“I was medically discharged recently, so I’m working for the family business right now. Going to school for a degree in mechanics in the fall.”
“Hell of a young man you are. Turning your life around so quickly,” Jeff said admiringly. “I tell you what, when you’re donewith school, or if you ever need anything at all, just let me know, alright? I work with all sorts of companies. I have contacts all over the place. I’ll happily pull a few strings for you.”
“That’s very kind.” Tanner was both surprised and humbled by Jeff’s offer. “Thank you, that’s—incredibly generous, but even after I graduate, I don’t know that I’ll be all that valuable to anyone in the job market,” Tanner said with a small, self-deprecating laugh.
Jeff looked doubtful. “Well, what did you do in the military?”
“I was a helicopter pilot,” Tanner said, looking from Lance to Jeff uncertainly. “Rescue missions, mostly. Medical evacuations and emergency extractions.”
“And he doubts his value in the job market, he says,” Jeff said with a light laugh, clapping Tanner on the shoulder. “Son, technical skills can be taught, but finding someone who can work under pressure, be a team player, and a reliable employee, that I can’t teach. When you’re ready, you let me know and I’ll have a couple dozen interviews lined up. You just wait, there’s a whole lot of places out there that would just love to have you on board!” He said it with such confidence that it was impossible not to believe him.
“Well, uh, —” Tanner stuttered, shooting a panicked look at Lance. “Thank you.” Jeff gave him a big smile and a quick wink.
“It’s the very least I can do for a friend of Lance’s. Now, I’d better get back to your mother before she thinks I’ve deserted her and sends a team of US Marshals after me,” he said with a rumbling laugh.
Lance smiled and waved at Jeff as he headed back towards the house.
“He seems like a good guy,” Tanner said after Jeff was out of earshot.
“Sure is,” Lance agreed.
“Kind of surprising, quite frankly.”
Lance turned to look at him, thoroughly confused. “What? Why?”
“I mean—maybe I didn’t understand you correctly, but—didn’t your mother like—leave you in charge of your brothers so she could start a home with him?”
“Well, yeah.” Lance couldn’t figure out where Tanner was going with this.
“He doesn’t seem like the type who’d force your mother to choose between him and your brothers.”
Ah. Okay, now he understood what was bothering Tanner.
“He is not the type of person to force her into anything. My mother didn’t tell him she had kids. Not until much later, when I was leaving for college, and she had to take back full responsibility and care for Parker and Jeremy herself.”
“I’m sorry, but what the actual fuck?” Tanner’s voice rose steadily with each word until he finished with a screech. Startled, Lance turned to look at him, not sure what Tanner’s problem was. “Let me see if I have this shit straight. Your mother left you in charge of your two younger brothers so she could fuck off and find a new man who didn’t even know she had three kids? Who the fuck does shit like that to their kids?”
Tanner was furious on his behalf. That much was obvious. But Lance wasn’t sure this was the right time or place to have this conversation. He wanted Tanner to like his family. But as the Bard once said, “truth will out.” Maybe it was best to lay it all out there and just be done with it.
Lance collapsed into his lounge chair with a heavy sigh. Tanner plopped down in the chair next to him.
“I know what she did sounds insane, but at the time it made sense.”
“I don’t know how that’s possible but go on.”
“My mother had me when she was 16. My father was a piece of shit who drank too much and had no trouble slamming his fist into—just about anything and everyone he could get his hands on, including her and me. At the time, she was a waitress working a lot of double shifts to put food on the table and attending night classes to become a paralegal. By the time she finished her degree and had the means to get out of there, she’d had two more kids, Parker and Jeremy. Then one day my dad got into serious trouble, got busted, and ended up in jail. So suddenly, she was the wife of a convict and stuck supporting three kids.” Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck to ease the tension.
Tanner’s hand settled on his knee, his eyes kind and sympathetic.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Maybe he didn’t, but now that he’d started telling the story, he might as well finish it.
“I kind of want to,” Lance said with a shrug. “Anyway, so my mom filed for divorce while my dad was in jail and started looking for full-time work. Mom got the first job she could find as a paralegal, which was two hours away. She couldn’t commute every day, so she left me in charge, and slept in a motel Monday through Friday. It wasn’t a perfect situation by any means. But she was able to make a lot more money than she did at the restaurant. She met Jeff on the job. Apparently, he was smitten with her from her first day there, and it was, you know, love at first sight.”
“No, I wouldn’t know,” Tanner said, an amused expression on his face. “I don’t have any feelings for anyone whatsoever.”
Lance gave him a quick wink and continued the story. “It was like this whole new life for her. No one knew who she was.No one knew she’d been married to a piece of shit. Or that she’d been a high school drop out. Or a teen mom. Clean slate. It was truly a fresh start, and I guess she wanted to keep it that way, so—she didn’t tell him.”
