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.
Mylittle boy.Imadehim.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.BeawasStu’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.
