Page 131 of The Story of You

I was the acting general with Shane as my second. We chatted their plans over and made sure there were no holes. We asked the right questions because sometimes Darius and Asher—especially Asher—could get carried away.

Simon agonized over our plans until they’d come to fruition and made sure the four of us didn’t rip each other apart while we decided on any one plan.

We ran, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Father to finally find us and show up with some SWAT-team level crew to apprehend us, but after a year of running, we settled in an apartment in a town called Winchester River. It was two bedrooms, but a thousand square feet. We couldn’t believe our luck scoring a place like that. The building even had low-level security—you needed a key to enter the building—and it brought us some comfort. It was still in the shadier part of town, but better than we’d been living in. Those days had some lightness to them.

I was twenty. I’d found a job working as an assistant to a man I knew had hired me because he liked the look of me, but while flirtatious, he seemed to have boundaries and I enjoyed working for him, excited for how that job would build my resume. The job paid well and when I asked to be paid in cash, he only paused briefly to look me up and down before he agreed. He’d even given me a hefty bonus at Christmas, paid sick days—which I used when Oliver got sick—two weeks of paid holiday, and it was all around a pleasant place to work.

I thanked him by always showing up fifteen minutes early, never missing a day unless I absolutely had to, and performing at the top of my game whether it was organizing files or making him coffee.

He knew I had a child. I didn’t bother explaining the situation. What did it matter? Oliver was mine. It was true. It was all anyone needed to know, and it was important for him to know in case I was needed for an emergency.

Shane got a job on a local construction site working with a crew he liked.

We were currently making Darius and Asher finish school. Simon was too, but we didn’t have to make him. He was excited to finally be allowed to again. It already stressed him out that he was sixteen with only a seventh-grade education. They all had odd jobs as well, but the three of them (Simon, Darius, and Asher), took turns looking after Oliver while I worked.

I wanted Oliver to have “normal” or whatever semblance of normal I could give him. I didn’t have a fucking clue as to what “normal” was. Only a painted picture in my mind from earlier days with our parents. I used that. I tried to emulate what Father and Mama had created when we were the model family.

So, I’d be up by six am every morning, leaving Oliver curled up with Darius in our bed—we shared one large bed both due to cost and comfort, unable to be sure we were still together unless we could reach for one another in the night—so I could shower for work and have enough time to make a hearty breakfast for everyone.

By seven am, the sleepy little boy would make his way into the kitchen. That morning his Randall-blond hair stuck up like rooster feathers and he scowled as if the whole world had offended him. I gave him the “smile” he now calls my half-smile and waited until he’d climbed into a chair to investigate his mood.

He laid his head on the table as though he had planned on going back to sleep right there. He’d just turned five, but he acted like he was thirty-five.

I scrambled eggs and flipped bacon and toasted bread.

Finally, he sat up. “I don’t want to go to school, Baba.”

He wasn’t in school just yet. He wouldn’t enter Kindergarten until that September, but the school in this town offered a pre-school session for a few hours a morning. I thought it would be good for him. This was the first I’d heard that he didn’t like it. He’d nearly completed the whole year. The next week was the last week and then it ended for the summer.

“Why?”

“I don’t like the kids.”

I raised a brow. Were they bullying him? “Why?”

“They have parents, and I don’t. Why don’t I have parents, Baba?”

Every time he said something like that it killed me. For me and for him. In my head, I was his dad. I operated under that premise. It was only little instances like this that broke the spell.

I didn’t want to force my wish on him. I wanted him to have the choices I never had. That always influenced my answers when he asked questions. While I considered myself his dad, he might not.

It also reminded me I had nothing official to declare he was mine and it worried me. We’d been lucky so far, getting by with lies and charm. But one day someone was going to ask for real evidence that he was my son, and I wouldn’t have it. What would happen then?

“You have me, and you have Darius. You have Simon and Shane and even Asher. Some little boys and girls don’t even have that,” I said.

His lips twisted like Darius’s do when he doesn’t like an answer. “That’s the answer to a different question.”

He was smart like Darius too. He had young adults to keep up with. He never talked much like the other little kids. Just one of the many things I worried about. I set a plate of breakfast down for each of us so we could eat together. I drank coffee while he drank orange juice. I considered his question again.

“When you were born, Mama was very sick. She gave you to me. She placed you in my arms and said for me to take care of you. Isn’t that like having a mother?”

He shook his head. “No. It isn’t at all. Mothers are pretty, with long hair and kind eyes. You’re very handsome, Baba, but you aren’t pretty. You have short hair.”

I chuckled to myself. If only he knew how long my hair was. I decided to save the lesson about mothers with short hair and dads with long hair for another time.

“Oh? Am I at least kind?”

“To me.” He smiled. “But not to the others.”