Chapter 22 Boone
BOONE
“What is your mother’s name?”
A simple enough question, with a really fucking complicated answer.
Time to step off the diving board.
“Her maiden name was Candace Wagner.”
Hopper grips his heavy canvas apron, his eyes filling and spilling over.
“Candy,” he breathes. “She went by Candy.”
It is only in the middle of all these revelations that I make the final connection. Mom never let anyone shorten her name. Ever.
“Candy sounds like a stripper,” she’d say, laughing.
Or an escort.
Like Hopper was.
Oh Mom.
The big New York adventure responsible for my birth wasn’t just a fling.
Does Dad know?
“She doesn’t like that nickname,” I finally say.
“No, she wouldn’t.” He shakes his head, rocking back and forth. “I never tell anyone my birth name because of how it was used. Back then.” His eyes widen. “Not that she was ever abused. Luca would never allow anyone to harm his girls.”
His girls.
Mom would hate being called that.
I think back to the story I’ve heard a million times. The day she saw her old high school boyfriend in that diner, every big and heavy truth weighing her down.
But Dad saw her.
He knew deep down who she was, and he wanted all of her, including me.
“How long have you known?”
Shaking off the memories, I grimace, knowing the answer is not a good one.
“Right before I graduated from high school.” I wrinkle my nose. “I was looking for my birth certificate.”
“Did it have my name on it?”
I shake my head.
“She listed my dad’s name.” I wipe away more tears. “It surprised me at first.”
“But it doesn’t surprise you now?”
“I know my dad. He would’ve insisted she put his name on the birth certificate to ensure I was taken care of.”
A line forms between his brows. “Then how…?”
“She had a Polaroid of you in the file she kept for me. It had your name on the back. But I found out that’s not the name on your birth certificate either.”
Hopper’s eyes lose focus. “Please don’t say that name.”
The flat request sits heavy on my heart.
“I’ve already forgotten it.”
Nodding, his fingers go back to the air, crafting the story I’m telling him.
“By that point, you’d sold your first gallery show,” I explain, “and it didn’t take me long after that to find the camp you co-sponsored.”
“So it wasn’t a coincidence that you volunteered for the camp?”
“No.”
Hopper takes a moment to absorb this. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I wanted to meet you first.” I send him a sheepish smile. “Make sure you were a good guy.”
“And?”
“You were better than I could’ve hoped for.”
Every emotion seems to cross Hopper’s face. Finally, a tear tracks down his cheek.
“Do you remember that Liam and I tried for a child, but lost the baby?”
“Yes. You said something about it the night you drove me home.”
He shoves his hands in the pockets of his heavy apron.
“I couldn’t handle the loss. It drove me crazy. Liam said we could try again when we felt better, but I wasn’t ever going to feel better. And I gave up on the dream of having a child.” He shakes his head. “But I had a child. A son. I have a son.”
He rocks back and forth, patting his chest, more tears spilling down his face.
I nod, the tears really going now. “You have a son.”
He sniffs, wiping his face. “Can I hug you?” He shrinks in on himself, his shoulders turning inward. “Or would that be weird?”
“Who cares if it’s weird?” I open my arms. “I love hugs.”
His chest hitches with a combination laugh-sob, and he stumbles into my arms.
“Oh my God. I have a son,” he cries, rocking us back and forth with surprisingly strong arms. “I have a son.”
We hold each other for a while. Snuffling loudly against my shoulder, he asks, “Can I call my husband?”
I’m conflicted about bringing in someone else—someone I don’t even know—before I’ve told my parents, but it’s clear Hopper needs his person to ground him. I nod.
With a hitching chest and red eyes, he calls his husband.
“Liam?”
He sounds like a little boy, lost and still crying. I take his hand.
Hopper’s phone lights up and a handsome face fills the screen. Liam is calling in on video.
“Hop, baby? What’s wrong?”
The concern in his husband’s voice lets me know this was the right decision, even if it feels like I’m flinging myself into deeper waters.
“I…” Hopper can barely get the words out. “Nothing’s wrong, but I found out something amazing. Unbelievable. And I need…I need you to…um.”
Hopper sends me an imploring look. Like maybe he needs my help.
I step into frame.
“Hi. My name is Boone.” I take a deep breath. “Hopper is my birth father.”
The video feed goes a little crazy as Liam’s phone drops to the floor.
“Oh my God.” Liam brings the phone back to his face, and his eyes, the color of a pair of worn-in blue jeans, are already rimmed in red. “Oh my God. Hop.”
Hopper nods and resumes his rocking. “Yeah.”
“How? Who?”
Hopper looks to me again, as if letting me decide how much to explain.
I take his phone. “My mother worked very briefly for my…uncle, I guess?”
Understanding passes through Liam’s eyes. “Oh.”
Hopper turns to me, his eyes wide. “I…you need to know that what we did was consensual. Fully…consensual. She didn’t want her first time to be with a stranger, and I was still trying to figure out my sexuality.”
That was perhaps more than I ever needed to know about my mother. But I appreciated the clarification.
“I believe you.”
Hopper lays his head on my shoulder, crying softly. Tears spill down Liam’s cheeks, and we all just kinda…stand there.
I realize, belatedly, that telling them I’m Hopper’s son isn’t just emotional. It’s painful, no matter how long ago they lost the baby.
“How was your—” Liam stops, then starts again. “Did you have a good—?”
I smile. “I had a great childhood. My mother married her high school sweetheart, and it’s his name on my birth certificate. I’m a detective because of him.”
Liam’s eyes widen, and he glances at Hopper. “Wow. I’m… God. I’m so grateful to hear that.”
Hopper turns, smashing his face into my upper arm, sobs wracking his shoulders.
“Hopper, baby,” Liam says softly. “I’ll borrow the jet and be there in a few hours, okay?”
Hopper sniffs and takes the phone back from me. “Okay, good. I…I need you.”
“I need you too.”
Hopper taps the phone to his forehead.
“Sweetheart, you have a son. That’s a good thing.”
“Did I fuck up?” he asks, and I’m not sure I follow.
“Hop, no.” Liam wipes his eyes. “No. We made that decision together. I don’t regret not trying again. Not for a second.”
“You promise?”
That cracked question breaks my heart right open. I’ve been so in awe of him as an artist that I somehow skipped over how very deeply human he is.
Liam puts his hand on his heart. “On my grandfather’s soul.”
Those are the words Hopper needed to hear. Tears stream down his face.
Several moments later, a smile cracks his face.
“I have a son.” He pats my cheek. “My son.”
I smile back at him, and he turns on his heel, heading toward the back.
Uh…
He turns around again and shoves the phone in my hand. “I need to sculpt you. I’ll be right back.”
I bring up the screen. “Er…”
Liam shakes his head. “Hopper doesn’t always share what’s in his head before he acts.”
“Oh.”
“He’s getting supplies,” Liam explains. “Can you make sure he eats before he gets started? He won’t stop until he’s done.”
“Sure?”
Hopper comes in from the back with a block of fresh sculpting clay in one hand and a heavy D-shaped slicer in the other.
Seemingly unaware of our presence, he sets aside the head he was working on and drops the new materials on the table with a heavy thud, rattling his tools.
He disappears again, returning with a stack of newspapers under his arm, a roll of masking tape around his wrist, and a wooden sculpting base in his other hand.
I wiggle the phone at him. “Liam says you have to eat first.”
Hopper lets his head fall back and stares at the ceiling like a disappointed toddler.
He then sets down the supplies and goes to the kitchen.
He comes back seconds later with a delivery bag from a local sandwich shop and pulls out a huge sub.
He rips it in half, hands me one of the halves, and lifts his chin.
“We better eat, or Liam’s gonna nag us to death.”
I bark out a laugh, and Liam, still on the call, shouts, “I wouldn’t nag you if you didn’t come back from Austin with your clothes hanging off you.”
“This is what I have to live with,” Hopper says, tearing into his sandwich with a manic grin. With a mouthful of meat and bread, he clarifies, “Hot husband who supports me and makes sure I eat.”
“Damn skippy,” Liam retorts. “Boone, I’ll be there in a few hours. Are you good to hang with him? I’d like to meet you.”
“Of course. I like making art with Hopper.”
By the time we end the call, Hopper’s already finished his half of the sandwich. I quickly scarf the rest of mine. After washing our hands, Hopper returns to his craft table.
I watch, spellbound, as he efficiently anchors the sculpting base to the edge of his table with clamps, then selects a single sheet of newspaper, carefully balling it up.
Using the masking tape, he fixes the balled-up newspaper to the pole, then chooses another sheet of newspaper, building on what he’s already put together, layer after layer, newspaper and masking tape, to something the approximate size and shape of a softball.
When someone is a genius in his field, you expect them to start with something fancier than the materials you’d find in your basic art class. Then again, maybe his genius is in what he can do with basic materials.
There’s a lesson in that, I think.
I’ve also been seriously underestimating his strength. Despite his trim, strong figure, I’d assumed his age meant I’d be stronger. I’m wrong though. It’s hard to tell under all the tattoos, but the man is made of steel.
He spins in place, looking at me. Staring, really. I inhale sharply and draw back, as if by instinct. I’ve spent some time with him now, but I’ve never seen this look on his face before. Calculating, taking me in one detail at a time.
Not unlike Angela Lansbury tracking the squirrels outside our window.
I open my mouth, but he holds up his hand. “Stay still for thirty more seconds, please.”
“Ah…okay.”
Hopper closes the distance, continuing his strange examination. His fingers float over my nose, cheeks, brows, forehead, jaw, mouth, eyes, ears, all without touching.
As if memorizing the air around my features.
“Your mother didn’t drink while she was pregnant with you.”
I… What?
“Uh…no. She ate as healthy as she could. Save for the weird cravings, I think.”
“Your eyes,” he says, angling his chin up as he looks into them. “They’re what mine should’ve looked like.”
I don’t know what to do with that.
“Please look forward.”
I acquiesce, returning to my original position.
He walks around me. “My mother—your grandmother, I guess—she loved me, but she also drank a lot when she was pregnant with me.”
He gestures to his eyes the next time he’s in front of me, but I’m not sure what he’s pointing out.
“The downward tilt of my eyes isn’t genetic.” He hums as he takes another turn around me. “Fetal alcohol syndrome,” he finally says, answering my unasked question. “Yours look more like my brother’s. Your uncle. Half uncle, I guess.”
He blinks, slipping into pure focus. Or perhaps another dimension.
Swinging back to the table, he rips open the block of clay and carves off several thin slabs. Chasing something only he can see, Hopper begins systematically covering the lump of newspaper and masking tape, slapping the clay onto the rough, fragile surface with a dizzying cadence.
None of this is particularly aesthetic, but his confidence is mesmerizing. With just a few practiced moves—marking out feature lines, slicing in the cut of a cheekbone with his pinkies, hollowing out the eye sockets with a symmetrical sweep of his thumbs—a human head begins to emerge from the clay.
Pretty sure I just learned more about the artistic process in the last five minutes than I did in every single one of my college-level classes. Combined.
With a perfectly symmetrical, if featureless, head, he returns to the present.
Wiping his hands on the heavy apron, he grabs the edge of his table and pulls it back, the screech and scrape of metal feet against concrete jarring. Next, he grabs the roll of masking tape and lays out a large rectangle on the floor in the newly freed-up area.
He catches my eye. “I don’t want to have to interrupt your painting every time I need a reference, so please move your easel in front of me and stay within the taped lines.”
Not quite a command, but not quite a question either.
Fascinated, and with everything tilting off-center, I take the easel and my painting and set it up in front of him, centering myself within the taped border. Not only am I directly in his line of sight, but he’s also put me in a spot with better lighting.
“Thank you, my son.”
He’d already called me his son a couple of times, but hearing it now is a shock to the system. A part of me wants to clarify that I am first and foremost the son of Loyal Hitchens, but I can’t tell if that would hurt him or even register.
Before I can process any of that, his eyes meet mine. “Of course you are your father’s son. But you’re my son too. I hope that’s okay.”
“Uh…thank you? For acknowledging that. And yes…it’s okay.”
That felt true.
“Good.” His gaze swings between me and my painting, and he makes a rolling gesture with his clay-streaked hands. “What are you waiting for? We must make art. Now.”
I awaken from my frozen state and set about doing as he’s asked. I uncover my paints and brushes and get started.