Full Circle

“Finding you was easy.” He fastened eagerly on that half of my question. “I knew where you lived. And when I came here earlier, the guy next door heard me knocking and he told me you would likely be at the bar. And he gave me directions.” Heath started to say something else, swallowed hard, and then raised his eyes to meet mine and just asked it. “Are you drinking again, sir?”

“Jamison. No.” I didn’t elaborate. It was none of his business why I went and sat in front of those shelves of bottles two or three nights a week. Not his business or Toller’s.

“Okay.” He nodded like he accepted that.

Time to push for the answers I wanted. “You didn’t say why you’re here. Last I heard, Toller was in New York.” Although it had been well over a decade since I had let myself do a computer search for the man’s name.

“Yeah, we still live there.”

“Bite the bullet, kid. You didn’t come this far to give me a hard time about being in a bar.”

“No, I...” He dropped his gaze for a moment and then lifted his eyes. For a moment, despite being blue and not grey, his eyes looked just like Toller’s. “I need to talk to you. I need to know stuff. About my father. Stuff he said you know, but he won’t tell me.”

“Whoa.” I held up a hand. “Not my place to tell anyone Toller’s secrets, not even you. Damn it, kid, where did you come up with this harebrained scheme?”

Heath’s mouth twisted in wry amusement. “Dad told me to. He just didn’t think I’d take him up on it. We were fighting, arguing, you know, and he said he had reasons, good reasons. And I asked him to talk to me, explain it, not just put his foot down. And he said he couldn’t. He said, ‘Hell, the only person who could tell you the whole story is Jamie.’ So I said I was going to fucking go to Chicago and ask you, and he said, ‘Yeah, you do that.’ And so I did.” He managed to look pleased with himself and a little appalled at the same time.

“I’m missing something,” I said. “What were you fighting about?”

“I want to major in social work when I go to college. Dad told me over his dead body, and he wouldn’t pay for school if I was going to waste the opportunity on shit like that.”

Ah. Right.

“I don’t get it,” Heath said plaintively. “I just want to help people. You’d think he would get that, being a doctor and all. He says go into medicine, but I don’t have the brains for that. I just don’t.”

“What does your other dad, um, Tris, say?”

“He doesn’t get why Dad’s so set against it either. But he’ll never go against my Dad when he’s got his mind made up. Papa-Tris is kind of a mellow guy. He hates arguments.”

I nodded slowly. “So you packed a bag, got on a bus? Train? Or did you drive?”

“Bus. I have my license, but I don’t have my own car yet.”

“How old are you anyway?”

“Seventeen. I’ll be a senior next year. I should know what I want to do with my life.”

“Many seventeen-year-olds don’t,” I said mildly, buying time. My mind was racing through the options. I could send the kid away, send him back to Toller and his nice little family, and let them work it out on their own. It would be the easy thing, and ten years ago I would have done it in a heartbeat. But now I was reluctant. The thought of hearing about Toller, of maybe even calling him and hearing his voice, suddenly held as much appeal as pain. And the boy had come all this way. Seemed like maybe that was a sign things were ready to change.

I stared at Heath for a long time and he looked steadily back, biting his lip either from nerves or to keep from saying more. Finally I held out my hand. “I’ll talk to Toller. You have a cell?”

“Yeah.” He dug in his hip pocket. “You want me to call home?”

“Yep.” That would keep Toller’s number off my own phone, harder to dial again if...if... Heath handed me his phone and it was ringing.

Three tones and then a man’s voice on the other end. Older, deeper, a little more resonant and blurry with sleep but Toller. “Heath? Is there a problem?”

I swallowed hard, glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty. That would be eleven-thirty in New York. “It’s almost midnight,” I said, and my voice was steadier than I expected. “Do you know where your kids are?”

For a moment there was only the sound of breathing over the line, then Toller said hoarsely, “Jamie?”

“Yep.”

“This is Heath’s phone number.”

“So it is.”

“He didn’t.” I could hear the alertness coming back in Toller’s voice. “Oh, fuck, he did. Jamie, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I never figured he would actually track you down and show up on your doorstep.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, surprised to find it was true. “Thing is, he wants to hear stories of the old days. And I’m not sure what you want me to do with him.”

“I...shit, I don’t know. God, Jamie, it’s been so long. I hoped I’d get to talk to you again, but I would never have sent Heath... Damn it, put the kid on.”

I held out the phone. “Your father.” An odd warmth ran through me, saying that. Toller had a kid. It was...unexpected. Heath wasn’t saying much more than yes and no and I’m sorry into the phone. He looked contrite. I figured Toller was reaming him a new one. Then he said, I found him in a bar, and I thought I might do the reaming myself. After a minute he held it back to me. “He wants to talk to you again.”

“Damned stubborn kid.” I could hear pride and worry mingled in Toller’s voice. “Jamie, can you keep him overnight? You can stick him on a train back home in the morning. I’ll buy the ticket for him online and he can pick it up at the station.”

“What about his questions?”

Toller blew out a breath. “Did he say why he was asking?”

“You don’t want him to grow up to be a social worker. You would rather he sold his soul to the devil. He’s having a hard time understanding your point of view.”

“Something like that. Damn it, Jamie, I know it sounds unreasonable, but I can’t stand the thought of him putting all his youth and hope and energy into a system as fucked up and life-destroying as that.”

“But you won’t tell him why you have such a high opinion of his chosen field.”

“I should. I can’t.”

Still not healed, after all these years. I gentled my voice. It still came easy. “Toller, baby, do you really want me to do it?”

That baby echoed between us for a moment. Wrong, wrong thing to have said, but it had come to my lips with the tone. And Toller’s voice when he answered matched it, younger and unsure. “Would you? Not everything, Jamie. But enough for him to understand.”

“He said you’re married. And your husband didn’t get why you were so worked up about it either.”

“Not married yet. Although now it’s legal here, we’ll do the deed soon. But with one guy, yeah, fourteen years now. Tristan. And I’ve told him some of it. Enough, I thought.”

“Might want to make sure of that.”

There was a long pause. Then Toller said softly, “Still making me do the right thing, huh, Jamie. I’ll talk to Tris again. You talk to Heath. Tell him what he needs to hear. I trust you. I always have.”

Motherfucker. I held the phone out to Heath silently.

“Dad? Can I stay for a bit? Okay. Yeah I promise. I will. Tell Papa I’m sorry. Yeah, me too. Good night.” Heath pocketed his phone and eyed me uncertainly.

“So. It’s you and me kid, at least for a couple of days.”

“Dad said he’d buy me a ticket for Monday. So we have tomorrow to talk.”

I had the sudden impulse to call Toller back and ask him to make it longer, let me have this beautiful, young, unwounded boy around for a while. But by the time we were done talking, I might be ready to send him home. I nodded. “Come on. I’ll put sheets on the couch for you. Did you eat anything?”

“Had a sandwich on the way.” But he looked at me hopefully.

Seventeen. I’d been a bottomless pit at seventeen, and Toller... “Come on. I’ll dig out some leftovers before you crash for the night.”

A couple of hours later Heath was fast asleep on the couch, breathing deeply just on the edge of snoring. I sat in a chair by my bedroom window. Outside the street was quieter than daytime, but distant sirens and trucks and honking horns came and went. The music of my city. I listened to it with one ear cocked to that steady rhythm from the living room. Foolish really. Heath was strong and confident and whole. There was no need to listen for the uneven catch of breath, the whimpering movements that would signal a nightmare. Just old, deeply-buried habit, so easily resurrected.

In the morning I would have to decide what to tell Heath and what to keep back. How to make him understand Toller, without putting things in his head that would poison his image of his father. Tonight, though, tonight I would just remember it all. The good, the bad, and the fucking ugly. Toller Grange, and the days that he spent in my life...