He’s my family. All the guys there are, and I’m grateful for every one of them.
“Thanks, man,” I say before getting off the phone.
I want to go see her. I want her to tell me what her life has been like since that night before graduation, but I resist. I’ll have the opportunity soon enough.
The file Wren sent taunts me from my email account, and as much as I want her to tell me everything, waiting three to five days until the test results are back isn’t going to happen. Action has always been easier on my part even if that action may bring pain. Ignoring something has never made it easier. Things don’t just disappear when you ignore them, and I know this isn’t going to either.
I sit on the worn sofa, windows open to air the cigarette stench out of the house and start to scroll.
Tinley did move with her parents to Dallas thirteen years ago. She delivered Alejandro Cooper Holland at Medical City five short months after leaving Houston, meaning she was nearly four months pregnant when she left. It brings a million questions to mind. Did she know long before that night? Was she keeping it a secret because she was ashamed or afraid to tell me? Was she planning a surprise before her dad dropped the news about the new job?
The birth was uneventful with no complications and after a day in the hospital, she was able to bring him home. She stayed with her parents, making every doctor’s appointment that was scheduled, returning to work at a gas station only four weeks after the birth.
There’s not much information about Alex’s early life. There are no hospital visits, child protective cases, nor anything that would suggest he was abused by someone in her life. The images Wren forwarded from her mother’s online picture printing account make me tear up, regret coiling with the anger I can’t seem to let go of. A smiling, happy little boy is in photo after photo, cataloguing his first steps, first birthday. There are some of him playing in the mud in a small backyard, one of him staring up at a Christmas movie with a look of awe on his face.
Cooper Holland, Sr., the man who hated the sight of me, is also in several. In each one, a huge smile on his face as he played with, held, and watched his grandson. It eases my heart to know that even though the man hated me, he didn’t take that out on Alex. There’s nothing but love and devotion in his eyes in every single photo, and that makes the back of my eyes burn, knowing he was a better man than the one I was left with. My son has known love and happiness, and regardless that Tinley kept him a secret from me, I’m grateful to know he’s experienced those things.
Then I get to the part in her timeline that explains the loss of her father—a faulty beam and an unobservant crane operator taking him from them way too soon. Everything was downhill from there. Cooper died in February. By June, they lost the house in Dallas, her mother unable to keep up with the mortgage with her husband’s income gone. Mae Sheehan, Tinley’s maternal grandmother, owner of the house they’re currently living in, died in October, and they were in Houston by November of that year, living right back in the middle of the town I broke her heart to get her out of.
Alex was nearly seven when he lost his grandfather, and through sporadic pictures on that same account, I watch my son transition from the happy, smiling boy he once was to the sullen, pissed-off young man he is now.
There’s no proof of a man ever having been in Tinley’s life, but Wren sometimes likes to play God, and I wouldn’t put it past him to leave those pertinent pieces of information out of the file he sent me.
I move from the email app to text and fire one off to him.
Me: Is this everything you could find on her?
Wren: Every last bit.
Me: You aren’t hiding shit?
Wren: Why would I do that?
I don’t respond, knowing he hates it when he’s left unread.
Wren: I swear on Puff Daddy that I didn’t leave anything out.
I continue to look down at my phone without responding.
Wren: I swear, man. There is no husband or serious boyfriend. As far as I can see, she hasn’t really dated. She works an insane amount of hours and always has. She has no other children. No medical records of miscarriages. The woman isn’t even on birth control, so she probably isn’t having sex.
Knowing he dug that deep makes me growl at the device in my hand.
Wren: From the looks of it, she’s taking care of her sick mother and doesn’t have time for much more than that and your son.
Of course, the guy would make the same assumption I would, but also knowing him, he dug deep into my background and has somehow managed to compare my baby photos to the ones of Alex. I know how similar we look. Despite my granddad’s hatred of all things relating to my father, he was never bitter enough to cut me out of the photos I shared with my mother. Those are still intact in the worn leather-bound books on the coffee table.
I flip from text back to the file in email and continue reading, ignoring the string of buzzes from the texts he’s firing off at me.
Brooke Holland was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, and despite hope that she’d beat it, the invasive disease was still present on her scans. She’s had several rounds of chemo and radiation with no changes. It’s only a matter of time before Tinley loses her mother, and my son loses his only remaining grandparent. The blows keep coming one right after the other to this family. How she’s stayed standing this long, I’ll never know.
I want to jump in and rescue her. I want to put a protective bubble around both of them and shield them from any further pain, but I know it isn’t possible. Not only do I not have a cure for cancer, but there’s a very slim chance Tinley will ever trust me to keep her safe again. I destroyed that chance the night I broke her heart by telling her she was just a great piece of ass, one that I was tired of.
When my phone alarm goes off, telling me it’s time to hit the road for the paternity test, I spend the entire drive over wondering what type of butterfly effect my actions that night had on her life.
If I’d stayed, or asked her to stay, would things be different? If we were together when Alex was born, would that have somehow altered Cooper’s work schedule to the point he wasn’t at work that day the crane fell and ripped him from their lives? Would Cooper not dying mean that Brooke would have better insurance than the Medicare she’s currently on? Would that in turn give her more options for treatment?
Could all of this pain and suffering been avoided if I hadn’t thought I was doing the right thing by shoving her out of my life that night?
Did I cause all of this?
Chapter 6
Tinley
The second my phone buzzes in my pocket, my heart nearly stops. It’s been almost a week since Ignacio showed up on my mother’s front porch, and although the text message I sent him about the paternity test showed read, he hasn’t shown his face since.
The continued buzzing can mean one of two things. Either Alex is in trouble again or Ignacio got the test results.
Either way, it’s horrible news. I finish checking out the people in my line at work and tell my manager I’m going on break.
I never thought I’d breathe a sigh of relief at seeing a missed call from the school, but right now, that’s the lesser of two evils.
The front office receptionist seems slightly aggravated when I tell her I won’t be able to leave work early to pick Alex up since he’s been in another fight and suspended for three days this time. But she understands what it could cost me if I leave work early once again. She explains that he’ll be assigned in-school suspension until the end of the day.