13. Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Sera slept. Colt couldn't, but he laid there, peaceful, with Sera's arm slung around his waist, and his shallow breathing ghosting the back of Colt's neck. It was just on the comfortable side of chilly, with the early afternoon sunshine casting its warmth through the windows and across the bed.
Colt stared down the length of the trailer through half-lidded eyes at the television. The tapes.
The urgency to watch them had been burned away. All Colt felt now when he stared at them was a bone-deep tiredness at knowing it wasn't something he could bury back in the house and pretend didn't exist.
When Sera stirred some time later, he stretched, arm tightening around Colt's middle. A warm kiss found its home on the back of Colt's shoulder.
"Morning," Colt said.
"Is it... No, what time is it?" Sera lifted his head, hair a mess, sleepy-eyed.
He bit back a smile, gazing up and back at him. "It's like two in the afternoon. You're fine."
Sera gave him a tired squint...and promptly sprawled out across him.
They laid together for a solid fourty-five minutes longer. No need for words, just soaking in the comfort they provided one another. Sera's head on Colt's shoulder, tracing absent patterns across his chest. Colt's arm around him, petting through Sera's hair, careful to clear any tangles that passed through his fingers. How nice it would've been if they could've stayed there for the rest of the day.
Eventually, though, they crawled out of the safety of bed. Washed up. Dressed. Colt pulled on one of Sera's t-shirts and sleep pants, which were almost comically long on him. Sera made them tea.
And then...they slid into the breakfeast nook before the TV.
Get it over with.
Colt pushed the tape in all the way and held his breath, not releasing it until the snow vanished and a handful of scan lines crawled down the screen. When the recording kicked in, Colt immediately recognized the living room. Clean. Christmas tree in front of the window seat so it was visible from outside. No more than four years old, Colt sat on the floor at the base of the tree amongst unopened gifts, practically bouncing in place with excitement.
"Now, Dad?"
From behind the camera came a laugh that violently wrenched at Colt's heart. Glenn said, "Yeah, yeah, now. One at a time, let Mom read who it's from."
Colt snagged a box at random and scooted left. The camera panned with him to a rocking recliner, where Tiffany Grieves sat donning a cheap pair of fake reindeer antlers with bells that shyly jingled when she leaned forward to look at the box her son was holding out to her.
"That's from Uncle Robb. He always picks good ones."
"Thanks, Uncle Robb!" Little Colt shouted at the camera with a wide grin before digging into the wrapping paper.
Colt wasn't paying attention to whatever the gift was. His eyes were glued to his mother. He'd seen pictures of her, of course. Photos of her holding him the day he was born and after, giving him his first bath, first haircut. As he watched the way she tipped her head and smiled to herself at little-Colt's enthusiasm, it dawned on him just why he felt ready to burst into tears.
"...I haven't heard her voice," he whispered. "I'd completely forgotten how she sounded."
Sera said nothing. Beneath the table, he covered Colt's hand with his own, squeezing. Colt turned his hand over, letting Sera's long fingers intertwine securely with his. With his free hand, Sera reached out and touched the screen, indicating to something in the crook of Tiffany's arm.
He'd been so transfixed on his mom's face, Colt hadn't even noticed. The video quality didn't make it easy to make sense of the fuzzy image, either, but Mom most definitely had a bundle in her arms. Little-Colt let out a shriek of delight at the unveiling of his gift. That bundle started to fuss.
The audio went hollow in Colt's ears. The camera came closer as Tiffany tried to soothe the baby back to sleep before the fussing could escalate into all-out crying. As Glenn leaned down, the baby came into focus. Glenn's hand reached into frame, stroking over the thin dark hair on the child's head and coo'ing at him. Zack. That was the name they kept using.
"Colt, grab one of your brother's presents and you can open it for him."
"Your brother," Sera repeated. Whatever he had known, whatever Dad had told him, apparently this was a secret Glenn had kept from everyone. "Do you remember him? Anything at all?"
Colt reached back through the murkiness of his earliest childhood memories, grasping for something, anything. He vividly remembered that massive plastic helicopter he'd received from Uncle Robb, but that was it. What about other holidays? What about meeting his little brother for the first time? How could none of that have stuck?
"No, I..." He trailed off. "I can picture my mom, pregnant, wearing a green sweater, but I guess I'd assumed I'd seen it in a picture and thought it was her pregnant with me..."
They watched the rest of the video in silence. Little-Colt, unwrapping each gift with gusto, including Zack's, which he'd jump up and rush over to show his brother, as though the newborn could see more than a foot in front of his face, much less comprehend what was going on around him. It jumped around a bit. Presents, stockings, dinner, presented in vignettes.
When the recording came to an end, they let the tape continue to play a blank screen. Colt took a slow, deep breath. That answered who Zack was, but it threw a lot of—significantly more complicated—questions at their feet.
"Are you alright?" Sera asked. "We can take a break. We don't have to do this all at once."
Colt looked at him. He'd started this whole process with the house thinking he was going at it completely alone, and now...he couldn't fathom getting through any of it without Sera.
"If you're with me," he said, "then I'm good."
***
They got through five tapes, each between sixty-to-ninety minutes long. The crisp glow of the TV had started to give Colt a headache. He was about to call it done for the night when Sera, rifling through the drawer of tapes, went momentarily still. When he sank back into his seat, Colt could see the label.
For Colt
And a date. The day after Christmas, four years ago.
Colt's stomach lurched, but he made no move to stop Sera from putting the tape in and pressing play.
Glenn was in front of the camera this time. He adjusted its angle a bit, then sat in a chair before it, as though settling down for some kind of interview. Seeing his dad, several days' worth of scruff where he'd always insisted on being clean-shave, closed rumpled, made Colt's throat go dry.
"Alright," Glenn said softly, wiping his palms against his jeans with a deep breath. "So, this is, uh. Well, this is for you, Colt. And if you're watching it, I'm gonna assume something's happened to me, because you'd never stumble across it otherwise, so..."
A pause.
"I'm gonna come right out and say it. I failed you in almost every way a father can fail his son. I'm not proud of it, and I sure as hell can't ask your forgiveness when I still can't just fucking..." Glenn stopped, rubbed his hands over his face, sniffed. Tried again. "...Still can't get it together."
He slouched forward, elbows coming to rest on his knees and hands clasped loosely between them.
"When you were three, Tiff and I... She got pregnant. We'd always kinda hoped for two kids. Thought you needed a companion, especially growing up in a town like this where there's nothing to do. And you were ecstatic. You didn't care if you were getting a little brother, sister, or a damned dinosaur coming out of that belly, you just knew it was gonna be something special to you.
"And he was. Zack was...beautiful. Looked so much like you when you were born. The pregnancy was smooth, the delivery was quick, and Zack was healthy as could be."
God, Colt wanted to shake the TV. Even if his dad was moving along to the point quickly—he was always like that—it wasn't fast enough .
"He was only about four months on his first Christmas. You'll, uh, probably find that video in this mess somewhere. It was a good day. A great one, actually. Probably the last great one I ever had... One night, your mom was folding laundry. I had Zack in my arms, just...you know, bouncing him. Talking to him, like you do."
Glenn ducked his head, kept it down as he continued.
"That night's all kind of a haze for me anymore. Maybe my brain's blocked it out. I couldn't tell you exactly what happened. Just... Maybe I was careless, or clumsy, or... Whatever the hell it was, I lost my footing—your brother and I hit the floor. He, uh..."
Silence. Colt waited for him to continue, but it dragged on for a solid sixty seconds. Not that Glenn had to say anything. Colt understood. Newborns were delicate. One wrong move, a good fall, and...
"Your mom blamed me. Can't say I fault her for that, either. We were trying to pick up the pieces and move on, but she couldn't... I think every time she looked at me, all she could see was our dead child." Pause. "One day, she just...left. Packed a bag and was gone. Not a word. Just a note that said, 'Tell Colt mommy loves him.'"
Glenn continued to speak, but the words all bled together after that. Zack had died. Mom had left. Dad...had fallen apart. Buried beneath the guilt like he tried to bury everything in the house.
And Colt, well, he seemed to forget as time went on. Glenn couldn't stomach telling him his mom had left. She'd been so busy mourning the loss of one child, and yet she'd abandoned the one she still had. One who still needed her. He thought it was kinder, Glenn said, if he just let Colt forget the bad stuff.
The video ended. Colt stared at the blank screen in silence. No amount of apologies or excuses could let him simply shrug this off or find some roundabout way to forgive his father. Maybe someday, but...sure as hell not now.
Where was the anxiety now, Colt wondered? Where was the anger, the betrayal? Oh, he felt betrayed, he was pissed at his dad, and yet...everything was subdued and quiet. It was a lot, but it wasn't everything.
Maybe it was just because he had Sera there.
And in a way, he felt almost...relieved. Skeletons hauled out of the closet and stretched across the floor like a grisly murder scene, yes, but he still felt better . The thought of tackling the rest of the house didn't seem so bad anymore. Not so heavy.
Sera's arm around him tightened, holding Colt against his side, giving him a chance to process and find the words to say on his own time. Colt took a slow breath.
Finally, he said, "Let's call Kate. I wanna look into one of those services she's been going on about." He looked at Sera's concerned face. Sera, who leaned in and pressed a warm, lingering kiss to his forehead.
"I can call."
Colt closed his eyes as Sera leaned in, pressed a warm, lingering kiss to his forehead.
"And...Sera? Tomorrow, there's this little book shop I'd like to take you to."