The Big O Series

by M. S. Parker

  Rubbing my eyes, I studied the picture once more.

  It didn’t go away.

  “I think his name is MJ.”

  I frowned at the picture on the screen. “I thought you told me that my father’s name was Leland.”

  “That’s your father’s name. The back of the picture has the words Leland and MJ,” Mom said with a loud, inappropriate laugh. “It sounds like you’re stunned.”

  “That might be because I am.”

  She started to talk again, and I closed my eyes, bringing up the image on my phone in my mind.

  It wasn’t until a few more moments had passed that I realized Mom had said something.

  Then the reason for her call became clear.

  “I’m kind of tight on money, honey. And I know you’re working at the fancy boutique there. Is there any way you can float me a loan?”

  I closed my eyes.

  Of course, she couldn’t have just been calling to tell me Happy New Year’s or with this news about my supposed brother.

  Not my mother.

  Six

  Kane

  “Uncay!”

  Uncay, as far as I could tell in my limited understanding of two-year-olds, meant Uncle Kane. Small hands patted my knee, and I bent over to sweep one of two twin girls up in my arms. As she was over here wanting to be loved on and not trying to climb the walls, I knew I had to be holding Zoe. Rose would find a way to fly off the roof by the time she was five. At least that was what I’d told her father, my younger brother Nathaniel.

  It had turned him an all-new shade of white, probably because he realized I just might be right.

  Zoe, on the other hand, was content to cuddle up against me, with her head tucked under my chin as I made my way through my mom’s now-crowded living room.

  I had too many siblings for us to keep crowding in like this, but somehow, we managed, week after week. All major holidays. Anytime somebody close was getting married or died.

  We managed.

  Zoe wiggled up closer and pressed her lips to my cheek, and my heart squeezed a little. She was the sweetest thing.

  Her brothers, Connor and Grant, spied me and came shrieking my way. I held up a hand, and they both stopped the shrieking. “Remember to keep the volume level to a dull roar, dudes,” I said.

  “Yes, sir.” Connor, the older one, hugged my hip while Grant grabbed my left thigh and hugged it, then they were both gone again.

  “Hey, man.”

  I looked up as one of my brothers stepped into the room. Eddie grinned at me and Zoe. “Looks like a pretty lady caught your eye,” he teased.

  “The prettiest.” I nuzzled her curls and caught sight of Rose peeking around the corner at me. “Well, one of the two prettiest. I don’t think you can figure out which one’s prettier. It’s too hard to tell.”

  Rose grinned and came running at me. I shifted her sister and knelt just in time to catch her, then I had both arms full of sweet-smelling, little girl warmth.

  Eddie laughed. “Man, if some of the guys from your old life could see you now, they’d just die.”

  I scowled at him. If I was sure Mom wouldn’t see me, I might have flipped him off, armload of twins or not. “Where’s Ricky?” I asked, deciding to distract him instead. Rick was his boyfriend, and the two of them rarely went to an event, even something as simple as a family dinner, without the other.

  “He got stuck working a double.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “Staffing cuts and now half the employees at his place are pulling doubles to make up for it. How does that save the city money, you tell me?”

  “Find a politician and ask him,” I advised. Rick was an EMT – they’d met on the job and had been together for a while.

  “Dinner’s almost done,” he told me, coming over and liberating Zoe. “I’m taking this little doll.”

  Zoe went to him with a beatific smile, and I was left with Rose who immediately turned inscrutable, big dark eyes on me. “Unca Kane,” she said in a serious, little adult voice.

  She’d managed to get most of the syllables in there. She’d be reading by the time she was three. And if they weren’t careful, out for world domination by age six. “Come on, let’s go see what Grandma is doing.”

  “Out kichen,” Rose announced, almost getting kitchen perfect – and she knew the rule. Nobody was allowed in Grandma’s kitchen when she was cooking. The rule had been the same when I was little. Mom would make all of us clean up, but she didn’t like stepping on toes when she was busy whipping up a feast. Not that I minded. All I did was get in the way.

  “Okay. We’ll go find your mom and dad,” I told her.

  That seemed to content her, and we found her parents, Madison and my brother Nathaniel on the fire escape that my mom used for her small container garden. “No making out until after dinner,” I said, snaking a hand through the window and smacking Nathaniel on the back of the head.

  He glanced at me through the glass and mouthed, Fuck off.

  I grinned at him.

  Dinah, one of my two sisters, was in the kitchen with my mother, the only other person allowed in the sacred space. According to my mom, Dinah was the only person who ‘got her rhythm.’ Which I understood. The two of them moved like they were a matched set when they were cooking. It made sense. Ever since Dad had died and I’d had to step up and help Mom out more and more, Dinah had done the same, in her own way. She’d been the one who took over the cooking and the cleaning when the multiple jobs Mom had held had her working late into the night. In retrospect, I should have been more like Dinah, instead of taking the path I’d taken. But hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that bullshit.

  My sister caught sight of me and nodded, a faint grin on her face at the sight of Rose nestled up against me. “I see the rottens have found you already. Which one you got?”

  “The soon to be ruler of the universe,” I answered.

  Rose tapped her chest. “Rosie,” she said indignantly. She didn’t like it when people didn’t recognize her for her genius alone.

  Mom heard me and paused in the middle of whipping mashed potatoes to come over and kiss me. “How are you, baby?”

  “I’m good.”

  Rose lifted her rosebud mouth for a kiss. “Kiss me!” she demanded.

  Mom laughed and obliged.

  Rose added as Mom walked away, “Unca Kane not baby.”

  “I’m not even going to bother explaining,” Mom said, waving a distracted hand. Her voice sounded a little strained, and I shot Dinah a look.

  She mouthed later.

  I bit back a sigh because chances were I’d already figured out what the problem was. The same reason Mom’s voice often sounded distracted or grim these days.

  There was one brother I hadn’t seen yet. I could have asked, but instead, I put Rose down and patted her diapered backside. “Why don’t you go find your sister?”

  Austen, my youngest sibling, was locked inside his room. He didn’t answer the first knock, so I tried again – harder.

  He all but ripped it off the hinges then, a belligerent look on his face that faded when he saw me. “Hey, man! How ya doing?” he asked, reaching out to pull me into the room.

  It was the expected disaster a seventeen-year-old boy’s room was likely to be, maybe even worse.

  I sidestepped an empty bag of chips – at least I hoped it was empty – and a pile of clothes. “Mom asked you to clean this up anytime recently?”

  “She’s always after me to clean it up,” he said with an unconcerned shrug. “I figure if it bothers her that bad, she can do it. I don’t care.”

  “Mom works forty hours a week to make sure you get decent clothes and food in your belly,” I told him, biting back an angry retort. “You can do a bit to help out.”

  “Hey, I can buy my own clothes. I got money.” He went on the defensive, jabbing a thumb at his chest.

  “And are you going to be able to buy the uniforms you need for school? New shoes? A coat for winter?” I swept a hand around,
spied the shoes Mom had busted her ass to buy him for Christmas, and that just made me angrier. “Come on, Austen. She wears herself out trying to take care of you.”

  “I don’t ask her to!” he half-shouted. “Shit, if you’re going to be on my case too, why the hell you in here?”

  “I wanted to say hi to my brother, see how you’re doing.” Folding my arms over my chest, I stared him down. “Obviously, you’re being an arrogant little shit who doesn’t give a fuck about anybody but himself.”

  His face fell, as I’d expected it to when I gave him that look. He hated it when I came down on him, and it made me feel like shit having to do it, but if he was talking like this to me, how was he talking to Mom?

  “Look, man…” He shifted from one foot to the other. “You know that ain’t true. I just…I got suspended for fighting, and Mom’s all worked up about it. She thinks I’m gonna get expelled if it happens again and she was crying an’ all…” His voice trailed off, and he stared off at a space on the wall behind me.

  “Are you?” I replied.

  “I…I dunno. Maybe.” He sounded like an unhappy little kid now, and I fought the urge to go give him a hug.

  “Then maybe it’s time you stop doing whatever shit you’re doing and get your act together.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on with Austen?”

  It was hard to find any privacy in the apartment, but I managed to catch Mom in the hallway when she took one of the twins to her room to change a diaper. With the pungent odor of that hanging in the air, I hoped this would be a short conversation, but I’d smelled worse shit in my life.

  Mom made a face at me and put Rose down, then glanced around.

  “Did he talk to you?” she asked softly.

  “No. Well, not really. I know he’s had some issues with fighting apparently. Said he might get expelled.” Studying her face, I hesitated a moment, then asked, “Is it that bad?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, sounding more helpless than I’d heard her sound in a long time. “I want to say no, but it’s the second time he’s been in a fight this year, and he hurt the other kid pretty bad.”

  “What was the fight over? Who started it?”

  “I have no idea what it was over.” Mom rolled her eyes. “Boys fight over anything, it seems. But the school did admit that the other boy started it. Austen just…ended it.” She gave me a bleak look and shook her head. “He’s got to get that temper of his under control. And some of the kids he’s hanging with…”

  The words trailed off, but I didn’t need her to finish to surmise there was some trouble there, too.

  “Anything else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” She wagged the small bag that held the diaper and said, “Now, I’m tired of breathing in Rose de Poopie Pants so I’m going to throw this out. We can talk about your brother later, okay?”

  She smiled at me, but the strain was still in her eyes.

  Yeah, we’d talk about it later.

  “He’s skipped some classes lately,” Nathaniel said over a beer.

  I was sitting on the fire escape while Nathaniel leaned outside, the two of us catching up. We’d spent Christmas together, but with the kids, that day had turned into holiday chaos, and before Christmas, my brothers, sisters, and Mom had been busy with getting ready for the holiday.

  I guess I’d been busy in my own way, but I kept my shopping to a minimum. I had gift buying down to an art and started back in August, so I didn’t have to spend more time around people than needed once the Christmas rush got here.

  But any time people got busy, so did their cars and that meant more work for the garage.

  I had only a few employees, and when things got too crazy, it meant longer hours for all of us. I was getting a bigger client base, something I was glad to see, but sooner or later, I’d have to hire part-time help.

  Between the holiday rush and my garage, I just hadn’t seen my family as much as I wanted, so the news about Austen was just that – news. “He’s skipping classes,” I muttered, shaking my head. I lifted the beer to my lips and sipped. “What’s going on with him? He’s a senior. A few more months and high school will be behind him. He doesn’t gotta worry about it anymore.”

  “Senioritis?” Nathaniel offered. “Hell, I don’t know. He’s…angry at things sometimes.”

  I’d noticed. He’d had an attitude with almost everybody although he’d been nice enough to the babies. He’d even been a bit of a shit to his nephews, and usually, he was great with them – and they adored him. Because they adored him, they’d forget all about him being a little asshole today, but I didn’t like seeing him act that way.

  Rubbing my forehead where a headache was trying to form, I debated on whether I should talk to Austen again.

  Nathaniel must have been reading my mind because he bumped his beer bottle against mine. “He’s going to work it out, Kane. You were in worse trouble when you were his age, and look at you now.”

  “Yeah, but think about how much trouble I had to get into and how much shit I had to go through before I got my act together,” I pointed out.

  “True.” Nathaniel winced and lifted his bottle to his lips.

  I did the same, draining my beer in three swallows.

  “Just give him some space for now,” Nathaniel advised. “Maybe he just needs to realize he’s being a little dick.”

  “Maybe.”

  Seven

  Raye

  “Man…”

  I all but had to pick my jaw up off the floor as I finished reading the last in a series of articles I’d found online.

  I was almost positive I’d found my brother.

  I’d used one of those free ancestry websites to look up Leland Jakes and found his son’s name, then did a google from there.

  Had I ever hit the jackpot once I added in Texas along with Matthew Jakes.

  He’d been involved in a car crash some years ago where he’d been accused of killing his mother. Several other guys had been in the car, including the son of some politician, Washington McCrane.

  But the doozy of all of them was an article written by one Michelle Nestor that had been picked up by the Associated Press. Years after his release from prison, this woman, Michelle Nestor, breaks a story that my brother – wow, that was weird, even just thinking it – hadn’t been driving the car at all.

  The person driving had been the politician’s kid, and Mr. Big Time Politician had covered everything up to avoid the bad press.

  Now McCrane was in jail, and Matthew’s name had been cleared. The article mentioned that the son had died a few years earlier. It was all…surreal.

  I dug in deeper, trying to find more on Matthew, but there really wasn’t anything outside of those articles and the myriad links to people finder websites. If I had to, I could try one of those, but how many of them were scams? I’d have to research it and find one that was reputable and reliable. I didn’t want to go digging around in people’s lives if I didn’t have to.

  “Why couldn’t you make it simple and have a Facebook profile?” I mumbled.

  It was possible he did have one, but it was set to private. None of the Matthew Jakes I’d found looked to be the right guy, and I wasn’t about to start hitting up random strangers.

  After another hour of fruitless searching, I went back to the article written by Michelle Nestor.

  Reading it through, I studied the quotes she’d taken and the brief part of the article that focused on the time she’d spent talking with Matthew. “You know him,” I mused. There was a…familiarity about the entire article.

  Okay, if I couldn’t find him myself, I’d reach out through her.

  My face burned hot as a flame when I googled her name.

  A lot of hits came up, and almost all of them were focused on sex.

  My toes curled into the carpet as I clicked on one of them, and an article on oral sex popped up.

  My mouth was dry by the time I was done reading it – other parts of
me were decidedly not dry.

  She had a way of writing that was hella sexy.

  I found an article that had actually been written about her, and how she’d gone from an unknown name to an overnight sensation at the magazine she wrote for, all starting with her interview of a… “Son of a bitch,” I whispered. “A male prostitute?”

  She went from writing an exposé about the politician who set my brother up to writing sexy little pieces inspired by talks with a gigolo?

  Except that wasn’t the only stuff she wrote about. There was a piece on sexual harassment in the workplace. Another on campus rape. I clicked away from both of those, uncomfortable topics.. It looked like she wrote the gamut when it came to women’s interest.

  But the only real investigative type piece that I could find was the article about Matthew and McCrane.

  “Weird,” I muttered. “How did you even find out about him?”

  There was no answer in my quiet little apartment, and I sighed, zooming my mouse in on the search bar so I could type in Michelle Nestor website.

  It took me to her LinkedIn page, and I had to go through the hassle of setting up an account I wouldn’t use to get her contact info, but finally, I had it.

  I copied it, pasted into the to line of a blank email, then leaned back and pondered on what I should say.

  It took nearly an hour to get the words right, but I felt it had to be perfect. It wasn’t like I could just drop her a note, saying…

  Hey, I read your articles about sexual harassment and oral sex. Oh, and the one about that guy Matthew Jakes? Um, so…crazy story, but I think he’s my brother and I’d like to meet him. Can you hook us up?

  Once I finished, I leaned back and read it through – again.