“What has gotten into you? I haven’t heard from you in weeks. You won’t answer your phone. You won’t tell me where you are. Are you drinking again?”
Of course. Of course it had to be his son fucking up yet again, he thought. Nathan rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows, a headache forming.
“Did you ever wonder why I acted out so much, Dad? Did you assume I was a bad seed? A mistake?”
“You’ve had your issues, but you seemed to have gotten straightened out.” His dad struggled for answers, like he was forced to a take a test he didn’t study for at all.
Nathan lost the energy to be sarcastic and obnoxious. The fight was draining him after all these years. “You’ve lied to me my entire life.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You had a picture of my real mum in your bloody desk drawer and never showed it to me. You knew what she looked like. You knewsomethingabout her, and you never told me.” Nathan heaved in breath, but he was too angry to cry. Angry at his new family and old family and himself.
“Nathan, I…oh, bugger. I can explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain. Jesus, Dad, did you ever think that I was a shitty son because you were such a shitty father? You ever heard the expression the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?”
“You’re not a shitty son.”
“You treat me like one.”
Nathan had a catch in his throat, like maybe he’d gone too far, but there was not too far with him. He had never told his father off before. Even though their relationship was tenuous at best, he was still Nathan’s only family, and he was afraid to lose that. But he realized he never had it in the first place.
“Son, can we meet somewhere? I want to talk about this. Please.”
He wanted to throw his phone into the manure pit, but stopped himself.
“I found her,” he said with a defiant edge in his voice.
“You…you found her? Your mother?” His dad could barely get the words out. “Where are you, Nathan?”
Nathan clenched his jaw tight.
“Catch me if you can.”
Chapter 26
Liam
While roaming the aisles of the hardware store checking things off his list, Liam got a call from his brother (the nice one), asking him to pick up Walt from school. Mark’s meeting was running late. Liam realized he could take advantage of this precious time for some uncle-nephew bonding.
“Hey pal!” he said as Walt climbed into the passenger seat. He hugged his backpack to his chest. “How was school?”
“Good.”
Liam wished his niece and nephew gave him more than one-word answers, but he probably gave the same answers to adults at Walt’s age.
“Listen, Walt, I want to talk with you about something, something that’s… developed,” Liam said before Walt could take out his phone.
His nephew had a hesitant look on his face. Kids didn’t want to hear about adult things. They didn’t want to think of the adults around them as real people.
“What is it?” Walt asked.
“Nathan has been a great help on the farm over the past few weeks. We’ve grown close, first as co-workers, then as friends, but…” Liam felt his whole face go red.Out with it.“But now, we are romantically involved. Which I know is probably very confusing to you. You see, usually boys and girls like each other, but sometimes a boy can like another boy and a girl can like a girl. And there are some boys, like, uh, me, who liked a girl but then liked a boy.”
I am mucking this up proper.Liam had no idea how to go about this conversation. Did his nephew even know what sex was? He steeled himself for Walt’s expression, but when he looked over, Walt was on his phone.
“Can you get off your bloody phone for a second? I’m trying to have a serious talk.”
