A TREE partially blocked the view of my front stoop from the sidewalk where the car dropped me, but I could still see someone’s pristine sneakers and legs stretched out on it as I approached. I sped up.
“Heeey.” A lackadaisical wave greeted me along with a thick Dublin accent.
I stopped short. “Declan?”
I didn’t know if I should be delighted or pissed off to see the lanky blond youth whose face lit up as he stumbled down the steps to embrace me. “Sorry for the surprise, Uncle Keelin. Didn’t know when I’d have another chance to see you.”
Declan was not one of my nephews. I wasn’t sure what Declan was to me anymore. “What are you doing here?” I hugged him back, then held him away from me. He smelled like a bar. His eyes were bloodshot. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Jet-lagged,” he lied. “Dad and I just got in today.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Declan.”
“Fine. I’m drunk,” he said firmly. “Dad’ll flip his shit.”
“I might flip my shit too. You’re fourteen.”
He shrugged, like I wasn’t as big a threat.
“Well, you’d better come inside,” I said.
“Thanks.”
As I opened the door, I sent a text to Travis to tell him I was home safe. Then I dialed a number I hadn’t used in years, so I could tell Paeder that I had his son.
Paeder didn’t pick up. I left a short message. When I turned back to Declan, I found him on a new set of stairs, the ones inside. Since he seemed to be on a step-to-step trajectory, I let him stay.
“Talk,” I said.
“Did you ring my dad?”
“Yes.”
He tugged me down beside him and clung to my arm, resting his head on me.
I sighed. “How much did you drink? And where were you drinking and who were you drinking with?”
“Dad left me in the hotel alone. I cleaned out the minibar.” He started laughing. I could picture Paeder’s reaction when he got the bill. Declan hugged my arm. “I miss you.” He looked around, although he couldn’t see much of my house from his position. “You look like you’re doing okay. Guess you don’t miss me, huh?”
“I do miss you, but I can’t exactly drop in on you.”
His eyes filled with tears. “I get it. I’ll go.”
I grabbed his wrist. “What do you know about why I stopped being in your dad’s and your lives?”
“Dad said you didn’t approve of my stepmum, and he told you if you weren’t going to be nice to her, you had to go.”
“That’s what he told you?” Paeder was so predictable. “Sounds like it was all my fault, then.” It would be so easy to tell him the truth, but it wasn’t my place to tell a kid his dad was a jackass. Kids had to figure that out on their own. “I need you to trust me that what happened is more complicated than your dad is saying. I loved you, Declan. I still love you.”
He frowned.
“I know it doesn’t sound like much and you think I should have made an effort, but I promise you, I couldn’t.”
“What, like, you weren’t allowed?” he sneered.
“Yeah.” I answered seriously, and his angry expression turned into confusion.
“I really can’t talk about it. You need to ask your dad.”
“He doesn’t tell me anything. He just gives me money.”
I figured it was time for a topic change before I let my surprise show. Paeder had always been close to the vest with his cash, but this could also be one of his controlling methods. He’d be annoyed about the minibar because he hadn’t preapproved it. It seemed Declan had figured that out.
“You hungry?”
“A little.”
“Well, let me feed you, then.” I got up, and he followed me into the kitchen. I’d wondered why Melvin hadn’t turned up to inspect Declan, but there he was, stretched out on the gas stovetop. That was his favorite place in the house. Once he was situated on the always-warm metal, he would stay there for hours. I scratched his head. “This is Melvin.”
Declan cautiously stretched his hand out. Melvin moved a micro inch to make contact. Now that we were both standing on the same level, I noticed Declan was a few inches taller than me. Probably still growing too. But his face was not yet mature.
“Does he move when you cook?” Declan asked.
“I move him. Why don’t you look in the refrigerator and see if there’s anything interesting to you?”
He did and pulled out the wine I’d shared with Travis. “No,” I said.
“Just kidding.” He put it back. Declan turned around with a Tupperware container in hand. “This looks promising.”
“You got it.” I made myself grin. He really was a smart, good boy, and I’d missed him. As I put the container in the microwave, I heard him yawn. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to bed instead? I’ve got a guest room ready.”
“Have you heard from my dad?”
“I only rang him a few minutes ago.”
He sat down at the table. I wondered if he’d chosen the same seat position he occupied at home. “I can’t remember where he said he was going tonight.”
“And Paeder thought you’d hang out in the hotel room all night watching TV?”
Declan shrugged. “It’s basically what I always do.”
I pulled the food out of the microwave, added a fork, and slid it over to him as I sat down. “Is this the first time you’ve snuck out?”
He didn’t meet my eyes before he started poking the heated spaghetti.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Look, it’s not like it matters, okay? He doesn’t care.”
“Of course he cares about you,” I snapped. “You’re the most important person in the world to him.”
“What would you know? You’re not in my life.” His face was red, and he looked just like Paeder.
“I’m sorry.” We were both quiet for a minute. His rough breathing filled the silence. I decided I had to be the one to speak first. “You know why he’s your dad, right? He told you?”
“Told me he used an egg donor and a surrogate,” Declan mumbled.
“There’s a bit more to it than that. After your dad divorced his first wife, Dianne, he started thinking about being a father, and he got scared that he might have a baby with someone and then the mother would leave him and take the baby. So he decided to find an egg donor and a surrogate so he could have a baby that was only his. Before you were born, Declan, your dad’s sole focus was on becoming your father. I remember him calling me to talk about it. I wasn’t sure if he should do it, but he was committed, and he did do it, and he proved me wrong. I never imagined he’d be more focused on something than he is to his music, but he’s that devoted to you.”
“You believe all that?” Declan asked. The shakiness in his voice wasn’t just from puberty.
“One hundred percent.”
In fact, it had been Paeder’s focus on fatherhood that had lured me back to him almost two years after I’d first walked out. He seemed like a different person, someone I could trust. He seemed like the man I’d fallen in love with. By that time, I was settled in New York and had started studying at NYU. Although we rekindled our friendship, Paeder and I didn’t start dating again until I graduated. I moved back to Ireland then because there was no way I’d risk a long-distance relationship with Paeder. Declan was too young to realize how tumultuous my position in his early life had been. Paeder and I were like a rubber band, seeing how far we’d stretch before snapping back together. Declan probably only remembered the last few years, when Paeder and I were steady sailing. Then he proposed to Amanda. After that betrayal, I returned to New York. That was also when I bought my house. Nothing says staying put like owning real estate.
Declan started crying. Tears welled and spilled, and he sniffled. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. I was too far away to touch him. So I got up because there was a child crying in front of me and I wasn’t going to sit there and watch it happen. When I hugged him, he sobbed against my chest. He mumbled “sorry” and a few other things I couldn’t understand.
“It’s okay.” I rubbed his back.
“I know the truth,” he hiccupped.
“Declan, he loves you.”
“No. The truth about why I never see you. He won’t let you, right? Because you’re gay and he’s a big fucking homophobe and, and—” His words disappeared in another round of sobs.
“What?” I pushed him away by the shoulders and held him at a distance. “What made you think that?”
“Because… because… I told him I liked a boy, and he told me it was a phase. But I know it’s not. He gets angry if I try to talk to him about it.”
“So you thought that’s why he and I don’t talk anymore?” I sighed. Geez, this kid.
He wiped his nose. “Well, isn’t it?”
I hugged him again. “I wasn’t happy when he got remarried. That’s the truth.”
“There was more, though, wasn’t there? Was he mean to you because you’re gay?”
“When I came out, your dad and Russell took a lot of residual crap that was aimed at me by a lot of angry people. They blocked me from it. I couldn’t have asked for two better guards. Two better friends.”
“If it’s okay by him for you to be gay, why isn’t it okay for me to be?”
There was so much I could tell him, but nothing without revealing Paeder’s secret. Maybe I should. Maybe Declan deserved to know the truth, especially since now Paeder’s denial had led to this. His secrets were making his son think there was something wrong with him.
“It’s okay by me,” I said.
“I want to stay here.”
“Declan, I don’t have any right to you. You can’t stay without your dad’s permission, and I don’t see that happening.”
“I don’t want to be with him. When we go home, I’ll go back to boarding school unless he makes me transfer.”
“To get you away from the boy you like?”
He nodded.
I checked my phone. Still nothing from Paeder. “Looks like you’ll be here tonight after all. There’s still a few good sleeping hours left. Do you want to finish eating? Or start eating? You haven’t done anything but poke it.”
“I’m not hungry anymore.” He wiped his nose again.
“Fair enough. Come on. I’ll show you where to crash. We can make a decision about the other stuff later.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Dec, when everything seems like shit, sometimes the best thing you can do is go to bed.”
He smiled, and it broke my heart. “Okay.”
Melvin followed, meowing for attention as we went upstairs. He probably missed Angie’s constant daytime presence. Declan yawned as I pointed out the bathroom and guest room to him. “I’ll find you some pajamas and lay them on the bed. There’s a new toothbrush above the sink you can use.”
“Thanks, Uncle Keelin.”
“Sleep in if you can,” I said.
He hugged me with one bony arm around my shoulders. “I’m really happy to see you again.”
“Me too.”
I laid a pair of my pajamas out as promised and went down the hall to my own room. It was almost five in the morning. I hoped Declan would be able to sleep, because I knew I wouldn’t. I could’ve killed Paeder. Declan might not know why his dad wasn’t answering the phone, but I had a good idea, because I’d been left alone plenty of nights myself, and I knew exactly what Paeder was out doing on those nights. I wondered who his bit-on-the-side in New York was these days. Did Amanda know his secrets? Or had he learned from past experience that wives didn’t like when their husbands fucked around, and kept it to himself?
I tried to imagine how he felt when Declan came out. Was it like a stab to the heart? Had he felt guilty? Had he been tempted, even for a millisecond, to be honest with his son before he’d let his lifetime of denial spill out and spread its filth over Declan?
Did he know what he was doing to this boy he treasured more than anything in the world?
I sent him text to tell him Declan was staying the night. I included my address in case he didn’t have it and told him to come in the morning.
We need to talk. Declan told me everything.
We’d see what he made of that. Paeder was about to be back in my life, whether either of us liked it.
As I held my phone’s negligible weight, I considering texting Travis, but I wanted to talk to him. He had said to call, after all. I had faith that we were on the road to something good, and I didn’t want Paeder’s crap interfering with that.
I sat down on my bed and rang him. “Did I wake you?”
“No, I was up. Thinking about you. Is your nephew all right?”
“He’s uh….” Suddenly I couldn’t do it, despite my intentions. I couldn’t say that my ex-boyfriend’s son was sleeping in my guest room and that his father, my ex-boyfriend, would be storming through my front door any moment, which would lead to an event I’d been bracing for since the last time I walked out of his home. How was I supposed to say that over the phone? “He’s sleeping over.”
“So everything’s good?” Travis asked.
“I just wanted to hear your voice. I know it’s stupid, but I….” God, fuck, my throat hitched. I was not going to cry. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long night. Morning. Whatever. I’ll hang up. Sorry.” My cheeks burned.
“I’m smiling so much right now,” Travis said.
“You… you are?”
“You are so into me!” he crowed.
I laughed, forgetting my embarrassment. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“I knew it! So, what are you wearing?”
“There’s a fourteen-year-old down the hall. I’m still fully dressed.”
“Point taken. So, instead of sexing you over the phone, I’m going to do the next best thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
I could hear his triumphant grin. “I’m going to tell you the narrative history of Boy Meets World, the best show ever. So settle in!”
I laughed. “Consider me settled.”
He started to talk, and I melted again.