Chapter Five
TUCKER
It’s full dark when I get home with the bag containing hair dye and clippers.
I don’t know which one to use to satisfy this itch inside of me.
Maybe both. That’s a fun idea. Dad and Pop are easy to see out on the back porch when I walk through the house, and they’re sitting close enough for their arms to brush with each move.
Twin glasses of wine are on the table in front of them.
The sound of Dad’s laughter mixes with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, and some of that swell of anxiety inside me lowers.
I remember the first time I dyed my hair as a wayward teenager.
I’d had such a happy home, but I’d been so angry at things that were beyond my control.
No one can adequately prepare a boy to understand the depth of his emotions when he realizes what it meant to be abandoned at a young age.
Grappling with being unwanted by the first person who was supposed to want you irrevocably…
Well, even in the happiest of homes it’s a tough pill to swallow.
Sure, I love my dads, they’re my everything, but going through puberty with a block-sized chip on my shoulder ached.
The best thing my parents ever did was pick their battles.
I wanted to dye my hair a funky color? Cool, let’s go see a hair stylist. I wanted a tattoo before I turned eighteen?
They’ll sign the permission slip. My first car needs to be something old with too much horsepower?
Here’s an old Camaro that we can fix up together.
One thing they never wavered on was giving me a safe and happy home to return to when I got into any sort of trouble.
Down seventy dollars from the dye, clippers, and rideshare, I really need the guitar lessons with Charles to go well.
He doesn’t seem much like a Charles now that I’ve spent more than a few moments with him.
I should call him Chuck and see what happens.
Yikes, never mind, because then he’ll get the idea to call me Tuck.
No, thank you. Only my dads get to do that.
I head into the guest bathroom, toeing off my shoes after closing the door behind me.
The dark blue smudges under my eyes remind me that I really need to get some sleep.
It would be easier if I wasn’t always expecting Anthony to call from a private number to pester me, or worse, beg me to come back because I don’t really know what I saw.
He was really good at that. Always selling me a different story than the one I witnessed.
All right. Clean slate.
Decision made.
I plug the cheap clippers into the outlet and shake out the instructions for the light pink dye.
It’s just a semipermanent color, so it’ll wash out with time, but it’ll be fun to feel like myself again after years of the boring blond that I low-key hated.
The curls are fun, the color not so much.
I see snapshots of my mother every time I look in the mirror, which is never a good time.
The clippers are loud as I lift them to my head, and I can’t help but smile as my hair falls into the sink.
It doesn’t take as long as it did to grow it out, of course.
When all the hair has fallen, it feels like so much weight has disappeared off my chest. I stare in the mirror, barely recognizing myself but knowing this person more than the previous Tucker.
I work the pink dye into my now short hair, then stare into the bathroom mirror again.
Tears come to my eyes, slowly at first, then all at once.
Before I know it, I’m sobbing so hard, I can’t see through the ocean of tears.
How did I become someone I can’t recognize anymore?
How did I sacrifice my favorite parts of me just to keep Anthony happy?
How did I let him speak to me so unkindly?
How did I let him touch me when I didn’t want to be touched?
How did I?
How?
How?
It stops now.
I spend the remaining time cleaning up the bathroom as the light pink dye works on the remaining buzzed hair.
After I wash it out, I can’t help but grin at the sight of me.
There I am. I know this person, and I love him.
I rub the strands of ivy across my collarbones, having the itch for a new tattoo now that I’m free again.
We don’t have a tattoo shop in town, but there’s one on the mainland.
I’ll have to make time for a new one soon.
I head to the kitchen with the intention to grab a cider, maybe go hide back in my room, but Pop stops me in my tracks.
He leans against the counter, a glass of wine held loosely in his hand, gaze firmly trained on me.
His hair is still dark, but now it’s shot with gray, and his beard is a little wilder than I recall growing up.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Pop.”
He nods toward me. “New hair?”
“Yes.” I reach into the fridge and grab a cider, quickly twisting the top off and throwing it in the trash before taking a slow sip. “That okay?”
“Seeing you blond felt like seeing you as a scared little boy again,” Pop says, voice a little shaky.
I freeze in the middle of the kitchen, cider gripped loosely between my fingers.
“You know, we knew you were ours from the first moment we saw you. You were sitting on a bench at the park, staring at the other kids playing, feet swinging to and fro. The social worker had warned us what you’d been through, but none of that mattered when we saw you. You were always ours.”
“Pop,” I say quietly, not sure I can take this story all over again.
“I sat outside your room for weeks, even after the three night-lights we installed that helped you sleep. Just in case you needed me.”
“I know.”
Pop nods just once. “I want you to stay here for as long as you need. There is no rush to go anywhere. And if that man keeps bothering you, you tell me. Understood?”
My heart sits in my throat. “I understand.”
Pop presses a kiss as soft as a butterfly wing to my forehead as he passes by to return outside to the porch where Dad eagerly awaits him, blissfully ignorant of the emotionally charged conversation his husband and son just had in the kitchen.
I remember my mother in fragments. A glass thrown against the tiled kitchen floor—where it shattered into sharp pieces—with an inhuman scream.
Dirty-blonde hair gone too many days without a wash skimming over my cheek late at night.
Glassy eyes in the morning when I asked for a cup of milk because I’d gone days without eating.
Time has a way of turning memories into pearls.
Small snapshots that seem inoffensive now were moments that took me away as a child.
I remember my fathers in large batches of kindness.
Band-Aids on scraped knees. Teaching me to swim.
Putting three night-lights in my room when the shadows overwhelmed me.
The smell of the marsh wafting through the windows late at night during a spring storm.
Comfort is how I know them, and comfort is what they are now as they slowly heal my fractured heart again.
This is what family is and should always be.
Kindness wrapped in love. A hearty welcome home after many years away.
A reprieve in a raging storm that refuses to quit.
No matter where I go, or how far I run, this is my home.
I end up walking the entirety of Stilcott Lane, which only took thirty minutes.
Not too bad when the sun is lower in the sky, the ocean breeze passing gently over me.
I close my eyes and tip my head back to soak in the salty air.
Charles’ house comes into view as I round the corner.
The house is still as large as I remember when I rode my bike by it as a lonely child.
Mr. Manchester used to give the best Halloween candy.
The house is still bright white with light green shutters, a little colonial-style house against the ocean. Large trees dot the front, with marsh up to either side, the ocean just barely breaking through the dunes behind the house.
A dog bark rents through the air when I knock hesitantly at the front door.
A few seconds later a hushed “easy, Cupcake” reaches my ears, and I try not to flush at the comforting sound of his voice.
Lucky dog. An hour in his presence a few weeks ago had been awful.
Aren’t jocks supposed to be assholes like Anthony?
Instead, Charles had been sweet, even attentive, and he’d listened to all my suggestions regarding the guitar.
Even at dinner with my parents, he’d been kind despite my attitude.
I don’t even know where the attitude is coming from.
I hike my guitar case up higher on my shoulder just as Charles opens the door.
He’s wearing fucking gray sweatpants. Jesus H. Christ. My gaze gets stuck on the little strip of skin between his ratty old athletic shirt and the sweatpants, but my gaze quickly snaps to his eyes when he clears his throat in question.
“You walked?” Charles questions, leaning forward to look past me.
“Only a thirty-minute walk,” I say as I push past him to step inside. He moves back to let me in, a furrow between his eyebrows. “It’s not a big deal.”
“But now you’ll have to walk back in the dark.”
“I’ve walked that road in the dark thousands of times since I was a kid. Trust me, I’ll be just fine. Are you ready to start?”
Charles frowns like he wants to argue but thankfully thinks better of it.
It also seems he just noticed my hair because he freezes, gaze stuck on the light pink hair at the top of my head.
I have to fight hard to not reach up self-consciously.
Those days are long gone. I’m me again, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about what I do with my body. I’ll never care ever again.
“Well?”