To Have and to Hold

by Riley Knight

  But his life had changed, in some subtle, but very real way, the moment that he’d realized that he had a little sister. Not only that but a little sister who was in danger. What else could he do?

  He should have at least talked to Ran, and he was pretty sure that his husband was going to be furious with him for this.

  He was going to talk to him, but first, he decided, he was going to see if Lily even wanted to live with him. She was old enough that she should get some say, at least.

  He wouldn’t force this on her, he decided. If and when she expressed an interest, Justin would talk to Ran at that point.

  Even as he rationalized it to himself, though, he knew he was acting like a coward again.

  The truth was, this new thing that they had, it suddenly felt like it was too fragile. Like maybe it couldn’t stand the pressure from this newest development.

  He was terrified. For the first time in his life, he had something that he really cared about, and he thought there was a very good chance that he might lose it.

  Torn between his duty to his family and his husband, how was he supposed to pick?

  * * *

  As it turned out, the social worker had been as good as his word. When Justin called just a short time later, dialing the number for the foster home, the woman who picked up the phone said that she had been expecting his call and that of course, he could see Lily. That day, if he was available.

  She was more than accommodating, and Justin hung up feeling vaguely unsettled. She was so eager, it seemed, to get him in to see Lily. For the first time he wondered, what sort of child was his sister? Was there some sort of problematic behavior on her part that made her foster parents so desperate to have her gone?

  Lily was about to become so much more than just an abstract concept to him.

  Less than an hour later, he stood outside a house in a neighborhood of town he’d never been to before. It was a nice neighborhood. Not all that rich of one, but the people in it seemed to take pride in their lawns and gardens, and the houses, which weren’t all that large, were all well maintained.

  On first appearances, at least, it wasn’t a bad place for a kid to grow up. The street was quiet, and kids actually played on the front lawns of their houses. The whole thing was rather peaceful.

  Taking a deep breath, telling himself it was stupid to be nervous about having a meeting with a seven-year-old who was also his sister, but that didn’t stop him from feeling it.

  This was his last chance to back out, to let his sister go into the system. To not be burdened with a kid.

  But he couldn’t do it.

  He wasn’t sure he knew anyone who could. Taking care of children seemed to be fundamental to most people, and when that child was related to you? What kind of monster could turn their back on that?

  With a sigh, he headed for the front door. He was ready for this. Or if he wasn’t, it didn’t really matter, because this was the time it was happening and he was just going to have to deal with it.

  Raising his hand, he knocked, and the door was opened almost immediately by a very tired looking, but smiling, middle-aged woman. She held a baby in her arms with pretty golden brown skin that was not even remotely the same color as hers.

  “You must be Justin,” she said, and she carefully rearranged the baby so that she was holding it with one hand while she shook Justin’s hand with the other. “Come on in, please.”

  There was really nothing for it but to do it, and Justin stepped into the house. He followed the woman out of the foyer and toward a large room with couches and a television.

  “Lily, your brother’s here,” she said, and a little girl with the same dark hair and gray eyes as he had, the same as their mother, looked up from where she’d been coloring on a sheet of paper, glaring stubbornly.

  “Don’t lie to me. No one’s coming,” she said, her little voice strong and sullen. “Not ever. I bet I don’t even have a brother.”

  Justin stepped out from behind the woman then, and he watched as the girl’s face went slack with surprise.

  “You do have a brother,” he said, a little awkwardly, but he tried to be kind. His only experience with kids was with the ones that came into the restaurant, though, and he felt hopelessly out of his depth. “I’m Justin.”

  For a long moment, they just stared at each other. Justin had seen the occasional picture of himself as a child, and the resemblance was startling. There really couldn’t be any doubt that this was his sister.

  Or, well, probably his half-sister, he supposed. Since he doubted there was any way they had the same father. Regardless, she was his flesh and blood, and that meant something to him.

  “Can I sit?” Justin eventually asked, gesturing to the couch beside her.

  She turned away from him with a deliberately casual shrug.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” she said, not with a whole lot of graciousness.

  “Lily! Be polite,” the foster mother said, but Justin shook his head.

  “No, it’s fine. I’m a stranger to her,” he said, and he saw the girl give him a startled look. She probably wasn’t all that used to people taking her feelings into consideration.

  “You can sit,” Lily decided, and Justin smiled and settled down beside her.

  “Can I make you some tea? Or some water, or lemonade?” The woman was practically wringing her hands and obviously wanted this meeting to go well. It was both endearing and terrifying. Way too much pressure.

  “Yeah. Lemonade sounds good,” Justin decided, and Lily nodded thoughtfully.

  “I like lemonade, too,” she said, and Justin figured that he’d passed some sort of kid test.

  “What are you drawing?” he asked, and Lily started to talk. Just slowly, one word at a time, but gradually, she seemed to decide that he was okay and opened up to him a bit.

  It was heartbreaking.

  She was drawing their mother. Her old home. Her cat, who had gone to live with a neighbor when she’d been taken away. Her old bedroom. The more Justin saw, the more he realized that he couldn’t leave this girl to be tossed around through the system, to get more and more disillusioned. It looked like she already had a fair bit of that going on.

  The lemonade came and was drunk, and Justin had a crayon and a piece of paper thrust into his hand with stern directions to ‘draw something.’ She watched as he clumsily drew a guitar, and it got a little bit of a smile from her.

  “You like music?” she guessed shrewdly, and he smiled and nodded.

  The time passed quickly, more than he would have guessed, and the little girl started to lose some of her cynicism as they chatted and drew. She started to become much more open, and it broke Justin’s heart.

  Not because she seemed to trust him, at least on some level, but because that trust was a fragile thing and something that she may not be able to keep if she kept being juggled around.

  Soon, sooner than he would have expected, it was time to go. But Justin knew that there was a difficult question to ask first, a question that, to him, seemed incredibly presumptuous.

  “Lily, I have to go,” Justin started, but before he could continue, the child interrupted him.

  “Will you come back?”

  That simple phrase, those four words, touched him deeply. She seemed like she actually really wanted him to, and that gave him the courage he needed to continue.

  “Yeah, I’ll come back, if you want,” he told her, “But I wanted to run something by you. I know you’ve just met me, but I want you to come live with me. Once the government says it’s okay, and only if you want to.”

  Lily considered that for all of about two seconds.

  “Can we go now?”

  Justin laughed, surprised. She was so willing to just go with him, and he had been a stranger until recently. But there was a bond between them, no doubt, and besides, she seemed smart enough to pick up that life in the foster care system was not an amazing experience.

  “No, not until my husband and I have
made our house ready.” Justin smiled at her, then, unable to help himself, he reached out and brushed a strand of dark hair back from her forehead. She was adorable. A little tough to get to know at first, but sweet underneath it all.

  “How long?” she asked, accepting his caress and even seeming to turn her head into it. Kids needed affection, and Justin could remember very well how their mother had not always been the best with that. Sometimes she was very loving, mostly not.

  It was pretty cool how she seemed unfazed by the whole ‘husband’ thing. It seemed to him that, if you gave kids a chance to be, they could be pretty accepting.

  “A few months. As quickly as we can,” he promised. “I’ll come visit, too. I’ll be around so much you’ll get sick of me.”

  He made a funny face at her, and she giggled. It was good to see. She was so serious that she’d barely cracked a smile the entire time that he’d been there. It seemed she was loosening up.

  “Okay. Well hurry.” She leaned in to whisper, “I don’t want to be moved around all the time. I probably can’t go live with mommy for a while, you know.”

  Justin frowned. What had she been told? Maybe she would never be able to go back to her mother. Especially if she got put in jail like they were talking about.

  The truth was, even Justin didn’t know. So he impulsively kissed her on the forehead, and she hugged him, and in some way, it felt like they were now a pair. A unit. Them against the world, if need be.

  It was then that Justin knew that he needed to talk to Ran. The thoughts he’d had earlier about being able to just coolly visit the girl and assess whether he could take her on or not were all nonsense.

  He was doing this, and hopefully, his husband would be on board. If not, they would deal with it. He and Lily.

  * * *

  When Ran came home, Justin was ready.

  He’d been running his whole life. From job to job, apartment to apartment, bed to bed. He’d been running from emotional attachment, from counting on people too much.

  And Ran had gotten through all of that somehow.

  Now Lily needed Justin, and it was time for him to go to bat for her. That was his job, and he honestly couldn’t see anything else happening.

  Ran walked in, and Justin let him get settled. When his husband came over to him for a kiss, though, Justin grabbed him by the hand and gently tugged him down onto the couch.

  “There’s something I need to do,” he told him. His tone was firm, but he hoped, at least, not aggressive. “Something important.”

  Ran looked at him, wary but accepting, as he settled down on the couch beside him.

  “What is it?” Ran asked, and Justin could tell that his husband was afraid. How did this look to him? Like Justin was breaking up with him? Or maybe like he’d finally lost his job?

  “I got a phone call …”

  It took a much shorter time to lay it out than Justin would have thought. His mom being out of commission, though he didn’t talk about that much. He deliberately skipped over it.

  He didn’t like to talk about her too much.

  But about Lily, he spilled everything. How she was in the foster system now. How he was scared, and so was she, that she was going to be bounced around from home to home.

  “Oh, that’s sad,” Ran said, and he genuinely seemed to mean it. “Poor kid.”

  It was a sympathetic response, but really not the one that Justin had been hoping for. Somehow, he’d hoped that his husband would understand what needed to be done.

  It was asking for a lot, though, for someone who didn’t have any siblings. Ran’s experience with little kids was pretty limited, which was maybe why the man had decided to teach high school and deal with teenagers.

  “So, I need to take her.”

  There was a long pause, while Ran worked that through his head.

  “Excuse me? You need to?” Ran asked, and Justin nodded, firm, uncompromising.

  “Yeah, I need to. She doesn’t have anyone else.”

  Ran stood up, his face blank and withdrawn.

  “So you’re, what? Demanding that I let some kid into my house? It’s sad what’s happening, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t have room here for a kid. The house is too small. Who will take care of her?”

  Justin watched as Ran paced around the room. He could remember how sudden it was, having this all dumped on him with that phone call, so he could sympathize. It was a lot to take.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Justin said quietly. “She’ll be at school through the day. I’ll just change my availability at work so that I can be home with her after school.”

  Justin sighed and looked around the apartment. The other point wasn’t nearly as easy to refute.

  “I know this place is too small,” he admitted. It was barely big enough for him and Ran as it was. “So I’ll have to move.”

  He took a deep breath, watching Ran, hating that he was causing him pain. But what else could he do?

  “Look, I want you to come with me. We could get a cute little two bedroom, share the rent, decorate her room up and give her a stable home.” He shook his head and then said the harsh part. Harsh, but true. “The thing is, I’m taking her. I won’t force it on you, though. You can come with me or not. It’s up to you. I know you didn’t sign up for this. But I’m going.”

  Ran snorted softly.

  “Nice. I thought you were my husband.”

  Justin sighed softly.

  “I am, but she’s my sister, and she needs me.” Justin scanned Ran’s face and then shook his head. “Come with me to meet her before you decide. I know it’s a big decision.”

  Ran was silent for a long time, and at that moment, Justin tried to brace himself for anything. For Ran telling him to leave right now. For Ran telling him it was over.

  Instead, his best friend, his husband, just sighed. Justin could tell this whole thing was difficult for him, but Ran nodded a little.

  “Okay. I’ll meet her before deciding anything.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ran

  It wasn’t that Ran had anything against kids, exactly. It was just that they didn’t really have a lot to do with his life. He’d never spent a lot of time with them, and he had honestly never thought to change that.

  It stung, too, that Justin would choose this girl over him. That his husband would be willing to throw away what they had built for a kid. Not to mention that, as much as Justin talked about it being Ran’s choice, there was still one very simple fact.

  Ran was still not a citizen.

  Oh, the process was going, and chances were good that even if he and Justin did separate now, it wouldn’t stop that from happening. But if anyone checked up and saw that they were living in two different places that could be a very bad thing.

  It was a hell of a situation that Justin was putting him in.

  But Ran had promised to at least meet the little girl. He wasn’t sure what that was supposed to do, but he would keep his promise. Then, Ran supposed he would have a tough decision to make.

  The meeting was scheduled for the next week. Meanwhile, Justin started to go to visit her almost every day. Ran tried, he really did, not to be upset by that. He’d never had a sister, though, and the whole thing was almost incomprehensible to him.

  Was Justin really going to throw everything they had away? Ran supposed that he didn’t mean as much to Justin as he’d thought, if that were true.

  Things got awkward. At least for Ran. Since Justin was never around, Ran had no idea how he was feeling. Ran, on the other hand, found himself resenting a kid who wasn’t even seven yet.

  It had been decided, as a matter of fact, that Ran would go to Lily’s seventh birthday party. That way, it wouldn’t be too overwhelming for her. She’d already apparently said she would meet Ran, which he supposed he was supposed to be honored by.

  Truth to be told, he was in a bad mood.

  So when he went to work that day and Vinnie told him that the shop was moving, Ra
n felt like his world was pretty much falling apart.

  Maybe it was overly dramatic, but it seemed that everything was changing. He stared at Vinnie, trying to summon up some sort of reaction, as the older man talked about how the shop was doing so well, the little location couldn’t keep up with it. How there was no sign of it slowing down, and how there just wasn’t enough space or staff.

  He was going to hire more people and move to a location just down the block which had just come up for lease. The timing was perfect.

  “Hey, kid, you okay?” Vinnie finally said, winding down enough to realize that Ran hadn’t said anything in quite a few minutes. “This is good news. I thought you’d be happy.”

  Ran nodded. It was good news. He understood that. But it was just one more change, and he was facing a lot of them.

  “That’s great, Vinnie,” he said, and he must have feigned enough pleasure at the news that Vinnie happily went on talking.

  It would be at the end of November, early December, apparently. Just about a month away.

  Ran knew it was the beginning of the end for him. Vinnie was going to have other staff to take over, to do all the things that he had been doing pretty much on his own.

  It was a good thing, he decided, as he quietly shelved books. He was going to be going on to his new job within a few months himself, after all. It was good knowing that he wasn’t going to be leaving Vinnie on his own. He could still remember what had happened the last time he’d done that.

  Still, this was a place that he’d worked at for a long time. It was the end of an era. In more than one way. In this case, it was a good sort of end, but it was still an end, and the feeling was bittersweet.

  * * *

  When Ran got home, Justin wasn’t there. That was becoming a pretty normal thing, actually. Justin went to work, and then he went to see Lily.

  It didn’t bode well. Once Lily was in Justin’s house, there was very little doubt in Ran’s mind that she would take over everything. Ran would be lucky if he saw Justin at all.