Nick spent until after midnight getting his computer sorted. Deleting the cached images, running virus and malware scans, removing toolbars and extensions. The kid’s search was innocent enough. Big titties and happy thumpers. Normal even, if not behind schedule.
Nick got why Billy didn’t confess to the porn. What he couldn’t understand was why Billy didn’t tell him about his parents. How hard could it be to pass along that tidbit? Your mom and pop stopped by. The end.
How had he let it get this far? This distance with his parents. It was their hope he couldn’t face. Their unrelenting willingness to take his dropped crumbs of decency and turn them into a banquet. He’d rehearsed his confession a hundred times. A thousand times. His mantra before sleep and upon waking. It was me who started the fire. Me who was drunk. Me who destroyed the world you created. But the lies he told himself had long since taken over. Why hurt them this way? Why ruin their image of their perfect, only son, the boy they’d raised to be good, when the living, lying version was so pathetic in comparison?
Weekends together or how-you-doing phone chats had become too painful. He hadn’t even bothered to pass along his new number. He wanted them to give up.
The call came at a quarter past nine. He’d been barrelling towards Neesley at thirty kilometres over the speed limit. He’d already be late for his ten o’clock.
Your dad phoned, head office told him. An emergency, you need to call home right away.
Nick swerved into a farmer’s field access, picturing the worst. Ways their bodies could have betrayed them. A heart attack. Brain tumour. Breast cancer. Or a more sudden tragedy. A terrible fall. A collision with a freight train.
It hadn’t occurred to him the emergency could be his tight-lipped boy.
They were not dead or dying. Not fragile as they pelted him with a hailstorm of questions, their speaker phone clicking in and out as they talked over each other. Why didn’t you call, Nick? We’ve been waiting for your call. Why didn’t you tell us about Billy?
So they’d met him then? When?
It took some time to untangle the specifics. Apparently, they’d had a brief visit with Billy a few days before. Surely Billy told him they’d come? Surely Nick could have shared the news himself?
He had planned to, he assured them, but everything happened so fast. Billy was a surprise; he was still sorting it through.
His parents were now live-in caretakers for a large apartment complex in Edmonton, his dad patching drywall, changing furnace filters, fixing electrical and plumbing issues, while his mom organized socials in the activity room and soothed resident squabbles. Nick had an open invitation—We’d love you to come anytime, son—but he’d still never seen the place.
He answered each of their questions. No, he hadn’t kept in touch with Billy’s mother. No, she wasn’t that blonde girl from BC. Yes, he had money. Yes, he had milk in the fridge. No, Billy didn’t spend his days cooped up in the house. He had a summer painting job, nine to five most days, strict supervision. Yes, Billy had his own phone. Yes, he’d give them his number.
You were still a child, his mother said, removing any blame from his seventeen-year-old self. His father agreed.
They were seeing him as they knew him, playing out his back-to-school special, the one where his bright future stretched across the screen. They’d stayed stuck in the past, same as him, because of him, their feet cemented to the floor of their front-row seats.
It was a painful and awkward inquisition that lasted over an hour. He owed them that much.
“Billy’s a good kid, an excellent artist.” He found himself explaining Billy’s love for his grandma, his love of art and food, his quick wit and quirky sense of humour. The sun beat down on him in the cab of the truck, but he refused to open the window, as if he couldn’t bear for the cows to overhear.
His mother wanted to know what they had done to be shut out like this, a weariness in her voice that shamed him deeply. How many times had she asked herself that same question?
“Maybe you could come down,” he heard himself saying. “A Sunday sometime. Spend the day with us. Get to know your grandson.”
He could hear her sharp intake of breath. “Oh, that would be lovely, Nick. So lovely. We would love that.”
“When?” his father asked. “Which Sunday?”
He immediately regretted his guilt-driven invitation. “August sometime?”
“Which Sunday?” his father repeated.
The inevitability of it, their lives intersecting around his table, Billy tossed into their family’s baggage like a forgotten backpack. It scared the bejesus out of him.
“Which Sunday?” his father repeated for the third time.
He could hear static over the phone line, his mother’s voice cheery and far away. “I’m looking at the calendar. We’re free all Sundays in August except the nineteenth. We’ve got Sid and Margaret’s fortieth anniversary party. You remember them. The Jorgensons. Campsite eighteen. What about the seventh?”
Nick scrambled for more time. “How about the twenty-sixth.”
“It will be hard to wait that long,” she said. “But I’m writing it down now.”
His head pounded by the time they were done sorting dates and promises. He honked at the cows as he pulled away. He needed to reschedule the Neesley inspection, mumble some apology, but he rang Billy instead.
Billy picked up after a dozen rings, “Yeah, what’s up.” He sounded breathy and curt, like he had better things to do. Nick recognized it as that same holier-than-thou tone he’d used when he took his own parents’ calls.
“I’m on the ladder. Busy right now.”
“How’s Evie doing?”
“She’s busy too.” Muffled voices, likely residents bunched beneath his son to watch the paint dry. “You need to back up, Harvey, okay,” Billy was saying. “There’s a chair, see? Over there. That’s right.”
Nick gripped the steering wheel, tamping down his irritation. “Why didn’t you tell me my parents stopped by?”
Billy said nothing. A woman yelled in the distance, “Bingo in five minutes!”
“You still there? What the hell, Billy. Why didn’t you say anything? My mom and dad stopped by, and you couldn’t bother to tell me.”
Billy snorted. “Tell you? Maybe you shoulda told them about me. About your big mistake.”
Nick stared straight ahead at the empty road. Of all the mistakes he had made, Billy was the least of them.
“Yeah, I shoulda told them. That’s on me. And I was planning to, but you beat me to it. And you’re ass-backwards about the mistake part. You’re not that.”
“Whatever,” Billy mumbled. “That it?”
“Thinking we’ll have the leftover chicken for supper. With rice and broccoli.”
“I already ate the chicken.”
Nick sighed. He should start buying turkeys. “Your grandparents want to get to know you. We’ve got a date. I’ve invited them over.”
“Tonight?” Billy sounded alarmed. Like he could fall off his ladder.
“No, not tonight. Not until August. I’m giving you notice—courteously communicating—which is what people do when they live together. Tonight, we need to go over a few things with the computer. Stuff you should know before you do another search.”
“Um. Yeah. Okay,” Billy said, all cockiness gone.
Nick hung up, not satisfied exactly, but not torn up either. They could muddle through this, whatever this was.
Nick’s face lit up when he answered the ring. It was Sarah. Billy wanted to eavesdrop—maybe they were planning another Full Moon Pizza run—but Nick headed outside, letting the screen door slam. He held the phone to his ear, pacing back and forth in the yard like a dog on a chain.
Billy watched from the sink, scouring pots and the grunge around the faucet, giving himself reasons to stay at his post. At least it wasn’t Candace. Billy would just as soon not see her again.
Nick finally strode back in and handed Billy the phone, smiling. “Sarah wants to ask you something.”
Billy wiped his wet hand on his jeans. “What’s up, Sarah?”
Could he babysit? It would be a huge favour, she knew. But the daycare lady had a tooth infection, and she couldn’t afford to miss more work. Could he manage one day away from his painting? He could watch TV if he wanted, and she’d have lunch in the fridge, and she would pick up snacks tonight, and Carter had a bike and of course a helmet and they could go bike-riding, but it would be up to him, and Carter could be a handful, but Nick said it was okay, and she’d pay going rates, and she’d rush straight home.
It poured out of her in one long string, and she was panting by the time she was finished. Nick looked on intently, mouthing the words, Say yes.
“Sure,” Billy said, wanting to laugh. She’d sounded so desperate.
“Really? Carter will be over the moon. His dream day come true.”
He could laugh at that. “Better than Lucy?”
“Way better. He adores you. And unlike Lucy, you’re toilet trained. So’s Carter, by the way.”
They talked through the when and where and the ways that Carter would try to bend the rules. No space diving off the headboard. And the apartment was a no-helmet zone. Sarah promised to keep an eye out for Evie and find ways to keep her busy.
After their goodbyes, Billy tried to hand the phone back to Nick, who clutched his wrist and wouldn’t let go.
“Thanks, Billy. You’re doing a good thing here.” He sounded as desperate as Sarah, like Billy had agreed to donate a kidney. What was up with the adults in his life? Although he did feel a bit off himself, a rumble in his gut. He’d never babysat before.
“And don’t take money from her, okay.” Nick finally gave him his hand back. “I’ll pay.” He dug into his back pocket and pulled out three twenties. “I’ll find you some toonies too. Travel allowance for incidentals. Slurpees and whatnot.”
“Yeah, okay.” Billy took the money happily.
“And Billy. Stay away from Prairie View tomorrow. Sarah’s got some shit going on over there. Carter needs to be out of the picture. Right?”
“What shit?”
“It’s just hard for her right now. Being a parent is hard.”
Like being a kid was a piece of cake.
Billy stuffed his backpack with markers, paints, brushes, sketchpads, and the flattened Tootsie Rolls that Candace had given him. He’d never been in an apartment building before. The stairwell was dank, and the fluorescent lighting buzzed and popped in her second-floor hallway. All it needed was that creepy music from a horror film, that um-dm-em, before the alien slithers down the wall.
But Sarah threw her door wide and Carter, still in his pyjama bottoms, dragged him noisily into their bright and lemony room. Sarah handed him her list of Helpful Hints and Contacts, a full page, front and back, while Carter yelled, “Go, Mom, you can go now.”
She hugged them tightly in turns, kissing them on their foreheads before she ran out the door.
Carter was off-the-charts excited. He hauled Billy from room to room, showing him where he slept, where his mom slept, where they kept the cornflakes and spoons, where they peed and brushed their teeth. He pulled out every toy in the box.
They battled behind the couch and hunted for treasure in the pillow caves, switching from bad guy to good guy for no reason.
Carter paused often to correct Billy on his sound effects. “You have to go like this when you shoot the laser—pew, pew, pew, pew,” or, “Bo doesn’t talk like that. Her skirt is her cape you know.”
Sarah called on her coffee break to see if they were both still alive. Nick called twice before lunch to find out the same thing.
By the time he got Carter wrangled into his chair in front of Sarah’s sandwiches and veggie dip, the apartment looked like a bomb had gone off—pillows, blankets, toys scattered everywhere.
Carter hadn’t shut up for a minute, even as he chewed through the carrot stick disappearing into the side of his mouth. He was still in his PJ bottoms, food scraps and milk drips plastered to his skinny bare chest.
Billy’s phone beeped between the ice cream and cookies. Another video from Nick’s mom, this one of Bear curled into a ball on a pillow, snoring loudly. The caption read. He’s bored. He wants you to come play with him. Cathy had sent a dozen videos: Bear dragging a frisbee out of a leaf pile; Bear in a top hat prancing on hind legs; Bear wearing sunglasses in the kiddy pool. He’d been a rescue dog, and Cathy and George loved him like a kid. Cathy had texted several times since Nick gave her his number, and while he sometimes laughed at her jokes before he meant to, he hadn’t asked for this family.
He pictured his real grandma, her lunch in front of her, surrounded by people wearing bibs, saying nothing at all. Until that moment, he hadn’t thought of her once all morning. It shocked him to think that he could forget about her so easily. Bit by bit, he was being pulled away. Now someone else reminded her to take her pills and brush her hair and open the curtains and look out at the world. Even Nick was in on it; he bought her toilet paper. Diapers. He found it confusing, all that relief mixed with guilt, like blending wrong colours and ending up with mud. He’d check on her on his way home, get right in her face, remind her he was Billy, and they were family.
After lunch, he had Carter dry dishes before they dismantled the war zone. He got him into shorts and a shirt. Got him to pee. Got him into runners instead of rainboots. Got on sunscreen and bug spray, despite Carter’s protests as predicted on page two of Sarah’s list. The helmet was no problem.
The kid was decent on a bike, slow and steady and old-man serious, and Billy only had to remind him a few times to keep his eyes straight ahead. They stayed on the sidewalks, stopping at every intersection whether there was a car or not, walking their bikes through the crosswalks.
The skate park was empty, like he’d hoped. It was a small concrete space with stairs and launch ramps, a concave bowl and snake runs, bright graffiti scattered in patches. They rode in a big circle along the outer edge of the concrete lip, then practised going in and out between the graffiti lightning bolts of the dips. Carter wanted to launch himself off the big ramp, but Billy said no, definitely not, small ramp only, which was barely two feet high. Billy’s stomach flipped every time Carter went up and over.
Carter loved each turn and twist, every small burst of speed. He was a superhero, a motorcycle cop, a cowboy on his stallion. They were both sticky with sweat by the time Billy forced a timeout.
He plunked them down in the grass beside the skateboard park sign and dug through his backpack, pulling out drinks and granola bars, sketchpads and markers.
Carter refused to take off his helmet as he sucked his juice box dry and crumpled it in his fist.
“See all the art around here?” Billy pointed to the graffiti balloons. He could do better. “Let’s do our own designs.”
He opened the sketchpad and drew Carter’s name in giant bubble letters, adding zigzags and borders and fishlike characters with huge eyes and teeth. “Why don’t you colour these, add your own shapes.”
Carter lay on his stomach and got to work, feet stuck in the air, mouth never stopping. Billy sketched a keyboard with skateboarders in poses on top of the keys.
They stayed at it a while, Carter’s page a rainbow of scribbling, his face spotted in every colour marker. A couple of teenage boys came rolling towards them, the plywood tail of their skateboards snapping against the black tarmac road. Billy stiffened as they wove in and out, flipping their boards into the air, as easy as breathing. He didn’t want to be caught colouring with a five-year-old.
“Time to pack up, Carter,” he said quickly.
But Carter waved frantically at the boys. They jumped off their boards and got up close. Billy stood slowly, ready to pull Carter behind him. But he found nothing menacing, just wide-eyed grins, normal teenage cluelessness and curiosity. The beefy one had an angry patch of road rash on his thigh and a smudge of dirt on his cheek. Billy guessed they were about his age.
“I like your helmets,” Carter said, looking up from one to the other.
Beefcake smiled. “Thanks. Yours too. Where’s your board?”
“I got a bike.”
The skinny guy with glasses took a long swig from his water bottle, then wiped the back of his hand across his open mouth, a railway track of metal braces glistening in the sun. He offered the bottle to the group. Carter started to reach out his hand, which Billy grabbed hold of.
“You guys brothers?” the skinny guy asked.
Carter laughed like the question was ridiculous. “No. He’s babysitting. Mrs. Brandon has a toothache.”
Beefcake nodded in sympathy. “I’m Ben, and this is Leo.”
“I’m Carter.”
Carter pointed to Billy, who had not yet managed to say a word. “That’s Billy. I can do jumps with my bike. I know all the traffic rules. I rode over here from over there. I’m a good drawer too. I can do my own designs.”
Leo laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. The kid could talk paint off a wall. The sketchbooks lay open on the grass, and he bent down and squinted at Billy’s skateboarders doing tricks along the keyboard. “Cool. I like your drawings. You’re really good.”
It was not an asshat observation. “Thanks,” Billy said, still unsure.
“Billy’s an artist,” Carter added helpfully. “That’s his job when he doesn’t have me. He paints murals. At Prairie View.”
“Prairie View?” Ben said.
Leo hit him in the ribs. “Duh. The old people’s home. Where Jacob’s grandma lives.” Then to Billy, “Really? You got a job?”
“Yeah. Well, just for the summer.” He hated his cracked voice. He sounded like a hamster.
“My mom works there,” Carter added. “She doesn’t paint. She vacuums.”
Ben picked up the sketchpad in his giant hands and studied it closely. “So you paint this kind of stuff on the old people’s walls?”
“Not exactly.” He checked for snark in Ben’s big face, couldn’t see it. “It’s more realistic. Like scenes. Hills, trees, trains, that kind of stuff.”
Ben nodded. “Cool.”
“So how come we’ve never seen you around?” Leo asked. “What school do you go to?”
Billy shrugged. “Just moved here.”
“So, Thomas Berkley Junior High,” Leo said. “It’s your only choice. It’s okay. As long as you don’t get Mrs. Deacon for homeroom. She’s a hardass.”
“I’m in grade one,” Carter interjected loudly, getting the focus back where it belonged. “Not now ’cause it’s summer. I’ve seen my room. It has the whole alphabet on the wall. And numbers too.”
Leo laughed, tapping the top of Carter’s helmet. “My mom runs a daycare for rug rats like you. I bet you’re five, right?”
Carter nodded, beaming.
“You should come round and meet the boys. We got a trampoline and a frog sandbox in the backyard.”
Carter tugged on Billy’s shorts, nearly pulling them down. “Can I, Billy?”
They all laughed.
“Fifth and Main,” Leo said. “Can’t miss it. Kids bellowing out back. Purple front door. Purple bench. Purple trees. Mom’s a purple freak.”
“Trust me, it’s a whole lot of purple,” Ben said, handing Billy the sketchpad. “See you around. Bring your board next time.” He backed away, Leo behind him.
Billy and Carter stood under the sign as the boys jumped on their boards and glided into the bowl. It was like watching a dance, from their flip tricks to their soaring air off the ramps. Billy could feel his fingers sketching their movements. Carter gawked with his mouth open.
They watched for a long time before Billy called it a day. They pedalled back to the apartment, mostly silent, Carter likely dreaming about skateboard tricks, Billy still going over the particulars. He’d met some kids, and despite his fumbling, it wasn’t awful.