by Land, Alexa
And maybe I should go ahead and let myself feel these things, instead of always trying to push down and deny every negative emotion. Maybe they were just a part of me, and maybe it was okay to not always feel happy and positive. I was forever trying to silence that other part of myself, but maybe I’d feel more whole if I stopped doing that.
*****
When I arrived at work, it took a minute to stuff the backpack containing my clothes into my narrow locker. I then donned a fresh white apron and joined Dmitri in the kitchen. He’d finally found an opening for me as a sous chef, and this was going to be my first official day working in the kitchen.
He greeted me with a big hug, sympathy in his eyes. He’d heard about the baby earlier in the week, and after telling me he was there for me, he’d been making a real effort not to keep bringing it up. The sympathy itself was a constant reminder, though.
I tried to ignore it and focus on the task at hand. “Thank you for this opportunity, Dmitri,” I said, turning my attention to the prep counter.
“You deserve it. You were completely underemployed as a busboy,” he said. “Just remember though, when Dante’s new chef comes back to the U.S. in a few weeks, I fully expect him to steal you away from me. You seem like the kind of person that would let loyalty get in the way of an opportunity like that, and I’m not going to let that happen. I’ll fire you before I let you pass up that job!”
I had to grin a little. “Thanks, I appreciate your willingness to fire me. Nothing’s going to come of that interview, though.”
“Based on what?” he asked. I just shrugged, looking down at the counter. Dmitri put his hand on my shoulder and said gently, “I know you’re used to life disappointing you Trevor, and I’m so sorry that you’ve had every reason to expect that. But don’t sabotage yourself, okay? That job’s as good as yours, according to Dante. And if you can’t get your hopes up, I guess I’ll just have to get mine up for you.”
I leaned in and gave him a quick hug. “I really would miss this place, you know.”
“So, come visit a lot!”
I grinned at that and said, “If by some miracle I got that job, I promise I would visit. Now stop distracting me, I have work to do.”
He winked at me and said, “You got it. Have fun,” before leaving the kitchen.
Lunchtime at Nolan’s was more popular than ever, and I barely stopped moving for three hours. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I’d observed enough over the past several weeks to be able to pick things up quickly. It felt great to be busy, it pushed everything from my mind but the tasks at hand.
*****
When the lunch rush finally ended, I thoroughly cleaned my station before saying goodbye to the rest of the kitchen staff and depositing my soiled apron in a laundry bin. Jamie intercepted me on the way to the locker room, and said, “Could you come into my office for a minute, Trevor?” He seemed concerned about something, and I asked him what was wrong. “Nothing. Just...um...someone’s coming to see you. Vincent asked us to have you wait.”
“That’s weird. Why would someone be coming to see me here?” I asked as I followed him to the office.
“Well, I guess Vincent didn’t want to bring this person to your apartment. He thought someplace semi-public would be good.”
“I’m thoroughly confused. Who’s he bringing? He didn’t tell me anything about this,” I said as I sank onto the long sofa along the wall of the office.
“I know. I guess it all just sort of came together this afternoon,” Jamie said.
Dmitri came into the office and sat right beside me, so close our legs were touching, and picked up one of my hands, holding it between both of his. I said, “Oh man, Dmitri is in full moral support mode, this must be bad. What’s going on?”
He tried to make light of the situation, grinning as he said, “Me? No. Can’t a friend just randomly cuddle with you and hold your hand?”
Before I could inundate them with a million questions, Vincent appeared in the doorway to the office and said, “Hey. Um, I brought someone to see you, Trevor.” He looked even more nervous than Jamie and Dmitri as he stepped into the office, then off to the side.
A pale, slender man with dark brown hair and blue-green eyes came into the room, wringing his hands nervously as he looked from face to face. Finally, his gaze landed on me, and he said softly, “Oh God, Trevor.”
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. The man looked so much like me, but he also looked way too young to be who I thought he was.
“I’m TJ.” He took a deep breath and said, his voice shaking a little, “I’m your dad, Trevor. God, look at you. You’re all grown up.”
I felt like the room had just been tipped on its axis. It took a moment to get my bearings, and then all I could do was mutter, “Yeah, funny how that happens when a couple decades go by.”
“Do you want us to leave you alone?” Dmitri asked, still holding my hand. I shook my head no.
Jamie pulled a chair up for TJ, who perched on it with a murmured, “Thank you.”
I shot Vincent a look and said, “You didn’t think it’d be an idea to tell me about this beforehand?”
“It just happened this afternoon,” Vincent told me. “Remember when I asked you what your father’s name was a couple days ago? Right after that, I hired a private detective to track him down, but I had no idea if he’d be successful. You’ve suffered enough disappointment lately, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
Anger welled up in me as I stared into a pair of eyes eerily like my own. To Vincent I said, “Why did you think I’d want this? Why would I want to see him?”
“You came to San Francisco specifically to find him, when you and Melody needed help,” Vincent said. “I thought this is what you wanted.”
“Maybe I did at the time, since I was feeling pretty desperate. But having just had an all-too-fleeting taste of parenthood, I have to say, about the last thing I want right now is to see the man who abandoned me.”
“Abandoned you!” TJ exclaimed, his eyes going wide. God he looked like me. Or, I looked like him.... “No! Trevor, that’s not what happened! Didn’t your mom tell you?”
My voice was almost a growl as I said, “She never told me anything, not when you left, and not later, after she shot me and went to jail.”
He looked so distraught that for a moment I almost felt sorry for him. He stammered, “She...what?” as he tried to make sense of what I’d just told him.
“Shot me. In the stomach. I’d show you the scar, but I don’t really feel like sharing.”
“Oh God, Trevor. I didn’t know! When did this happen?”
“When I was six, and of course you didn’t know. You’d already left me three years before that.”
“How could she do that?”
“Technically, she was aiming for someone else and I got in the way of the bullet. Beyond that, I assume she was trying to shoot another person because she spent every minute of her life totally messed up on drugs.”
“But she’d been clean for over seven months the last time I saw you. I thought she’d gotten her act together.”
“She relapsed. You left me with a hardcore drug addict.”
He slid forward in his chair and said, “Trevor, I didn’t leave, not on purpose. I was arrested. I served four years for making and selling meth. When I got out, I couldn’t find you. I wrote to you from prison, didn’t your mom read you any of my letters?”
“No, and you must not have looked very hard for me once you got out. I was sent to live with my mom’s brother in Sacramento. It’s not like I vanished.”
“Your mom has a brother?” he asked.
I stared at him for a long moment. “Do you honestly expect me to believe you didn’t know that?”
“I didn’t. She hated her family, she never talked about them. When I first met her in high school, she’d been living with a friend’s family for almost two years.”
“It also didn’t occur to you to
check with social services? They kept a record of me.”
“I thought you were with your mom. I had no reason to believe you were in the system.”
I stared at him for several long moments as I took this all in. He really seemed like he was telling the truth, but I couldn’t just blindly accept everything he was telling me. How did I know if I could trust him?
This was all more than a little overwhelming. I muttered, “I need some air,” and got up and left the office abruptly. I went out the back door and doubled over with my hands on my knees, breathing deeply.
TJ followed me, and he said softly, “Trevor, I’m really sorry. I messed up so bad when I got myself sent to jail. I was an addict, not that that’s any excuse. But I’ve gotten clean. I don’t sell or use drugs anymore, I haven’t since I went to prison. I changed. I got my G.E.D. and learned a trade. I do electronics repair. I have my own apartment, and I’ve managed to build up some savings. Do you need money, or a place to stay? I could help you out.”
I whirled around to face him and yelled, “I don’t want your damn money! I just wanted you! All those years, that’s all I wanted! Just you!”
His voice shook as he said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to find you. I thought your mom had gotten clean, I thought she was taking care of you and that you didn’t need me. I didn’t know, Trevor. I had no idea.”
“I don’t know if I can believe you. How can I even be sure that you’re really my dad? Maybe that detective found the wrong guy. I mean, you look a hell of a lot like me, but at the same time, you also look way too young. How old are you?”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
“You can’t be.”
“I was sixteen when I got your mom pregnant. She was seventeen when she had you. Your birthday is June twenty-ninth, I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday. I’d never been so terrified in my entire life. Or so happy.” He smiled shyly and looked at the ground.
I was completely floored. “My God, you were a kid! I mean, I knew my parents were young, but I never realized you were that young.”
He looked up at me and said, “I made a million mistakes in my life, Trevor, but you were never one of them. I loved you from the moment I saw you and every moment since then.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and said quietly, “I thought you didn’t want me. All this time, I was so hurt and angry. I thought you’d abandoned me.”
He pushed his hair out of his eyes and said, “Maybe I did abandon you in some sense, because I didn’t try hard enough to find you. I thought I was doing you a favor, though. After I got out of jail and discovered you’d moved, I tried for months to find out where you’d gone. But I let myself give up after a while, because part of me really believed you were better off without me. I mean, why would you need a loser ex-con with no job and a tenth grade education in your life? I still thought about you every single day though. I wondered a million times how you were, what you were doing.”
He took out his wallet and gingerly removed an old photo, holding it by the edges as he turned it to face me. I’d never seen a picture of me as a baby, and the fact that he’d been carrying it all these years was heartbreaking. “I look at this every day. I always wished I had more pictures of you, but I’ve only ever had this one.” TJ put the picture and his wallet away, and said, “I’m so sorry I stopped looking. I swear, if I’d had any idea about your mother, about what she’d done to you, I would have never stopped trying to find you. Never.”
I really didn’t know what to say to all of that, so I just told him, “I wouldn’t have thought you were a loser. I doubt anyone ever thinks that about their dad.”
He smiled sadly and said, “You never met my father, and for good reason. He was a mean drunk who used to beat the shit out of me and my mom. I think I figured out he was a loser by the time I was about seven years old.”
“Man,” I murmured. “Is anyone in our family not messed up?”
“Yeah,” TJ said, “you. Vincent had a long talk with me before bringing me here. I think he wanted to make sure I wasn’t some total mental case before letting me anywhere near you. Anyway, he told me a bit about your life, about how you’d tried to help your cousin, and about what a kind, decent, loving person you are.” He smiled at me and added, “He also threatened to kill me if I hurt you. When most people say that, you assume it’s just a figure of speech. But in this case, I kind of believed him. He’s a pretty intense guy. He obviously loves and protects you though, and that makes me happy.”
“I love him too, and I plan to marry him someday. Do you have a problem with that?”
“Why would I?”
I shrugged and said, “Some parents can’t accept the fact that their kids are gay.”
“Yeah, but not gay parents.”
“What?”
“I’m gay, Trevor. When I was a stupid teenager, I thought I could fight it. Sleeping with your mother was a failed attempt at trying to be straight. Thank God I was that stupid though, because otherwise I never would have had you.”
“Wow. Okay, I didn’t see that one coming.”
He frowned and said, “Maybe I should have held off on that revelation. You already have a lot to take in.”
“No, it’s okay. Actually, it’s nice to know we have that in common.”
There was a lull in the conversation. After a few moments, TJ asked, “I was curious about something. How did you know to look for me in San Francisco when your cousin got pregnant and you tried to come to me for help?”
“Four years ago, I got a letter from my mother. It was the only letter she ever sent me, not that she even wanted to send that one. She said in it that the prison psychologist was making her write to me as part of a treatment plan. It was really short, but she did say, ‘I know my brother’s a real son of a bitch, so if you get sick of living with him, maybe go find your dad. He’s probably living in San Francisco. He always said he was going to move there.’ Turns out she was right.”
“That wasn’t much to go on.”
“I know, but it was my only lead. You’re not in the phone book though, and I couldn’t find any other public records to tell me where you were. I didn’t have the money to hire a private detective, either. Obviously, that was the way to go.”
“Why did you decide to stay in the city, even after you couldn’t find me?”
“We’d already used a lot of our money getting here, and we figured it was as good a place as any to disappear. We didn’t want Melody’s abusive dad or her psycho ex-boyfriend to find us.”
“I see.” After another awkward pause, he asked, “Do you maybe want to go someplace to continue this conversation? We have so much to catch up on.”
“I don’t know about that. I kind of need some time to process all of this.”
“Plus, you’re not sure if you can trust me,” TJ said, and I nodded. “I understand. I’m a stranger to you, so it’s not like you’d be willing to just welcome me into your life with open arms. I’ve given you every reason to hate me, but I want you to know I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust.”
“I don’t hate you. I thought I did, for a long time, but I really don’t.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and added, “It is going to take time to learn to trust you, though. I mean, I’m not exactly ready to start calling you Dad and playing catch in the yard, you know?”
He tried to lighten the mood by smiling at me and saying, “It’s good you don’t want to play catch. I don’t have a yard. Also, I’m really uncoordinated, so I’d only embarrass myself.”
TJ dug through all the pockets of his jeans and finally fished out a dog-eared business card, which he handed to me. It said Trevor James Dean above the words Television and VCR Repair, along with an address and phone number. He said, “I know I was sprung on you out of the blue, and this has to be completely overwhelming. So, how about if you call me after you’ve had a chance to process all of this? Whenever you’re ready, I’d love to get to know
you, but I won’t push.”
“Okay.”
He chewed on his lower lip as he thought about that, then amended, “No, forget that last part. I am going to push. I’ve already missed way too much of your life, Trevor. I let fear stop me from tracking you down, fear that I wasn’t good enough, fear that you’d hate me for being a loser, just like I hated my dad, fear that I was too young and worthless and incompetent to be a good father for you. I don’t want to keep doing that. I’d rather risk your rejection than miss any more time with you. So I’m just going to go ahead and ask: will you please meet me for coffee tomorrow? I’ll meet you anywhere you want, even if it’s just for a few minutes.”
There was that hopeful expression again. I looked into his eyes for a long moment as I made up my mind. Ultimately, I did what I always did. I trusted my instincts. I put his card in my pocket and said simply, “Alright.”
“Really?”
“We’ve already lost so much time, TJ, and I’d really like to get to know you.”
He beamed at me and said, “Thank you, Trevor. So, call me in the morning and we’ll make plans, okay?”
“I will.”
He started to go for a hug, then pulled back into a handshake, then awkwardly went for the hug again. I hugged him quickly, and when I let go of him he smiled and said, “See you soon then.”
I watched him walk away down the alley, and then ducked back inside the employee entrance. Vincent, Jamie, and Dmitri were right where I left them, identical expressions of grave concern on their very different faces. I stopped in front of Vincent and said, “I hate surprises.” I stretched up and kissed him, then added, “Usually. But that was amazing. Thank you for finding my dad for me.”
He looked so relieved that it was almost comedic. “Oh thank God,” he said, his posture slumping. “I was afraid I’d totally messed up.”
“You didn’t.”
“So...is everything okay?”
“Yeah. We’re going to meet for coffee tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” Jamie said.