Young Truths (Young Series) (5 page)

As I get myself back on track, my secretary Sandra buzzes to let me know I have a phone call from my sister. Rolling my eyes at the further distraction and hoping like hell the sister that’s decided to call is Claire rather than our older, bitchier sisters, I grab the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, you,” Claire says on the other end. “Am I interrupting something?”

I snort a laugh. “Would you actually care if you were?” I counter.

“Probably not,” she replies, her voice filled with amusement. “But I figured it would be rude not to ask.”

“Right,” I say wryly. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your angelic voice this afternoon?”

I expect her to come back with some witty, sarcastic retort, so when she sighs heavily, I’m instantly concerned. “Have you spoken to Mom and Dad recently?” she asks. I can hear the clicking of her lighter as she lights up a cigarette. “Like, within the last week or so?”

“No,” I say carefully. “I can’t say I have. Why? Did something happen?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Something’s up, though, and I can’t figure out what. Dad sounds sick and exhausted and Mom sounds completely stressed out. And every time I see Dad, he looks worse than the last time I saw him.”

I sigh heavily to myself and lean back in my chair. The last time I saw my father for more than a few minutes was on my wedding day and the second I saw him, I knew something was wrong. As a retired Naval officer, Paul Young always took incredible care of himself to the point of annoying the rest of us when he wasn’t deployed on some ship. The man only ever got a cold a handful of times that I remember and always refused to see a doctor, no matter how much my mother nagged him. Then there was the day Bonnie came to visit me at work to tell me about her illness and before she left, she said something along the lines of hoping my father was feeling better. When I looked at her cluelessly, she backtracked, making up some excuse about having seen him at the grocery store. We both knew I knew it was bullshit and since then, my wheels have been turning. Knowing about Bonnie’s illness gives away a huge hint on where she’s seen my father—the only place they could have possible run into one another is the cancer treatment center about halfway between my house and my parents’. I’ve kept my suspicions to myself until I could get more information and now my sister, the queen of getting information out of me since she was three years old, is fishing for answers.

“You know something,” she states quietly. It’s my silence that’s given me away. “Don’t you?”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I try to think of a way to get myself out of this. After all, right now everything I know I speculation and hearsay. “I don’t know anything concrete,” I say slowly.

“But you suspect,” she counters immediately. “Matt, what the hell is going on?”

I curse mentally at my predicament and tell my sister what little I’ve worked out. If I don’t tell her now, she’ll just show up here or at home and pry it out of me anyway. “This stays between us,” I tell her firmly once I’ve finished. “I mean that, Claire. I don’t know enough for us to start harassing answers out of Dad and until I do, confronting him is only going to make matters worse.”

She’s been silent for several minutes and I imagine she’s in shock. “Cancer?” she whispers.

“That’s my theory,” I say softly. “He and Bonnie would never run into one another unless it was something to do with Samantha and me—I mean, it’s not like they’re in the same social circles, is it? And with how ill he looks every time I see him, it fits.”

“Fuck,” she breathes. “Why wouldn’t he tell us?”

I roll my eyes at her, even though she can’t see me. “Claire, when has he ever shared the details of his health with us?” I ask her. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he hasn’t even told Mom. Speaking of which, don’t you dare bring this up with her. I could be dead wrong about all of this and if she doesn’t know, it’s only going to cause contention between them.”

She exhales heavily. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “I won’t say anything.” She’s silent for several long moments and I think more than once I hear the occasional sniffle on her end as though she’s crying. My baby sister has always held her own with everyone in her life, whether it
is our parents, me, our siblings, her husband, or the rest of the world. She has so many defenses to keep herself from seeming weak and vulnerable—sarcasm, humor, simply pretending she doesn’t care. It’s rare that she displays emotion to anyone aside from her husband and even then, I think she probably holds a lot back. I never know how to handle her when she gets like this—do I try to comfort her or just ignore it?

I hear her take a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking again. “How’s Sam?” she asks, her voice only slightly shaky.

I pause for a moment, uncertain how she switched subjects so quickly and whether I’m just supposed to play along. “Um, Sam’s good,” I begin cautiously. “Tyler’s birthday is this weekend so she’s focusing on that.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that. I assume you’re throwing some huge party that’s completely over the top for seven-year-old?” she asks teasingly.

I blink a few times at her words. “God, he’s going to be seven,” I say wistfully, smiling. “That’s insane. The day he was born seems like yesterday.”

“They grow up quickly,” Claire agrees wryly. “Before you know it, he’ll be graduating high school.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. It’s gotten easier to not dwell on the time I lost with my son, but it’s moments like this when I realize just how long five years really is. I’ve been doing everything possible to make things up to Tyler, even if he doesn’t understand why—he seems perfectly happy to have me in his life and for him, those five years mean nothing. “Anyway, we’re letting him decide what he wants to do. Once he does, I’ll let you know; I’m sure he’ll want the twins there.”

Claire and I chat for a few more minutes before I can hear a shrill scream in the background followed by breaking glass and my sister’s heavy sigh and grumbles under her breath. I hang up the phone, chuckling, and decide I’m not going to get anymore work done today. I pack away my things and head out of my office, locking the door behind me. Sandra’s already gone for the day—something about her son having an emergency dentist appointment after an accident involving a skateboard, a scooter, and a flight of concrete steps. If that’s what I have to look forward to with my children, I think I’ll love every minute—aside from them being in pain after biting right through their lip. They’re going to have everything I never had when I was young; most importantly, a father who is there for them rather than spending all his time working and barking out orders. With my realization that Tyler is growing up far too quickly, I suddenly feel as though my time with him is limited and I’d better make the most of it while I can.

Matthew has been distracted for two days now and I can’t figure out why. He came home from work the other night with a brooding expression on his face that hasn’t disappeared unless Tyler or I try to engage him in conversation. When we do manage to pull him from his thoughts, he forces a smile and pretends he hasn’t been a million miles away from us. I’ve tried asking what’s bothering him, but he deflects my concerns every time. The most I’ve gotten out of him is that he’s thinking about having dinner with his parents sometime this week. My only theory is he’s worried about his father’s health. Since our wedding, we’ve only seen Paul Young a couple times and every time, he looks more ill than the last time.

Only a few months ago, I would have been perfectly happy to pretend my father-in-law didn’t exist. To say we have a rocky relationship would be like saying I’ve put on a few pounds during my pregnancy—a major understatement. He never liked me, never thought I was good enough for his only son, and he tried everything to be rid of me, including an attempted bribe of half a million dollars if I left Matthew. More recently, while Matthew was presumed dead, Paul threatened to take me to court to get me out of his son’s home, despite his will that clearly stated Matthew wanted Tyler and me to live there if something happened to him. He’s never had a nice thing to say to me. At least not until my wedding day. Out of nowhere, he suddenly regretted his treatment of me and apologized for his past behavior before telling me he’d like to get to know me. Since then, the few times I’ve seen him, he’s initiated conversation with me and seems genuinely interested in what I have to say, and for the first time since I met him, he’s actually genuinely smiled at me. It’s all been a little odd, actually.

Not for the first time, I think Paul’s sudden change of heart towards me is the action and behavior of a man on his death bed. If that is the case, he hasn’t seen fit to inform Matthew. Until he does, I’ll keep my concerns to myself, if for no other reason than I don’t want to upset my husband with my belief that his father is dying. I know what it’s like to live with that sort of knowledge, knowing your parent is sick and in pain and that there’s nothing that can be done about it. I don’t want him to ever feel like that. Matthew isn’t stupid by any means; if he hasn’t figured something out by now, he’s intentionally blinding himself to whatever it is. It’s how my brother Jimmy dealt with our mother’s illness until she had to spend her last several days in the hospital. His realization of what was happening was sudden and I don’t think he’s fully recovered from that, even ten years later.

Tonight, though, Matthew seems to be determined to forget whatever troubles are on his mind. Currently, he’s cooking dinner for us, despite my protests about his probability of burning down the house. I think he might have actually been genuinely hurt at my lack of confidence in his cooking abilities. After all, he prepared an incredibly delicious meal for us when Tom, Tyler, and I first came to stay with him.

While we wait, I watch Tyler once again running all around the house playing some imaginary game with Bandit. Of everything that’s gone on over the last several months, I’ve been most worried about how things would affect my son. In a matter of weeks, he was uprooted from his home, school, and what few friends he had. I was amazed at how quickly he adapted to living in Matthew’s home and how easily the two of them connected. Tyler worships the air Matthew breathes and vice versa, and there is nothing Matthew wouldn’t do for him. Or for me. Or for our unborn daughter. He’s proved that time and time again. With everything we’ve been through, despite it being caused by Matthew’s bad business dealings, he’s managed to get us out of trouble each time. Knowing I was leaving him when he got Tyler back from Natalie and Frank Marone, he didn’t hesitate in keeping his promises. Tyler was back in my arms within hours, completely unscathed. He had his nightmares for a few weeks, but he’s mostly recovered from those—there’s an occasional night when we feel him crawling into our bed between us because he’s scared. Matthew has handled those instances as well as he handles everything else: with finesse I could never hope to possess. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with Tyler, I knew Matthew would be an incredible father, despite his fears that he’d do nothing but screw up at every turn. And I was right. Even losing five years with Tyler didn’t deter him for long. Tyler has him wrapped around his little finger, and they both know it, but while Matthew has no problem spoiling his son, he doesn’t let Tyler take advantage of that. I don’t want Tyler growing up thinking he can do and get whatever he wants just because his father is successful.

“Mom?”

I look down and find Tyler has climbed up beside me and is looking at me inquisitively. “Yes, baby?” I reply, putting an arm around him and pull him against me.

He hesitates, his brow furrowing as he looks at Bandit who is now chasing his tail on the floor. “I miss Tom.”

I freeze. Actually I’m a little surprised it’s taken this long for him to bring up this subject. For most of his life, Tom was a constant in my son’s life and I know Tyler considered him a father figure, just as Tom considered Tyler to be his son as far as that was possible. Tom had this idea in mind that he and I would get married, he would adopt Tyler, and we would expand our family. And that probably would have happened if Matthew hadn’t turned up when he had. Tom came to the realization when Matthew flew us out here that no matter what he did, he’d never be able to replace Matthew in my life. I hated seeing the hurt on his face before he left, when I’d given him back the engagement ring I’d been carrying around for a year while I tried to decide if I could marry him and I still rather guilty for how things ended, but I couldn’t let him keep thinking we had a future together the way he’d always envisioned. Tom knows me well and I think he knew the minute Matthew walked back into my life that things would never be the same between us. My heart has always belonged to Matthew and it’s glaringly obvious that will never change.

I still can’t believe Tom did what he did. Even if he was angry with Matthew for involving us in whatever danger had made itself known, I never thought he would betray us. Sitting in some little bar in town, Tom apparently allowed somebody to buy him a few drinks and started going on about Matthew and his work and the fact that Tyler and I were in the area, staying with Matthew. When Matthew found out, he kicked Tom out, shipped him home, and then shipped Tyler and me to Claire’s. I’ve only spoken to Tom a couple of times since I last saw him and both times, he sounded as well as expected for a man nursing a broken heart. He apologized repeatedly for the incident at the bar, claiming he’d hardly realized what he’d done until he was headed back to the house. I don’t know how true that is or whether he completely disregarded the safety of the woman he loved and the little boy he considered his son because he was pissed at Matthew. I do miss him—he was my best friend for so long and he took my son and me in without hesitation when we needed him—but I’m reluctant to reignite our friendship. Not only would Matthew be incredibly annoyed, but I’m not even sure I can trust Tom anymore...