My eyes dart to the metal house numbers nailed to the siding. Thisisthe address.
“Who’s askin?” he gruffs.
I outstretch my hand to him, and he stares at it as I announce who I am. “I’m Beau Burns, and I’m your son.”
His gaze doesn’t fly back to mine; he doesn’t put me under a microscope and analyze us for similarities.
“I don’t got any money; if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” he spits out, widening his feet, telling me a lot with just his stance.
I shake my head. “I don’t need money. My dad died last year and before he passed, he told me that he wasn’t my birth father.”
“Why’d he go and do that?” the man harrumphs.
I chuckle because I’m nervous and though I had low expectations on how this would go… thissomehowisn’t it. The front door to his home stands open and I can’t help but glance inside, stealing peaks of his arm chair and an orange cat perched on the foot rest. He snaps, noticing my gaze has gone to his private residence. He, apparently, doesn’t like it.
“Sorry,” I add quickly. “And I don’t know why he told me. I was hoping you could help me figure that out.”
Then we just stand there with Gerald staring at me and me staring at him. After an uncomfortable amount of time, he sizes me up; reads the Beau stitched across my chest, takes in my boots and peers around me to glare at my Tesla.
“I can prove it, if you, you know, don’t believe me,” I say, feeling like the tiniest speck of dirt in the universe.
Here I am, hat in hand, starved to know my own beginnings, and I’m offering proof when he should be proving to me he had a damn good reason to abandon me in the first place.
“I believe you.” Gerald’s eyes come to mine. “You look like her.”
“My mother?” I ask, my pulse skipping.
He nods.
“I never knew her.”
I think he rolls his eyes, but it happens so fast I’m not actually sure. “I know that.”
“How do you know?” I ask because… sadly, I know nothing. And I always got the impression that whatever Graham knew wasn’t much, either.
He snorts, irritated and somewhat evil. “I was there when it happened.” He pulls a toothpick from his breast pocket and fits it between his teeth, giving the end a disgusting little suck. “Died right in front of me during childbirth.”
Fuck. Maybe that’s why he gave me up? Maybe I reminded him of the woman he loved and lost. Even then… I can’t fucking imagine. Wouldn’t you hang on to the very last thing you had that reminded you of your person?I’mthat last thing and yet at twenty-six, we’ve never met ‘til now.
“I only know she’s deceased and her name was Carina Scott.”
He blows out a low whistle, pinching his toothpick so it doesn’t fall out. “Haven’t heard that name in years.” He brings his gaze back to mine and studies me while chewing the end of his toothpick. Finally he says, “what do you want, then?”
I don’t know how to answer that, so I say, “to know you.”
Again, he stares at me in a way that makes me wish I could unzip my skin, step out of it and hang it up. Anything to avoid those soul-searing eyes.
“Listen, Joe–”
“Beau,” I correct him, feeling affronted by everything that is Gerald Horsach.
“Right,” he says, about my name, like the correction of who I am is meaningless to him. “Me and Carina, we didn’t want to have a kid together. We just kinda did. And it was sad when shewent,but…” he looks off into the distance, watching trees dance in the breeze on what I assume is the back of his property. “I didn’t want to be a dad.” His eyes come back to mine. “And Istilldon’t.”
“I don’t need anything from you, Gerald. And I have a dad. Graham Burns is my father. I just… thought you’d have some inclination as to why he’d tell me about you before he died.”
Gerald shrugs.Fucking shrugs. As if the shit we are talking about is as casual as who won the football game ordo you know where my shoes are. I lift a hand to both stop things as well as to say goodbye.
“You know what, it’s okay. I guess I just wanted to meet you, Gerald, and I’m glad I did.” It’s not a lie, because Atti’s words trail back to me.It’s about who you are. Maybe that doesn’t mean who I came from but who I turned out to be.