Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Dixon
Abey and Brand sat on the Adirondack chairs on Merv’s porch while she took me on a tour of the house. She’d lived in it for several years, but it was new to me.
It felt weird to be in a home with her again, one I’d never seen the inside of, and memories of my childhood in the farmhouse Bax and my son now lived in flooded my mind.
For so long, I believed I deserved every bad thing in life, and if enough bad things weren’t happening to me, then I went out looking for more.
So many arguments and punishments flashed through my head, dinners I’d been denied because my father hated me and deemed everything I did to be wrong.
I had no clue how many nights I’d gone to bed hungry, but however many, it was wrong and cruel, and it had taken me all my life to accept that those punishments came from a mean man with a mean heart and that I hadn’t deserved them.
AJ starred in those memories too. I wondered if she had any idea how much comfort she’d given me back then, when I was a little boy lost, when she brought me a blanket and a pillow in her granddaddy’s barn and slices of bread and butter and cookies because I’d been so hungry, I cried.
And she’d wake me up before dawn so I could climb the gutter next to my bedroom window and sneak back into my own bed.
As I followed behind my mama, listening to her chatter about window coverings and nice furniture Brand had bought her, I wanted to know why she’d never stopped the abuse. I had a pretty good guess, but something inside me needed to hear her say it out loud.
She guided me to sit at her dinner table and sat next to me, but then she jumped back up.
“Coffee,” she said awkwardly. “I’ll make us some coffee. You still drink it?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll make some anyway. I still drink it, but decaf since my heart attack—” She stopped and looked at me. “Did your brother or sister tell you I had a heart attack? It’s been almost four years.”
“Yeah, Brand told me. Are you okay? How do you feel now?”
“Oh fine,” she said as she turned again and headed for her coffee maker. “I’m healthier now than I’ve probably ever been, but when it first happened, I had to make a lot of changes. I’d already quit smokin’, so caffeine was the next to go.”
“Good for you, Mama. I’m proud of you.”
As she waited for the coffee to start, she turned and leaned against her counter. “I’m proud of you too. A-are you… Do you plan to stay?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m home for good, and I’m healthier than I’ve ever been too. That’s why no caffeine for me either.”
“I can see that. You’re like a different man.”
“No, same man, but now I know how to look after myself and make healthier choices.”
Jesus, could this conversation get any more uncomfortable? But an argument on the front porch interrupted us, and then I heard Brand raising his voice and telling Bax to wait.
He didn’t. Merv’s front door banged open, and then my oldest brother was there, standing right in front of me with dirty hands on his hips. He must’ve come from working the ranch.
After too many years between us, all he said was, “You’re here.”
“Yes,” I said, but I kept my ass in the chair because the anger and confusion pulsing out of him like a beacon needed space. I didn’t want to appear confrontational in any way. Not with Bax.
“Why? What do you want? You can’t have Stu.”
“Bax,” Abey and Brand pleaded quietly in unison behind our brother.
He shook his head. “No. It needs to be said. He left his kid on my goddamn doorstep. He can’t just breeze back into town and expect us to—”
“Bax, stop,” Merv begged.
Bax threw her a scowl. “Why are y’all actin’ like I’m the bad guy here?” Pointing at me, he barked, “He abandoned his son!”
“I did.” Finally, I stood, but slowly and I held my hands in front of my body. “But I’m not here to take him away from you.”
“Good ’cause you can’t. You signed your parental rights over to me. He’s not yours anymore.”
It was true. I knew it, but the words stabbed me in the heart all the same.
Resisting the urge to clutch my chest and fight against the pain, I let it run through me. I would have to get used to hearing the truth.
“I’m home, Bax. For good, but I don’t wanna do anything to hurt Stu. Please believe me.”
He laughed humorlessly. “I’d love to, little brother.
I’d love to stand here and shoot the shit and trust everything that comes out of your mouth, but I don’t.
I don’t know if I ever will. You’ve lied, you’ve cheated, stolen, and you ran away.
You can pull that shit on me every goddamn day of the week, but I will not let you do it to my son. You hear me?”
But before I could answer, Merv’s screen door squeaked open again, and then a little brown-haired head peeked around Abey’s hip.
“Why’s my daddy mad?” the little boy asked, and I froze.
My little boy. I made him. I knew him in my soul, knew the sound of his voice and the warmth of his skin.
I knew his happiness as if it were my own.
I still remembered his tiny bean toes and the way his eyes, still untrained and free from images that could hurt him, searched my face.
There hadn’t been anything good for him to find, and that was just one more reason I had known I needed to give him up.
Stuey stared up at his aunt but pointed at me. “Who’s that guy?”
Abey looked at me and then Bax. “Um…”
Bax’s wife rushed in behind Stu, and when she saw me, she stopped dead in her tracks.
We’d met once before, but I’d looked a lot different then, and I’d barely spoken to her.
But Stu was my spitting image. His hair was the same wavy brown, his eyes the same shape and shade of blue.
Somehow, I thought I saw the same curiosity in them I’d had as a boy, so Bax’s wife had to know who I was.
Bax groaned. “Dammit, Bea. Didn’t you get my text? I told you to take Stu straight home.”
I knew I liked her the minute she spoke.
“Put a lid on it, husband. We got a flat tire on the way home. You try changin’ a tire with that one”—she pointed at Stu—“jumpin’ around and tryin’ to dart out into traffic. I didn’t have a chance to check my texts.”
Bax’s hands dropped from his hips, and he hung his head. Bea walked beside him, and he turned and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I’m sorry. Please, would you just take Stu home?”
“Mama, who is that guy?” Stu said again, and regret coursed through me. Bea was Stu’s mama, the only woman lucky enough to raise him, but he used to have another mama, and it struck me for the millionth time that he would never know her.
“Um, that’s your uncle, Dixon. He’s your daddy’s brother.”
His uncle. It seemed the easiest explanation, but it stung.
“I have another uncle? Cool! You wanna go fishin’ with me?” Stu asked me, and I almost fell right off my feet.
I pictured it: my son and me sitting at the end of a dock or in a canoe, fishing poles dangling over a lake, eating sandwiches and talking about our day.
“No,” Bax said. “Maybe another time. You have homework.”
“Dad,” Stu groaned. “I’m in kindergarten, and school just started. All I gotta do is color a picture and call it a day.”
I snorted. I couldn’t stop it because my kid was funny! I hadn’t expected that.
“Right,” Bax said. “So then I’m gonna go with the classic ‘Because I said so’ excuse.”
Stu rolled his eyes but then looked at me and shrugged. “Maybe next time.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “And maybe your dad can come with us?”
Bax glanced at me, trying to gauge if I really wanted him to come. I did. I meant what I said. I wasn’t here to take over. And I wouldn’t do a goddamn thing if it would hurt my kid. Bax needed to know that.
I wasn’t the man who’d raised us. I wasn’t cruel, and I loved my big brother more than I could ever tell him for a lot of reasons, but most of all for raising my child when his mama and I couldn’t, for loving Stu and providing him with the care and comfort I’d had no clue how to give.
Bax didn’t respond. He turned and nodded out the door to his wife.
She flashed me a sympathetic smile. Maybe she believed what I’d said was true, but she hadn’t grown up with me.
She hadn’t been a witness to my descent into addiction.
I’d never lied to her or stolen from her. I’d never let her down.
“We’ll discuss it later,” Bax said like the steadfast father he was, and he walked out the door, following Bea and Stu without a look back in my direction.
When they were gone and the happy sound of Stu’s questioning chatter faded away, we heard Bax’s truck grinding gravel behind Bea’s. Merv sat at the table, and I fell into my chair. I was surprised I hadn’t fallen straight down to the floor on my ass.
My kid!
God, he was beautiful, and his squeaky voice and wit filled me with so much unearned pride that I felt like I could burst into a million happy pieces.
I saw his mama in him too. He had Kel’s nose and a little bit of her stubbornness and sass that I remembered from when we’d first met, but all of that had disappeared by the time she died.
Addiction had stolen all her good parts, but now I felt them again with every sound and every move Stu made.
“Are you okay?” Merv asked as Abey and Brand took seats at the table with us.
I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.
“He’ll calm down,” Brand tried to assure me.
“It’s okay if he doesn’t,” I said quietly. “I’m pretty pissed at the same guy Bax is for the exact same reason.”
“Dixon,” Abey said, grabbing my hand and squeezing. “Maybe it would be good for you to show Bax that you’re different. What are your plans for work and housing? We have an inn on the property now. You could stay there or in one of the cabins.”
“He’ll stay here with me,” Merv said. “His room has been waitin’ for him since the day I moved in.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you, Mama. I appreciate the offer, but I need space. And I won’t stay on the farm. It’s too close to Bax and Stu. I don’t wanna push Bax. For now, I planned to rent a room in town.”
“A room?”
“Yeah. Didn’t there used to be a boarding house close to downtown? Is it still there?”
Abey nodded. “Mrs. Ellison’s place.”
“What about money?” Brand asked. “A weekly rental won’t be cheap.”
“I’ve got it covered,” I assured him before he offered to pay. He’d spent enough of his hard-earned money on me.
Merv frowned and shook her head. “Don’t you want to be here with me? Won’t you be lonely?”
“I’ve been alone for a long time, Mama. I like the silence, and Abey’s right.
I need to prove to Bax and Stu both that I have no plans to mooch off anybody or invade their lives uninvited.
I meant what I told Bax. I’m here to stay, but I don’t wanna disrupt Stu’s world or cause trouble.
I just want to earn the right to be in his life in some small way.
” I turned to Abey. “Can you give me a lift to the rental place?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
Abey’s eyes darted to Merv. I knew my mama would be disappointed.
She’d always fussed over me, even more than my brothers and sister, and it felt like she wanted to now, but I’d just seen my son for the first time in more than four years, and I needed to process the clusterfuck of feelings bubbling up inside me.
If Merv crowded me and smothered me the way she used to, I’d be right back where I was before the drugs. Until she and I could talk and hash out our past, I needed to maintain a careful distance. It was the only thing keeping me sane.
The last two hours had been filled with more emotion than I’d let myself feel in a very long time, and it was starting to be too much.
“But you just got here,” Merv said, the wounded sound of her voice making my decision to get some space even more right.
I stood and promised, “I’ll be back, but I need to find a place to stay and a car. Tomorrow, I need to start lookin’ for a job. Once I do all that, I’ll come back to tell you about it. There’s a lot you and I need to talk about.”
Merv’s eyes lowered for a few seconds, but then they lifted back up to mine. She took a deep breath. “Yes, there is.”