“I know what you mean, baby.”
“Mom, don’t call me that.”
“Never,” I teased, giving him a loving kiss on the forehead, which he immediately wiped away.
“Who’s he? The lawyer?”
It wasn’t a bad guess, really. Tobias was wearing an expensive looking suit and talking on a cellphone, telling Clementine to bring the car around. His simple question brought up another much more difficult one. How was I going to tell him about Tobias? It really was a pretty odd situation that I was still trying to figure out myself in a lot of ways.
“He’s a friend,” I said, not sure of ‘boyfriend’ was not quite the right word and knowing for sure that ‘fuck-buddy’, while accurate, was a bit too truthful, “I-I live with him.”
“Why?”
“Well, remember me going on the show?”
“Yeah.”
“During the lockdown we had to do the show from inside. The hotel was closed, so I went to live with Tobias at his house. Then I had to deal with the trial and decided to stay around in town.”
“Are you going home?”
He didn’t say it, but ‘home’ was our apartment on Long Island. The one I had taken to after being released from the hospital and laid him in the crib my granddad had built for my mom, in the nursery that Mercy and I decorated ourselves with what little money we had.
“Tobias’s house is home now. We already had all our stuff sent over.”
“Oh,” Duncan said, deflating her so slightly.
I don’t think it was the loss of the apartment that really affected him. He was a Long Island baby and it was what was familiar to him. It was where all his friends were. Not to mention Mercy, who had acted as his ‘cool aunt’ all of his life.
“Will Mercy be there?”
“I don’t think so, baby, we—”
“It is a big house,” Tobias pointed out, “we could ask if she would like to.”
“Really?” Duncan and I asked in unison.
“Sure. Clementine already lives there in the east wing. She has her own entrance around the back.”
“Wow! You must be a millionaire!” Duncan enthused.
“Billionaire, actually.”
“You and the who and the what-what?” I asked, totally confused.
“You’ve seen my house.”
“I thought the network paid for it, you know, like, a perk or whatever.”
“Oh, I own the network too and a couple of others. Some cyber security firms, oh, and some very desirable property in Europe. I use my estate in France as a vacation home. It is literally a castle.”
“Cool!” Duncan said, looking like he might faint with sheer excitement.
“I know, right?”
“Can I live in a castle, mom?”
“I-I don’t -”
“Do you speak French?” Tobias asked, taking the lead again.
“No.”
“Well that could be troublesome, the castle being in France and all.”
“Oh.”
“I could see if I can find a castle in England,” Tobias offered, “though it would mean leaving New York.”
“Oh. Are there any castles in New York?” Duncan asked, ever the pillar of logic.
“Not that I know of,” Tobias confessed.
Clementine was there when we pulled up. The back door was wide open. Duncan broke away from us and leapt into the backseat, bouncing on the black, leather seat.
“Went well?” Clementine asked.
“All’s well that ends well,” Tobias replied.
I wasn’t sure what to expect as we drove back to the house. I figured Duncan would look out the window or pepper me or Tobias with twenty questions, never quite losing his inquisitiveness. What came as a surprise was his easy banter with Clementine, who kept up with his hyperactive enthusiasm with little trouble.
I thought he might swoon when we got to the house. He knew it was big but still hadn’t quite been expecting that, apparently. I hadn’t either and could certainly empathize. I wanted to tell him what was going on, but it didn’t feel like the right time. His father had just disappeared from his life again, and I didn’t know how he would react to another father figure, even as wonderful as Tobias clearly was. For the moment, he seemed happy just to be where we were.
“Which room is mine?”
“Anyone you want. Mine is first on the right at the top of the stairs.”
Duncan dashed off to look for a new room, mercifully not asking which room was mine. He could have already guessed what was going on. He certainly wasn’t naive. He knew, in a general sense, what people who lived together who weren’t family did. Or he was just so excited at the idea of living in a near mansion with a massive yard and a hedgerow that it never occurred to him to ask.
“There’s a library!” I heard Duncan call from somewhere on the second floor.
“A library?”
“Just a small one,” Tobias said.
“A small room with some shelves?”
“Two-thousand-foot square with a mezzanine.”
“Wow!”
“I like books,” Tobias shrugged.
“So does he!”
“We should get along fine,” he said.
“That would be great.”
“You should tell him,” Tobias said, knowingly.
He was right of course. It was awkward, but I was just putting off the inevitable and the longer I waited the more justifiably angry Duncan would be that I hadn’t told him before. Tobias briefly and gently touched my focal points, focusing on the positive. It helped.