He’s quiet.
The rest of the day. When Jane asks what’s wrong, he just shakes his head. Lily and I don’t pressure him to open up yet.
Lily has been biting her fingernails to the beds, but she’s the one who tells me, “We just have to take what comes.” She turns only a bit red. “Not like coming, coming. The normal type of come.”
I almost smile, but my stomach never unknots. It’s not until dinnertime. It’s not until we order room service at the hotel so everyone can chill out, relax, without the fear of cameras and giant crowds. It’s not until everyone congregates in the Cobalt’s suite with burgers and fries—it’s not until this moment that Moffy separates from the pack.
He dazedly opens the door, almost in a trance. I follow at a distance. Lily, Ryke, Connor, Rose, and Daisy all see me leave into the hotel hallway with him. By the time I shut the door, Moffy has stopped halfway down, clutching the archway frame to the vending area.
His hand touches his eyes. And I know my son is crying.
He disappears inside the vending enclave, and I follow, rounding the corner. Rock in my throat. Moffy is slumped by the ice and Fizzle machines. He looks up, and his reddened face shatters, crying harder. Guttural sobs that pull his body forward.
I instantly sit next to him, before he even tries to stand.
He attempts to wipe at his face, but he just sobs into his palms, cheeks soaked with tears.
I hug my kid tight. He’s just twelve.
He’s just goddamn twelve, and he tries hard to act like he’s twenty-two. We include him in a lot. When Ryke, Connor, and I go out to eat, we’ll invite Maximoff. He likes feeling older. Like he’s one of the grown-ups, but he’s not.
It’s a weird balance because I need him to stay a kid. He deserves that. But the universe might be saying Maximoff Hale, you have to grow up now.
I don’t push my son to talk. I just tell him, “You can cry, Mof. Whatever it is, you can cry.”
Moffy takes short inhales and leans back, his head thudding against the black and gold Fizzle machine. Silent tears draw tracks down his cheeks. My arm rests across his shoulders, and he holds one of my hands strongly—like he doesn’t want me to leave.
Lily thinks that every day our oldest son looks more and more like me. But there’s no malice in his sharp jawline. There’s no spite in his daggered gaze. He has my features but his soul is clean.
Moffy stares up at the ceiling, tears flowing with each blink.
My eyes burn, and I swallow that rock. He usually doesn’t take this long to open up with me. He’s comfortable talking about almost anything. Not much fazes Moffy.
We hear the ding of the elevator and a few kids fighting while parents scold them. Their door shuts, and the hallway goes quiet again.
I stare down at my son. “I can listen,” I whisper.
More silent tears cascade. Then, very shakily, he says, “I have to ask you something.” His voice cracks, but he musters the courage to look me right in the eyes.
Most people can’t stare at me for longer than a second, and he holds my gaze, his face broken. Pained.
And he asks, “Am I your son or am I Uncle Ryke’s?” I open my mouth, but he speaks again, fast. “And I don’t mean in the metaphorical sense. I mean, biologically.”
“Biologically, metaphorically, spiritually—any which way you turn it,” I tell him, my voice clear and proud and full of never-ending love, “you’re mine.” I take my hand off his shoulder, touching my chest. “You’re my son. I don’t know what you’ve read online, but it’s a load of shit. Your mom and Uncle Ryke were never together.”
When I was younger, I thought I could protect him from this. I wished he’d never experience doubt. As I grew older, I knew it’d come. I knew it would, so it doesn’t hurt the way that it would’ve years ago. I was just hoping he’d meet these rumors when he was sixteen, seventeen.
Not twelve.
Moffy searches my features like he’s trying to find me in him.
“I look just like you, bud.”
“Not our hair color.”
“You have your grandfather’s dark hair. So what?” I shrug, shoulders taut. “It’s Ryke’s hair color? So what, Moffy, you’re still mine.” I gesture from him to me. From me to him. “You’re my son, and I love you.”
His chin quivers, and I hug him to my chest. He cries into my shoulder. I know it hurts. It’s people doubting the truth. I’ve felt that.
When people claimed my dad molested me.
That pain drove me to relapse.
And maybe it’s our fault for putting it off. For a long time, Connor and Rose have pled with all of us to tell the children about our histories. Lily’s sex addiction. False rumors. The most we did was talk about alcohol addiction, but the rest, we just kept saying let’s wait.
They’re too young.
Maybe Connor and Rose were right after all. Maybe there’s never a perfect time. Maybe we can’t blame ourselves for not knowing when to surface adult issues with kids. Is it too early? Is it too late? There’s no known calendar for this shit.
We just do what we can, the best we can, when we can. And we hope that’s enough.
Moffy dries some of his tears and lifts his head up to me, my hands on his shoulders. Ready to pull him to my chest if he needs me too again.
The ice machine groans nearby, cutting through the silence.
“Where’d you hear the rumors?” I ask quietly.
“A Tumblr site.” His face contorts, wincing, but he’s stopped crying. “They compare me with you and him.”
I haven’t seen the photos, but I’m sure Moffy is placed side-by-side next to my brother and me. My gaze roams the small vending area where we sit, but my mind travels somewhere else. “You shouldn’t be on Tumblr.”
We have celebrity gossip sites blocked on parent control. Just like Tumblr and Twitter. So we can keep our kids from seeing shit said about them.
Protect their mental health.
Moffy is older, and he has more access to these things than our other kids—but not Tumblr. His throat bobs. “A guy showed me at school.”
I tense. “A friend?”
“Not really.” Moffy pauses. “I mean…I thought he was alright until then, but he’s just like the rest of them.” I hear the endnote.
Untrustworthy.
Moffy scrutinizes my hair for a second. My muscles bind and sear. Is he taking note of the color? How it doesn’t match his? Then he touches his hair, almost the same cut as mine. Slightly shorter on the sides. Longer on top.
His chest collapses. “How could you let me dress like him?”
I’m confused. “What?” My voice is sharp.
“As a kid, I always dressed like Uncle Ryke. Right in front of you…I did that to you…”
“No, bud.” I shake my head heatedly. “You didn’t hurt me. I love my brother. I love that you admire your uncle. For Christ’s sake, I admire him. He’s a goddamn superhero.”
“You’re a goddamn superhero,” Moffy says strongly.
It brings tears to my eyes. “Moffy, your uncle, my brother…” I choke on my words. I don’t want him to hate Ryke. I never thought this would happen. I thought it’d spin the other way. I thought he’d hate me, doubt me. Instead, he believes me beyond everything else.
“If I wear sunscreen all the time, will I look more like you?”
Yes. I can’t say it.
His plan starts churning in his eyes. Knowing I’m not as tan as Ryke because I don’t spend hours outside like him. I see these ideas feverishly crawl into my son’s eyes.
I can wear sunscreen.
I can dye my hair to light brown.
“Don’t do it, Moffy.”
“I don’t want to look like him!” he yells, gripping his shirt like his heart is breaking.
“Because of other people? Don’t let them drown you. Don’t let them change you, Mof. Would you want Luna to change who she is because people say things?”
He’s haunt
ingly still, and one tear rolls down his cheek. He shakes his head, eyes flitting up to me.
I clasp his shoulder again. “I need you to know something.”
Moffy breathes heavily, but he nods like go on.
And I tell my son, “My brother saved my life. I wouldn’t be sober if it weren’t for him. I might not even be here. Your mom might not be here. We wouldn’t have had you. He helped me become a better person.”
Moffy relaxes at every syllable, every word, trying hard not to villainize the person that we all love. If he should hate anything, he should despise the media and what it tries to do to us. He rests his back against the Fizzle machine.
I follow suit next to him, our arms brushing. “You know what—I might be a superhero, but there is no question, Ryke Meadows is one too. And he’s standing right by my side, heaven and hell.”
Moffy seems older. In this one moment. Life aged him, and he turns his head to me, more at peace with all this knowledge that would capsize most people. It would’ve crushed me.
I remember the day he turned eleven. He took a Harry Potter quiz, and he was sorted into a wizarding house.
Maximoff Hale is a Hufflepuff.
And he’s so goddamn strong.
I can feel one unspoken question billowing in the air. “You have another question.” I don’t ask it. He nods, but before he can speak, I say, “You want to know if your mom is a sex addict. If that’s a lie too?”
His brows pinch. “Is she?” he wonders. I think he realizes that he can’t find the truth online or from other people. Only we have the real story, and most of it is documented on We Are Calloway. A show we haven’t let any of the kids watch. “Some people at school…they mention it. I didn’t want to upset Mom, and I thought, maybe it was just another rumor.”
He was ten when I told him about my history with alcoholism. I explained addiction, dependency, abusing liquor, and how his grandfather had been sick too. But how do you explain sex addiction to a child?
“You know how I’m addicted to alcohol,” I start out slowly. Moffy stares straight ahead, lost in thought, and I finish, “Well, your mom is addicted to sex. That part is true.”
Moffy is still in a daze.
“Moffy,” I call out, trying to keep my voice level. “I don’t want this to affect your view of your mom.” My insides compress and explode, anguished at the thought—Lily. Lily. She’d be devastated and wrecked if he treated her differently.
Just because of her addiction.
“She’s still your mom. She loves you like you’re a part of her goddamn soul. Nothing has changed. It’s just something that she deals with like I deal with alcohol.”
He doesn’t say a word. Goddammit.
“Moffy.”
“You’re my dad?” he asks again.
Don’t fucking cry.
“I’m your dad,” I say forcefully. “Your mom and I have a monogamous relationship. That means she’s not with anyone else but me. She doesn’t have sex with anyone else.”
Moffy is confused. “Then how is she a sex addict?” He grinds his teeth and scratches at his arm. He looks hollowed out.
I think he wanted this to be a lie. So he could tell his friends to fuck off. To get over themselves and stop spreading rumors.
“This isn’t something to be ashamed of. Your mom’s not ashamed. Okay? It’s a part of her. The same way my addiction is a part of me.” He can’t love me and hate Lily. I might as well be sawed in half.
“Then why hasn’t she told me?” He frowns. “You both usually tell me everything.”
“Maybe we should have,” I admit that, “but we didn’t want you thinking about sex in that context, Moffy. It’s complicated.”
He weighs this knowledge.
“You love your mom?”
His eyes fill to the brim while he nods repeatedly. “It’s why this is so hard, you know? I don’t like thinking that she’s struggling with something like this…”
I was wrong about him being ashamed of Lily. That’s not the track he was going down.
Moffy just didn’t want her to be sick.
Goddamn Hufflepuff.
“I can explain her addiction better, if you want me to.” I don’t know what it must be like for him. This is his mom. I didn’t even have a mother.
He breathes easier and nods. “Yeah, can you?” He licks his dry lips, realization crossing his face. “Is this why you got so pissed over the pop-up porn on my computer?”
“Yeah.” I bend my knees, both of us at ease. “Sex addicts can be compulsive about porn. We’re just cautious.”
“That makes sense…” He swings his head to me. “One more question.”
“You can ask as many as you want.”
Moffy almost smiles and he nods in thanks. “So…how bad is sex addiction? Sex is supposed to feel good, so it can’t be that terrible, right?”
My teenage and college years with Lil race through my mind. I can’t lie to my son. I can’t tell him it was easy when it was fucking hard. So I say the truth, “She’s at a healthy place now, Moffy.”
He lets out the deepest breath. “If I think of something else…?”
“You can always ask me or her or us.”
He nods to himself like he’s more content again.
I stand and help him up. “You want some hot tea?” He drinks a cup almost every morning.
“Yeah, that’d be good.” He hesitates before we leave the vending area. He nods to himself again and then says, “Thanks for trusting me.”
I hug him to my side, and he hugs back.
I know, soon, we may need to trust him with a lot more.
< 57 >
July 2027
Disneyland
California
DAISY MEADOWS
I’m in charge of three little rambunctious girls today.
I’m the only one who likes the spinning teacups, and this morning, three-year-old Winona and Kinney declared that they wanted to “spin until they puked” and two-and-half-year-old Audrey nodded like me too.
Rose told me not to put puke on the agenda, and I planned to cross puke out and put fun. Like total mind-blowingly awesome fun.
Well, it’s been horrible stomach-curdling un-fun.
We’ve been at the Mad Hatter’s teacups for over an hour, and we’ve only whirled on the ride once.
I have all three wiggly girls barely seated on their strollers by the teacups attraction. I place my arm to my mouth, almost gagging, and then I chug a second water bottle. My stomach roils and cramps.
Bodyguards surround us so safety isn’t a monstrous issue, even with the growing crowds and people sneaking photographs.
Winona hops off her stroller with a devious laugh, wearing a tiger onesie. Her tail flaps behind her.
I pick up my toddler and set her back, my stomach caving in on itself. Suck it down, Daisy. I breathe through my nose, and Winona tries to dart off again. She thinks it’s a game. It might be if I didn’t feel like death just crawled into my stomach and died.
I’m sweating, dizzy and nauseous.
I’m going to puke.
I swallow the feeling. I don’t think the teacups are to blame. I’ve never felt nauseous on rides or car trips or even boats.
“Girls,” I say, squatting in front of their strollers. Redheaded Audrey sits in the middle, wearing a pink princess gown, hands on her sides like it’s what she’s meant to do. Kinney inspects a booger on her finger, dressed as a Jedi Knight, while Winona hangs upside-down in her stroller.
“What if we got ginormous, humongous”—I gasp like it’s the craziest thing in the world—“ice cream cones.”
“Huh?” Winona gapes.
“Ice cream isn’t teacups,” Kinney Hale says like it’s just known.
Audrey nods and mumbles something that sounds like, exactly.
Exhaling a steady breath, I struggle layering on brightness when I don’t feel well. I used to be great at this, and I don’t know how. I can’t remember the last
time I painted on happiness when I felt sick.
It might be a whole nine years ago.
My phone starts ringing. “Ice cream is better than teacups,” I try to convince them, but I have to put my forearm to my mouth while I stand up straight. I’m lightheaded for a second, and I shut my eyes.
“Mommy?” Winona is still upside-down.
“I’m okay. Ice cream,” is all I can say before I answer the phone. I only realize it’s FaceTime when Rose appears on screen. Shouts from park-goers crackle the speakers.
“Are the girls being little devils? How’s Audrey?” Rose must see herself in the tiny window because she fixes her crooked Mickey Mouse ears.
Jane is wearing identical ones with Rose today.
“They’re good.” I chug more water.
Rose pauses, eyes narrowing towards me. “Are you pale or is that the light?”
“Definitely the light,” I lie and then rotate the camera onto her daughter, the screen still on me. I tell Audrey to say hello to her mom, and Audrey waves like she’s dusting the air.
Rose touches her lips as she smiles.
Not long after, she glances over her shoulder like she feels someone. I catch a brief glimpse of Connor. Grinning.
“You’re infuriating,” Rose snaps and then tries to raise a hand at his face.
He only grins more. Eliot and Tom suddenly jump out at Rose, trying to scare her.
Rose doesn’t startle.
Then they both clasp her hand, tugging her towards a ride and talking over one another. Rose unconsciously points the camera at the cement.
It makes me so nauseous that I say quickly, “I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up and immediately call someone else.
I can’t do this alone, and I don’t want to try to push through this awful feeling. I just want to spend thirty minutes by a toilet and then curl up in bed.
Ryke answers on the third ring. “Hey, sweetheart.” I’m not sure where he is with the older kids and Lily and Lo. They could be on another side of the park for all I know.
“Ryke—”
“What’s fucking wrong?” Concern deepens his voice.
I don’t even know how I said his name, but obviously it alarmed him. “I don’t feel well…” I take a huge, cumbersome breath. I don’t want to let these little girls down, but I can’t be here.
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