“Merc?”
He clears his throat. “Um, why are you asking? You do remember I beat Ross up, and that was why we ended up there in the first place, right? And then I beat him up again—”
“I know.”
A beat of silence goes by.
“I don’t regret it, you know,” he says, gravel in his voice. “Not for one second. He always was such an ass to all of us.”
“But you talked to him. You said so.” I consider how to ask him this. “Well, in between beating him up. You said you hung out with him, when we talked on the phone that day.”
“Shit, yeah, okay. We talked. So?”
“So what did you talk about?”
He hisses as if my question stings. “About shit. All sorts of stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Tati…” He sighs, capitulating. “About our families, okay? That’s what we talked about. Only thing we had in common, anyway, and even that… I mean, he talked about his dad a little. And I told him about Mom, and you. Just… just stuff. About our everyday lives, about shit going on at school…”
“What did he say about his dad?”
Another hiss. “What are you trying to do, Tati?”
I don’t know. I wish I did, I just know I can’t let this go, not yet. “Tell me.”
“Well, he didn’t come out and say it, not really, but his dad—our dad, Tati—is a motherfucker. He drinks, and hits whoever gets in his way, and you can bet your ass Ross was always in his way, living in the same house and all, growing up. What I kept thinking as he talked to me… you know what it was? That we were so lucky we never knew he was our dad, that he wasn’t living in our house. Damn lucky.”
I feel sick, but I’m not surprised. How could I be?
This is exactly what I expected to hear.
* * *
Matt leaves with Evan, and as planned Melissa and I sprawl on the sofa and watch cartoons, under a fort of small cushions and a blanket. It’s soothing, having her thin, warm body close to mine. It reminds me of my childhood when I’d do this exact same thing with Gigi and Merc, and pretend we were under siege from monsters, and eat Pop Tarts under the blanket.
Fun days.
Cole and Mary do it sometimes, too, but I’ve been so busy with classes and morning sickness these past months—morning sickness that wasn’t confined to mornings, sadly—that I haven’t been around them as much as I used to.
“Do you do this with your mom?” I ask Melissa when she turns away from the TV to grab another Pop Tart, her face smeared with chocolate.
“Mom is too busy.”
“What job does your mom do that keeps her so busy?”
“She’s a sales representative for a big company,” she says in her childish big-adult voice, her mouth full of Pop Tart. She licks her fingers.
I snicker. “I see. You love your mom, right? You miss her when she leaves you here with your Uncle Evan?”
“Yeah.” But her attention is back on the TV, and I lean back with a sigh.
I miss the kids. I know Matt must miss them like a limb of his own body. That he must have called home already to check up on them.
Just a few days and we’ll be back with them. But I want Melissa to be with her mom, I want Evan to be well and far from the garage, I want Ross to be far from Jasper and his temper, I want everything to be peaceful and nice and perfect.
God, could Gigi be right? Am I too emotional?