“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He froze and looked at me. “I fucked up.”
“What do you mean?”
“I skipped a lesson with Rhett and never called him.”
“So?”
“He’s at the police station… he needs me to bail him out.”
I looked over at Foster a few times, but held back my words. I bit at my thumb nail. Remember that? The thumb nail that annoyed Foster so much? Well, I couldn’t help myself. It was my thing to do. I was scared. Not because of Foster and Rhett. I didn’t fully understand the situation with Rhett, but if I had to guess, it was Foster’s attempt at fixing his past, which couldn’t be done.
I was scared because of the way I felt. The way I spent each day looking at the calendar in my phone, not for meetings, but for when the last time I…
Shutting my eyes, I knew the exact day. I knew how many weeks it had been since I last got…
“You don’t need to be here for this,” Foster said.
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“This is my fault. I missed a lesson.”
“It’s just a lesson.”
“No, it’s not,” Foster said. He voice sounded blank. “You don’t get it, Rose. You grew up differently. So differently. A good little life in that house.”
He turned into the parking lot of the police station.
I debated on what I should do. A version of me would have let everything go. Just realize that Foster was upset, tired, maybe even depressed a little. I didn’t quite understand what he meant before about going to hell. But my father didn’t mean to do anything wrong. And Foster’s father was the biggest piece of garbage walking. But to say that I had a good little life…
I grabbed his arm as he turned off the truck.
“Rose, we have to get in there.”
“No,” I said. “You asshole.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Fuck you, Foster.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Rose…”
“My life was not little and good. Okay? My mother died when I was nine years old. Okay? Nine. And Viv was ten. She was so close to that age where she would need a mother and she wouldn’t have one.”
“Oh, Rose, I didn’t…”
“Yeah, you didn’t. My mother woke up on a Saturday morning to go grocery shopping. That’s what she always did. Sometimes I went with her. Sometimes Viv went with her. Sometimes it was nice to sleep in a little. She always let Dad sleep in on Saturdays. She came into my room that morning and I asked if I could go with her. She sat on my bed and told me to rest up. That she was going for a few things. I asked her if she could get cinnamon rolls. The ones in the can, right? It was a little treat for us. She said she’d get them. So I went back to sleep, thinking about that. Thinking about the smell of the cinnamon rolls. And the little container of icing. Watching it melt on the cinnamon rolls. Sneaking my finger into the container for the last little bit of it. It was all I could think about. Until I woke up to the sounds of my father screaming. Screaming, Foster. Screaming in a way I’d never heard him before and have never heard again. Screaming in a way that I can still hear when I shut my eyes.”
“Rose…” Foster took my hand. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to say it like that. We’ve lived tragic lives on two different paths. And nobody’s life is sadder than the other. I’m sorry.”
I ignored his apology. “She left and she never came back. I couldn’t look at her when she was… you know. Viv did. Of course Dad did. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to. I regret it. But in a way, I’d rather remember seeing her sitting on my bed, talking to me.”
“And you should,” Foster said. “Lock that moment in your heart forever, Rose. I never meant to suggest…”
I rubbed my stomach. The excitement, the memory, the anxiety, it had me feeling fluttery and sick again. I had talked about my mother a few times to Foster. He knew the story. I was pretty sure my father told him what happened. I didn’t talk all that much about it because I didn’t remember everything. Just what I said to Foster now. So my life wasn’t cushy. My life wasn’t perfect. Like Foster, I grew up without a mother. Yes, I had my father. He worked hard. He came home every night. He cooked dinner. At least, he tried to. But there were days, months, and years when he was just a robot. So… I. Understood.
“Are you still not feeling good?” Foster asked as I clutched my stomach and groaned.
“Comes and goes,” I whispered, wondering if he was going to add up the pieces of the puzzle on his own.
“You should go see a doctor,” he said.
I looked at him and curled my lip. I loved him, but sometimes he was an idiot.
See a doctor? How about I start with a pregnancy test?
28
Hey… Dad…
Foster
“What did he do?” I asked an officer at the front desk of the police station.
The officer stood up and put a hand toward me. He asked me to wait while he went to get the arresting officer.
It was a small police station. I’d been there before. I’d been bailed out of the place before. A small floor in the middle was cluttered with desks, computers, and cops. Beyond that were the holding cells, a couple private cells, and two rooms which I guess you could consider to be interrogation rooms. They were dark and mostly empty, with the exception of two chairs. I had been questioned one time about a stolen car. To be fair, I knew the car was stolen and I knew who took it. But I didn’t know where the car was. So that was my defense. That defense bought me a sleepover in one of the holding cells.
Ah, to be young again.
An officer came walking from the back. He was a tall guy, my height, and he threw his hand at me.
“Officer Greves,” he said.
“I’m Foster,” I said.
“You’re related to Everett?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure I’m the only friend or family he’s got. I teach him guitar. But it’s more than that. I’m sure you’ve heard of me before. My footprints are all over this police station and this town.”
“Right,” Officer Greves said. “Well, we picked him up on a trespassing charge.”
“Trespassing? Where?”
“His girlfriend’s house.”
“Shit,” I whispered. “He’s, uh, it’s a touchy situation. He and his girlfriend’s stepfather don’t get along.”
“Yeah, I heard the story,” Officer Greves said. “Believe me. Everett tried his hardest to fight me off. His girlfriend was visibly upset about the situation. Her stepfather was adamant about me arresting Everett.”
“So you did.”
“I had no choice. Once he started throwing punches. Making threats toward the stepfather.”
“Dammit,” I growled. “This is my fault. I was supposed to have had a guitar lesson with him. It slipped my mind. I never showed up. He’s just a teenager…”
The words rolled off my tongue and I suddenly felt like a father. Like I was going to be begging this officer for a chance. A chance at what? To let Rhett go? And if he let Rhett go… where to? Was I supposed to take him in? My apartment was a disaster. I was a disaster.
“Teenager or not,” Officer Greves said. “He wasn’t welcome there. My understanding is that he showed up at the front door and rang the doorbell. The stepfather - William - answered the door. He told Everett to go home. Everett then called him a stupid prick. So William shut the door. Now, Everett claims he heard his girlfriend - Carrie - screaming. I have two officers looking into that claim now. Everett went around back and snuck into the house. He exchanged text messages with Carrie and they met in the basement. Her father heard them and called the police. He’s lucky we don’t charge him with breaking in…”
“Can I talk to him?” I asked.
“Sure. We’re trying to let this thing work itself out before we file any formal charges.”
“Formal charges,” I whispered.
“Look, I get the teenager thing. So I’m hoping every
one can take a breath and move on. I can forget the fact he tried to take a swing at me. But it’s up to her stepfather now.”
We were then escorted through the police station. Back to the holding cells where at the first one, I saw Rhett. Sitting on a bench with one leg up, looking half scared to death. He had never been arrested before. He had never been in the police station before like this.
He saw me and jumped up.
“Don’t get excited,” I said. “I’m not here to bail your ass out. Yet.”
“Foster,” Rhett said. He took a few steps and paused.
I reached forward and touched the cool bars of the cell. “I owe you an apology. I missed the lesson.”
“Yeah, you did,” Rhett said. “I was out on my own. I was… I had nowhere to go, Foster. My old man said some bad stuff to me. I needed you.”
I felt my heart squeeze.
“I’ll give you a few,” Officer Greves said. “Don’t do anything stupid, Foster.”
“I’ll go too,” Rose whispered.
I backed away from the cell and looked at her. “No. You stay.”
“Who is that?” Rhett asked.
“This is Rose,” I said. “She’s my Carrie.”
“So it worked out for you two?”
“You could say that,” I said.
“I’m screwed, Foster. Carrie’s father…”
“What the hell were you thinking? Huh?”
“I wasn’t,” Rhett said. “I went to the coffeehouse to meet with you. I called Carrie and she wasn’t answering. I sat there alone. Thinking about what my old man said.”
“What did he say to you? What’s so bad?”
Rhett’s face twisted in anger. “He told me I was a mistake.”
“Shit,” I said. “Rhett… be real with this for a second. You don’t see him that much. He comes around and messes with your head. You let him win? What does that say about you?”
“Fuck off,” Rhett spat at me.
I laughed. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to park your ass there and let the cops figure this out.”
“He was hurting Carrie,” Rhett said. “That’s why I got so upset.”
“Let the cops do their job. I’ll talk to him in a bit and see what I can do.”
“I’m sorry, Foster,” Rhett said.
“Don’t be,” I said. “This is on me. I didn’t mean to let you down, kid.”
I turned and Rose was right there. Looking up at me with sympathetic eyes. She was catching a glimpse of the hell that continued to follow me.
It was my fault for going beyond teaching guitar lessons to Rhett. I talked to him. Got to know him a little. Gave him a nickname. Now he depended on me to be there. To not fuck up. To fill the shoes that his father left empty.
Shit.
I took two steps and then I heard a voice bellow, “Let me see my kid!”
I looked back at Rhett. He started to shake his head.
My lip curled, a sudden urge to meet his father and give him a piece of my mind.
I moved faster and I felt Rose grab atmy hand. I shook her away.
What kind of asshole tells his kid…
I almost walked right into him.
Right into…
“Dad?” I asked.
My father stood there and started to blink fast. “Foster? What the hell are you doing here?”
“I, uh, wait. What are you doing here?”
I looked at Officer Greves. Then to my father. He wasn’t in cuffs.
“I’m… oh shit…”
“Oh shit what?” I asked.
“He’s right through here,” Officer Greves said. “In a holding cell until we get this all sorted out.”
I raised an eyebrow. “There’s only one person in the holding cell.”
My father touched my shoulder and swallowed hard. “I know.”
He walked by me as I stood frozen.
It hadn’t hit me just yet.
Then I heard my father say, “Son, what did you do?”
Rose let out a gasp.
I stared into the area with the holding cells.
That’s why I did what I did for Rhett.
Shit, he was my fucking brother.
I backed up. Rose was right there with me. She was talking, but I didn’t hear her. I stared at the doorway to the holding cells. My father. Rhett. His father. Rhett… me…
I should have known. The way Rhett said his father would pop in and out of his life. But that could have been any father, right? But it wasn’t any father. It was my father. It was his father. It was our father.
Which meant my father knew. He knew he had another son. He never bothered to tell me. I had been giving guitar lessons to my own brother. I had been trying to be there for my own brother.
“Foster,” Rose said, her voice breaking through the noises in my head.
I turned and went to the front door and was out of the police station. I charged down the stairs and turned, going towards the parking lot. I had no plan. No idea what I was going to do.
“Foster, wait up,” Rose called out.
I stopped and spun around. “What? What are you going to say right now?”
She hurried to me and touched my face. “I’m sorry.”
The perfect thing to say, but not what I wanted to hear.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “That’s not how that should have happened.”
“I have a brother,” I said. “A fucking brother. Family.”
“Yeah. You do. You should go back in there and talk to him. Rhett. Your brother.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Rose. That means my father had something else going on in his life. Another kid? Another family? And he did the same thing to Rhett over and over. All the times we were talking about father stuff, it was the same fucking guy.”
“Kingsley!” a voice yelled.
I looked and saw my father rushing down the police station steps.
“Oh, fuck no,” I said.
“Foster, just walk away,” Rose said. “Let’s get out of here then. We can talk to Rhett later.”
“You just said to go inside,” I said to Rose.
“The look on your face is scaring me…”
I held Rose by the shoulders. “This is my hell, Rose. You deserve better than this.”
I moved her out of the way and walked toward my father.
“Jesus Christ, where you running to?” he yelled.
I made a fist and saw myself hitting him. But as I got closer, the tightness of the fist lessened.
“What did you want me to do here?” he asked.
“You have another son,” I said. “Rhett.”
“Everett.”
“I call him Rhett. You fucking asshole. You knew he was taking lessons from me, didn’t you?”
My father turned his head. “What do you want me to say? I’m not perfect.”
“Perfect? You’re nothing. You had another kid. Another family?”
“No family,” my father said. “Believe me. It was a one-time mistake.”
“And you told Rhett tonight that he was a mistake…”
“I didn’t mean to, dammit,” my father barked.
“That’s right. You didn’t mean to. You never mean to do anything. You just do whatever you want.”
“You could help him.”
“Help him. As he’s sitting in the police station.”
“That’s your fault, Foster. You left him hanging.”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. I laughed, because if I didn’t, I would have punched him. “This is my fault?”
“I know what I am,” my father said. “What I’ll always be. But you… you could do something for him. For yourself.”
“So you want me to be his father?”
“I didn’t say that,” he said. I could see anger spreading across his face. He hated the suggestion of himself not being a father.
I wanted to tell him that he was never my father. My mind flashed with a mem
ory. The night he got arrested when I had been with Rose. I had a gun on me. A gun that my father had nothing to do with even though he took the fall for.
“Everett is a good kid,” my father said. “A good boy. Just confused. Like you always were. Letting women rip your heart apart far too young.”
I glanced back at Rose and she just stood there. She didn’t need to say a thing to tell me how she was feeling. I was embarrassed for her. For myself. For my father. For letting Rose back into the messy hell of my life. There was a reason why we had always ended up better off as friends than anything else.
“You’re nothing but an excuse,” I said. “You had a family somewhere else and never told me. Did Rhett know?”
My father shook his head. “No.”
“So you fucked his mother and left?”
“Yeah, that’s what I did, Foster. If that’s how you want to believe it. Do it.”
“I want to know the fucking truth,” I said. “That’s a kid in there.”
“He’s a teenager.”
“A kid,” I growled. “Hurt. Confused. Trying to figure his life out.”
“We all are,” my father said. “Now go back in there and talk to him.”
“No,” I said. “You’re the father. You take care of this. I’ll catch up with Rhett later. Once you tell him the truth.”
“Foster,” my father said.
I turned my back to him. I walked to Rose and I wanted to grab her. I wanted to hug her. I wanted her to hug me. Hold me and comfort me. Take away some of this pain. But looking down at her, I felt another jab to my heart.
I touched her cheek, a single finger running down to her jaw. She quickly turned her head and kissed my finger.
I tore my hand away.
No, Rose, please. No. It’s not going to… it’s just…
“Kingsley, you get your fucking ass back here, boy,” my father bellowed.
A switch flipped in my head. I turned and balled up my fist again. Ready to shut my father up once and for all.
Rose grabbed my other arm and planted her feet on the ground. I could have walked with her easily, but she started to beg. Her voice crackling. Something about her eyes and her voice. She was afraid.
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