I can’t change what I did or didn’t do, but I can change what happens tonight.
I’m doing this.
I bang on the door until my mom appears, bleary eyed, scraping her hair back away from her face, trying to corral it behind her ears. She’s wrapped a robe over her pajama set. She blinks as she pulls open the door. I’m supposed to be the considerate son. The kind that doesn’t come to their house in the middle of the night looking like a wild animal. I was the son who got good grades, listened to my parents, obeyed their rules, did all my chores the first time I was asked, had a part time job, never broke curfew, and never gave anyone a moment of trouble.
James was still their favorite kid anyway.
I choke back the bitterness lingering on my tongue. “Mom. Is Dad up?”
Her eyes widen. “No, but I’ll get him. What’s happened? Is it- oh god, did something happen to James?” Her face crumbles, tears immediately springing to her eyes.
I bite the inside of my cheek and ram my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Sort of. Not in that way. There was no accident or anything.”
She starts wringing her hands. I don’t want to be an asshole and sigh, but I do. Loudly. “Wake Dad up. I’ll make coffee.”
My parents buy the instant shit. They would never be bold enough to venture out into cappuccino or latte territory. I add heaped spoonfuls in the mugs to try and make it taste halfway decent.
“Neal.” Dad hasn’t put himself together. He clearly rolled out of bed and came directly to the kitchen. He wears the pajamas that Mom buys him. Always sets. Today’s are blue and white flannel even though it’s the middle of summer.
My parents have never once used my club name. I’ve let it slide with them. James too, because I swear to god, I really have tried to be the bigger person.
Fuck that so hard.
The only one who ever called me Wizard was Esme. I told her the first Christmas after patching into the club. She thought it was a great name. We stood on the porch as I was leaving for the night. She’d come outside for a breather, though she told everyone it was to see me off. She’d laughed, eyes sparkling like a reflection of the sky, even though it was cloudy that night, and told me it was the perfect name for me. I never told James. She did, a few months later, thinking he already knew. He literally texted me to tell me how stupid he thought it all was, including the ‘little boys’ club’ too.
Dad sits down heavily. His hair has been slate gray for years. Mom’s has far more silver strands than it used to. They both look tired. Maybe not just because I woke them up.
I wait for the water to boil, arms crossed. They shift uncomfortably at the table, casting each other concerned looks. I finally give up on my idea of waiting. This is killing them, and for the life of me, I can’t be hardhearted.
“James is in Mexico. I wanted to come and tell you myself. He ran up an obscene amount of debt with a loan shark. He borrowed money and owed it to several different casinos and a few very illegal bookies. He knew the debt was coming due and instead of asking anyone for help, he told Esme he was going away on business, got on a plane, and went straight to Mexico.”
I stop talking and look at them to see if they’re taking this in. “Esme and James have a joint checking account, but separate savings, and he cleaned out the one she couldn’t see. He paid for his ticket with his nearly maxed credit card. Wasn’t even sneaky about any of it, so of course I found him. This was after Esme called me, terrified out of her mind because the loan sharks called her. They couldn’t find James and he’d stopped answering, so they threatened her. They were gonna hold her accountable for the debt if he didn’t show.”
The saddest part of this whole thing is that I expect the exact glazed over stares that I get from both my parents. They don’t gape at me. Don’t shake their heads. They don’t start trembling, or fire off a hundred different questions. They stare at me, uncomprehending. There isn’t a world where their angel son does something thiswrong.
I pour hot water into the mugs and stir the shit. It’s hot as sin, but I bring the disgusting swill to my lips and drink anyway. It scalds my mouth, burning all the way down to my stomach, but not nearly as badly as my rage over the fact that this is playing out exactly as I thought it would.
“It was over two million dollars,” I state flatly. “Men like that don’t care that Esme is a woman. They would have harmed herhappily. James didn’t warn her or take her with him. He left her like she was trash, gave her up happily as a sacrifice for his mistakes. She came to me, the same wayhecould have. Myclubpaid the debt.”
Mom and Dad share the same blank look with each other. I see Dad’s eyebrows rise a fraction, and I know what he’s thinking.
Money transferred from one criminal organization to another.
They know all about the club. They know I don’t torture or murder people, that we don’t run hard drugs and never have, that we have rules about treating people fairly, especially women. They even know that the club has branched off into more legitimate ventures over the past few years.
There’s no thank you forthcoming from either of them. No gratitude. Only tense, painful silence that creeps under my skin and gnaws at my bones.
“Esme is finished with James. In all the years they’ve been together, he’s been chronically unfaithful. He’s shown her nothing but disrespect. Treated her worse than trash. When I talked to him, he called her a whore and wasn’t the least bit concerned that she could have been killed.”
It’s always been a thinly veiled secret that my parents don’t like Esme. She’s not the blonde airheaded trophy wife that they imagined for James. She doesn’t come from the kind of parents that they’d be proud to know. They’ve actually never made any effort at all to be friendly with Esme’s folks.
Mom lets out a long sigh followed by a tiny little gasp-cry and then she collapses. Maybe she’s been unravelling this whole time behind those glassy eyes. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and sobs quietly.
Dad’s hand shoots out and squeezes her shoulder. “It’s fine, Carolyn,” he says. “It’s all fine now. It’s been dealt with. James will come back home. We’ll get him help. He can move on. This is a fresh start. It’s a new beginning.”
I thought I needed a bit of time up on the roof with Esme earlier, but Dad’s words slam into me like dumping my bike over going a hundred miles an hour.
“A fresh start?” I sputter. “What about my club? This isn’t just a debt they’ll forgive.” That’s not necessarily true, but I’m not gonna let James get away with what he’s done. “James has to pay that money back.”
