Knowing Archie is okay, paired with the mention of Dean, has some of the tension in my shoulders drifting, some of the angst in my veins cooling. I look between the boys, and the longer I’m in the room, the more my eyes adjust to the low light, and decipher their features.
Tanner has been crying.
Tanner didn’t cry when he broke his collarbone, hurt his shoulder or got his concussion. He didn’t cry the time he walked through a broken Christmas ornament trying to mimic the famous scene fromHome Alone, the one that required four stitches in the bottom of his foot.
The tension is back, keeping my shoulders set. “What’s going on?” I reach for Tanner’s hand and Rawley’s hand at the same time, and weave our fingers together.
Rawley’s voice is level, even, cool and collected. “Troy came by a couple of hours ago.”
Troy.
He hasn’t called Troy “dad” in years. I think after the first month Troy was gone, when Rawley was only twelve years old, he distanced himself from that title.
My heart plummets. “Okay…” I draw out, my mind reeling, trying to decide what to ask next. “Why?” Then, “what happened?”
“He came by to…getTanner,” Rawley says, his eyes searching mine.
My hands begin to shake, but the boys squeeze them tight. “What do you mean,getTanner?” A laugh slips out of me, because I am having trouble understanding, and my son is not something a stranger canget.
That’s who he is to us, a stranger.
“He saw the Leader articles,” Tanner says, his voice ragged and thin, and it breaks me in two hearing him that way. “He called me, pretended to be a scout.”
“He called Dean, too, pretending to be a scout,” Rawley says gently, aiming to ease Tanner’s soreness. “This isn’t your fault, Tanner. He came back because he’s a piece of shit that wanted to get rich off you.”
I shake my head, still unable to compute. “What happened? Start from the beginning.”
Rawley nods, and takes the reins. “Dean left to get groceries. We were gonna have a cookout tonight. He wanted us to go with him, but I was playing my game, Tanner was taking a nap and Archie was going to the bathroom. He left and like, five minutes later someone knocked at the door. Dean doesn’t have a key, so we figured that it was him trying to get back in because he like, forgot something or something like that. Tanner got up, unlocked the door and pulled it open without even looking, but it wasn’t Dean, it was Troy."
“He barged in, and before he said or did anything, I don’tknow, it’s like… I knew,” Tanner says, bringing his hands to his stomach, twisting them up in his faded white t-shirt. “I was a complete baby and I just started screaming for Rawley.”
Rawley lets go of my hand, too, and moves to the other side of the couch, next to his brother. He drops his arm around Tanner’s shoulders. “Dude, you weren’t a baby. He barged in here after years of not seeing him, no phone call, no asking for permission. All you did was call for me. Okay? And had I answered the door, I would have called for you, too.”
Tanner nods, but I can see he isn’t fully convinced. “He said, I mean, it’s kind of a blur but he was basically like,I’m here to get you, I’m gonna take you back to my place and I’m gonna get you on the road to the NFL, all this shit, I don’t really remember.”
Rawley takes over, the proverbial baton passed when Tanner’s hands come to his neck and he begins pulling at it, stretching, uncomfortable and emotional. “He kept telling Tanner that he is Tanner’s father and that he’s going to lead his career and make him rich. He just kept saying get in the car, get in the car. At this point I asked him to leave, and he spit on me. Said to mind my business. Archie came out, and Troy looked at him like, I don’t know. He just had this sadistic look and I grabbed him by the collar and tried to throw him out but he knocked the door with his foot and he just bounced off the door and lunged for Archie.”
Rawley stops to take a break. My hands are shaking again. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I stare off into the living room, where Rawley is describing this terrible thing taking place, and I wait for him to finish.
“He held Arch by the wrists and said he’d hurt him if Tanner didn’t go. And then, Dean came home.”
“He came in and told Troy to let go of Archie, then helunged at him. Troy hit him, I don’t even know, a few times? Two at least?” Tanner rubs over his eye. “He’s got a good shiner.”
Rawley nods. “He let Troy hit him a few times, and when Troy tried to use the same move on him again, Dean played him and got him in a headlock. Troy let go of Archie, and then Dean told us to take Archie to Mrs. Salingers. He told us to go there too but I couldn’t leave him.”
Tanner continues, “I called 911, then I took Archie to Mrs. Salingers, and… when I came back, Dean had Troy on the lawn, out of the house. He was telling him to stop, to leave, but Troy kept threatening things. Dean kneed him in the dick just as the cops pulled up. Troy got arrested, and Dean sat with us while Officer Sterling took our statements.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know anything at this moment.
Rawley grimaces. “He had a knife. It was in his boot. I saw it when we were fighting. Dean didn’t hit him at all, and because Troy was armed, Officer Sterling says he’s looking at a lengthy prison sentence.”
He had a knife. Jesus Christ. “He had a knife? Oh Jesus," I breathe, my head woozy from the knowledge that I almost lost my entire life tonight, because of that piece of shit Troy.
“Dean handled it, and then when Officer Foster left, he brought us in and we all talked about what happened.” They tell me what Dean told them around the table, about why he wasn’t violent with Troy despite Troy being violent with him, about the way the three of them tried their best to help Archie understand when Archie doesn’t even know Troy, and told me how Dean said he’d be there for them to talk to about all of this at any point–today, tomorrow or years from now. They also told me that after all this happened, I was just one hour shy of being off my shift, and Dean didn’twant the boys to call me and tell me, because he didn’t want me to drive upset.
I would have.
I would have hit the gas and sped here in tears, and it would have been dangerous. Dean was right about all of that.
