.
“She wasn’t mad. I think she blamed herself. The two of us talked a lot after you left, but she was always kind of hesitant to talk about what happened between you. I think she felt like you chose your dad.”
“I did.”
“She understood that you had to make your own choices.”
“I wish I’d come back,” I say quietly. “Before she passed.”
“It would have been nice,” Alicia agrees. “But there’s no going back, Cage. We can only go forward.”
“How’d you get to be so smart?” I whisper, looking over at her. Even now, in the dim lighting in Orlando’s room, I can see those bright, lovely eyes shining at me.
“Years of practice, I guess,” she shrugs.
“She was lucky to have you around.”
“I was the lucky one. Your mom helped me a lot. She was with me every step of the way when I was pregnant and she was with me when he was born.”
“Did your mom go to the birth, too?”
“Yep. All three parents were there.”
Except for my dad.
She’s not counting my dad.
“My dad died,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, but she doesn’t seem surprised.
“Did you know?”
“Suspected,” she shrugs. “I mean, you never came back. There had to be a reason for that.”
She’s patient. I’ll give her that. Alicia waits carefully, giving me both time and space. She’s not pushing me to tell her what happened between us, or why I left, but I also know that I can’t keep putting off the inevitable.
At some point, she’s going to have to know.
Eventually, I’ll have to just...tell her.
“My dad asked me to come with him,” I finally say.
“So you’d planned it.”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
The look of pain on her face is something that’s going to bother me forever. It’s going to fucking haunt me because I know what our last night together meant to her.
To both of us.
Alicia was a virgin.
We both were.
We never talked about it, and we never told each other, but it was obvious that for both of us, it was our very first time, and oh, it really was a magical, wonderful night. I still think about it often, even all these years later. I still think of the way she felt, the way she smelled. I think about how she touched me, and she didn’t have a care in the world when she did.
“I shouldn’t have gone,” I tell her.
“That’s probably true. You always would have wondered, though, if you didn’t.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
Alicia looks from Orlando to me and back again. She picks up a little toy train and runs it on the carpet in front of her, and then she looks at me again.
“Cage, you’ve always been a dreamer. I’ve never held that against you.”
“I shouldn’t have left,” I tell her again.
“Why did you go?” She whispers.
And this is my chance.
This is my opportunity to be honest.
To be truthful.
This is my chance to be brave.
But I’m just not sure if I can do it.
Chapter Seven
Alicia
He’s holding back, but he doesn’t want to.
I can tell.
Cage is a lot of things, but he’s not a good liar. At least, not when it comes to things that matter.
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“My dad asked me to go with him.”
“And where did he want you to go?”
Cage always wanted his dad’s approval. Always. He didn’t talk about his dad very much when we were together, but he always spoke positively of him when the topic did come up. I could tell, even without him saying it, that he’d always felt like he’d lost his dad when his parents split up.
He’s always felt like he’d gotten shafted, really, by his parents not being there for him at all, but mostly, he thought he was missing out on his father’s life.
I can understand it much better now than I could before.
He’s a shifter.
He wanted to be with his dad. He wanted his father to show him what a bear could be like. He wanted his dad to teach him things, to help him. He wanted his father to be the role model he’d always craved.
But his dad wasn’t.
He wasn’t there.
He didn’t try.
He didn’t understand Cage.
And then he had a chance to go off with him, so of course he went.
“He said he wanted me to come live with him.”
“And so you went.”
“I did.”
“What happened, Cage?”
He doesn’t have to tell me that things didn’t go according to plan. That much is obvious from the look on his face. Something went horribly, terribly wrong, and Cage didn’t get the happy ending he was searching for.
I may have
ended up without a lover, but at least I got to build a friendship with Betty and I got to become a mother to the sweetest boy in the world. We’ll see if I still feel that way after tomorrow, I think, glancing at Orlando. He’s already looking really tired, and while I probably should have insisted that he definitely go to bed on time, I kind of need Cage to know that parenting isn’t all fun and games.
If we let him stay up late, it’s fine, but there are consequences, and we’re going to have to face those consequences tomorrow morning when Orlando is in a terrible mood.
“He took me to his house.”
“Did he live far away?”
“A few hours,” Cage says.
“And when you got there?”
“He told me how things were going to work.”
Cage chokes the words out somehow, and I wonder if this is something he’s ever talked about. One of the best things I ever did was to start seeing a therapist. After he left, I understood that I couldn’t handle the way my life was going on my own. Both Betty and my own parents encouraged me to talk with someone, and I’m glad that I did.
Even now, I scrape together the cash at least once, sometimes twice a month, and I go talk to someone who understands that life isn’t always perfect, and that sometimes, we all need a little bit of help to deal with our lives.
“And how were they going to work?”
“My dad was a criminal.”
I had always sort of suspected something like that, but I never broached the topic with Cage. Again, it was something very sensitive and private for him. I’ve never wanted him to see me as some sort of liability. I’ve never wanted him to feel like I wasn’t on his side, so I’m quiet as he tells me more.
“He robbed places: banks, stores, you name it. I thought he was going to teach me the family business, you know.”
“You wanted him to be proud of you.”
“I did.”
“Cage, you’d never so much as sped on the highway before, though. I’m not trying to be offensive, but you aren’t exactly a hardened criminal.”
“That’s what he said,” Cage tells me with a sad smile. “But I wanted to prove that I could handle it.”
I look over at Orlando. He’s lying on the carpet now and rolling a train back and forth. I should put him to bed before we finish this talk, but Cage is finally starting to open up, and like trying to lure a feral animal to safety, I don’t want to do anything that’s going to startle him or make him freak out.
“So you did a job with him.”
“I was supposed to. I couldn’t go through with it.”
How interesting.
“It was supposed to be simple: we were going to go into a bank, pretend to make a withdrawal, and rob the teller.”
“With guns?”
“As shifters,” he shakes his head. “My dad had the idea that we would change into our bear forms in order to threaten her, and then shift back to carry the cash out of the doors.”
“Seems flawless,” I say drily, because there are more holes in that plan than swiss cheese.
“The night before, my dad thought I was sleeping. I wasn’t. I was awake. I couldn’t sleep because I was nervous and overexcited.”
“You heard him saying something.”
“To one of the other guys,” he nods. “And my dad made it clear that after the job was done, they were going to take off. Turns out, he wanted me because I’m the same kind of shifter as him. My dad figured that if we both shifted, but only one of us got caught, that the cops would argue the witness had been confused or unsure of what happened. Even if she said there were two shifters, they would argue there was only one.”
“Your dad wanted you to be the fall guy,” I say, suddenly realizing the betrayal.
“He wanted me to be the fall guy,” Cage agrees, and he shakes his head sadly. “And I was so damn gullible that I almost went for it.”
“Almost?”
“I backed out,” Cage says. “I left in the night before any of them woke up. Later I found out they’d done the job without me, but they’d gotten busted, of course. My dad had never been much of a planner. He was more content to do things by the seat of his pants.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went to see him in prison.”
“And?”
“He blamed me for everything,” Cage says. “He took no responsibility for his own choices. He said if I’d been there, things would have been fine. I told him I’d overheard his conversation with his goons, and as soon as I said that, my dad clammed up. I left, and I never looked back. He died the next year.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I find myself whispering.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“Okay.”
I look over to see Orlando’s eyes closing.
“We should put him to bed,” I tell Cage, standing up.
“No bed,” Orlando says. “Not tired.”
“You’re practically asleep right now.”
“Not sleepy,” Orlando insists. “I’m not sleepy. I’m awake.”
“He does look pretty tired,” Cage finally agrees, and he gets up, too. He reaches down and lifts Orlando into his arms. He pulls him close, kisses him on the forehead, and then lays him down in his bed.
“Do you need to go potty before bed?” I ask Orlando.
“No. And I’m not sleepy.”
“Okay,” I tell him. I press my lips to his cheek, pull his blankets up to his neck, and place his favorite stuffed panda bear in his arms.
Then Cage and I leave the room, and I close the door behind us.
The minute we’re alone, Cage grabs me and pulls me close. He hugs me tightly, and for a second, I don’t know what to say. Instantly, I’m surrounded by his scent and his touch and I’m transported back to that night all of those years ago.
The night that I had sex for the first – and the last – time.
“Cage,” I whisper. “What are you doing?”
“It’s called a hug, Alicia. Just go with it.”
“Why are you hugging me?”
“Because I’m very grateful for today. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
“That’s not true,” he says. “It’s everything. You didn’t have to let me stay, but you did. You didn’t have to share him with me, but you did.”
“You deserve to get to know your son,” I tell him. “And he deserves to get to know his dad.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with us,” Cage tells me. “But I won’t let you down, Alicia. I won’t let you down.”
Chapter Eight
Alicia
The next morning, the snow has finally stopped coming down, and I decide to get up early and go shovel the walkway. I get up, dress quickly, and slip outside. By the time I come back in an hour later, Cage and Orlando are both sitting on the couch. Cage looks dead. Orlando is complaining.
“Good morning, guys,” I say, stomping on the little doormat. Flakes of snow fall off of my boots, and then I kick them off.
“He got up so early,” Cage whispers, jerking his head toward Orlando.
I raise an eyebrow, but I don’t say, “I told you so.”
I refuse to say those words.
Cage wants to be a part of Orlando’s life, and I’m very pleased about this. Part of being a parent means understanding how kids work, though. I’ve had years to prepare and learn how Orlando operates. Cage has had a few days. It’s going to take time, and patience.
From all of us.
“I’m very tired,” Cage whispers again, but he doesn’t seem irritated. I just laugh and shake my head.
“You want some coffee? I’ll make you coffee.”
“Yes, please,” Cage grins boyishly, and I move to start the coffee.
“I cleaned a path to the car,” I tell him, looking over my shoulder. “So, if you need to get back into town today, I think the jeep can handle the roads.”
He looks at me carefully, and then at the window.
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“I should go get online,” he says. “I’ll stop by the library.”
“I have Internet here,” I blurt out before he can say anything else. I don’t usually give out my Wi-Fi password, but...
I’m not ready for him to go.
Cage raises an eyebrow.
“All right,” he says. “I don’t have anywhere else I need to be. Not just yet, anyway.”
“You know, you never told me what your job is.” I stare at the coffee pot as the drip starts. Then I grab a couple of mugs and add some vanilla flavoring and cinnamon in the bottom. It’s Saturday, which means that I have two more days without any sort of responsibilities. Then it’s back to work for me, back to school for Orlando, and, I assume, back to normal life for Cage.
“I’m a writer.”
I stop, turning.
“A what?”
“A writer.”
“What do you write?”
“Books.”
“Is that so?”
“You seem surprised.”
“I am. A little. I never really pictured you as the writing type. Didn’t you fail English in 10th grade?”
“I failed a lot of things in 10th grade,” he says, chuckling.
“So what...what made you become a writer?”
It seems like such a stupid question. Even as the words leave my lips, I realize how stupid they are. What made him decide to be a writer? Is that really any of my business? Maybe he wanted to pursue his secret lifelong dream. Maybe he had this vision of who he would be, and it was an author.
I have no idea.
I definitely never would have pegged him for that, though, although now that I’m looking at him a little more closely, maybe I can see how he could pass as a sort of artist. He’s definitely got the haircut for it, and I mean, he’s still wearing sweats and t-shirts from my home, but I can picture the way he might dress normally.
“I was pretty upset after what happened with my dad,” he says. “But I was too stubborn to come back home and tell my mom I was wrong.”
“Really? You...you wanted to come back?”
Why does that knowledge, that realization, make this hurt a little bit less? Somehow, the idea that he didn’t want to stay away makes me feel a little more comfortable with everything that happened.