We spend the day playing games and plying Ronin with junk food and cheap arcade prizes. It’s damn near perfect until we head home. I pull up to the driveway I left only hours ago. But this time, it isn’t Keith in the doorway; it’s my mother.
I get out and hug my little brother, promising to see him soon. “You’ve got basketball next weekend, bud. I’ll see you then, ok?”
He beams and waves before running inside. “Pack up, sweetie. You need to go to Tanner’s soon,” my mother calls after him, her voice deceptively sweet. When she turns toward me, that all-too-familiar look of disdain is back in place and aimed at me. “You won’t be attending next week’s basketball game. Or any others. We’ve discussed this, Knox. I told you weeks ago, in no uncertain terms, that you were not to have contact with Ronin. You’re a criminal, for God’s sake.”
I want to rage. I want to scream. A criminal? I punched an asshole in a bar and did some community service. That doesn’t make me a criminal. It makes me a pissed-off college kid who doesn’t like seeing his friend pushed around by her so-called boyfriend. Sue me. Oh, that’s right. No one did. The charges were dropped.
But I take deep breaths. I’m not getting arrested today, and if I stay here another five minutes, the likelihood of that happening increases exponentially.
I turn back to my car and open the door. But of course, she follows. The woman is incapable of letting things go. She has to have the last word.
“I’m so glad you understand, Knox. We just can’t have someone with your temper around our child.”
I’m not sure what does it. If it’s the implication that my temper is volatile, or if it’s the indication that she’s acting in the best interest of a child, something she’s clearly never done. I don’t know why, but I lose my shit, despite promising myself mere seconds ago that I would keep myself under control. “You can’t have me around your child?” I ask, the calm in my voice not yet betraying my anger. “Your child needs to be protected from me, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Is that what you do? Protect children? Is that what you did when you keptmy childfromme?”
Her face blanches, but she admits nothing.
“Is that what you were aiming for when you stole my phone and texted my girlfriend? When you pretended to be me and told her in no uncertain terms to fuck off? When you masqueraded as me and told the mother of my child that her pregnancy was her problem?”
“Knox. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” The slight quiver in her voice lets me know that’s a lie.
“Allow me to enlighten you. I have the screenshots to prove it. Because here’s the thing. I am going to protect my child from you. You’ll never see her, never hold her, never meet her. Same goes for my girlfriend. They are totally off-limits to you. But Ronin? He’s my brother, so you can fully expect to see me at his games, at his school events. He’s my family. You’re not, but he is.”
She’s a slight woman, my mother, but she yanks my wrist, as I turn toward my door, forcing my attention back on her.
“Don’t touch me,” I say harshly, pulling my arm free.
Keith appears in front of us, but I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there. The answer becomes clear with his next statement. “You have a child?” There’s pain in his whisper that I guess I wasn’t expecting.
“I do. She’s almost a year old, and I wouldn’t even have known she existed except the universe is a strange, lucky place sometimes. Your wife,” I punctuate the words, “ensured I’d never know my girlfriend was pregnant. But thankfully, we found our way back to each other.”
“Heather, what is he saying?” Keith’s voice is cold, but not calm. “Did you really keep them apart? You kept his child from him?”
And there, on her perfectly manicured lawn, the lies my mother has woven for years begin to unravel. “Did I keep a careless teenager from becoming a father? Yes. Did I protect his girlfriend from the inevitable heartbreak she’d feel when he got tired of playing house? Yes, I did. He’s too much like his father, Keith!”
“That was not your call to make,” my stepfather says.
“Of course, it was! He’s the spitting image of Jason and has every ounce of his reckless personality too. Just as I couldn’t let Jason find out about Knox, I couldn’t let Knox find out about his child.” She turns her venomous gaze on me. “If things had been different, Knox. If you’d have shown any hope of being more like my side of the family, of having some control over your emotions, things might have been different. But you never have. You’ve been volatile and impulsive since you were young. I did what I had to do.”
It takes a minute, but my brain catches on and puts the words together to make sense of them.
By the look on Keith’s face, it’s clear he’s adding things up and coming to the same conclusion I am.
“You never told him, did you?” My voice sounds strange to my own ears, like I’m standing outside my own body and watching all this chaos unfold.
The slight shake of my mother’s head is her only answer.
My mind is racing. “He never knew.He doesn’t know. Holy fuck.” I shake my head and close my eyes, but when I open them, the reality of the shitshow that is my life remains in front of me. “My whole life, I’ve believed he didn’t want me. That my father rejected me. That’s what you said. But you lied. He never even knew?” I’m screaming now, shouting, I realize, as the guy across the street stops shoveling his walk and a lady walking her dog slows down to stare at us.
“I don’t regret my decisions,” my mother says, no feeling at all in her voice. “Not any of them.”
And that’s all I need to know.
“I hope to hell I never see you again. But when we have to be in the same building for Ronin, make sure you keep your fucking distance. I know you won’t mess with me—I’m too volatile. But believe me when I promise that you will regret going anywhere near my girlfriend or my child.”
