at Victor and asked, “And who is he? He looks familiar.”
When Victor stood up from the chair and felt around for the end of the bed, it
became apparent that he was blind. He smiled at the boy and said, “I’m a very good
friend of Carl’s. My name is Victor Briarwood. I’m the director of the homeless shelter
next to the alley where Carl found you. Have you ever been to the shelter before?”
The boy nodded and said, “Yes.” But he was staring at Carl the entire time.
“You’ve probably seen me there,” Victor said. The boy’s eyebrows went up. He looked into Carl’s eyes and asked, “Your name
is Carl?”
“My name is Carl Smite,” he said. “We met on Christmas Eve when you
delivered a sandwich to my employee.” Carl rubbed his jaw and looked down at his shoes.
“I’m sorry that it wasn’t the best first impression. I was very rude.”
The boy glared at him. “I remember. You’re the guy who refused to tip me on
Christmas Eve.”
When he said that, Victor gave Carl a confused look. Evidently, he hadn’t heard
about the mean, cheap side of Carl Smite.
Carl lifted his hands and said, “I’m sorry about that. It was wrong, and I’ll make it
up to you in the future. I promise.”
The boy looked back and forth between Victor and Carl. “Why would you be part
of my future? I don’t know either one of you. This is starting to freak me out.”
Carl took a deep breath and pressed his palm to his chest. He knew there was no
simple way to say this. “I’m your father. I knew your mother, Donna Fratelli. She was my
best friend.”
The boy’s eyes widened and he stared at Carl. “How do you know my mother’s
name? She was killed when I was a baby, and I never knew her. I only have some photos
and papers left.”
Carl smiled. “She was a good friend.”
“I knew her, too,” Victor said. “She was a wonderful person.”
The boy lowered his eyebrows. “If you’re my father, where were you all these
years? I’ve lived in foster homes all my life. My birth certificate doesn’t even list a father, just my mother. This doesn’t make sense.” He rested his head on the pillow and closed
his eyes. Each word he spoke seemed to be an effort.
“I didn’t know about you,” Carl said. “Your mother never told me she was going
to have a baby. I had no idea. I didn’t even know you were my son when you came into
the store on Christmas Eve. If I had known, I would have taken you to the hospital that
minute. You have to believe me.”
The boy’s voice was weak. “Okay, let me get this right. You’re saying that on the
same night you found me dying in an alley, you also found out, magically, that I was your
son, seriously.”
Carl shrugged his shoulders and turned away. “I don’t know what else to say. I
know it sounds odd. But I honestly can’t explain it to you. It was a miracle, and
sometimes you just have to believe in miracles and love and hope. Trust me, they all
exist.”
“Why didn’t my mother tell you she was having a baby?” the boy asked.
“She couldn’t tell me,” Carl said. “I stopped all contact with her, and I guess she
was too proud to come running after me. I’ll never know the exact reason. But I made a
mistake. I should have kept in touch with her. I’m so sorry I didn’t.”
Victor stepped closer. “Your mother also knew your father was gay, and he was in
love with me,” he said. “We had no way of knowing about you. It’s very long story that
we can explain later.”
“I know this is a lot to take in right now,” Carl said. “And you’re still very weak.
But I don’t want to lie to you. I could make up something, but I don’t want to. I want to
tell you the truth, always. And I want to be your father. I know I can’t make up for all the bad years with that horrible man named Bucky who abused you and locked you in closets,
but I can try to make the rest of your life better, starting right now. I’m here, and I’m
never going away again.”
The boy frowned. “How do you know about Bucky?”
“I can’t go into detail about that,” Carl said. “I only found out about Bucky and
the way you were treated very recently. If I had known
any
of this, I would have taken
you out of there.” He leaned forward and pressed his palms on the edge of the bed.
“Please believe me and trust me. It’s the best I can do right now. I’m sorry. Will you give
me this chance? Please?”
The boy looked at Victor and said. “You knew my mother, too.”
Victor nodded and said, “I wasn’t as close as Carl, but I knew her.”
“Are you both together, as a gay couple?” the boy asked.
Carl pressed his lips together and took a deep breath through his nose. “I hope
that’s not a problem, Carl,” he said. “We are a couple and we’re going to be a couple for
the rest of our lives.” He gave Victor a look and smiled. They hadn’t discussed the future
yet and he wasn’t sure if he was being presumptuous.
But Victor smiled and looked into Carl’s eyes. He said without hesitation, “We’re
never going to be apart again.”
The boy shrugged his shoulders. “I’m cool with that,” he said. “I’m not gay, but
I’m cool with gay guys. It’s just that it’s really hard to believe you’re my father, man.”
Carl smiled. “Look, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he said, “I’ll arrange to have
DNA tests done, and when there’s proof, I’ll take care of everything as far as getting full
legal custody. I’ve also talked to the doctor about getting you fitted for a new artificial leg. But for right now, let’s take it slowly. You’re tired and I only want what’s best for
you. All I ask is that you trust me. Will you do that?”
“I am really tired,” the boy said. “I think I want to sleep now for a while.”
Carl reached for his hand and squeezed it. “We’ll leave you alone and let you
rest.”
The boy tilted his head to the side and asked, “Will you be back later today? I’ve
never been in the hospital like this and it’s kind of creepy, you know.”
Carl smiled and squeezed his thin hand tighter. “I’ll be back in about three hours,
then I’ll stay until they kick me out.”
The boy nodded and closed his eyes. He was still so weak he could barely move
his legs to get comfortable.
On their way out the door, Carl touched Victor’s arm and turned back toward the
bed. “Is there anything I can bring for you when I come back?”
The boy’s eyelids went up halfway. “That tip you took from me on Christmas Eve
would be nice.”
Carl knew the kid was only joking. But he smiled and reached into his back
pocket. He pulled out his wallet, opened it up, and reached into the money compartment.
Then he crossed to the edge of the bed and placed three one-hundred-dollar bills in the
boy’s palm. He’d never given out that much cash to anyone in his entire life. He hadn’t
spent that much money on anything in months.
The boy lifted his arm and stared at the money with furrowed eyebrows. Then he
looked at Carl and whispered, “Aren’t you afraid someone might steal this from me?” Carl smiled. “It’s only money, Carl. You hold on to it, and when you get out of
here you can buy something you’ve always wanted.”
On the way out of the hospital, Carl asked Victor, “How do you think that went?”
Victor smiled and placed his palm on Carl’s back. “I think everything is going to
be fine,” he said.
Chapter Seventeen
One year later, Carl closed the antique shop early on Christmas Eve and packed
the trunk of his car with Christmas gifts. He’d considered closing the shop all day, but
Able thought it would be a public service to leave the door open until three in case
someone wanted a last-minute Christmas gift. So Carl agreed to remain open, then gave
Able the day off with a nice holiday bonus so he could do his charity work.
Carl placed the last Christmas package in the trunk of his car and turned to look at
the front door of his house. It was starting to snow and he wanted to get out of the city
before the roads became too dangerous. The Weather Channel had been predicting a
heavy snowfall. He saw his son, Carl Junior, open the door and step into the snow. “Be
careful. It’s getting slippery,” Carl shouted.
While Carl Junior shut the door and checked the lock, he shouted back, “I’m okay,
Dad. I know how to walk in the snow.” There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I’m a
big boy.”
Carl bit his bottom lip while he watched him cross to the car on the slippery
sidewalk. His son had grown taller and his body had filled out in the last year. With his
new artificial leg, it was almost impossible to notice his slight limp. He was carrying a
white shopping bag filled with gifts in one hand and a large green duffel bag with the
other. They were leaving the city that afternoon to spend the Christmas holidays in
Briarwood Manor with Victor, Able, and Joan. Carl had become very fond of Joan. Her
tearoom hadn’t done well that year, so Carl invested in her business as a Christmas gift. “I’ll put these in the back seat,” Carl said, taking the shopping bag and duffel bag
from his son. “There’s no more room in the trunk.” It was packed so tightly he could
barely shut the trunk lid.
On the way to Briarwood Manor, Carl Junior listened to music and Carl focused
on the wet road. The snow wasn’t heavy yet, but he couldn’t go as fast as he normally
would have. He kept glancing at his son and smiling. A year earlier, when he hated
everything about Christmas, he never could have imagined that his life would change so
much. In the last year, Carl had renovated his entire home, Carl Junior and Victor had
moved in with him, and now they were heading out to Briarwood Manor to spend
Christmas.
Nothing about these transitions had been simple, by any means. The first thing
Carl did was take care of the legal matters. He gained full legal custody of his son and
told the foster parents he thought they were despicable people. Carl wanted to press
charges against them for abuse, but young Carl didn’t want to go through the ordeal. So
Carl let it go and they started focusing on the future by forgiving the past.
Gaining Carl Junior’s trust, however, had kept Carl’s eyes open many nights. Carl
and Victor would sit up and talk until three or four in the morning, wondering what they
could do to make the boy feel more comfortable. Even after the DNA tests proved Carl
was his real father, the boy still didn’t trust him. All those years of being pushed around
and taking abuse had left him emotionally damaged. But it wasn’t irreparable damage.
Carl and Victor were patient, and eventually the walls the boy had been building for years
began to crumble. By Thanksgiving, Carl Junior was calling Carl Dad. Up until then, he
hadn’t been comfortable calling him anything. When Carl finally pulled up to the front gate at Briarwood Manor, he sighed and
said, “I haven’t spent Christmas here in many years. It feels very strange. I grew up here.
And there was a time when I never thought I’d be here again. Victor’s father threw me
out because I was gay.” The memory of Victor’s father throwing him out still caused his
stomach to turn. The sound of disgust in Victor’s father’s voice still haunted him at night
sometimes.
Carl Junior shrugged his shoulders and lowered the radio. “Don’t think about it,
Dad,” he said. “You’re gay, no big deal. You know who you are. And this is a great place.
I wish we could live here all the time instead of in the city.”
Carl smiled. He was proud of his son. “Maybe we will someday,” he said. “But
right now I have a business to run and people who depend on me, and Victor is still the
director of the homeless shelter. So we’ll have to be content to just enjoy weekends and
holidays out here. Besides, there wouldn’t be much privacy here. The house is a
residence now for a lot of people.”
In the past year, moving in with Carl hadn’t been the only change in Victor’s life.
In February, Victor had been contacted by his father’s lawyers. The father had suffered a
massive stroke, he’d been left paralyzed from the neck down, and had suffered so much
brain damage he didn’t recognize anyone. Victor’s mother had passed away five years
earlier, and the father had been living in Briarwood Manor alone. When a maid found the
old man lying on his bedroom floor, he’d been there for almost twenty-four hours.
The lawyers told Victor that his father had listed him in a will as his only heir and
he’d given him complete power of attorney. This meant that Briarwood Manor and the
father’s multimillion-dollar estate became Victor’s. At first, Victor sat back and clenched his fists. He refused to go to his father and he refused to communicate with his father’s
