Mad About Moon

by Melissa Foster

  She tossed the box of crackers beside the box from their mother and climbed onto the couch. “Because apparently not only does carrying a little Whiskey in my uterus make me pukey, but it also makes me weepy. I was sewing a princess blanket for Sarah’s baby and started thinking about Dad for some reason, and there went the waterworks. I swear this kid is going to be all Bear.”

  Jed chuckled. Everyone knew Bear was the most sensitive of the Whiskey siblings. He was a talker. Crystal, on the other hand, had always bottled up her feelings—until she and Bear got together. Bear had softened her, and Jed was glad she’d stopped keeping everything locked inside. He knew just how debilitating that could be.

  “I miss Dad, too,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about him lately.”

  “Bet you don’t bawl like a baby.” Her eyes flicked to the box from their mother. “Bear said you brought that stuff a few weeks ago and he forgot to tell me about it.” She used air quotes when she said forgot. “You’re still going to see Mom after everything she’s done to us?”

  “Just every few weeks.” He tossed his jacket on the couch and sat down. “Someone has to make sure she’s still alive.”

  Crystal rolled her eyes.

  “I tried to get her to clean up her act.”

  She scoffed. “Bet that went over well.” She reached into the box and pulled out Jed’s old stuffed gray rabbit. The fur was matted, and there was a button sewn in place of an eye. “Hey, it’s Mr. Quibbles.”

  “I wondered what happened to him.” Jed snagged his old bunny, thinking of the stuffed rabbit he’d bought for Hail. He still slept with it every night. “Hey, Chrissy, are you nervous about being a mother?”

  “I’d be crazy not to be. I mean, another human being is going to rely on me to take care of it.” She reached into the box and took out a photo album. “That’s some scary shit. What if I lose my mind, like Mom did?”

  He moved beside her. “You won’t. You’re nothing like her. Look at all you’ve gone through in your life. Weaker people would have caved a long time ago, but you not only kept your grades up when our lives were hell at the trailer park, but you put yourself through three years of college and now you and Gemma run a successful business. You’ve got way more Dad in you than Mom.” He set the rabbit down and said, “Besides, if you started to act weird from postpartum depression or something, Bear and I would get you whatever help you needed. You know that.”

  “I know.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she fanned her face. Her glassy eyes shifted up toward the ceiling. “See? Stupid hormones. Guys are so lucky. All you have to do is have sex and go on with your life, while we get round bellies and our hormones turn us into weepy messes.”

  Jed laughed and put an arm around her, pulling her closer. “That’s not fair. From what I hear, guys have to walk on eggshells to make sure they don’t set off their pregnant wives.”

  She swatted him. “Did Bear say that?”

  “No!” he lied. The truth was, Bear and Bones had said it. “Seriously, though, if guys had to have babies, the population would die off really fast. Most of us want to be swaddled when we have a cold.”

  He laughed and picked up the photo album that said FAMILY across the front as Crystal withdrew a worry doll from the box. Their father had made several dolls for her out of twigs, yarn, and fabric and had told her to give her worries over to the dolls and, like magic, her worries would disappear.

  “I didn’t know I’d left one behind,” she said softly. “I’m surprised Mom didn’t burn it. She seems to hate Dad so much.”

  “She hates herself,” Jed said. “Don’t you see it in everything she does? Drinking until she passes out? Snapping at us? I know every time she sees me, she sees Dad, but I bet that as much as that hurts, she can’t stand to look in the mirror.”

  “You really have faith in her. I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe it’s misplaced. I don’t know what I think anymore. I’ve been spending all this time with Hail and Jojo. I can’t imagine turning my back on that boy, and he’s not even mine.” He met Crystal’s gaze and said, “I told Mom you were pregnant. I thought that might make a difference.”

  Tears appeared again in Crystal’s eyes. “I’m not surprised it didn’t.”

  He took her hand and said, “I’m sorry about her, and I’m sorry Dad won’t be around to meet your baby.”

  “Me too.”

  “You know, if Bear doesn’t make your kid worry dolls, I’ll do it,” he offered.

  “Damn it, Jed.” She swiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Sorry. Listen, I can’t be Dad, but I’ll try to be a great uncle, and I’ll tell your baby all about him, okay?”

  She nodded as more tears slid down her face. He drew her into his arms and said, “He’d be proud of you, you know. Damn proud.”

  “I know. Now, stop hugging me or I’ll keep crying.”

  He put space between them. “Do you think I’ll be an okay father?”

  “You’re asking that after what you just said to me? You’ve taken care of me my whole life. Of course you will.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t do enough, and I wasn’t a great teenager or young man. I slept around, stole, got arrested, and I didn’t keep in close enough contact when you were away at college. I wasn’t there for you after…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Her eyes told him she knew he meant when she was raped.

  “First of all, if parents who did bad stuff only raised children who did bad things, there would be no hope in the world. Look at Tru and Quincy. Look at us, Jed. You’re really thinking too much these days. You know there’s no way I would have let you be that protective of me in college, and you stole to keep food on the table, remember? Which leaves sleeping around, and we both know why you did that. Because like every other guy around, you were an animal.” She laughed and grabbed a sleeve of crackers from the box.

  “I was not. Horny maybe. An animal? No way.” One thing he knew for sure. After he’d met Josie and Brian had told him she was seventeen and to back off, he’d gone through women trying to prove to himself that what he’d felt with her hadn’t been real. But it hadn’t worked, and eventually he’d given up trying and accepted that the love he’d felt for her would always be unrequited.

  Now that he’d found her again, he was never going to let her go, because now he knew that what they had all those years ago had been as real as the ground they walked on—and now it was a hundred times stronger.

  Crystal bit into a cracker, giving him a disbelieving sigh, and said, “I bet Mike McCarthy would disagree.”

  He and Mike had gone to high school together. Mike had been a prick from a wealthy family who’d lorded it over everyone. Jed had slept with every girl Mike had gone out with just to prove he could.

  “Someone had to kick the guy off his high horse. But seriously, do you think I can do it? Be a dad without screwing up a kid?”

  “Of course. Why are you even asking?” Her eyes widened. “Is Josie pregnant?”

  “No! Jesus, you’re the second person to ask me that.”

  “Because you’re talking about being a father, which implies having a child.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’m in love with a woman who has a kid, and I love him, too,” he said sharply. “And one day I’d like to have my own kids. That’s why I’m asking.”

  Her eyes were still bugging out.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “Sorry. You get weepy with your pregnancy, and I guess I get talky when I’m in love. I need to know I won’t fuck up Hail if I take this relationship further.”

  Crystal touched his hand and said, “One thing I am certain of is that you won’t fuck up a kid. Jed, when Ricardo ran, you didn’t get angry or mean. You helped him, and then you wanted to help his brother. And that wasn’t even enough for you. You want to help kids you don’t even know yet. That’s the mark of a good person. You have such a big hear
t. Don’t you know that about yourself? Everyone else knows it about you.”

  Relief swept through him. “Thanks. I guess you’re right. I appreciate that.”

  He flipped open the photo album, and a pang of longing hit him as he took in a picture of his parents standing arm in arm in front of their house in Peaceful Harbor. Their mother looked youthful and happy. Her eyes were alive instead of deadened by alcohol and angry at the world. His father had never been muscular, like Jed, but at over six feet tall, he was a strong, stable man. And he was proud, Jed thought. Too proud to stay in a marriage when his wife turned her back on their family.

  “I miss them, Chrissy,” he admitted. “Both of them. I miss the way we were as a family when we lived in Peaceful Harbor. Do you ever wonder what would have happened if Dad hadn’t lost his job? If we’d have stayed in the area?”

  “Honestly? I try not to think about Mom at all, so…”

  “God, I hate that,” he admitted. “No kid should ever feel that way.” He flipped the page to a picture of Crystal as a toddler, wearing a fluffy white dress and a bow in her blond hair. She’d been dying her hair black for so long, he had a hard time picturing her as a blonde. “Did that girly-girl ever really exist?”

  “Not for long.” She put her hand on her belly. “But working with Gemma at the princess boutique and hanging out with Lila and Kennedy make me sort of hope we have a girl we can dress up all girly and make tough as nails. But it’s probably safer to hope for a boy, because if we have a girl she’d end up being all emotional like Bear, and I won’t know what to do with her. And you know he’d never let her talk to boys.”

  “You’d be fine with an emotional girl. You’re tough, Chrissy, but you’re feminine as hell, and you care about everyone. You’ll be a loving mother, strong when you have to be and soft when you want to be.”

  “Thanks. How come we have big hearts and our mother is an ass?”

  “Beats me,” he said as he turned the page, freezing at a picture of himself as a boy. He had to be about Hail’s age. He was standing in their front yard, and he must have been dressed for Halloween, because he was wearing a costume he remembered his mother making. She’d painted wide vertical red and white stripes on a big cardboard box and painted a blue circle in the center. POPCORN was written in white across the blue. She’d cut arm holes and a hole for his head, and he’d helped her glue popcorn to the top of the box. His hair was long, like Hail’s, and curled at the edges.

  “Is that you?” Crystal grabbed the album from his lap and studied the picture of the sandy-haired boy. “Holy shit, Jed.”

  She flipped the pages, leafing through more pictures of them when they were young. Jed felt like he’d been cast into an alternate universe and was staring at pictures of Hail.

  “When were you and Josie together before? Are you sure Hail’s not yours?”

  “Yeah, of course. I did the math. She had him ten months after we were together, and pregnancies are nine months, so…”

  Crystal’s eyes were bugging out again. “Did you skip all your sex-ed classes? Full-term pregnancies are forty weeks—ten months.”

  “Bullshit. Everyone knows you’re pregnant for nine months. You just told me that women spend nine months being weepy and shit. Besides, I pulled out. There’s not a chance he’s mine.”

  “Ha! You are such a dude!”

  “Oh, come on, like you’ve never…Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He pushed to his feet and paced. “Are you sure about the ten-month thing?”

  “Yes, I’m sure!” She glanced at the album and said, “Do you know what they call people who use the withdrawal method?”

  “I don’t fucking know,” he snapped.

  “Parents!”

  What. The. Fuck?

  He picked up the album and took out a picture of himself at Hail’s age.

  “What are you doing?” Crystal asked. “Are you going to talk to Josie? You could get a paternity test.”

  “A paternity test?” Holy shit, he couldn’t even think straight right now. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m taking this picture.” He put the picture in his wallet, grabbed the two leather jackets, and headed for the door. “Don’t say anything to anyone, okay? Let me figure out my own shit.”

  “HEY, MAN,” SCOTT said when he answered the door. “Come in. She’s giving Hail a bath.”

  “Thanks. Why are you all dressed up?”

  Scott put on his coat and said, “I’m going to Whispers with your roommate. Don’t wait up.”

  After Scott left, Jed tossed the jackets over the arm of the couch and went down the hall. He found Josie kneeling by the tub. Bubbles floated in the air around Hail’s smiling face, but Jed’s eyes were riveted to the little blue-eyed boy. Could he be his child? Had Jed missed out on almost six years of his kid’s life?

  “Look at all my bubbles, Moon!” Hail lifted a handful of bubbles and blew into them.

  He shook his head to try to clear his thoughts and said, “Awesome.” He leaned down to kiss Josie’s cheek and she turned, meeting his lips with hers.

  “Tracey called,” she said. “Izzy’s letting her rent a room. She’s so excited to get out of the shelter.”

  “That’s great,” he said absently, watching Hail for hints of his own mannerisms. The kid was a whirlwind of movement, and Jed had no idea about his own mannerisms. Maybe he was just grasping at straws because he loved the boy so damn much he’d like to be able to claim him as his own flesh and blood.

  When she was done bathing him, Jed lifted Hail from the tub. Hail told him all about his day, and the time until Hail went to bed passed in a blur of overthinking everything. By the time he kissed him good night, he wasn’t even sure he should bring the question up to Josie. Wouldn’t she have known if the kid was his? Would she have kept that from him? From Brian?

  After Hail went to bed, he and Josie went into the living room to watch a movie. He tried to focus on The Greatest Showman, but Hugh Jackman was no match for Hail possibly being his child.

  AN HOUR INTO the movie, when most of Josie’s comments had been replied to with single-word responses, she hit pause and said, “Are you okay? You seem distracted.”

  “I was just thinking about Hail.” He shifted on the cushion.

  “He was wired tonight, wasn’t he?”

  “Always.” He sat up a little straighter, and his brows slanted in concentration. “I um…Crystal and I were going through a box of old stuff and we found this.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her a picture.

  “Is this you? You were adorable with your curls and that costume. You look a lot like Hail.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  Something in his tone hit her like a splash of cold water, and she glanced up at him. “Exactly…?”

  He pressed his hands flat against his thighs and said, “You ever wonder if Hail might be ours?”

  She felt her smile fade. “Ours?”

  “Yeah, you know. Yours and mine.” His voice escalated a little as he pushed to his feet. “The timing is right. I had no idea a pregnancy was ten months, but—”

  “Whoa, slow down. We were together once. No one gets pregnant their first time, and you pulled out, remember?”

  “I know I did, babe.” He rubbed the back of his neck and said, “But look at that picture.”

  She studied the picture. It did look a lot like Hail, but lots of kids looked alike. Her stomach sank. “Jed, he’s Brian’s. I’m sure he’s Brian’s.”

  “Okay. How sure?”

  “Jed…” She swallowed hard. “He’s always been Brian’s. By the time I found out I was pregnant, Brian and I had had sex dozens of times. Hail is his.”

  “So you never once thought he might be mine?”

  “I was eighteen when I found out I was pregnant, months after you and I had been together. But Brian and I had been together since almost the same time as you and I were, remember? I told you that. I was thinking about how I was supposed to raise a tiny human, no
t if that tiny person came to be because of you or Brian.” She stood up and began pacing, unable to stop her thoughts from coming out. “I never saw you after that night, and now I know that he warned you off, but back then…” She stopped pacing and wrapped her arms around herself. “I was in love with Brian. We were finally a couple and having a baby. I never stopped to think…”

  He crossed his arms, and she hated the hurt she saw in his eyes. “I thought about you,” she said truthfully. “But not about the baby being yours. I’m sorry. My mind never went there.” She stared down at the picture and her heart beat faster. Her legs began to tremble, and as Jed came to her side, she sank down to the couch and tears filled her eyes. “He’s all I have left of Brian.”

  “But what if he’s not Brian’s?”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks as the gravity of his question sank into her bones. “Then he thought he had a son who wasn’t his and my son’s life has been built on lies.” She stared at the picture, taking in Jed’s bright blue eyes and shaggy hair, which was just a shade lighter than Hail’s. A searing pain shot through her chest. “I can’t…” She shook her head and turned away.

  He put his hand over hers and said, “We could find out.”

  The pain in her chest worsened. “And possibly upend everything he knows, after all he’s been through? I can’t do that. That’s not fair to him. He’s a little boy who lost his father and his home.”

  She pushed to her feet again, but her legs couldn’t hold her up, and she sank back down to the couch. What if Jed was Hail’s biological father? Then Brian had believed something that wasn’t true for all that time. He loved Hail so much. She knew Jed loved him, too, but the thought that she could have mistakenly misled Brian made her ache all over.

  “I can’t do that to Brian, either,” she admitted. “I get that you want to know, but…”

  “Jojo, he could be my son. My flesh and blood.”

  His eyes bored into her, and the emotion in them made her want to cry for him, for Brian, and for her little boy.

  “Can we just think about it?” he pleaded.