“I know,” I say softly. “When trust has always felt like something dangerous, it’s hard to let go of that.”
I meet his vulnerability with my own. It isn’t difficult; he speaks a language I know by heart.
“I want to show you it doesn’t have to stay that way. With me, you’ll have a safe space to be yourself. Whatever we talk about stays between us. Erin won’t know. Jay won’t know. No one will.”
Trusting me is a terrifying bridge to cross. He thinks for a moment, then exhales and lets the tension go.
“It’ll take time. But I’ll try. I want to try.”
“I’m happy to hear that, Tom.”
I give him a moment to reflect. I don’t want to disturb whatever’s happening inside him, but there’s an opening here we can use to move forward.
“You mentioned Jay. Who is he to you?”
His first reaction is a cynical laugh.
Instinctive responses like that reveal more than whatever story comes afterward. Words are chosen, instinct is not.
Tom presses his palms against his eyes and slides them down his face.
“Jay is my brother. He’s everything to me.”
“What do you mean when you say everything?”
“From as far back as I can remember, Jay was the one taking care of me. Our mother…well, staying in one place was never her thing. She comes from a family of travelling showpeople and settling? Nah, impossible. But I get the constant urge to chase something new. I guess it’s in me too.”
The tension in his face softens as he talks.
“So yeah, I don’t blame her for running. But it was shit for Jay and my sister Cheryl. They had to pick up the pieces and take care of me.”
“And your father?” I ask carefully.
“My father was—surprise, surprise—an alcoholic. He disappeared to the pub every night after his shift at the docks. He wasn’t a bad man, just… drunk. He was never there.”
Tom flicks the memory away with a wave of his hand. He’s riding the spilling wave now, so I sit back and listen.
“The old man never provided for us. He died when I was… ten? I don’t remember. Fell with his drunken head between a ship and the quay. I’ll spare you the details, but he wasn’t a big loss in our lives.”
He clears his throat before continuing. “Well, the point is that Jay and my sister Cheryl acted like my parents from the time I was six. Jay was just a kid himself, but he took care of us. He never stopped, not even when we became famous. He made sure we were safe from the sharks in the music industry who tried to take advantage of us. He gave up his own music career to manage us so we could develop ourselves.”
The respect in Tom’s voice runs deeper than simple admiration.
“I’ll owe him for the rest of my life, but making him proud is hard sometimes.”
Hmm. That sounds like he’s caught between holding onto his own identity and living up to his brother’s expectations. Painfully familiar.
Jay sounds like an incredible person, but he had to grow up too fast, and a child being a parent? That twists the whole family dynamic.
“Jay means a lot to you, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow his way of doing things. You need to know you’re free to find your own way. Maybe it’s time to discover who you are beyond Jay’s protection.”
I watch Tom’s waterlines fill as he looks away. That’s enough for today.
I switch to small talk. Tom lets me. Tomorrow will give us a new day.
Chapter nine
Yosh
