Restored Dreams: more romance for the over 40 (#sexysilverfoxes)

by L. B. Dunbar

  I pour us each a quarter of the short glass and slide his to him. He stares at me, waiting, and I slam back the liquid courage.

  “Where do you want to start?”

  Brut looks away for a moment, his fingers wrapping around his glass but not lifting it to his lips.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he says, and my eyes close. This conversation is not the one I intended. Not again. It was twenty-two years ago. I was nineteen and horny, and the man I thought I loved didn’t love me enough to have sex with me. Instead, he had it with my sister. It’s over.

  “Let’s start with Chopper instead,” I offer.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” he interjects. “I’d lost my scholarship. My father was an alcoholic, who gambled more than I knew, and then became too sick to work. I was hardly holding the garage together, so he wouldn’t lose it, and I was wildly mad about a girl I had no business touching.”

  I stare at him, wide-eyed. My heart racing in my chest. I can’t hear this.

  “You had so many dreams, Lily. You were larger than life. Larger than the life I had, and I knew I’d never be enough for you. You’d be my mom all over again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My mom was so unhappy with my pop. She didn’t want to be a mechanic’s wife. She wanted something more. I always wanted more myself and then it all went to shit. I was shit. I drank too much and gave into something I had no business giving into.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “And do what, Lil? Take your innocence in my anger that I was a loser, going nowhere, missing out on school and a different career, all to save my drunk father’s ass and a garage I wanted nothing to do with.”

  “I’m sorry, Brut.” And I truly am. Brut has been a caregiver all his life from the hint of things he’s said the past week. His dad’s garage. His brother’s career. His son’s upbringing. Brut’s life has been taking care of others.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “That I wasn’t enough for you. That whether you were a mechanic or not, a teacher or not, none of it made any difference to me. I was young and naïve, but I know who I loved.” My voice whines, and my hands clasp against my chest, trying to hold in the pounding of my heart. “I loved you, Brut, and you didn’t love me.” Tears fall, and I curse the traitors. I don’t want his sympathy.

  “Lily.” There’s so much in my name, but not what I want to hear. I swallow, finished with our past. I need to change topics because the present lays before us.

  “I never liked knowing I had a nephew so close who didn’t even know his family.”

  “I’m his family,” Brut snaps, slamming a hand on the table. I flinch, taken aback by the sharpness to his tone, but his anger fuels me forward.

  “When Lauren told me…my God, Brut, when she explained what happened, it killed me inside. Devastated me.” I pause, collecting my breath. “You are an amazing father. I see so much of you in him.” My voice softens. “I just thought he might need a female influence in his life once in a while.”

  “So, you took it upon yourself to be it? And you never told me?” I stare at him, puzzled by his tone. Is he saying I needed his permission? Maybe when Chopper was younger but not now. He’s an adult.

  “I’m sorry for what she did.” I ignore his question. Lauren. My older sister. She fucked my boyfriend to prove a point. He doesn’t want a kid for a lover. Then she found out she was pregnant. A baby innocent of their decision. “It was cruel to both of you.”

  By the time Brut got Chopper, he and I were history. I wanted to offer my help, but I didn’t know how. The wound just grew deeper and deeper for me.

  “I went to your home after she left Chopper with you.”

  “You what?” Brut shakes his head, his voice rising.

  “Lauren had disappeared. I thought you might know something. Your dad interceded. He told me flat out you didn’t need her or any other relative related to her. That’s when I knew you had him, and he was at least safe.”

  “Why didn’t you come to me at the shop?”

  “I just…I couldn’t face the place.” So many memories of sneaking off to meet him—his dirty little secret. He broke my heart, and I couldn’t return to the scene of my crimes. “I was young. I made mistakes.” I don’t need to remind Brut he made them, too.

  “How did you meet Chopper?”

  “He came into the bakery with some other kids. He was about fourteen or fifteen. It was so surreal because I recognized him instantly. He looks so much like you. I just went up to him and said, ‘hey, I’m your aunt Lily,’ without even thinking.” I remember the day with complete clarity. He was with a group of buddies and a few girls, who I assumed were the reason they were even in a bakery. One girl called out his name, and when I looked over at him, I saw a younger Brut instantly. Brown hair like soft leather. A smile that would break a girl’s heart, and blue eyes shaped like my sister’s.

  “Fifteen?” Brut’s blue eyes search my face for answers. “That was seven years ago.” His voice fades, questioning the timing.

  “He decided to keep in touch with me. He’s been here to visit, or he’ll call me to talk.” The truth falls between us, and I can see the pain in Brut from his wrinkled brow. Guilt holds my throat, and I swallow at the hurt I’m causing him.

  Brut shakes his head in disbelief. “He never told me.”

  “He said you never talked about his mother or her family, as if we didn’t exist. I told him I would respect your wishes, but if he ever needed anything, as a friend, I was here for him.” Chopper took me up on the offer. We’ve chatted about girls, friendships, and even a few life decisions, but I never asked about his dad, and he never told me anything about their relationship.

  “Why didn’t he tell me?” Brut questions, and my heart pinches at the betrayal he feels his son caused him. His expression morphs, and I practically see another thought form. “Why didn’t you mention it? All week, Lily. A week,” he stresses.

  “I wasn’t thinking of Chopper last week.” My voice lowers. I wasn’t. My head was only full of Brut and me, and the promise of our time together. No past. No future.

  “Why was he here today?” Brut’s tone sharpens again, and the news I’m about to share will be even harder, especially as I’m sensing from the question his son hasn’t told him anything. I’m betraying Chopper, but Brut needs to know what’s happened. This will be the final fissure between us.

  “Lauren contacted Chopper. On Friday.” Brut’s brows rise, surmising the same as me. Chopper’s fight stems from Lauren. “She claims she’s dying and wants to see him.”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely not.” The threatening venom within Brut’s tone is uncharacteristic of him yet totally understandable. I don’t know what Lauren could be playing at, but she’s sent her son into a tailspin of questions. “She has no claim to him.”

  “I agree with you in every way, I do, but she’s Chopper’s mother, and if she is dying, he has so many unanswered questions that only she can answer.” Brut glares at me, disagreeing with me without speaking.

  “Did you know? Are you still in contact with your sister? Did you know she was dying? Is this one more thing you kept from me?”

  I want to reach for him and assure him I had no idea. Lauren hadn’t contacted me.

  “No.” I shake my head adamantly. “The day I left you, I walked away from her too. I went to LA and took a job in a bakery to learn the business. I hadn’t spoken to her or heard anything other than a few hints from my mother about the baby being born and then Lauren went missing. I feared for him. She’s never contacted me.”

  Brut stares at me, struggling with whether to believe me.

  “No. Just no,” he blurts. “She will not see him. She abandoned him. That’s all he needs to know.” Brut scrubs down his face. “The paternity test. Do you know what kind of hell that was for me? What if he hadn’t been mine, yet here was a baby sitting on my front porch? And finding out he was mine added a new
layer to my fuckup with that bitch.” I flinch despite my agreement. “Then waiting out the abandonment process and legally changing his name.” Brut throws his glass toward the sink, whiskey raining down across my pristine kitchen. Thankfully, the glass ricochets within the stainless steel basin where it lands and doesn’t break.

  “He’s my son,” Brut shouts, pointing at his chest. “Mine.”

  My heart breaks in two. Brut is right. In every way, he raised Chopper on his own. Lauren has no right to him. In fact, she signed all rights over to me. I didn’t want to be involved, didn’t think I should be involved until Chopper stood in my shop with my sister’s eyes and the rest of him all Brut.

  Brut stares at me with confusion and disbelief, a broken heart and a damaged spirit, and I know when he walks out my door, he’ll never look back.

  26

  Death becomes her

  [Lily]

  “I guess my dad is pretty mad, huh?” Chopper sits on a stool drawn up to my stainless steel table, watching me fill cupcake tins. He looks casual with his elbow pitched on the edge of the table while he leans forward as though he isn’t as filled with conflicting thoughts as he is. He watches me, dressed in his jeans and a faded T-shirt with the Restored Dreams logo on it. The process of filling cake cups is usually methodic and soothing, but today, I’m out of sorts, my rhythm is off, and I’m making a small mess.

  “I think he has a right to be.”

  “But he shouldn’t be mad at you. You didn’t do anything.”

  I sigh. “That’s actually why he’s mad, honey. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell him we knew each other because I promised you I wouldn’t. And I didn’t tell him about your mother although, truthfully, I’d just heard the news myself.” I was still struggling with the fact that my older sister, the one estranged to me for almost twenty years, wanted to see me as well as her son.

  Lauren’s friend Crystal had contacted me on Sunday evening. The call included a short rundown of Lauren’s health history. Lauren had abdominal pains she blew off for too long as indigestion. Instead, it was colon cancer. She was given only months to live although a more recent evaluation moved up her end date. She was in the hospital, and Crystal thought things might decline through the week. She thought Lauren was holding out hope for Chopper and me to come see her before she gave up.

  “Tell me how you hooked up with Dad again?” I freeze, an extra dollop of batter overfilling the cupcake dish. He doesn’t mean the details of having sex with his father, but I’m still shaken by the question.

  “We saw each other last week. On our vacations.” Chopper’s head twists, his expression puzzled as he thinks of something. Please don’t recognize my voice from the time you called.

  “Huh, so weird he didn’t mention it when I spoke to him.”

  “Really?” I mumble, removing batter from the overfilled wrapper as a diversion. I scrape out the batter as best I can and throw the wasted wrapper in the trash.

  “So, you and Dad…just ran into each other. Two old friends, right?”

  I’m not certain how much Chopper does or doesn’t know, but I won’t be the one who tells him the sordid history of his father, my sister, and me.

  “Yep.”

  Chopper nods his head, and it’s so similar to his father it pains me. His lips crook in a smile like his dad as well.

  “You know, Lily, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

  My back to him, I stiffen as I’ve moved to the sink. “What do you mean?” I ask, reaching for the faucet handles to rinse my hands.

  “I mean, my dad walked in here guns blazing, ready to carry you out of here over his shoulder if he had to. I’d say my dad has a thing for you. Isn’t that interesting?”

  I continue to wash my hands, keeping them under the spray. Who knew how dirty they were?

  “Interesting, definitely.” He’s waiting me out, and I have no choice but to turn off the sink and dry my hands. Turning to face him, I see one eyebrow cocked, an expression I recognize as well, and a look on his face of pure intrigue. As though he knows a secret, but he isn’t going to share it with me.

  “Anyway. What did you decide?” I hate to circle back to less pleasant things—like his dying mother—but it’s better than continuing this song and dance about Brut and me. There is no Brut and me. I don’t want to pressure Chopper to make a decision about his mother, but I do think time is of the essence. If he wants to see her, the clock ticks. He looks over his shoulder at the large digital timer by the entrance to the bakery as if he reads my mind. He has to make a decision sooner rather than later.

  “I’ve got to go to work.” He hops off the stool, and I sigh as he avoids answering my question. He takes two steps before stopping, his back to me, his voice soft. “Lily, if I go, will you come with me?”

  My heart shreds with the fear in his voice, sounding so much like a child instead of the rugged young man he is at twenty-one, almost twenty-two.

  “Of course, I’ll go with you.”

  “I’d ask Dad, but I know he never wants to see her again. And I get it, but still…”

  “I think if you asked your dad, he’d gladly go with you. Whether he wants to see Lauren or not, he’d go to support you.” I’m speaking for Brut, but I don’t think I’m talking out of turn. He’d do this for his son. I have faith in him in that regard.

  “He’s pretty bitter about her.”

  “With good reason,” I defend. “But he’s never been sour on you, Chopper. He loves you. I know this.”

  Chopper turns back to face me. “How do you know?” He’s back to questioning me, as if he’s seeking answers about my relationship with his father more than questioning his father’s love for him.

  “Once upon a time, I knew your dad, remember? He was a good man then, and I’m certain he’s a better man now.” I’m not bullshitting. Brut has been through a lot in life, all for others. He’d do the right thing for his son, no matter how he feels about my sister.

  “Why wasn’t he with you instead?” It’s a rhetorical question, yet I still catch my breath. I don’t even think Chopper knows his dad and I were a thing. I’m just the aunt, the sister of the woman who bore him with his dad. Still, it’s something I’ve asked myself again and again in the past twenty-four hours. Why wasn’t it me? Why wasn’t Chopper mine? However, we can ask ourselves some questions until the end of time, and there’s never going to be an answer.

  + + +

  By evening, Chopper calls me to say he’ll see Lauren. He picks Thursday as it’s his day off. We make plans for him to come to the bakery, and then we’ll ride together in my car. I trust myself to drive more than him, especially if he gets emotional. He isn’t crying over his mother, but the hurt is still real.

  Thursday isn’t a good day for me as we have three weddings on Friday night, but I know Ester can manage, and the new girl we hired at the beginning of the summer, Julia, has come in handy. She’s a natural at baking—ironic, right?—although she’s quiet and a little innocent. Ester frightens her with her louder voice and brazen talk about sex. Julia blushes each time Ester speaks, but she’s listening with ears open, learning. I recognize a sexually curious girl inside the shy body of my little worker.

  However, I can’t tell Chopper no. I rearrange some things and confirm the address with Crystal. Lauren’s been staying in Sun Valley, California, a twenty-five-minute ride northwest of Pasadena. If she wasn’t dying, I’d kill her for being so close yet so inaccessible to her son. I have no idea, though, how long she’s been living in that area or why. Our parents moved to Texas long ago, and my mother claims she wasn’t aware Lauren had been so close to our original home.

  “I think it’s nice she finally got in touch with you,” my mother mentions when I call her to ask if she knew about Lauren. She didn’t seem as surprised as I would have expected, so I have my answer. Ironically, she wasn’t breaking any speed limits to rush to the side of her eldest daughter who lay dying.

  My sister is dying. I mu
ll the words over in my head and find I feel strangely numb about this information. We might have been sisters, but we were never friends. Rick started the wedge between us. By the time I was eighteen and Lauren was twenty, we weren’t enemies but definitely did not want to be near one another. She drank. She snuck out. She hung with a rough crowd, and when she found out about Brut, she went ballistic.

  “He’s older than you by four years.”

  “He doesn’t seem to mind,” I recall saying.

  “He’ll mind when he sees you’re a child. Has he taken you out? Why haven’t I seen you at parties with him?” Those valid questions stung, but I didn’t feel the need to justify Brut to Lauren even though I’d had the same quandary myself. He didn’t include me in parties with his friends or find me a fake ID, as I’d heard other guys do for girls, to get me in a bar with him. Then one time we went to hear his brother’s band. That’s when Lauren found out about us.

  Knowing I couldn’t go the places she could, Lauren took advantage of him. I’d like to think he was strong enough to resist her, be a man and all that, loyal to me, et cetera, but I also had my eyes opened from the experience. Brut didn’t love me enough to commit, and I’d never felt more like a child than when everything happened. Neither here nor there, the fact remains my sister and I were estranged from the moment she told me about Brut and her. She became nonexistence to me. You can’t miss what you don’t have, and I didn’t have sisterly love to pine over. I didn’t know this person who was dying in Sun Valley. She was a stranger to me.

  + + +

  On Wednesday night, I’m busy in my apartment kitchen which doubles as my office, working on finances. My cell phone rings under a pile of papers, and I almost ignore it, not wanting to lose my place in my calculations. When the phone rings a second time, vibrating some of the future party orders, I scramble to find it. Two missed calls from Chopper.