Page 59

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

CLARA JUNE

The house is unusually calm when I come inside. The kitchen lights are set to low, and the place is spotless. I set my purse down on the ground, and drop my keys on the table, then kick off my sneakers.

“Guys?” I call, keeping my tone quiet still because it’s past eight and Archie is clearly already asleep. The house could not be this still if Archie was awake.

I make my way into the living room and stop when I see Tanner and Rawley sitting on the couch, in the dark, the TV on but muted, and the brightness turned low.

“Jesus,” I gasp, pressing my hand to my chest. “What are you guys going in here?” It’s clear that I startled Tanner. He smooths his hands through his hair, as if collecting himself, and Rawley gets to his feet, motioning for me to sit where he was sitting.

“Sit down, mom, we gotta talk to you.”

My heart rate skyrockets like the night I saw Tanner get hurt on the field. My hackles rise. The hairs on my neck stand on end. My stomach roils. “Where’s Archie? Is he okay? What’s going on?”

Rawley nearly forces me to sit as he says, “Archie’s just fine. Dean’s in with him now, getting him settled into bed.”

Knowing Archie is okay, paired with the mention of Dean, has some of the tension in my shoulders drifting, some of the angst in my veins cooling. I look between the boys, and the longer I’m in the room, the more my eyes adjust to the low light, and decipher their features.

Tanner has been crying.

Tanner didn’t cry when he broke his collarbone, hurt his shoulder or got his concussion. He didn’t cry the time he walked through a broken Christmas ornament trying to mimic the famous scene from Home Alone , the one that required four stitches in the bottom of his foot.

The tension is back, keeping my shoulders set. “What’s going on?” I reach for Tanner’s hand and Rawley’s hand at the same time, and weave our fingers together.

Rawley’s voice is level, even, cool and collected. “Troy came by a couple of hours ago. ”

Troy.

He hasn’t called Troy “dad” in years. I think after the first month Troy was gone, when Rawley was only twelve years old, he distanced himself from that title.

My heart plummets. “Okay…” I draw out, my mind reeling, trying to decide what to ask next. “Why?” Then, “what happened?”

“He came by to… get Tanner,” Rawley says, his eyes searching mine.

My hands begin to shake, but the boys squeeze them tight. “What do you mean, get Tanner?” A laugh slips out of me, because I am having trouble understanding, and my son is not something a stranger can get.

That’s who he is to us, a stranger.

“He saw the Leader articles,” Tanner says, his voice ragged and thin, and it breaks me in two hearing him that way. “He called me, pretended to be a scout.”

“He called Dean, too, pretending to be a scout,” Rawley says gently, aiming to ease Tanner’s soreness. “This isn’t your fault, Tanner. He came back because he’s a piece of shit that wanted to get rich off you.”

I shake my head, still unable to compute. “What happened? Start from the beginning.”

Rawley nods, and takes the reins. “Dean left to get groceries. We were gonna have a cookout tonight. He wanted us to go with him, but I was playing my game, Tanner was taking a nap and Archie was going to the bathroom. He left and like, five minutes later someone knocked at the door. Dean doesn’t have a key, so we figured that it was him trying to get back in because he like, forgot something or something like that.

Tanner got up, unlocked the door and pulled it open without even looking, but it wasn’t Dean, it was Troy. "

“He barged in, and before he said or did anything, I don’t know, it’s like… I knew,” Tanner says, bringing his hands to his stomach, twisting them up in his faded white t-shirt. “I was a complete baby and I just started screaming for Rawley.”

Rawley lets go of my hand, too, and moves to the other side of the couch, next to his brother.

He drops his arm around Tanner’s shoulders.

“Dude, you weren’t a baby. He barged in here after years of not seeing him, no phone call, no asking for permission.

All you did was call for me. Okay? And had I answered the door, I would have called for you, too. ”

Tanner nods, but I can see he isn’t fully convinced. “He said, I mean, it’s kind of a blur but he was basically like, I’m here to get you, I’m gonna take you back to my place and I’m gonna get you on the road to the NFL , all this shit, I don’t really remember.”

Rawley takes over, the proverbial baton passed when Tanner’s hands come to his neck and he begins pulling at it, stretching, uncomfortable and emotional.

“He kept telling Tanner that he is Tanner’s father and that he’s going to lead his career and make him rich.

He just kept saying get in the car, get in the car.

At this point I asked him to leave, and he spit on me.

Said to mind my business. Archie came out, and Troy looked at him like, I don’t know.

He just had this sadistic look and I grabbed him by the collar and tried to throw him out but he knocked the door with his foot and he just bounced off the door and lunged for Archie. ”

Rawley stops to take a break. My hands are shaking again. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I stare off into the living room, where Rawley is describing this terrible thing taking place, and I wait for him to finish.

“He held Arch by the wrists and said he’d hurt him if Tanner didn’t go. And then, Dean came home.”

“He came in and told Troy to let go of Archie, then he lunged at him. Troy hit him, I don’t even know, a few times? Two at least?” Tanner rubs over his eye. “He’s got a good shiner.”

Rawley nods. “He let Troy hit him a few times, and when Troy tried to use the same move on him again, Dean played him and got him in a headlock. Troy let go of Archie, and then Dean told us to take Archie to Mrs. Salingers. He told us to go there too but I couldn’t leave him.”

Tanner continues, “I called 911, then I took Archie to Mrs. Salingers, and… when I came back, Dean had Troy on the lawn, out of the house. He was telling him to stop, to leave, but Troy kept threatening things. Dean kneed him in the dick just as the cops pulled up. Troy got arrested, and Dean sat with us while Officer Sterling took our statements.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know anything at this moment.

Rawley grimaces. “He had a knife. It was in his boot. I saw it when we were fighting. Dean didn’t hit him at all, and because Troy was armed, Officer Sterling says he’s looking at a lengthy prison sentence.”

He had a knife. Jesus Christ. “He had a knife? Oh Jesus," I breathe, my head woozy from the knowledge that I almost lost my entire life tonight, because of that piece of shit Troy.

“Dean handled it, and then when Officer Foster left, he brought us in and we all talked about what happened.” They tell me what Dean told them around the table, about why he wasn’t violent with Troy despite Troy being violent with him, about the way the three of them tried their best to help Archie understand when Archie doesn’t even know Troy, and told me how Dean said he’d be there for them to talk to about all of this at any point–today, tomorrow or years from now.

They also told me that after all this happened, I was just one hour shy of being off my shift, and Dean didn’t want the boys to call me and tell me, because he didn’t want me to drive upset.

I would have.

I would have hit the gas and sped here in tears, and it would have been dangerous. Dean was right about all of that.

“Are you both okay?” I ask, my entire body now fully trembling.

Rawley nods, and so does Tanner. “Yeah, Mom, we’re okay. We just wanted to tell you and we didn’t want you to get upset because…it’s handled.”

I drop my face to my hands. “This is my fault. He was calling. I should’ve gotten a restraining order, I just, I don’t know. I didn’t think he’d come back.”

“Hey, no one in this house did a damn thing wrong,” Dean’s voice feathers over me, and I look up with damp eyes to see him eating up the hallway, one hand braced on the wall, a knot of purples and pinks above his right eye, his cowboy hat gone.

He nods to the boys. “You guys should get some sleep. It’s been a long one. ”

I stand from the couch and hug them both for so long that Tanner says, “Okay, Mom.”

Rawley bumps knuckles with Dean as he passes by, and Tanner gives him a hug. Then I’m sobbing into my hands as Dean carries me down the hall, and sets me on the edge of my bed. He drops to a knee in front of me, forcing my hands away so that he can collect my face in his large, safe, palms.

“Shh, c’mon now, mama, don’t cry. I hate seeing you cry, please, don’t cry,” he says softly, soothingly, his gentle tone looping around my spine like silk, easing my frayed nerves.

I sniffle and wipe under my nose, then look at him.

He’s on one knee, but still, I have to look up slightly, because he’s such a big man.

“Your face, oh my god, and oh Dean, thank you. Thank you, Dean. Oh my god. If you hadn’t come back, if you wouldn’t have—I’m so sorry,” I say, rerouting my thanks to apologies.

Today was clearly traumatic, and just because Dean is an adult doesn’t mean it wasn’t traumatic for him, too.

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve known better, I should’ve–”

“You couldn’t have done anything, Clara June, you hear me?

You can’t get a restraining order on someone after a few phone calls.

And he’s never given you any reason to think he’d pull a stunt like this.

You could not anticipate that he’d try to kidnap one of the boys and be violent.

Listen to me, baby, alright? This was one of the situations that no one could predict, and right now, what the five of us need to do is be grateful that it worked in our favor.

Okay?” He kisses the tip of my nose, and each cheek, before nipping my lips.