Jane splays her hands on her legs, hair falling out of a pony. “Maybe we should check the Matterhorn. I heard him mentioning that ride.”
I also remember Moffy saying how he wanted to ride the Matterhorn before the day ended. I might not be Connor or even smart like my brother, but I’m not an idiot. She doesn’t really think her brother is there. Or else she would’ve mentioned Matterhorn from the moment Charlie went missing.
Jane stands.
I set a cold glare on the twelve-year-old.
Slowly, she returns to her seat. “He’ll find us. I’m sure of it,” Jane says confidently. “In the meantime, can’t we do something more?”
“You’re right. Let’s go. We can ride some rides, pretend you brother isn’t lost in a theme park where millions of people know him, and he doesn’t know a goddamn soul. Do you want some cotton candy with that?”
Jane’s shoulders just plummet, and Moffy nods to me like he understands. I don’t want them to think they’re like everyone else. Because they’re not.
They never fucking will be. The minute they forget there are people who could easily do them harm—who think about them while they stand unaware, vulnerable—that’s when everything will go to shit.
“We’re not leaving this room until…” I trail off as the door opens.
With a slowly falling mouth, Sulli mutters, “What the ever loving fuck.” That’s a new one—that I’ve never heard my brother say—but it’s accurate.
In walks a clean-cut, well-dressed nine-year-old, his eyes hidden behind black-as-night sunglasses, and when he lifts them to his brown hair, he casually takes in his surroundings. As though he expected all of this.
“Did I miss the party?” He lifts a gift shop bag. “I brought presents.” Charlie meets the ice in my eyes. Unaffected, he says like I’m not understanding, “That was a joke. I didn’t actually think there would be a party.”
To stop myself from spouting off something mean, I think about the good things.
He’s safe.
He found us.
Connor was right.
This isn’t my child. I don’t have to lecture him, give him some speech he won’t listen to, or punish him. That’s the king and queen’s job. So I gesture to Charlie. “You must’ve forgotten who your parents are—unless you just wanted to see your funeral.”
“My metaphorical funeral,” Charlie muses as he takes a seat next to Jane. “Will you cry for me, Uncle Loren? I’d cry for me.” From the way he speaks, fluidly, his voice like silk but filled with humor—the rest of the kids laugh.
I’m on edge.
“I’d weep for you, Charlie,” Jane says as Moffy draws an X on her hand.
Charlie kicks his foot on another chair, lounging, and he doesn’t have a single clue how high-strung Rose was from the moment he disappeared. How much Lily felt guilty for his journey to—where the hell did he go?
I cross my arms while Charlie pulls down his sunglasses and then rummages in his gift store bag. “For you.”
I’m unsure of who he’s talking to until he removes a Mickey Mouse hat and reaches out towards…my youngest son.
Xander is stitched on the back.
I swallow something down, maybe my anger.
My four-year-old clutches the hat, his lips upturning at the gift. Moffy helps his little brother fit on the mouse ears, the hat flattening his brown hair.
Coming from Connor Cobalt, I might question the complete sincerity—he obviously would have other motives. To appease us, calm tempers, but I’m almost positive that’s not Charlie’s intention.
I’ve seen him grab Winona’s hand before she crossed the street.
I’ve seen him help Xander secure his kneepads before he tried Moffy’s skateboard.
He’s kind with no expectations of receiving anything in return.
And he couldn’t care less if we stayed pissed, if we all hated him.
I test it. “Am I going to hear an apology?” I question sharply. It’d be hypocritical for me to ask for one. I don’t need any I’m sorrys when I handed those out like turds growing up.
Charlie thinks for a moment before saying, “‘I exist as I am, that is enough.’”
Off my confusion and what the fucking hell, Beckett says, “He quoted Walt Whitman.”
My head throbs. I press the heel of my palm to my temple. Then I think about what could’ve happened. All over again. How he left. How he was my responsibility. The room goes silent, my jaw clenched, amber eyes daggered.
Moffy covers his little brother’s ears with his hands, and then he whispers towards Charlie, “Dude, you’re fucked.” All our kids hear curse words, but they know not to say them at school—and I get it. I’m not with them, they might be saying fuck this and fuck that in fifth grade without my knowledge.
But Sulli is the only one who gets in trouble for swearing at Dalton Elementary, so the rest of them have a better time hiding it—or they just don’t curse.
Moffy also likes to reinforce the lenient don’t swear rule for his siblings, which is why he just “earmuffed” his little brother. He picked that up from Lily.
Charlie doesn’t remove his sunglasses, but his face is angled towards me.
He was your responsibility. I know.
I’d never forgive myself if something happened to Rose’s son.
“Charlie.” His name sounds like a goddamn curse on my lips. I exhale a tight breath, shifting my weight to my other foot. He’s nine. Connor might say it’s meaningless, but it means something to me. I’m in a position of authority, and I don’t want to make him feel small—but I can’t treat him like he’s as tall as me.
He fucked up.
“Don’t be like me,” I say curtly.
It must surprise him because he sits up. “How was I like you?”
“Uncaring about your own life.” Before he refutes, I care, I snap back, “You must not care about whether you live or die—because there are people who’d hurt you. Who’d want to lure you to places you’d never want to go.”
“I’m smarter than that, Uncle Loren.”
My face twists. It doesn’t matter how smart he is. He’s a nine-year-old boy, and that fact isn’t changing until he grows older. “Oh, so you can overpower two, three men? Maybe even women. All older than you. With what?”
“My words.”
“They gag you, they blindfold you—then what?” The kids are eerily quiet, but I’m not sugarcoating their reality. They’re getting older. They’re meeting the world too fast. I nod to Charlie. “I’m smarter than that. Tell that to every person with hands larger than yours. As they grab you. See if they care.”
Charlie goes rigid, shaking his head once, then twice. He stares at the ceiling. “I hate irrational people.”
But they exist. And how many times have we met them?
Christ. I take another breath, feeling the massive cement block I unloaded on them. Disneyland. We’re
in Disneyland. This is what happens when you bring a known villain to the party.
Kidding.
I’m not the villain, but I’m the kind of hero who forgets an overly happy theme song for the credits. I’m too bitter to be that sweet.
* * *
In a piggyback, I carry Lily out of the Star Tours 3-D motion simulator, my big brother and the older kids skipping ahead, talking about the attraction. We dropped Charlie off with his parents, and Xander asked softly if he could stay with Ben and Luna for a while.
After letting him go, Lil looked crestfallen in the most magical place in the world. I told her she was a sopping jellyfish that washed ashore my beach.
“You’re not too happy yourself,” she said and poked my forehead where my scowl formed.
“Have you forgotten me already, love? This is my normal face.” I gestured to my glare and then gave her a dry half-smile.
Lily eyed my lips. “I have not…forgotten.”
Then I whispered beside her ear, “Have you forgotten that you and me—we know what happiness feels like?” Her green eyes welled with years of victories. Victories that we’ve shared. Obstacles that we’ve hurdled.
So we’re not with our youngest kids for a couple hours at Disneyland.
It’s not even close to being the worst thing in our world.
Lily nodded firmly.
Now we exit the Star Wars simulator together, Lily riding piggyback, and we sing the theme song that we know and love. Not even a second through, and Moffy and Jane join in. Jane pumps her fist in the air like a sword.
Beckett and Sulli are talking down the hallway, disinterested. Some people quickly snap pictures of them, but they don’t pay attention. I try not to either.
“Duuh duuh da da da,” we sing.
Lily is so off-key that Ryke, nearby, keeps shaking his head like he has a migraine.
“Hey,” I snap in the middle of our song. “Don’t rag on my ‘puff.”
“I didn’t say a fucking thing.”
Moffy’s laughter and smile slowly die down, his gaze pinging questioningly to me, to his mom, to Ryke. I’m just messing with my older brother, but the look in my son’s eyes—it practically stops my fucking heart.