“Come inside, Emery,” Noah said with surprising firmness.
Hazard dragged the bag up to the porch. Noah took it from him. He was skinny and tall, and he was wearing a matching pajama set with some sort of Star Wars character printed on them. He held the door and tilted his head for Hazard to go first, and then he followed him inside.
In the kitchen, Rebeca was making coffee. She was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and her dark hair was up in a ponytail. She had some sort of green gunk on her eyes. Upstairs, children’s voices told him that at least some of the six kids were awake.
“Did I wake them?”
“It’s been a weird night,” Rebeca said. “Sit down.”
“I’m sorry I woke them.”
“Emery, you didn’t wake them. Sit down.” When he didn’t move, she pressed him down onto a stool at the bar.
Noah cleared his throat. “You did kind of wake up Raquel, but only her.”
“Noah,” Rebeca said.
“What? He did.”
Hazard propped his elbows on the granite. He put his face in his hands. Coffee dripped and filled the air with its acrid smell. After a moment, he asked, “How much did you hear?”
“We just heard voices,” Noah said.
“Noah talked to—” Rebeca’s hesitation told him what he suspected. “To that young man. Last night.”
“He’s not my son.”
“Right.” Noah laughed nervously. “I mean, we knew that.”
“Oh my God,” Rebecca said under her breath.
“We did. We totally knew that.” Noah swallowed. Loudly. “What happened? I mean, I told him he could wait inside—here, I mean—if he wanted, but he said he wanted to talk to you as soon as you got home, and, um, yeah. What, like, happened?”
Hazard dropped his hands. “He, like, turned my husband against me, Noah. He, like, fucked up my entire life. That’s what, like, happened.”
“Hey, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like—I don’t know.” Noah rubbed a hand through his hair. He looked at his wife.
“Why don’t you make sure everybody’s getting ready for school?” Rebeca asked.
“Yeah,” Noah said. “Yeah, ok. Um, Emery, I’m sorry if I—I’m really sorry.”
Hazard closed his eyes. Footsteps moved away. The coffee dripped a few last drops, and then the only sounds were shrieks of protest from upstairs. The fridge door opened. Bottles clinked. Rebeca set something on the counter—milk, he guessed—and then came the sound of the carafe bumping a ceramic mug. Then came the sound of ceramic sliding on granite.
When he opened his eyes, a mug saying WORLD’S BEST DAD sat in front of him, three-quarters full of coffee. In spite of himself, he smiled. “I’m such an asshole.”
“It sounds like you’re exhausted and you walked into a really fraught situation,” Rebeca said as she leaned on the bar opposite him.
“I’m a terrible neighbor.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the parties and the loud music.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth again. When she lifted the jug of milk, he shook his head. Then he took a sip of the coffee.
“Want to talk about it?”
He tried. But he’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours, and he kept tangling the emotional threads of the story with the narrative sequence, his throat constricting when he tried to explain Somers taking the boy’s side. Finally he had to stop because his eyes were stinging and his face felt like it was being pricked with pins and needles. He sipped coffee for a while. He traced patterns in the granite.
“First thing, John loves you,” Rebeca said. “And he’s on your side.”
Hazard nodded.
“He is, Emery.”
His jaw cracked when he opened his mouth. “I know.”
“You get the paternity test, and you see what it tells you.”
“He’s in my house. Right now.”
“So call family services.”
Hazard blinked. He did a search, found the Jefferson City office, and placed the call. It went to a recorded message asking him to call back later.
“They’re not open yet.”
“Hold on. I did a panel with a social worker.” Rebeca grabbed her phone, scrolled through it for a minute, and then displayed it. The contact information was for Ramona Andrews. “She works around here; maybe she can tell you something.”
He didn’t have any luck with that call either, but at Rebeca’s prompting, he left a message. When he disconnected, he took a deep breath; some of the weight on his chest had eased.
“It’s going to be all right, Emery,” Rebeca said.
From the opening to the living room came the sound of someone clearing his throat. Hazard looked over. Somers leaned against the wall. He looked as tired as Hazard felt and, of course, because he was John-Henry Somerset, he still managed to look gorgeous, even with bags under his eyes and wearing a t-shirt and shorts and slides.
“I’m here for the firing squad,” Somers said. “Do I get a blindfold?”
“Hey,” Hazard said.
“Hey.”
“I’m going to leave you two alone for a minute,” Rebeca said. The shrieks from upstairs had changed to sounds of laughter, but it didn’t sound like much progress, if any, was being made toward getting ready for school. “If I’m not fast, he’ll promise them another Xbox.”
“Godspeed,” Somers said, and his smile when she bussed his cheek broke Hazard’s heart. So much weariness. And, of course, pain. Pain that Hazard had put there.
“I called family services,” Hazard said into the stillness between them. “And a social worker Rebeca knows. No one answered, so I left a message.”
Somers nodded. “I got him settled in the guest bedroom.”
“That was good of you.” Hazard had to stop and gather himself. “You’re always very kind.”
“Not always,” Somers said with a worn-out grin. “I’m sorry for how I handled that. I don’t like how I talked to you. I just—I felt like I was at the end of my rope, not that that’s an excuse. I can only imagine how much worse it is for you.”
Hazard nodded. “You were right. He’s a kid. We can’t put him out on the street.”
“This isn’t about being right or wrong, Ree.”
Hazard nodded again.
Somers came across the room and slid an arm around his shoulder. After a moment, Hazard let his head rest on Somers’s arm.
“Why don’t we go home?” Somers asked.
“Ok.”
“Before he steals all my Die Hards.”
“You noticed that too?”
“I guess if he takes them, I could buy the boxed set with all the extended editions and the director’s commentary. It wouldn’t be a totally bad thing.”