CHAPTER SEVEN
UNWANTED
AGE SEVENTEEN
Soldier Mason had died that night.
Twice actually, and every time, they—the paramedics and the surgeons—brought him back to life.
He was in a medically induced coma for a while.
Mom and I spent most of our time in the hospital with him, Aunt Stormy, and sometimes Soldier's friend Harry.
Other people visited too. I recognized some of them, but others were strangers.
All I knew was, even though they cried and shared their hopes and wishes for a full recovery, none of those people loved Soldier the way Mom and I did.
They didn't need him alive, but we relied on it.
Every night we left, I wondered if it was the last time we'd see him alive.
Every night, on the ride back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, where we were staying, I stared out the car window and prayed we'd see him the next day—alive.
Every night, as I fell asleep in a bed that no longer felt like mine, I wished and wished and wished he'd wake up.
Then, one day, he did.
And while he went through multiple surgeries and recovered in the hospital, Harry and Grandpa and Officer Kinney—now Sergeant Kinney—cleaned up our house at 1111 Daffodil Lane, so Soldier would have a house to come home to that didn't have blood on the floor.
They even fixed the broken steps outside.
He was weak for a while, and that was weird to witness. He leaned on Mom when he tried to walk, and he got angry when he couldn't. He even cried a few times when the pain became too much to bear, and that made me want to cry with him.
He had told me once that he cried sometimes, but Soldier wasn't supposed to be sad. He wasn't supposed to hurt. He was the biggest, strongest guy I'd ever known, and to see him look so small and tired and frail opened my eyes in a way I struggled to grasp and accept.
Like learning that Superman could be easily defeated by a drop of kryptonite.
But like Superman, Soldier grew stronger once again, and after a few long weeks, he was home, and then life seemed to fly at warp speed.
Mom and Soldier got married, Soldier adopted me, and he officially—and legally—became Dad.
My wish had come true.
Then Mom got pregnant, and collectively, we agreed we needed a bigger house.
So, we moved to a fixer-upper deeper in town, closer to Main Street, with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a whole backyard.
Soldier spent months working on it with Patrick Kinney and his brothers, waking us up at the butt crack of dawn to the sounds of power tools and hammers, and as annoying as it was, it was definitely worth it in the end.
We got another cat, and then we got a dog.
And finally, Miles was born.
Admittedly, I thought I'd be happier about having a little brother.
I thought I'd be more excited—and I had been, all throughout Mom's pregnancy.
I couldn't wait to meet him, couldn't wait to be the big brother I knew I could be, couldn't wait for someone to maybe look at me the way I looked at Soldier.
But the moment he came into the world, something else was born too.
Jealousy.
I recognized it immediately, and I didn't need a therapist or a doctor to tell me what it was.
I felt it whenever I looked at Mom and Soldier—Dad—and saw the expressions on their faces at the sight of him.
The adoration. The awe. They marveled at every moment, every cry, every grasp of his tiny hands.
Honestly, I felt it too—of course I did! He was my baby brother, and I loved him.
But, God, I was so envious of him too. Because every second of his beginning was a second I’d never had the chance of having as an infant.
I hadn’t been born into a life with a nursery and a swing set and married parents who loved each other as much as they loved me. And by the time Soldier had come into our lives, I was too old to require any of the things they gave to Miles.
Miles was a lucky guy from the moment he was born, and every so often—more than I'd like to admit—I found myself resenting him for it.
But it wasn't his fault. He wasn't to blame for anything. He was just a baby, for crying out loud, and I was the loser who couldn’t help being jealous of him for it.
When his second birthday rolled around and our house was full of family and friends and enough toddlers to drive a guy insane, my mind entered an even darker corner of comparison.
I thought of the events I'd experienced in my life.
I thought of the things I'd seen, heard, done.
I thought of that time at Tommy's house when I had been six years old. The gunshot that cracked against my ears and altered the chemistry in my brain.
I thought of walking into our little house in the River Canyon community and seeing Mom naked and crying.
I thought of running through the rainy streets and slippery, wet sidewalks, talking to Meghan Kinney on the phone and praying I wasn't too late to save the lives of the two most important people in my life.
I thought about my real, biological dad. Someone I'd forced from my mind over the span of years, only for him to return with brutal vengeance, and for maybe the first time in my life, I wondered about the precise circumstances in which I'd come into the world.
I guessed some people would find that stupid, right?
How was I seventeen years old and I hadn't questioned it once, especially knowing the things I knew about my parents’ relationship?
Well, no, that wasn't entirely true. I had wondered.
I had questioned. But I had come to my own conclusions without having to ask Mom for the details.
I knew she and Seth—the man formerly known as Dad, my sperm donor—hadn't been together any time that I could remember, but I always guessed, I assumed, that, at one point, they had been.
That maybe they'd been happy for the tiniest fragment of time, in which she'd gotten pregnant, before he got mean.
I had hoped, and I'd allowed that hope to be enough to keep the questions at bay.
But I thought, underneath the hope, there was wisdom, and I kept it under lock and key until the last of the guests left and Miles was asleep in Mom and Dad's bed.
The kid had a whole room to himself, yet he couldn't sleep without the security of sleeping between his parents.
I resented him for that too.
Dad was sitting on the couch, his arms stretched wide across the back and his feet kicked onto the ottoman. He threw his head back and groaned as Mom dropped beside him, resting her temple against his shoulder.
“Next year, when I start talking about throwing another party full of toddlers, talk me out of it, please,” Dad mumbled, his voice laced heavily with exhaustion.
I snorted a laugh from the recliner, my lips quirking into a smirk.
“You loved it,” Mom replied sleepily.
He burst with an incredulous chuckle. “Oh, yeah, it was the best time ever.”
“See?”
“Actually, you know what my favorite part was?”
“Hmm?”
“When Sean Kinney's kid spun around really, really, really, really fast, even though everyone was telling him to stop, and he fell into Harry, who was, I'll remind you, carrying two big bowls of chips.”
“Ah, yes,” Mom said with a sigh. “Definitely a highlight.”
“And then, as if wasting two whole bags of chips wasn't enough, that little turd had to go ahead and puke everywhere,” he went on, using his arms to emphasize the words, as if we hadn’t been there too.
“We'll laugh about it one day,” Mom replied, her eyes closed as she patted his chest.
“Oh, really? You think so? ‘Cause I dunno, Ray. Not sure I'll ever find anything funny about hosing down that many pairs of shoes at my kid's birthday party.”
I stared ahead at the TV, not paying attention to whatever show we were watching as my shoulders shook with laughter.
“These are the good old days, babe,” she said with a longing sigh. “One day, you'll look back and—”
“Ah, yes, the good old days,” he mused wistfully. “I have many.”
“Oh, now you did it,” I said to Mom, biting my bottom lip as another chuckle rumbled through my chest.
“Sometimes, I like to reminisce on the time some fuckhead, who liked to be called Spit, tried to pull a shank on me in the shower because I’d snagged the last dinner roll. That was a good time.”
“Spit, huh?” Mom replied, unfazed.
“Yeah,” he said with feigned adoration. “Oh, and you know what my favorite good old day is? That time I took a bullet to the thigh. Yeah, I love thinking back on that. Fun times.”
“Or the gut,” I threw in for good measure, glancing at him. “That was my favorite part, personally.”
“Right?” Dad deadpanned. “Honestly, nothing holds a candle to that. Marriage, you kids, this place …” He swept his eyes around the living room. “Nah, I like to think about that time I fuckin' died because some asshole from the good old days couldn't let go of a damn grudge.”
“Okay, okay,” Mom replied as she got to her feet, clearly no longer amused. “You guys don't have to be jerks, you know. I was just saying—”
“Come on, baby. I'm sorry,” Dad said, taking her hand and pulling her back down to fall against his side. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “I'm just being an asshole. I know what you meant.”
“I thought it was a good day,” Mom said, pouting.
She always seemed to get emotional around Miles's birthday.
I wondered if she felt that way about my birthday too.
If she ever did, I hadn’t noticed.
“It was,” Dad insisted, kissing her forehead again. “Just … let's not invite Sean next year, okay?”
“Kinda hard to invite all but one of the Kinney brothers, don't you think?” Mom jabbed, her mood lightening quickly.
“I mean, arguably, Sean is the most boring of the four of them,” Dad replied with a shrug. “Patrick would back me up. I'd bet money on it.”
Mention of Patrick Kinney spurred thoughts of his daughter Meghan.
Meghan, the soft voice who'd kept me company on my run to the police station.
Meghan, the prettiest woman I'd ever laid my eyes upon.
Meg.
The angel on the phone.