AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except that his father was Eight. Could having a man like that in his life be good for him? How?
God, had she made a horrible, irreversible mistake? Would the right thing have been never to tell Ajax that Eight had been asking after him? She tried always to be honest and straight with her son, but parenting was also an intricate construction of lies, evasions, and prettied-up half truths, so ‘honest’ wasn’t precisely synonymous with ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’
Sometimes, parents told a little fib to avoid a temper tantrum, or to encourage a certain kind of behavior. Sometimes, they held back information because it could only do damage. Whole cultures of parents made up stories about fat men in red suits and fairies who sneaked in to trade coins for teeth and presented them as facts. For a million different reasons, in a million different ways, it could be good and right to hold back a truth, or to change it, to protect a child’s life. To make it better.
Should she have held back the truth about Eight? It wouldn’t even have required a lie—simply an omission.
Maybe. But it was too late now. She’d erred on the side of disclosure, and now Eight and Ajax had met, and Eight would be at his game this weekend, too.
Fuck.
Resolving to set all these worries aside until later, after Ajax was asleep, she turned to her son with a soft smile. “Well? What do you think?”
He clicked the seatbelt into place. “I don’t know. Can I think about it in my head first before I talk about it out loud?”
She really,reallywanted to be in her kid’s head right now, but she answered, “Of course, tiger. I’m here when you want to talk about it.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
He hadn’t called her Mama since kindergarten. Marcella reached over the console and grabbed her boy’s hand. “I love you, Ajax. You are my number-one and always will be.”
A smile spread across his beautiful face. “I know. I love you, too.”
~oOo~
“That’s him!” Ajax said as Marcella pulled into the soccer field parking lot.
Parked in a corner near the field, Eight sat astride his Harley. Oakleys on his face, kutte on his back, he frowned at his phone.
The spots on either side of him were open in the already crowded lot, as if his presence formed a force field. Marcella eased the CR-V into one of them. Ajax was already undoing his seatbelt before she could cut the engine.
She and Ajax had talked about Eight several times since their meal at The Roost, and Marcella was still an internal whirlwind, trying to grab ideas and truths and feelings as they flew wildly around inside her head.
Her son was excited about this—knowing his father. All these years of her trying to give him good answers to his questions, of trying to make his life so full he didn’t notice what was missing, of feeling sure he was better off without his particular father in his life; all these years of feeling relieved, and even confident, in the way he spoke of the matter—that he didn’t want a father who didn’t want him, that he had Paps and Uncle Chase and he didn’t need more—all these years, and now, after one meal with his father, it was blazingly obvious that Ajaxhadfelt the lack of him. All these years.
He’d peppered her with questions she hadn’t been able to answer. Questions about who Eight was. But Marcella barely knew the man, and what she did know, she didn’t think she should share with her son. Should she tell Ajax that his father was an ex-convict, that he’d killed a man? That the Brazen Bulls were outlaws, who broke the law on the regular? These things were certainly true, but what would it do to Ajax to know?
What would it do to the way Ajax thought ofherto know she’d made a child with a man like that?
Since she hadn’t been able to give him answers, Ajax had written a list of questions down—and had made another list of what he called ’10 Fun Facts about Ajax Malcolm Lewis’:
My birthday is May 10th. That makes me a Taurus. I don’t believe in astrology but my Aunt Vonny does.
I like every subject in school, but my favorite subject is science.
I have a pet leopard gecko named Spot. I want a puppy, too, but our apartment complex says no dogs.
I’m the striker for my soccer team. In baseball, I play first base. When I could play football, I was a running back. But then I got a broken leg, so I have to wait until I’m 13 to play football anymore.
I got a broken tibia in a tackle. Tibia is the shin bone. Broken legs suck. But I had 78 autographs on my cast. Mom let me keep it, even though it’s gross.
My favorite movie is Gremlins.
My favorite video game is Final Fantasy XV.
My favorite books are Fullmetal Alchemist series.
My favorite TV show is The Good Place.
