“How?” His voice came out in a harsh whisper. “I mean…what? What did he do?”
“Blamed me,” I replied solemnly. “He blamed me for Moms’ death. He hit me sometimes.”
“Did he…is he why you’re in…that thing?” He waved a hand at my wheelchair as his face went deathly pale.
“No,” I said with a single laugh. “I did that one myself.”
“You saved that girl,” he nodded, remembering. “Nicole.”
“Yeah.”
“He hit you?” Gardner repeated.
“Yeah,” I said again. I looked down at my hands and used one finger to smear around a missed droplet of water. After a minute, when he hadn’t said anything else, I looked back at him.
He was, for lack of a better term, shaking. He was taking in deep breaths—like I sometimes do to calm myself—but then as he let them out, his whole body shook with the effort.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” he breathed and then quickly changed his mind. “No! Shit! I have to get out of here…”
He stood up and slammed his legs into the bottom of the table, which knocked over my water and brought forth some more cursing. I might have found it funny, except for what he had said.
He had to get out.
Get away from me.
I felt my shoulders slump as my body tensed up.
“Shit! Thomas…I just…I didn’t mean…fuck!”
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
“No! I didn’t mean…I just need to get outside a minute…um…to smoke? I really need a cigarette right now.”
“Oh,” I said as I glanced up at him. He was pulling a pack out of his pocket. “Okay.”
I looked down at our plates, both really about as untouched as they could be, and didn’t really feel like eating anything.
“You had enough of this place?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Come outside with me?”
“Yeah.”
He shuffled around until he was out of the booth and then stood there for a second with his hand in his hair.
“Do you, um…need some help? I could push you…”
“No, I got it.”
He followed me as I made my way around the other tables, trying to ignore the stares. I wasn’t sure if my perception was accurate, but I felt as if they all knew exactly who I was. All the people there knew what I used to be.
Gardner ran around me to open the door. Once we were outside, he lit up.
“Do you…um…smoke?”
“Nah,” I replied. “I used to, sometimes. Nicole would kill me.”
“Gotcha.” He took a long drag and started to pace a little. “I didn’t…I…shit.”
I kept looking down at my hands. Eventually he stopped in front of me and bent at the knees so he could look up at me.
“Thomas…I had no idea.”
I shrugged.
“No one did,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not!” he said then sighed and ran his free hand through his hair again. “I should have…I should have pushed. I should have just come here. I wanted to—I did. I was just…Shit, Thomas! I was scared. I was such a pussy about all of it. I didn’t even know about you, and then what he said—it made sense…at the time. Now…now…shit!”
He took another drag and tossed the butt into the street.
“If I had known…if I had gotten ahold of you, you could have told me—I would have come for you.”
“I wouldn’t have told you,” I said.
“I might have…might have seen the signs.”
“I would have denied it,” I told him, finally meeting his eyes. “No one knew. I passed it off as soccer injuries. Tape up my ribs—go on with it. No one knew.”
“Tape up your…? Holy fucking shit!” Gardner stood up, nearly ripped his hair out, and then lit up another cigarette. He was really making me want one. “He broke your…ugh!”
He threw his cigarette out into the street and dropped down beside my chair again. A couple of people looked at us sideways as they came out of the restaurant.
“Fucking idiot…” Gardner was mumbling under his breath. “Should have fucking noticed something. Should have come here…should have…done something. Anything. Too fucking selfish.”
He looked up at me, his eyes flaming.
“God, Thomas—I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I told him. “You didn’t do it.”
“Yeah,” he barked out a laugh. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do jack shit.”
He lit up another one.
“I was so fucking selfish,” he said after a minute of hot-boxing the smoke. “I was almost relieved when he said I couldn’t see you. I don’t know how to be a father…I thought maybe it was best. I mean…sometimes I thought it was best not to be in your life.”
He looked back to me.
“I’m sorry, Thomas.” He reached out and touched the arm of my chair. “Really fucking sorry. I should have been here. I should have been here for you as soon as I knew.”
I didn’t know what to say to him. Would it have made any difference? Would I have ever told him anything? No. Not a chance. Before Nicole, I had never told a fucking soul, and there’s no way I would have told him.
“I never would have said anything,” I told him again. “Lou Malone was an upstanding citizen. No one would have believed any of it.”
“I would have,” he said quietly. “I would have done something. Fuck, right now I want to dig him up and beat his fucking corpse.”
I chuckled and then stopped myself. It wasn’t funny…well, it kind of was.
“I’m serious,” he told me.
“I know,” I replied. “I feel like doing it myself.”
We sat in silence again, him smoking while I just tried to make the whole conversation fit into my brain. It was so much all at once, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to hear it.
“Do you want me to grab your lunch?” he asked.
“Not really hungry,” I replied.
“I’ll go pay the bill.”
“I can get it.” I started to maneuver back toward the door, but he stopped me.
“I got it,” he said as he walked through the door.
I sighed, knowing I couldn’t have caught up with him anyway. Instead, I tried to process all this information. He wanted to see me, which was something, at least. He wanted to beat up my dad, which made me feel a little better, but I wasn’t sure where that left us now.
My dad was dead, and I had just met my father. That shit was fucked up by anyone’s standards. I guess I’d just have to figure out a way to sort it all out.
Gardner came back out, and we ended up on a bench at the park across the street. Well, Gardner was on the bench. I just moved myself next to it. I could see the bookstore where Nicole was hanging out from where I sat, and I wondered if she even knew how long she had been in there.
“So, where do we go from here?” Gardner asked.
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I’m kind of living in the moment right now, really.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” he replied. He turned toward me. “Can I help you in some way? I mean, do you still have insurance for rehab? I should be able to put you on my insurance though we might have to have a paternity test first. Did you want to have a paternity test? Fuck…I’m babbling…”
I chuckled into my hand, trying to pass it off as a cough. He was babbling. I was discovering that my biological father babbled a lot, and I realized it was something I did as well.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I really don’t know how to do this. I don’t have any…any other kids. I’ve never been married. I haven’t even been in a serious relationship for over a year. I do want to help you, though. I, um…I don’t have a lot of money, but I should be able to help out with the rehab bills, and—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Don’t.”
He looked over to m
e.
“I’m not trying to buy you,” he said. “I just want to make sure if you need anything, you know you can come to me. I wasn’t around before, and I really regret that now. I don’t make a lot of money by any means, but I’m comfortable enough. If I can help you, I will.”
“My inheritance is pretty big,” I admitted.
“Oh…yeah…” he babbled. “I guess that’s probably true, isn’t it? I mean, doctor and all. What about the house?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t really want to go back there.”
“Is that where he…um…”
“Yeah.”
“That makes sense, then.” His leg bounced up and down as he pulled out another cigarette. I wondered if he was always a chain smoker or if it was just because of me.
“Do I make you nervous?” I asked.
He let out a short laugh.
“Yeah, definitely.”
“’Cause of the chair?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’ve got a colleague in my building at the university who’s been in a wheelchair all her life. We used to share an office, so I’m kind of used to that.”
“What, then?”
“Um…guilt?” He gave me a lame half-smile, which he dropped pretty quickly. “I keep thinking about what I should have done. Starting with Fran, I should have at least made sure she made it back here okay. Maybe she would have told me if I had called her. Then I should have insisted on getting to know you, or at least…I dunno…maybe hired a private investigator to check on you…Shit like that just keeps popping into my head. You’re…you’re my kid, and someone was hurting you. It just…makes me feel sick. I should have done something, and I didn’t—hence the guilt.”
He flicked ash into the wind and sighed.
“With all of that, and you being so quiet, I’m trying to figure out just how much you hate me.”
“I don’t,” I told him. “I don’t hate you. I don’t…I don’t even know you. I’m just trying to figure all this shit out, you know?”
He nodded and finished his cigarette.
“You’re a pretty smart kid, aren’t you?” he said.
I only shrugged in response.
“So, um…” He coughed into his hand a couple times. He took a deep breath. “Do I, um, get a chance, then? I mean, with you? I’m not going to push—I swear I won’t—but I’d like to…to have something with you. Whatever you’re up for.”
“I guess so,” I replied. Everything he said was swirling around in my head again. He really seemed like a pretty good guy, and I didn’t think he was feeding me any bullshit. What would it hurt? “Yeah, okay…um…What did you have in mind?”
“I have to go back to Chicago after this weekend,” he said. “I could probably make it back here about once a month or so. You could come out to Chicago any time you want. I have a ranch house over in Evanston, so no stairs. I’ve got a guest room, and there’s a great view of Lake Michigan.”
I hadn’t really thought about traveling at all. How would I even get on a plane? It’s not like a wheelchair would fit through those tiny aisles. That would be a damn long drive, though if Nicole went with me…
“Maybe,” I finally said.
“Maybe?”
“I mean, maybe to Chicago. The other stuff would be okay.”
“It would?”
“Yeah.” I looked up at him, and for the first time since I met him for lunch, he was smiling.
“Thanks, Thomas,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I replied. “So, um, what should I call you?”
His forehead scrunched up.
“Um, what do you want to call me?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I always called…um…Lou, Dad. I don’t really want to call anyone else that.”
“I’m not so sure I’d be completely comfortable with that, either,” he admitted.
“I’ve been just calling you Gardner in my head,” I told him.
He laughed.
“Well, no one’s really called me that since I played in the band, but that would be okay with me.”
“Cool,” I said. I reached out and shook his hand. “Gardner it is.”
Shortly after that, I had pretty much had enough of sitting in the fucking wheelchair and gave Nicole a call to tell her where we were. She came out to find us laughing since Gardner had been telling me about his co-worker going off on a construction guy who had taken her handicapped parking spot and how she just about had the poor guy in tears.
“I take it things are going well here,” Nicole said as she approached.
Gardner and I glanced at each other, chuckled, and ran our hands through our hair. Nicole blinked a couple of times as she looked back and forth between us.
“O…kay. That was a little freaky.” She took a step away from us. She shook her head and asked if I was ready to go. Gardner followed us back to the Jeep, and after I got situated in the passenger seat, he leaned in toward me, holding the top of the door.
“Hey, Thomas?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be back in four weeks, okay?”
“Yeah, that’ll be good,” I told him.
“You can call me anytime you want,” he reminded me again, “and if it’s okay, I’ll call you sometimes.”
“I said it was.” I rolled my eyes. He seemed to think I was going to change my mind and tell him to fuck off.
“Cool!” He stood back up and closed the door.
Nicole and I both waved, but as she started the car, he knocked on my window. I rolled it down for him.
“Would you do something for me?” Gardner asked me.
“What is it?”
“Before I come back, would you, um, maybe think about doing a few sketches? I’d really like to see them.”
My heart started pounding in my chest a little as I looked down to my hands in my lap. I just stared at them and thought about all the times I tried to show my drawings to Dad. While I lost myself, Nicole covered my hand with hers to get my attention.
“Thomas?”
I looked over to her and then back up at Gardner.
“Yeah,” I finally said, “I can do that.”
He smiled and nodded before backing away from the car so Nicole could pull out and take us home. We drove in relative silence though I did tell her about the inheritance money and what Gardner had told me about my mother. She freaked out a little over the money thing but not as much as I thought she would. Mostly, my mind kept coming back to sketching, and I wondered if I’d really have the nerve to show Gardner anything I had drawn. I just wasn’t sure though I did feel pretty relaxed after talking to him for a while.
Nicole got us back home, and she and Greg started going over their plans for the rest of the week, which mostly involved Greg working nights so Nicole could go to school. They didn’t want me left alone though I told them I didn’t need a fucking babysitter. Regardless, they were talking about doing all this shit that was going to cost a lot of money, and I was about as pissed off as I could be about the whole thing. I knew I was going to have to change the arrangement, and they were both going to be really, really pissed.
I was pissed, too.
Except, when I wheeled myself out of the kitchen and went to my tiny not-quite-a-room, I still had this smile on my face that wouldn’t go away. Everything was clicking with me, and I knew this was exactly how families were supposed to act. Between Nicole and Greg, I still had as much family as I had ever had before.
I had the feeling Gardner would someday feel like family to me, too. Shakespeare once said, “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,” and I couldn’t argue with that.
But first, it was time to face some harsh realities.
I asked Nicole and Greg both to come into the living room to talk to me after dinner. Greg was in his chair, and Nicole was sitting on the couch. I sat in my wheelchair between them.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?” Nicole asked.
r /> I kind of figured this was going to be her reaction.
“I talked to Danielle this morning,” I told Nicole. “It makes sense for me to go back to the rehab center for a while. You and Greg shouldn’t have to look after me so much. He’s got work, and you have school—”
“That’s bullshit! I want to do it, Thomas!”
She was getting choked up, like I figured she would, but there just wasn’t any easy way to bring this up.
“I…I know you do…” I stammered. I looked over to Greg, honestly hoping he’d see reason here.
He shook his head at me.
“You don’t have to go anywhere,” he said. “We can get you to rehab when you need to go, and—”
“No, Greg,” I said. “I have to…to do whatever I can to recover as much as possible. I need to figure out what my life is like now, who I am, who I want to be…and I can’t do that here. You know I appreciate what you’ve done, but I’ll make more progress at the center.”
“Danielle can come here,” Nicole said.
“Rumple, baby,” I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “There isn’t enough room here for all the equipment.”
“What about…at your house?”
“I don’t want to go back there,” I said quietly. “I think I might just want to sell it.”
“Then sell it!” she cried. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave! I just got you back, dammit!”
“Nicole—” Greg and I said in unison.
I let him continue.
“It sounds to me like Thomas has thought this through,” he said to her.
“No!” Nicole stood up and took a step toward him. “He’s not leaving! What if…what if that other therapist comes back, huh?”
“We’re still looking for him,” Greg reminded her.
Steven had apparently skipped town, maybe even the country. No one had heard from him since the day Dad shot himself. Greg had some feds trying to look for him in LA, where he had lived before coming to town, but no one had been able to find him. Once Dad’s suicide and the “alternate medications” Steven had used on me were discovered, he just disappeared. The feds seemed to think he was afraid of having charges pressed and fled.