Blood Ties (Part 1): A belated sentence challenge fic
"Bulgogi" was my "promissory note" for the sentence challenge, so I could meet the deadline. This is the real story, although it's not done even now. But since it kept growing, I decided to post the first part. (I expect there to be two sections, three max.) Written for brandywine421 and cianconnell, who wanted "Papa Atwood gets out of jail and he wants his sons to pick him up." (Sorry--this is a paraphrase. I lost the exact sentence.)
Disclaimer: They all belong to Josh & company. Well, maybe not Papa Atwood, since we haven't actually seen him on the show yet.
Rating: Um, whatever is appropriate for lots of profanity. Those Atwoods, how they do swear.
Blood Ties
“Don’t hang up, Ry.”
He had flipped the phone open hastily, expecting Seth, hoping for Theresa, or maybe the manager at any of the dozen places where he had applied for work. His palm, still damp from the shower, almost fumbled the handset even before he heard the voice at the other end.
The words were a plea, not a threat or an order. Still, they stopped Ryan’s breath. He froze, his skin prickling. Even alone in the poolhouse, he felt exposed, every nerve throbbing just under his skin. Instinctively, he retreated into a corner.
“Ry? You still there, little brother?”
“I’m here,” he said tersely. The fingers that had been combing back his wet hair clenched, nails scoring his scalp “What do you want, Trey?”
He heard a sound, maybe a sigh, and then his brother, enunciating precisely. “Jess told me, Ry. About Marissa. Shit, I’m just . . . I’m so sorry, man. Maybe you don’t want to hear it, but I am.”
Ryan’s tongue searched for saliva enough to speak. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.” Echoes of the memorial service flitted through his mind; all those other hushed sorrys, such tired platitudes and sobs and scalding silences. He couldn’t make Trey’s awkward sympathy fit anywhere. It didn’t belong, but it felt real and oddly comforting.
There was a pause. Ryan sensed Trey waiting, but he could find nothing else to say. His finger hovered over the “End” button. As though he could see it there, Trey urged abruptly, “Wait! Ry, I didn’t call just . . . about Marissa.”
It vanished instantly, that fleeting sense of brotherhood. “Right. You want something,” Ryan concluded. His voice closed like a fist.
“No! Not the way you think. Shit. Just listen, all right?”
“Why? What’s the point?”
“Fuck it,” Trey mumbled. “I hate this long-distance crap. Look, it’s about dad.”
The term bewildered Ryan. He narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher what it might mean. “What?”
“Dad,” Trey repeated. “He’s getting out, Ry. And he wants us to pick him up.”
Ryan grabbed a t-shirt from a wicker basket, frowned, replaced it, and selected another identical one.
“Did you hear me, little brother? The fucker tracked me down. Don’t ask me how, but he did. I get this call and guess what? It’s dear old Dad. Tells me he’s getting early release, and he wants us both there when he’s sprung. His boys, he says. You and me.”
“No.”
Just that, and Ryan hung up. Automatically, he started dressing. He hadn’t even pulled the wifebeater all the way over his head before the phone rang again. Ignoring it, he smoothed the shirt and slid on a pair of jeans-new ones that Kirsten had placed on his bed yesterday, along with a towering stack of khakis and sweaters, socks and underwear.
“For college,” she murmured, flushing slightly.
“Kirsten, it’s too much. I can’t.”
“It may look like a lot, but you’ll need them, Ryan. Sometimes it’s hard to get laundry done in a dorm.” Smiling wistfully, Kirsten brushed Ryan’s rumpled hair off his forehead. “I don’t want you to run out of clean clothes. Please. Just take them. For me.”
Her eyes looked so anxious, so hopeful that he couldn’t refuse.
The jeans were stiff and a little loose around Ryan’s waist. He concentrated on working the stubborn button, trying to ignore the strident voicemail message.
“Pick up, Ry. Do it, man. You can’t just say no like that and be done. He’s our fucking father.”
Ryan closed his eyes, wondering why it was possible to shut out sight but not sound, and not memory.
“Look, you don’t owe the asshole anything, I get that. But he owes us, Ry. If we don’t go, you think he’s ever gonna call us again? I figure this is our only shot.”
The button slid out of Ryan’s grasp. His fingers trembled violently and he had to sit down.
“God. Damn you, Trey,” he panted, but he didn’t pick up the phone.
Trey’s voice continued, gruff and inexorable. “I know you, little brother. No matter what, it’s gonna eat you away inside if you don’t go. Even if it’s just to spit in his sorry face--”
Ryan snatched the handset. He meant to throw it across the room, but the warm plastic adhered to his palm and somehow he jabbed the ‘talk’ button instead. “Don’t, Trey,” he hissed. “Don’t fucking pretend that you know how I feel.”
Silence stretched across the line. “Shit, little brother,” Trey said at last. “I’m probably the only person who does.”
Ryan recoiled as if he had been hit. Clenching his fist, he searched for some defense. “I don’t want to see him,” he insisted. He gritted his teeth, trying to make the words true. “I don’t want to see you. We’re done.”
“Like hell we are.”
“We were done when you got on that bus--”
“Then why did you show up there?” Trey demanded. “You could have just gone back to the Cohens, picked up your cushy life in their poolhouse, written me off right then. But it doesn’t work, does it-pretending you’re not an Atwood? I’m still your brother. Dawn the train wreck is our mother. And that fucking loser that we hardly know? Yeah, he’s our father.”
Ryan bit his lip. He could feel slivers of himself being sliced away. The cuts weren’t even clean. It was if someone was dragging a cheese grater over each part of him, shredding layer after layer, through muscle and bone, down to the marrow.
“Bottom line, Ry? We’re blood. No way you can cut us out.”
Blinking, Ryan stood up. He took several ragged breaths. “When?” he muttered hoarsely.
“What?”
“When is he getting out?”
Trey’s tone changed. The anger and urgency ebbed away, leaving nothing behind but a kind of brittle weariness.
“Tomorrow. Supposed to be signed out around noon. So you’re coming?”
Through the half-open blinds, sunlight slanted into the poolhouse, slicing across Ryan’s face. He winced and turned his back. The answer shoved its way out, one spasm of the tongue and a single puff of air. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” Ryan heard a hollow shushing sound. He pictured his brother, shifting the handset to his other ear, anchoring it in place with a hunched shoulder while he lit a cigarette. “Okay. Look, Ry, I’m back in Chino. I, um, I hooked up with an old friend. You remember Angie?” Ryan recalled the name, but it was just one in a long, faceless series. There was no person attached. Trey coughed and continued, “Anyway, I’m stayin’ at her place. You want, you could drive down tonight, crash on the couch--”
“I’m not driving.”
“Shit, I’m not saying you have to play chauffer. Whaddya think, that’s why I asked you to come, to give me a goddamn ride--” Trey fumbled to an abrupt stop. “Oh hell, little brother,” he amended heavily. “Is this because--? Fuck, never mind. I’ll borrow Angie’s car, come pick you up.”
“No,” Ryan answered, implacable. Tilting his head back, he squinted at the clock. His eyes followed the second hand as it jerked around the dial. “I’ll take a bus in the morning.”
He could almost hear Trey’s resigned shrug, his breath gusting around a lungful of smoke. “Yeah, whatever. Meet you at Tony’s Diner? Say around ten?”
“Ten o’clock,” Ryan confirmed.
“Ry?” Trey cleared his throat uncertainly. “I’ll be waiting.”
Neither brother said goodbye.
As Ryan hung up, he glanced at the answering machine. Its light blinked, reminding him that he never turned it off. The whole conversation had been recorded. If he wanted, he could play it all again, try to figure out where the trap had been set, how he had been lured back inside.
Instead, he pressed “erase.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bus was almost empty when Ryan boarded it the next morning. Several people got off in Newport-day laborers, he assumed, noting their worn clothes and sturdy, thick-soled shoes, so similar to his own-but he was the only person who climbed on for the return trip.
He made his way to the back and fell into a seat, shifting over so he could lean against the window. Next to him, air hissed from a vent that snaked along the wall. Chilly and stale, it smelled like loneliness. Ryan shivered. He zipped his hoodie, huddled into its soft folds, and willed himself not to worry, or remember, or feel.
All he wanted to do was ride the bus, let its fitful rhythm lull him into oblivion.
He didn’t want to think about anything.
Not about how he had lied to the Cohens so glibly, with such guileless, disquieting ease.
I got a day’s work on a construction crew. Sure I can, I’m fine. No, not in Newport. Thanks anyway, but I’ve got a ride.
Not about their faces: Sandy’s troubled eyes, the creases around Kirsten’s mouth, Seth’s forlorn expression as he waved goodbye.
Are you sure, kid? You don’t need to work. Sweetie, I'm not sure you're ready. I wish you'd reconsider. Then I guess I’ll see you when you get home, dude.
Not about the sick, roiling sensation that had woken him before two, so that he thrashed sleeplessly the rest of the night, 400 count Egyptian cotton sheets twisted around his bare legs.
And not about the images that hounded him in the dark: Trey, blood, fists, police cars, his father’s jaw tensing with fury, his upraised hands.
Especially not about those.
The bus turned inland, and Ryan clenched his eyes shut. Even behind his lids, he could sense the light outside start to change, clear to murky, sheer gold to hazy yellow-gray. He concentrated on counting the stops, pressing his nails into his thigh each time the door sighed open, listening to the disjointed noises that filtered in from the street. As long as he focused on those sounds, fragments of other people’s lives, he could forget his own. He could enjoy the pretense of being no one, and nowhere at all.
It was peaceful, riding the bus, the way Ryan imagined resting in a hammock would be, swaying suspended between trees.
In space, out of time, between realities.
Between the Cohens and the Atwoods. No guilt, no responsibilities, no perilous expectations.
But then the bus wheezed to another shuddering halt and Ryan’s fist closed.
Fifteen. The next stop would be his.
Reluctantly, his eyes fluttered open. Through the window, he recognized the slums of Chino: the grimy landscape, parched pockets of dying grass, buildings crowding the pavement, elbowing each other for room, cars jacked up on blocks, broken toys abandoned where they fell.
He made himself stand and walk to the exit, touch the sensor to claim that he wanted to get off. The doors groaned wearily as they opened and a rush of air, thick with exhaust, buffeted his face. Breathing through his teeth, Ryan braced himself and climbed off the bus. It idled in front of him, blocking his view, granting him another moment’s reprieve. Then the light changed, the bus lumbered away, and he saw his brother, already waiting across the street.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, something about his perspective, or the angle of his restive glance, but Trey seemed older, dimmer somehow than Ryan expected.
Head titled indolently, he lounged against a battered red sedan. He looked like a permanent fixture, as though he had watched there forever and would never move. But then Ryan stepped off the curb and Trey straightened with sudden, careless grace, lifting his chin and flicking away his cigarette. It cart-wheeled to the gutter, its lit end flashing red like the rotating light on a police car. Instinctively, Ryan veered sideways, grinding the burning stub under his boot before he crossed back to meet his brother.
Trey sucked in the corners of his mouth, his cords in his neck tensing. One hand started to reach toward Ryan. Abruptly, it changed direction, pulling back to knead the nape of his own neck instead. “So . . . you made it, bro,” he observed.
Ryan nodded warily. His gaze skittered over the car, the sidewalk, the chipped “No Parking” sign, the faded fold lines on his brother’s cuffs, the faint, familiar scar on the side of his wrist. Finally it settled on the flickering “EAT” sign behind his ear.
He couldn’t make himself look at Trey’s face.
“You wanna . . .?” Shrugging, Trey jerked his head back toward the cheap diner. “We got some time to kill before we have to go.”
“I guess,” Ryan murmured.
Dutifully, as he had done so often while they were growing up, he followed Trey into the restaurant. The dusky room reeked of used grease and salt, sweat and old clothes. Battered stools lined the counter. Rust flaked off their metal posts and matted tufts of cotton poked out from cracks on the green plastic seats. Still, Ryan passed them wistfully.
He wished they could sit there, separately, facing straight ahead, but Trey had already slung himself into a booth, his body slouched the way Ryan remembered, precariously close to the edge.
From somewhere long ago, he could hear voices: his own ten-year old treble, Trey’s proud new baritone.
“Why don’t you slide in, Trey? You got all that room.”
“Nah, this right here? This is where a guy wants to sit, LB.”
“Why?”
“Shit, Ry, think, why doncha? You sit on the outside, the waitress is grab-ass distance away every time she walks past. And when she leans over? You get the best titty-view in the house. Watch and learn, little brother. Watch and learn.”
Swallowing hard, Ryan slid in opposite Trey, shifting over until he could feel the wall. His eyes darted sideways, glancing off his brother’s, and finally fastening on the scuffed Formica table.
“Hungry?” Trey asked cautiously.
“No. I ate,” Ryan answered. He started to add ‘at home,’ but the words caught in his throat. “You can though,” he mumbled instead.
Trey’s jaw tightened, and his mouth compressed into a thin, flinty line. He sucked in a sharp breath, about to speak, when the waitress sauntered over, her hips swaying pertly under pink polyester.
“Morning, guys. I’m Stacy,” she crooned, dropping paper menus in front of them. “What can I get you?”
“Coffee. Black,” Ryan replied.
“That’s it? We got some really good cherry pie this morning. Blueberry too.” Stacy smiled, leaning forward. “Sure I can’t tempt you now?”
“He said coffee,” Trey snapped. “That’s all he wants, okay?”
A sinister current ran under his voice and Stacy rocked back. “Sorry. Black coffee,” she mumbled, scribbling on her order pad. “What about you?”
“The number four breakfast. No fucking juice, and make sure the eggs are runny.” Tossing the unused menus back at the waitress, Trey stretched out, staring an unspoken challenge as she retreated.
Ryan waited, eyes downcast, until Stacy was gone. “It wasn’t her fault, Trey,” he cautioned quietly.
“What?”
“What I said-that you could eat. I wasn’t . . . giving you permission.”
Trey buried his mouth behind a loose fist. A strangled oath oozed through his fingers. “I know that,” he muttered. “It just sounded like . . . Fuck. Whatever, man.” Sliding his hand down, he scratched the scruff along his chin. “The Cohens give you a hard time about coming today?” he asked diffidently. “Figured they might try to change your mind. Or Mr. Cohen would show up with you.”
“They don’t know what I’m doing,” Ryan admitted, flushing.
“The hell?” Startled, Trey peered across the table. “Thought you were all about the truth, bro. So what, you keep secrets from them now?”
The “now” stung and Ryan flinched, recalling all the secrets he’d kept recently: his near-lethal fight with Volchok after the prom, the car theft he’d abetted, the blackmail money he’d paid, his feelings ever since Marissa’s body had slumped, lifeless in his arms. “They’ve been through enough on my account,” he explained tonelessly. The seam on his hoodie chafed and he stretched it away from his neck. “I didn’t want to put this on them too.”
Grabbing a napkin, Trey began to shred it into ragged bits. “Yeah. Probably better that way,” he agreed. “Keep them out of the Atwood shit this time.” His tone changed. It became tentative, as though he were picking his way through a minefield. So, Ry . . . you all right? I mean . . . since Marissa? You doing okay?”
Instantly, Ryan’s face shuttered. “I can’t talk to you about her.”
The diner door slammed open, and two men entered, calling greetings to Stacy. Their raucous laughter ricocheted throughout the room.
Trey leaned across the table, pitching his voice low. “Hell, man, you think I don’t know that?”
The words were raw, helpless and anguished. Ryan started, listening. He knew those emotions. His brother sounded the way he felt when he woke up every morning, every time he saw the sun glint on the water, every time a smile died, half-formed on his lips.
“I was asking about you,” Trey continued. “I worry about you, all right?” He snorted and shook his head. Balling up the scattered bits of napkin, he flung them on the floor. “Yeah, how fucked-up is that?”
Ryan sucked in a shaky breath. “Trey. Let’s just . . . not,” he pleaded. “Not now, okay?”
As he spoke Stacy reappeared, grim-faced, with their coffee. Taking his with a quick, contrite smile, Ryan drained half the contents in one swallow. He set the cup down, tracing its rim with one thumb, his gaze boring through the dark liquid.
“What do you suppose he wants?” he blurted. Somehow he couldn’t form the word “Dad.”
Trey’s eyes flickered, dark gray into light. “Hell, little brother,” he sighed. “Ask me something I can answer.”
Unbidden, Ryan’s mind conjured a distant memory: His father, raging into the house, yanking Trey off the living room floor.
“You think I want to come home to that fucking mess outside, Trey? Figure I like falling over your goddamn bike? Next time you leave that heap of junk on the sidewalk, I’m throwing it in the trash. Throw you in after it, you worthless little shit.”
Instantly, a string of images followed, the last events Ryan could recall clearly before his father’s arrest. Like film, they unspooled into a forgotten home movie, grainy, distorted, and true: ten-year-old Trey entering a novelty shop, his walk already almost a swagger, scarcely waiting for Ryan who trotted three steps behind.
“What do you think Dad will want, Trey?”
“Don’t know, and don’t care. Mom’s stupid if she thinks a lameass Father’s Day Gift is gonna make him happy. Like he fucking deserves one anyway.”
“But we should get him one right? Because he’s our dad?”
Trey rolled his eyes. Without answering, he hauled Ryan down the aisle toward a display marked “Fun Gifts for Father’s Day!” The counters held an array of cheap items: shoehorn backscratchers, trophies that proclaimed “#1 Dad,” shot classes inscribed, “Here’s to You, Pop!”
Uncertainly, Ryan picked up a key chain with the word “DAD” formed from interlocked stars.
“Would he like this, maybe?” he asked.
Ignoring him, Trey stared at a stack of cards. Ryan’s gaze followed. One box was open, with a single card propped on top. It had a shimmery surface, like water in sunlight, but its picture was unexciting: just a plain woman wearing glasses, hair scraped into a tight bun, white blouse buttoned to her chin, sitting primly at a table. Looking at it, Ryan didn’t understand why his brother’s mouth puckered into a sly upside-down grin. Then Trey touched the card, one slight flick of his thumb, and the image changed. Like magic, the woman was leaning over the table, her breasts arched and spilling out of a tiny black bra, her hair cascading in golden waves. Above her head flashed an invitation: “Hey big boy, wanna play?”
Trey’s eyes glinted hungrily. “Look innocent,” he ordered, spinning Ryan around, and knocking down a “Best Dad” award at the same time.
“Sorry!” he called to the glowering clerk. “It’s my little brother. He’s clumsy sometimes. Don’t worry, I’ll get it!”
Ryan blinked, stunned, his blue eyes glistening, his blond hair shining halo-bright in the shaft of sun where Trey shoved him.
The clerk’s expression softened instantly. “Aw, don’t worry about it, sweetie pie,” she crooned. “No harm done.” Smiling reassurance, she gave a maternal sigh. “Aren’t you just the cutest little thing now? You want a piece of gum, sugar?”
Ryan started to shake his head no, but Trey elbowed him and he stumbled forward, stammering a shaky “Thank you.”
Trey’s lips curled in triumph. He waited until the woman was fishing for her pack of gum, then stooped down to retrieve the plaque, deftly pocketing a deck of cards at the same time. When Ryan scurried back, Trey rumpled his hair with elaborate affection, nodding at the clerk over his head, and pulling him close.
“Damn,” he whispered gleefully. “Hope you keep that baby face a long, long time, LB.”
Ryan lowered his voice to match his brother’s. “Are you gonna give those to Dad?”
“Hell, no,” Trey snorted. Scanning the shelves, he grinned suddenly, grabbed a framed certificate and thrust it into Ryan’s hands. “Here. We’ll get him this,” he announced.
Ryan squinted at the scrolled border, the elaborate black lettering. “University of Pay--Pater Family-Familias. Master of Fatherhood,” he sounded out dubiously. “What is it, Trey?”
“A joke diploma,” Trey explained with satisfaction. “See. It’s an MF degree. From the University of Family-ass. The perfect gift for dad.”
Biting his lip, Ryan shook his head. “You’ll make him mad,” he warned.
“Shit, LB, he’ll never even get the joke.”
“It doesn’t matter. He won’t like it.” Anxiously, Ryan searched the cheap display. At last he pointed to a baseball cap that proclaimed “MVP” and underneath “Most Valuable Pop.” “Maybe he’ll want that?” he suggested.
Trey groaned audibly. “Jeez, LB, don’t you get it by now? We’re never gonna be able to give Dad what he wants. No matter what we do, it’s gonna be wrong. It always is.”
The memory-film sputtered and then resumed jerkily: their father’s thick fingers tearing open flimsy wrapping paper, pulling out the baseball cap, holding it up like something dead and stinking.
“What the fuck is this?”
“A father’s day gift, babe!" Dawn laughed nervously, fingers fumbling with her cigarette lighter. "Isn’t that sweet, the boys got you something?”
Ryan stepped back, staggering into Trey as their father scowled at them. “What are you two, retards or something? You think I want crap like this? ‘MVP. Most Valuable Pop,’” he mocked in a singsong voice laced with acid. “Yeah, I’m fucking gonna wanna wear a candy-ass thing like that. How much did this junk cost anyway?” No one replied and he repeated ominously, “How much?”
“Four-fifty,” Trey muttered.
“Five bucks,” their father spat. “For this trash. Where’d you get the money?”
Trey’s breath hissed through his teeth but he didn’t answer. In the silence, Ryan’s uneasy gaze skittered from his brother to his father and back again. He ducked his head. “Mom gave it to us,” he admitted softly.
“Ry--” Dawn warned, blanching, but it was too late.
“Yeah? Mom gave it to you? And where the fuck you think she got it?” their father demanded. Swigging from his beer bottle, he wiped his mouth and raged on. “From me, that’s goddamn where. I get laid off and you little shits think I got money to waste on garbage like this? Hell, I knew your mother was stupid, but you’re supposed to be my kids. Maybe not, huh, Dawn? You been spreadin’ ‘em for somebody else? ‘Cause no way in hell I coulda fathered idiots like these two.”
Ryan locked his teeth on his lower lip to keep it from trembling. He could feel Trey stiffening beside him.
“Told you, LB,” he muttered.
Their father’s brows lowered, bristling. “What did you say, boy?”
“Nothing,” Trey claimed. The beer bottle slammed down, clamped in a sweaty fist, and he jerked, plunging a hand into his pocket. “Just-here,” he added hastily, pulling out the deck of cards and tossing it at his father. “We got you this too.”
Squinting skeptically, their dad caught the box and held it in his open palm. He nodded, his face dark with leering appreciation as the image changed. Dawn peeked over his shoulder, her own gaze widening, her mouth twitching slightly.
“Oh yeah,” he drawled, licking his lips. “Now this is what I call a goddamn gift. How much you pay for it?”
Trey’s chin lifted in challenge. “Nothing,” he admitted. “Not one cent.”
For a moment, their father glared at Trey and Ryan, his eyes a glassy, unreadable gray. Then he threw back his head, gargling a laugh deep in his throat. “About fucking time!” he exclaimed. “My boys finally get me something I want. And whaddya know? The damn price is right too.”
“Ry?”
Startled, Ryan shook his head. His brother’s voice sounded distorted, as though it was bubbling down to him deep underwater. When he managed to focus, Trey was staring at him, bemused, curling one corner of his mouth the way he used to when Ryan would read in the skimpy moonlight that filtered through their open window. The plate in front of him was empty except for a crust discarded among smears of congealing egg yolk.
“Sorry,” Ryan muttered. His mouth filled with bitter saliva and he swallowed, breathing hard. “You done?”
Trey’s eyes narrowed speculatively. He crumpled his unused napkin and wadded it into his coffee cup. “Yeah,” he replied. “Sure.” Tossing a few bills on the table, he swung out of the booth and waited as Ryan pushed himself to the edge. “So, little brother,” he prompted, blocking Ryan’s exit. “You work anything out?”
“What?”
“All that heavy thinking you were doing? You, me, dad? Figure out how you fit in to the whole fucking Atwood family?”
Startled, Ryan flushed, his gaze flickering up to his brother and dropping again guiltily.
“Trey--” he stammered. “That’s not . . .”
“Yeah it is.” Shrugging, Trey stepped aside, his tone tired but gentle, almost affectionate. “Told you, LB. We’re blood. I know how you feel . . . So. You ready to go see dear old dad?”
Ryan closed his eyes and opened them again. Slowly, carefully, he nodded. He stood up, his shoulder brushing Trey’s. Without either of them realizing it, he echoed his brother’s own resigned words, his fatalistic expression.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Sure.”
TBC
Disclaimer: They all belong to Josh & company. Well, maybe not Papa Atwood, since we haven't actually seen him on the show yet.
Rating: Um, whatever is appropriate for lots of profanity. Those Atwoods, how they do swear.
Blood Ties
“Don’t hang up, Ry.”
He had flipped the phone open hastily, expecting Seth, hoping for Theresa, or maybe the manager at any of the dozen places where he had applied for work. His palm, still damp from the shower, almost fumbled the handset even before he heard the voice at the other end.
The words were a plea, not a threat or an order. Still, they stopped Ryan’s breath. He froze, his skin prickling. Even alone in the poolhouse, he felt exposed, every nerve throbbing just under his skin. Instinctively, he retreated into a corner.
“Ry? You still there, little brother?”
“I’m here,” he said tersely. The fingers that had been combing back his wet hair clenched, nails scoring his scalp “What do you want, Trey?”
He heard a sound, maybe a sigh, and then his brother, enunciating precisely. “Jess told me, Ry. About Marissa. Shit, I’m just . . . I’m so sorry, man. Maybe you don’t want to hear it, but I am.”
Ryan’s tongue searched for saliva enough to speak. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I know.” Echoes of the memorial service flitted through his mind; all those other hushed sorrys, such tired platitudes and sobs and scalding silences. He couldn’t make Trey’s awkward sympathy fit anywhere. It didn’t belong, but it felt real and oddly comforting.
There was a pause. Ryan sensed Trey waiting, but he could find nothing else to say. His finger hovered over the “End” button. As though he could see it there, Trey urged abruptly, “Wait! Ry, I didn’t call just . . . about Marissa.”
It vanished instantly, that fleeting sense of brotherhood. “Right. You want something,” Ryan concluded. His voice closed like a fist.
“No! Not the way you think. Shit. Just listen, all right?”
“Why? What’s the point?”
“Fuck it,” Trey mumbled. “I hate this long-distance crap. Look, it’s about dad.”
The term bewildered Ryan. He narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher what it might mean. “What?”
“Dad,” Trey repeated. “He’s getting out, Ry. And he wants us to pick him up.”
Ryan grabbed a t-shirt from a wicker basket, frowned, replaced it, and selected another identical one.
“Did you hear me, little brother? The fucker tracked me down. Don’t ask me how, but he did. I get this call and guess what? It’s dear old Dad. Tells me he’s getting early release, and he wants us both there when he’s sprung. His boys, he says. You and me.”
“No.”
Just that, and Ryan hung up. Automatically, he started dressing. He hadn’t even pulled the wifebeater all the way over his head before the phone rang again. Ignoring it, he smoothed the shirt and slid on a pair of jeans-new ones that Kirsten had placed on his bed yesterday, along with a towering stack of khakis and sweaters, socks and underwear.
“For college,” she murmured, flushing slightly.
“Kirsten, it’s too much. I can’t.”
“It may look like a lot, but you’ll need them, Ryan. Sometimes it’s hard to get laundry done in a dorm.” Smiling wistfully, Kirsten brushed Ryan’s rumpled hair off his forehead. “I don’t want you to run out of clean clothes. Please. Just take them. For me.”
Her eyes looked so anxious, so hopeful that he couldn’t refuse.
The jeans were stiff and a little loose around Ryan’s waist. He concentrated on working the stubborn button, trying to ignore the strident voicemail message.
“Pick up, Ry. Do it, man. You can’t just say no like that and be done. He’s our fucking father.”
Ryan closed his eyes, wondering why it was possible to shut out sight but not sound, and not memory.
“Look, you don’t owe the asshole anything, I get that. But he owes us, Ry. If we don’t go, you think he’s ever gonna call us again? I figure this is our only shot.”
The button slid out of Ryan’s grasp. His fingers trembled violently and he had to sit down.
“God. Damn you, Trey,” he panted, but he didn’t pick up the phone.
Trey’s voice continued, gruff and inexorable. “I know you, little brother. No matter what, it’s gonna eat you away inside if you don’t go. Even if it’s just to spit in his sorry face--”
Ryan snatched the handset. He meant to throw it across the room, but the warm plastic adhered to his palm and somehow he jabbed the ‘talk’ button instead. “Don’t, Trey,” he hissed. “Don’t fucking pretend that you know how I feel.”
Silence stretched across the line. “Shit, little brother,” Trey said at last. “I’m probably the only person who does.”
Ryan recoiled as if he had been hit. Clenching his fist, he searched for some defense. “I don’t want to see him,” he insisted. He gritted his teeth, trying to make the words true. “I don’t want to see you. We’re done.”
“Like hell we are.”
“We were done when you got on that bus--”
“Then why did you show up there?” Trey demanded. “You could have just gone back to the Cohens, picked up your cushy life in their poolhouse, written me off right then. But it doesn’t work, does it-pretending you’re not an Atwood? I’m still your brother. Dawn the train wreck is our mother. And that fucking loser that we hardly know? Yeah, he’s our father.”
Ryan bit his lip. He could feel slivers of himself being sliced away. The cuts weren’t even clean. It was if someone was dragging a cheese grater over each part of him, shredding layer after layer, through muscle and bone, down to the marrow.
“Bottom line, Ry? We’re blood. No way you can cut us out.”
Blinking, Ryan stood up. He took several ragged breaths. “When?” he muttered hoarsely.
“What?”
“When is he getting out?”
Trey’s tone changed. The anger and urgency ebbed away, leaving nothing behind but a kind of brittle weariness.
“Tomorrow. Supposed to be signed out around noon. So you’re coming?”
Through the half-open blinds, sunlight slanted into the poolhouse, slicing across Ryan’s face. He winced and turned his back. The answer shoved its way out, one spasm of the tongue and a single puff of air. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” Ryan heard a hollow shushing sound. He pictured his brother, shifting the handset to his other ear, anchoring it in place with a hunched shoulder while he lit a cigarette. “Okay. Look, Ry, I’m back in Chino. I, um, I hooked up with an old friend. You remember Angie?” Ryan recalled the name, but it was just one in a long, faceless series. There was no person attached. Trey coughed and continued, “Anyway, I’m stayin’ at her place. You want, you could drive down tonight, crash on the couch--”
“I’m not driving.”
“Shit, I’m not saying you have to play chauffer. Whaddya think, that’s why I asked you to come, to give me a goddamn ride--” Trey fumbled to an abrupt stop. “Oh hell, little brother,” he amended heavily. “Is this because--? Fuck, never mind. I’ll borrow Angie’s car, come pick you up.”
“No,” Ryan answered, implacable. Tilting his head back, he squinted at the clock. His eyes followed the second hand as it jerked around the dial. “I’ll take a bus in the morning.”
He could almost hear Trey’s resigned shrug, his breath gusting around a lungful of smoke. “Yeah, whatever. Meet you at Tony’s Diner? Say around ten?”
“Ten o’clock,” Ryan confirmed.
“Ry?” Trey cleared his throat uncertainly. “I’ll be waiting.”
Neither brother said goodbye.
As Ryan hung up, he glanced at the answering machine. Its light blinked, reminding him that he never turned it off. The whole conversation had been recorded. If he wanted, he could play it all again, try to figure out where the trap had been set, how he had been lured back inside.
Instead, he pressed “erase.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bus was almost empty when Ryan boarded it the next morning. Several people got off in Newport-day laborers, he assumed, noting their worn clothes and sturdy, thick-soled shoes, so similar to his own-but he was the only person who climbed on for the return trip.
He made his way to the back and fell into a seat, shifting over so he could lean against the window. Next to him, air hissed from a vent that snaked along the wall. Chilly and stale, it smelled like loneliness. Ryan shivered. He zipped his hoodie, huddled into its soft folds, and willed himself not to worry, or remember, or feel.
All he wanted to do was ride the bus, let its fitful rhythm lull him into oblivion.
He didn’t want to think about anything.
Not about how he had lied to the Cohens so glibly, with such guileless, disquieting ease.
I got a day’s work on a construction crew. Sure I can, I’m fine. No, not in Newport. Thanks anyway, but I’ve got a ride.
Not about their faces: Sandy’s troubled eyes, the creases around Kirsten’s mouth, Seth’s forlorn expression as he waved goodbye.
Are you sure, kid? You don’t need to work. Sweetie, I'm not sure you're ready. I wish you'd reconsider. Then I guess I’ll see you when you get home, dude.
Not about the sick, roiling sensation that had woken him before two, so that he thrashed sleeplessly the rest of the night, 400 count Egyptian cotton sheets twisted around his bare legs.
And not about the images that hounded him in the dark: Trey, blood, fists, police cars, his father’s jaw tensing with fury, his upraised hands.
Especially not about those.
The bus turned inland, and Ryan clenched his eyes shut. Even behind his lids, he could sense the light outside start to change, clear to murky, sheer gold to hazy yellow-gray. He concentrated on counting the stops, pressing his nails into his thigh each time the door sighed open, listening to the disjointed noises that filtered in from the street. As long as he focused on those sounds, fragments of other people’s lives, he could forget his own. He could enjoy the pretense of being no one, and nowhere at all.
It was peaceful, riding the bus, the way Ryan imagined resting in a hammock would be, swaying suspended between trees.
In space, out of time, between realities.
Between the Cohens and the Atwoods. No guilt, no responsibilities, no perilous expectations.
But then the bus wheezed to another shuddering halt and Ryan’s fist closed.
Fifteen. The next stop would be his.
Reluctantly, his eyes fluttered open. Through the window, he recognized the slums of Chino: the grimy landscape, parched pockets of dying grass, buildings crowding the pavement, elbowing each other for room, cars jacked up on blocks, broken toys abandoned where they fell.
He made himself stand and walk to the exit, touch the sensor to claim that he wanted to get off. The doors groaned wearily as they opened and a rush of air, thick with exhaust, buffeted his face. Breathing through his teeth, Ryan braced himself and climbed off the bus. It idled in front of him, blocking his view, granting him another moment’s reprieve. Then the light changed, the bus lumbered away, and he saw his brother, already waiting across the street.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, something about his perspective, or the angle of his restive glance, but Trey seemed older, dimmer somehow than Ryan expected.
Head titled indolently, he lounged against a battered red sedan. He looked like a permanent fixture, as though he had watched there forever and would never move. But then Ryan stepped off the curb and Trey straightened with sudden, careless grace, lifting his chin and flicking away his cigarette. It cart-wheeled to the gutter, its lit end flashing red like the rotating light on a police car. Instinctively, Ryan veered sideways, grinding the burning stub under his boot before he crossed back to meet his brother.
Trey sucked in the corners of his mouth, his cords in his neck tensing. One hand started to reach toward Ryan. Abruptly, it changed direction, pulling back to knead the nape of his own neck instead. “So . . . you made it, bro,” he observed.
Ryan nodded warily. His gaze skittered over the car, the sidewalk, the chipped “No Parking” sign, the faded fold lines on his brother’s cuffs, the faint, familiar scar on the side of his wrist. Finally it settled on the flickering “EAT” sign behind his ear.
He couldn’t make himself look at Trey’s face.
“You wanna . . .?” Shrugging, Trey jerked his head back toward the cheap diner. “We got some time to kill before we have to go.”
“I guess,” Ryan murmured.
Dutifully, as he had done so often while they were growing up, he followed Trey into the restaurant. The dusky room reeked of used grease and salt, sweat and old clothes. Battered stools lined the counter. Rust flaked off their metal posts and matted tufts of cotton poked out from cracks on the green plastic seats. Still, Ryan passed them wistfully.
He wished they could sit there, separately, facing straight ahead, but Trey had already slung himself into a booth, his body slouched the way Ryan remembered, precariously close to the edge.
From somewhere long ago, he could hear voices: his own ten-year old treble, Trey’s proud new baritone.
“Why don’t you slide in, Trey? You got all that room.”
“Nah, this right here? This is where a guy wants to sit, LB.”
“Why?”
“Shit, Ry, think, why doncha? You sit on the outside, the waitress is grab-ass distance away every time she walks past. And when she leans over? You get the best titty-view in the house. Watch and learn, little brother. Watch and learn.”
Swallowing hard, Ryan slid in opposite Trey, shifting over until he could feel the wall. His eyes darted sideways, glancing off his brother’s, and finally fastening on the scuffed Formica table.
“Hungry?” Trey asked cautiously.
“No. I ate,” Ryan answered. He started to add ‘at home,’ but the words caught in his throat. “You can though,” he mumbled instead.
Trey’s jaw tightened, and his mouth compressed into a thin, flinty line. He sucked in a sharp breath, about to speak, when the waitress sauntered over, her hips swaying pertly under pink polyester.
“Morning, guys. I’m Stacy,” she crooned, dropping paper menus in front of them. “What can I get you?”
“Coffee. Black,” Ryan replied.
“That’s it? We got some really good cherry pie this morning. Blueberry too.” Stacy smiled, leaning forward. “Sure I can’t tempt you now?”
“He said coffee,” Trey snapped. “That’s all he wants, okay?”
A sinister current ran under his voice and Stacy rocked back. “Sorry. Black coffee,” she mumbled, scribbling on her order pad. “What about you?”
“The number four breakfast. No fucking juice, and make sure the eggs are runny.” Tossing the unused menus back at the waitress, Trey stretched out, staring an unspoken challenge as she retreated.
Ryan waited, eyes downcast, until Stacy was gone. “It wasn’t her fault, Trey,” he cautioned quietly.
“What?”
“What I said-that you could eat. I wasn’t . . . giving you permission.”
Trey buried his mouth behind a loose fist. A strangled oath oozed through his fingers. “I know that,” he muttered. “It just sounded like . . . Fuck. Whatever, man.” Sliding his hand down, he scratched the scruff along his chin. “The Cohens give you a hard time about coming today?” he asked diffidently. “Figured they might try to change your mind. Or Mr. Cohen would show up with you.”
“They don’t know what I’m doing,” Ryan admitted, flushing.
“The hell?” Startled, Trey peered across the table. “Thought you were all about the truth, bro. So what, you keep secrets from them now?”
The “now” stung and Ryan flinched, recalling all the secrets he’d kept recently: his near-lethal fight with Volchok after the prom, the car theft he’d abetted, the blackmail money he’d paid, his feelings ever since Marissa’s body had slumped, lifeless in his arms. “They’ve been through enough on my account,” he explained tonelessly. The seam on his hoodie chafed and he stretched it away from his neck. “I didn’t want to put this on them too.”
Grabbing a napkin, Trey began to shred it into ragged bits. “Yeah. Probably better that way,” he agreed. “Keep them out of the Atwood shit this time.” His tone changed. It became tentative, as though he were picking his way through a minefield. So, Ry . . . you all right? I mean . . . since Marissa? You doing okay?”
Instantly, Ryan’s face shuttered. “I can’t talk to you about her.”
The diner door slammed open, and two men entered, calling greetings to Stacy. Their raucous laughter ricocheted throughout the room.
Trey leaned across the table, pitching his voice low. “Hell, man, you think I don’t know that?”
The words were raw, helpless and anguished. Ryan started, listening. He knew those emotions. His brother sounded the way he felt when he woke up every morning, every time he saw the sun glint on the water, every time a smile died, half-formed on his lips.
“I was asking about you,” Trey continued. “I worry about you, all right?” He snorted and shook his head. Balling up the scattered bits of napkin, he flung them on the floor. “Yeah, how fucked-up is that?”
Ryan sucked in a shaky breath. “Trey. Let’s just . . . not,” he pleaded. “Not now, okay?”
As he spoke Stacy reappeared, grim-faced, with their coffee. Taking his with a quick, contrite smile, Ryan drained half the contents in one swallow. He set the cup down, tracing its rim with one thumb, his gaze boring through the dark liquid.
“What do you suppose he wants?” he blurted. Somehow he couldn’t form the word “Dad.”
Trey’s eyes flickered, dark gray into light. “Hell, little brother,” he sighed. “Ask me something I can answer.”
Unbidden, Ryan’s mind conjured a distant memory: His father, raging into the house, yanking Trey off the living room floor.
“You think I want to come home to that fucking mess outside, Trey? Figure I like falling over your goddamn bike? Next time you leave that heap of junk on the sidewalk, I’m throwing it in the trash. Throw you in after it, you worthless little shit.”
Instantly, a string of images followed, the last events Ryan could recall clearly before his father’s arrest. Like film, they unspooled into a forgotten home movie, grainy, distorted, and true: ten-year-old Trey entering a novelty shop, his walk already almost a swagger, scarcely waiting for Ryan who trotted three steps behind.
“What do you think Dad will want, Trey?”
“Don’t know, and don’t care. Mom’s stupid if she thinks a lameass Father’s Day Gift is gonna make him happy. Like he fucking deserves one anyway.”
“But we should get him one right? Because he’s our dad?”
Trey rolled his eyes. Without answering, he hauled Ryan down the aisle toward a display marked “Fun Gifts for Father’s Day!” The counters held an array of cheap items: shoehorn backscratchers, trophies that proclaimed “#1 Dad,” shot classes inscribed, “Here’s to You, Pop!”
Uncertainly, Ryan picked up a key chain with the word “DAD” formed from interlocked stars.
“Would he like this, maybe?” he asked.
Ignoring him, Trey stared at a stack of cards. Ryan’s gaze followed. One box was open, with a single card propped on top. It had a shimmery surface, like water in sunlight, but its picture was unexciting: just a plain woman wearing glasses, hair scraped into a tight bun, white blouse buttoned to her chin, sitting primly at a table. Looking at it, Ryan didn’t understand why his brother’s mouth puckered into a sly upside-down grin. Then Trey touched the card, one slight flick of his thumb, and the image changed. Like magic, the woman was leaning over the table, her breasts arched and spilling out of a tiny black bra, her hair cascading in golden waves. Above her head flashed an invitation: “Hey big boy, wanna play?”
Trey’s eyes glinted hungrily. “Look innocent,” he ordered, spinning Ryan around, and knocking down a “Best Dad” award at the same time.
“Sorry!” he called to the glowering clerk. “It’s my little brother. He’s clumsy sometimes. Don’t worry, I’ll get it!”
Ryan blinked, stunned, his blue eyes glistening, his blond hair shining halo-bright in the shaft of sun where Trey shoved him.
The clerk’s expression softened instantly. “Aw, don’t worry about it, sweetie pie,” she crooned. “No harm done.” Smiling reassurance, she gave a maternal sigh. “Aren’t you just the cutest little thing now? You want a piece of gum, sugar?”
Ryan started to shake his head no, but Trey elbowed him and he stumbled forward, stammering a shaky “Thank you.”
Trey’s lips curled in triumph. He waited until the woman was fishing for her pack of gum, then stooped down to retrieve the plaque, deftly pocketing a deck of cards at the same time. When Ryan scurried back, Trey rumpled his hair with elaborate affection, nodding at the clerk over his head, and pulling him close.
“Damn,” he whispered gleefully. “Hope you keep that baby face a long, long time, LB.”
Ryan lowered his voice to match his brother’s. “Are you gonna give those to Dad?”
“Hell, no,” Trey snorted. Scanning the shelves, he grinned suddenly, grabbed a framed certificate and thrust it into Ryan’s hands. “Here. We’ll get him this,” he announced.
Ryan squinted at the scrolled border, the elaborate black lettering. “University of Pay--Pater Family-Familias. Master of Fatherhood,” he sounded out dubiously. “What is it, Trey?”
“A joke diploma,” Trey explained with satisfaction. “See. It’s an MF degree. From the University of Family-ass. The perfect gift for dad.”
Biting his lip, Ryan shook his head. “You’ll make him mad,” he warned.
“Shit, LB, he’ll never even get the joke.”
“It doesn’t matter. He won’t like it.” Anxiously, Ryan searched the cheap display. At last he pointed to a baseball cap that proclaimed “MVP” and underneath “Most Valuable Pop.” “Maybe he’ll want that?” he suggested.
Trey groaned audibly. “Jeez, LB, don’t you get it by now? We’re never gonna be able to give Dad what he wants. No matter what we do, it’s gonna be wrong. It always is.”
The memory-film sputtered and then resumed jerkily: their father’s thick fingers tearing open flimsy wrapping paper, pulling out the baseball cap, holding it up like something dead and stinking.
“What the fuck is this?”
“A father’s day gift, babe!" Dawn laughed nervously, fingers fumbling with her cigarette lighter. "Isn’t that sweet, the boys got you something?”
Ryan stepped back, staggering into Trey as their father scowled at them. “What are you two, retards or something? You think I want crap like this? ‘MVP. Most Valuable Pop,’” he mocked in a singsong voice laced with acid. “Yeah, I’m fucking gonna wanna wear a candy-ass thing like that. How much did this junk cost anyway?” No one replied and he repeated ominously, “How much?”
“Four-fifty,” Trey muttered.
“Five bucks,” their father spat. “For this trash. Where’d you get the money?”
Trey’s breath hissed through his teeth but he didn’t answer. In the silence, Ryan’s uneasy gaze skittered from his brother to his father and back again. He ducked his head. “Mom gave it to us,” he admitted softly.
“Ry--” Dawn warned, blanching, but it was too late.
“Yeah? Mom gave it to you? And where the fuck you think she got it?” their father demanded. Swigging from his beer bottle, he wiped his mouth and raged on. “From me, that’s goddamn where. I get laid off and you little shits think I got money to waste on garbage like this? Hell, I knew your mother was stupid, but you’re supposed to be my kids. Maybe not, huh, Dawn? You been spreadin’ ‘em for somebody else? ‘Cause no way in hell I coulda fathered idiots like these two.”
Ryan locked his teeth on his lower lip to keep it from trembling. He could feel Trey stiffening beside him.
“Told you, LB,” he muttered.
Their father’s brows lowered, bristling. “What did you say, boy?”
“Nothing,” Trey claimed. The beer bottle slammed down, clamped in a sweaty fist, and he jerked, plunging a hand into his pocket. “Just-here,” he added hastily, pulling out the deck of cards and tossing it at his father. “We got you this too.”
Squinting skeptically, their dad caught the box and held it in his open palm. He nodded, his face dark with leering appreciation as the image changed. Dawn peeked over his shoulder, her own gaze widening, her mouth twitching slightly.
“Oh yeah,” he drawled, licking his lips. “Now this is what I call a goddamn gift. How much you pay for it?”
Trey’s chin lifted in challenge. “Nothing,” he admitted. “Not one cent.”
For a moment, their father glared at Trey and Ryan, his eyes a glassy, unreadable gray. Then he threw back his head, gargling a laugh deep in his throat. “About fucking time!” he exclaimed. “My boys finally get me something I want. And whaddya know? The damn price is right too.”
“Ry?”
Startled, Ryan shook his head. His brother’s voice sounded distorted, as though it was bubbling down to him deep underwater. When he managed to focus, Trey was staring at him, bemused, curling one corner of his mouth the way he used to when Ryan would read in the skimpy moonlight that filtered through their open window. The plate in front of him was empty except for a crust discarded among smears of congealing egg yolk.
“Sorry,” Ryan muttered. His mouth filled with bitter saliva and he swallowed, breathing hard. “You done?”
Trey’s eyes narrowed speculatively. He crumpled his unused napkin and wadded it into his coffee cup. “Yeah,” he replied. “Sure.” Tossing a few bills on the table, he swung out of the booth and waited as Ryan pushed himself to the edge. “So, little brother,” he prompted, blocking Ryan’s exit. “You work anything out?”
“What?”
“All that heavy thinking you were doing? You, me, dad? Figure out how you fit in to the whole fucking Atwood family?”
Startled, Ryan flushed, his gaze flickering up to his brother and dropping again guiltily.
“Trey--” he stammered. “That’s not . . .”
“Yeah it is.” Shrugging, Trey stepped aside, his tone tired but gentle, almost affectionate. “Told you, LB. We’re blood. I know how you feel . . . So. You ready to go see dear old dad?”
Ryan closed his eyes and opened them again. Slowly, carefully, he nodded. He stood up, his shoulder brushing Trey’s. Without either of them realizing it, he echoed his brother’s own resigned words, his fatalistic expression.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Sure.”
TBC