Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

“Do I have to be a father?”

“What?”

“I mean, am I broken if I don’t want to?”

He glanced at me. “What’re you talking about?”

“People ask women who don’t have kids all the time, when are you going to have a baby? This happens to my friend Catherine on an almost daily basis. She’s a doctor, and her husband’s a composer, and they’re both at the top of their game, you know, but still it’s like they’re judged because they don’t have kids yet, and her most of all.”

“Which is a shitty double standard,” he advised me.

“It is because it’s like she’s less of a woman because she’s not a mother.”

He grunted.

“That’s crap.”

“Agreed.”

“But it’s the same for me because if I’m never a father, does that make me less?”

“I think people are a billion times more judgmental of a woman not having kids than if a man doesn’t.”

“No, I know, but still, people look at Eriq—that’s my friend Catherine’s husband—and whenever he plays with a kid or holds a baby, people say, oh, what a good father he’d be, he should have kids.”

He nodded. “I’ve heard that too.”

“Right? But see, maybe that ten or twenty minutes is all the nurturing any of us has in him.”

“Very possible,” he said. “Is that how it is for you?”

“I dunno, but I am certainly not ready to be anyone’s father. I can’t even fathom that level of responsibility.

“Yeah, join the club.”

We were both silent for a bit as we passed gutted, rotting buildings with broken windows and piles of garbage, small crowds of men clustered on stoops and in doorways, and the husks of abandoned cars and the ubiquitous graffiti.

“So, is that a yes on the foster parent thing? I mean, that’s helping, right? You don’t have to adopt the kids, just give them a secure place to be for a certain amount of time.”

I cleared my throat. “I was a ward of the state myself, so I’m not sure I’d make a great parent, foster or otherwise.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I think maybe certain people are made to be parents, and other people aren’t.”

“I get that.”

I turned to him. “Do you wanna be a dad?”

He thought a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Huh.”

“Why huh?”

“No, nothing, I just thought, with how you are, that being a parent wouldn’t be on your list.”

“‘With how I am’? The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

I gestured at him. “When I met you in Vegas, there was some hard living you were doing, according to your partner.”

He grunted.

“You’re saying that was a lie?”

“I’m saying that people change.”

It was true. Ian and I certainly had.

“Don’t you find that in life?” Redeker asked.

“I do.”

“So then I’m telling you things are different for me now.”

“And what brought on this epiphany?”

He shook his head.

“I’m guessing something to do with Callahan?”

He exhaled sharply. “I needed a fresh start. I can’t be what anyone needs unless I get my shit together.”

I was starting to get an idea of what had happened. “You ran away from him.”

“I’ve never run from anything in my life.”

Uh-huh. “So you thought, what, I don’t want to fuck up his life, so I’ll just go?”

“Is there going to be a social worker going with us on these visits, or are we doing them alone?” Redeker asked, completely ignoring the question I’d put to him.

“That won’t work.”

“Whatzat?”

“Changing the subject.”

He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t—this isn’t for you to fix, Jones, or for you to make me examine and do whatever. This is my deal with… it’s my life, yeah?”

It was, but I’d been where he was and lost so much time not diving into the deep end with Ian. I could see things so much clearer than he could, and if he’d only hear me out, then he wouldn’t be haunted like he looked now. He was missing his other half, but he was too bullheaded to know it. But was it my place to make him think about Callahan or what he was missing or… what…?

The ring caught my eye.

He was still yanking on his hair with his left hand, which bore a silver ring that was somehow familiar. It was shaped like the tentacle of an octopus, wide and tapering, both masculine and delicate at the same time. Then it hit me: the last time I’d seen Callahan, the same ring had been on his hand. But now it was with Redeker, entwined around his middle finger, and it was doubtful he was even aware of it. Instead, he wore it naturally, just as he did the love of his partner, without any awareness at all.

So he had Bodhi Callahan’s ring on his left hand. I needed to shut the hell up because one thing I did know was that everything happened for a reason, and even if he had no idea what was going on, I suspected his partner most certainly did.