by Blue Saffire
He hasn’t asked about Tobias.
Where he is.
If he’s really his father.
If he’s ever coming back.
I suppose the questions will come in time and when they do, I’ll have to answer for what I did. I’ll have to tell him that I let his father into our lives just to send him away again.
He’ll probably hate me for it.
And I’ll deserve it.
It’s too much to hope that’s he’s forgotten about Tobias and he proves it when there’s a knock at the door.
“Finally,” he shouts, jumping up from his spot on the floor, bolting for the door.
“Noah James, don’t you dare—”
Too late. He has the door pulled open and is staring up at the man on the other side of it before I can untangle myself from the pile of towels I’m buried under.
“You’re not my dad,” he says, scowling up at the stranger. “You’re not even the pizza guy.”
“No,” the man says, mouth twitched to the side like he’s sorry. “But I am your uncle and I brought you this.” He holds out a Lego set with the Star Wars logo splashed across the front of the box. Noah almost has his hands on it when the man pulls it back. “You don’t eat Legos do you?”
Noah throws up his hands. “I’m almost five,” he says, as if that answers his question.
The man looks at me over the top of Noah’s head, silently asking for permission. When I nod my head, he smiles down at Noah. “Of course you are,” the man says, handing over the box. “What was I thinking.”
Noah snatches the box before turning to look at me. “Can I, mom?”
“Sure,” I say, nodding my head even though I’m freaking out. “I’ll call you when pizza gets here.”
Noah lets out a whoop before starting to bolt down the hall. Two steps in, he stops himself and turns. “I’m Noah,” he says to the man.
The guy smiles at him. “I’m Logan.”
“Thanks, Logan. I like your shirt,” Noah tells him before disappearing into his room. As soon as he’s gone, the man turns to me, his smile fading slowly.
“You’re Tobias’s brother?” I look him over. Hair as dark as mine, tousled and unruly. Black, heavy-framed glasses. Light-colored eyes. Faded jeans. A Garfield sweatshirt that says I HATE MONDAYS.
If there were a spectrum of men, Tobias and this man would be on opposite ends of it.
“I’m also a friend of Patrick Gilroy’s if that makes you feel any better,” he says, scratching the bridge of his nose with this index finger. “I’m actually the friend who got him the meeting with my brother in the first place.” The last of his explanation sounds like an apology.
“How did you find me?”
“Finding things is kind of my thing.” He gives me what I think is supposed to be a reassuring smile. “Tob didn’t send me if that’s what you’re asking—I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”
Tob.
Knowing that there’s someone, somewhere out in the world who calls Tobias Bright, Tob makes me smile.
“A few minutes.” I say, moving aside to let him in. “Can I get you something to drink?” I lead him into the kitchen, as far away from Noah as I can. The kid has ears like a mouse.
“Sure,” he says, sliding onto one of the breakfast stools. “Whatever you have is fine.”
He doesn’t say anything else until I’ve poured us both a glass of lemonade. “Okay,” I say, setting his glass in front of him. “What do you want to talk about?”
“What did Tob tell you about his mom?”
His mom.
Not our mom.
“That her name was Beth,” I say, running my fingertip through the condensation on my glass. “That she used to make his imaginary friend peanut butter and banana sandwiches. That she had cancer and she died on his birthday.”
Logan mouth lifts in a sad smile. “Believe it or not, that’s more than he’s ever told anyone.” He nods. “I’ve known Tob since I was ten years old and I’ve never even heard him say her name out loud. None of us have.”
“Ten?” I feel my stomach flip over. “I thought you said you were brothers.”
“We are,” he nods, lifts his hip to dig into his back pocket. “In all the ways that count.” He pulls something out of his pocket and slides it toward me, across the counter. It’s a photograph. One I’ve seen before. Of four boys in front of a strange-looking building. I recognize Tobias right away, his resemblance to Noah almost uncanny, and the other boy, the one I met years ago on the same night I met Tobias. Wedged between Gray and Tobias is a boy with dark, unruly hair and glasses. On the other side of Tobias is the blond I remember as the male model from the nightclub. Bright blue eyes set in a face too beautiful to be real.
“Truth is, Tob saved my life,” he says, his voice low like he’s telling me things he shouldn’t be. “He saved all of us. Took care of us. Protected us. I would’ve died in that place if not for him.”
“That place?”
“Brighton Home for Boys.” Logan’s voice goes flat. “It’s where Tob found me. Found all of us. Made us a family.” He clears his throat. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m telling you this—even though he’ll hate me for it if he ever finds out. Because he’s my brother and I love him.”
I remember the way Tobias closed up when I asked him about his father. Refused to let me in. I look up from the photo and pass it back to him. “I’m listening.”
44
Tobias
I turn the bracelet over in my hands, watching the way the diamonds catch the light, streaming through the bare windows behind me. I’ve been stuck on Logan’s futon for three days now. I sent Angus home. Told him I’d call him when I’m ready to fly back to New York. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready. There’s nothing for me there except an empty apartment I hate and a company I don’t care about, built with money I never wanted.
The shitty thing about it is there’s nothing left here for me either.
I want you to leave us alone, Tobias.
That’s the last thing Silver said to me before she shut the door in my face.
Shut me out.
I deserve it. I know that. I went over there, telling myself I was going to do it right. Different. I was going to be what she needed me to be. A father to Noah. Someone who was there for her. Took care of her.
I wasn’t going to abandon her the way my father abandoned my mother. Left her to waste away, without a backward glance. Left me to watch her die, knowing that when she was finally gone, I’d be completely alone.
I was going to be better than my father.
I never even met the man, never saw his face unless it was in a magazine or on television, but I was determined to be the kind of man he never was.
The kind of man who stayed.
Somehow, I ended up just like him.
Happy birthday, Toby. This is going to be the most important day of your life…
That was it. The last thing I heard her say before she died. She looked right at me, her dark blue eyes staring at me from her wasted face, suddenly sharp and alert despite the drugs the doctors kept her on to make her comfortable.
“Come here,” she says softly, holding her hand out to me over the edge of her hospital bed.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to go anywhere near her. She doesn’t look like my mom anymore. Doesn’t smell like her. Sometimes she says mean things to me, her voice harsh and angry. The doctor says it’s because of the tumor in her brain. That she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Doesn’t mean it.
I don’t want to touch her, but I do because there’s only me. Because she’s all I have and when she’s gone, I’ll be alone.
As soon as my hand closes around hers, my mom smiles. “Happy birthday, Toby,” she whispers softly, her dry, peeling lips pulled away from her ruined teeth into a smile. “This is going to be the most important day of your life….”
That’s what she said and she was right because i
t was the day she died.
When the social worker came in and asked me where my father was, I told her I didn’t know. When she asked me was his name was I told her and she didn’t believe me.
I don’t blame her.
Who’d believe that the kid sitting in the charity ward of some hospital next to his mother’s cancer-ridden corpse is the son of one of the most famous men on the planet.
Even then I knew how crazy it sounded.
Since my birth certificate said Unknown where my father’s name should’ve been, they stuck me in a group home before they even put my mom in the ground. Within six months, I found my way to Brighton and I never left.
I met Gray about a year later. He was the same age as me. Something about him pushed through the fog and the noise of the hell I was living in. I think I recognized it—the fact that he had no one, same as me. That the people who were supposed to take care of him abandoned him.
Jase came a few months later and it was the same. I knew he belonged to me. With us. That he was our brother. Unlike Gray and me, Jase got placed in a lot of foster homes because of the way he looked. People saw him and wanted him, like he was a cute little puppy in a pet store window. He always came back though, because he was feral. Didn’t like to be touched. Didn’t know how to be loved.
Still doesn’t.
Logan was last.
I remember the way he stared us down, fists raised. Ridiculously outmatched but ready to take us on even though he knew he’d never win.
Dead.
That’s what he said when I asked him where his parents were. Dead. That’s all I needed to hear. All I needed to know because dead means gone. Dead means alone.
And that made him one of us.
That made him our brother.
Happy birthday, Toby. This is going to be the most important day of your life…
I spin the bracelet around, sending prisms of light, dancing around the room. I think about the night I gave it to her. How happy it made her.
How easily she slipped past every defense I had. So sure, so quick I didn’t even feel it. So deep I didn’t even know she was there until it was too late to dig her out.
That’s when it hits me.
When I realize something that jerks me out of my slump. Tightens my grip on the bracelet in my hands. Sends my heart galloping in my chest, so fast and loud, for a second it’s all I can hear.
Silver was born on June 1st.
My seventh birthday.
The day my mother died.
June 1st.
The night I met her.
The night I became a father.
Happy birthday, Toby. This is going to be the most important day of your life… I wish I could be here to meet her.
45
Silver
Tobias never knew his father. He met his mother at the restaurant she worked at when she was nineteen. They began a torrid affair that lasted nearly three years. Until Tobias’s mother got pregnant and refused to have an abortion. His father was very married and very wealthy. Even though he never said so, I get the impression that he’s famous. If Logan said his name, I’d know who he was.
She died when Tobias was seven and there was no one. No one to take him. No one who loved him. After a series of group homes, he ended up in Brighton.
“When Tob finally aged out, he found out his dad paid his mom off to keep quiet about who he was. She put the hush money his dad gave her in a savings account with his name on it. Almost ten million dollars.” Logan lifts his glass, laughing into it before taking a drink. “He came this close to withdrawing it and setting it on fire,” he tells me, holding his fingers up and pinching them together. “Instead he used it to become Tobias Bright.” The tone of his voice tells me he thinks burning it would’ve been the better of the two.
I listen to Logan’s story. Let him try to convince me to give Tobias a chance. To let him in even though he’s shut me out at every turn. The truth is I want to.
I want to find Tobias and tell him yes.
Give him a chance.
Let him in.
But I can’t.
Because Delilah was right.
I know what’s like to feel unwanted.
Rejected.
I’m afraid that Tobias won’t love Noah the way he deserves to be loved. I’m afraid that if I give him a chance, he’ll break Noah’s heart and I can’t risk it.
He deserves better than what either of us were given.
I think he can see it on my face because he nods, giving me a smile that I recognize as the same one Tobias gives me when he’s trying to hide his heart. “Thank you, for listening,” he says, sliding out of his chair. “And don’t worry, I won’t come back, but… if you need anything, Patrick knows how to find me.”
And then he leaves.
I stand in the kitchen and listen to the front door close. Noah jabbering away to himself through the open doorway to his room. The utter stillness and silence of everything else around me.
That’s when I realize I’ve made a mistake.
A horrible, terrible mistake.
Because, yes—by keeping Tobias away, I’m protecting Noah. But I’m also hurting him. Because he deserves to be loved and it’s not up to me to decide by who.
Delilah was wrong.
Ohmygod.
“Noah,” I call out, pushing myself off the kitchen counter I’m slumped against. Across the living room and down the hall. “Get your shoes—” When I push his bedroom door open, he’s sitting on his bedroom floor, wedging his shoes onto his feet. “on.”
Shoes on his feet he stands up and looks at me. “Are we gonna go see my dad now?”
My throat goes tight, my eyes burning and hot. I nod.
“’Bout time. Bixby and me where—”
Just then there’s a knock at the door. “Put your coat on,” I call over my shoulder as I rush to answer it. “It’s probably the pizza—”
I throw the door to find Sal, our pizza guy, standing on the other side of it. “Hey, Silver,” he says, “Hey, little man.”
“Hi,” Noah says, yanking the pizza box out of his hand. “We’re gonna go find my dad.”
I dig into my purse for my wallet and pull out a wad of cash. “Thanks, Sal.” I say, shooing Noah through the door so I can shut and lock it. Hustling him down the hallway, with Sal on our heels, I dig out my cell phone. Logan said Tobias has been at this place for the past three days. He also said that if I needed to get a hold of him, I could ask Patrick.
Jabbing at the call button for the elevator, I dial Patrick’s number while Sal and Noah chatter at each other like a couple of monkeys. Listening to it ring, I reason I can just go up to his apartment. He only lives one floor up but I don’t want to waste time going up there if he’s not—
The elevator doors slide open and there he is. Standing right in front of me.
“We were just coming to look for you,” Noah crows beside me. “Do you like pizza?”
Tobias looks down at him and gives him that wry grin of his. “I like pizza rolls better.”
“So does my mom,” Noah tells him. “She hides them in a bag of frozen broccoli. She thinks I don’t know but I can smell them cooking sometimes when I’m supposed to be asleep.” Noah looks up at me. “They don’t smell anything like broccoli.”
“I know.” I smile down at him. When I look up, Tobias is watching me. “We were coming to find you,” I tell him, feeling ridiculous because everything I wanted to say to him seems to have floated away.
“I heard…” the elevator doors start to slide shut and he steps off before it can close between us. “Look, I realized something today—something I should’ve said to you the other night.” He looks at Noah again. “Both of you.” Crouching down, he looks Noah in the eye. “Your mom’s pretty mad at me.”
Noah nods. “I know. She used her mom voice on you.”
“Well, I deserved it.” Tobias laughs. “I was a pretty big jerk.”
“Did you lock y
ourself in the bathroom?” Noah’s eyes go wide. “She hates that.”
Tobias laughs. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I kept asking her what she wanted from me—what she expected me to do about being your dad when what I should’ve done is tell her what I wanted.” He takes the pizza box out of Noah’s hands and sets it on the floor. “I want to be your dad. I probably won’t be very good at it at first—”
Noah nods his head like he understands perfectly. “Because you’ve never done it before.”
“Exactly.” Tobias smiles again. “But I want to try. I’ll be here for you and your mom and I won’t give up. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll keep trying until I get it right. Will you let me do that?”
Noah furrows his brow. “Can we go fishing like you said?”
“That’s up to your mom.” Tobias looks up at me. “She’s the boss.”
Noah follows suit, looking up at me. “Can we, Mom?”
I’m terrified. A part of me still wants to snatch Noah away and run but I know that I can’t. That Tobias deserves a chance to get it right, almost as much as Noah deserves a father who loves him.
I feel Tobias slip his hand in mine. His fingers squeeze around mine. Telling me what he wants.
He wants us.
Finally finding my voice, I nod and whisper. “Yes.”
Epilogue
Tobias
June 1st, 2019
* * *
“You got ‘em?” I say, looking down at the boy standing beside me, holding the stings on a balloon bouquet big enough to carry him away.
“You’re gonna have to stop asking me that,” Noah says, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to show me the wad of stings he has securely wrapped around his hand. “I’m six.”
“Sorry, kid,” I say, flashing him a smile while holding the door open for him to walk through. “I’m nervous.”
“Why?” He tips his face up to look at me. “You’ve been a dad for a whole year now. You’re pretty good at it.”