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He didn’t. They stared hard, each stubbornly refusing to give in to the other.
Finally, something in Eight’s expression softened. He didn’t let her go, but his force eased a bit. “I know I fucked it up. I’m trying to square things, Marce.”
“Why? Why now?”
He let her hand go. “Because … because … I don’t know. Because I feel it now.”
Marcella rested one cheek of her ass on the stool at his side. “That’s not how it works. You don’t get to flit in because you ‘feel it now.’” In addition to the snark in her voice, she made air quotes, really driving her contempt home. “What happens when you don’t feel it anymore? You ghost again? This is achildwe’re talking about.”
He said nothing his eyes couldn’t say.
And yeah, he looked lost and even a little vulnerable, but Marcella wasn’t fooled. “You told me you’d be a shit father, and you’ve proved your point handily. Are you saying you’d be a good father now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ajax is ten years old. Do you know how old he was the first time he asked why he didn’t have a daddy?”
Any vulnerability disappeared from Eight’s expression, and he sneered. “I don’t know. But I do know I still can’t believe you gave my kid that stupid fucking name.”
So much for the new and improved model. Just like every other time she’d tried to talk to him about this, he gave in to his true personality at the first real push.
Marcella stood up again. “The answer is two. Ajax was two years old the first time he asked why he didn’t have a daddy. For eight years, I’ve been trying to give him reasons that didn’t completely destroy any idea he might have to want to know you, should you ever decide to give a fuck. But guess what? Nothing I could say makes up for the damage you’ve done your damn self. He doesn’t need you, and more importantly, he doesn’t want you. He’s a smart kid and figured out all on his own that a man who doesn’t give a shit about him isn’t worth giving a shit about. So fuck off, Edgar. You were right—you’re a shit father. You’re not a father at all. You’re a sperm donor.”
With that, she walked away. When Eight shouted her name, she didn’t look back. When she heard a wet crash that was, no doubt, the gin and tonic hitting a wall or a post, she didn’t turn back.
Fuck that asshole all the way to hell.
~oOo~
It was typically late, or early, depending on one’s perspective, when Marcella got home that night. Yvonne, her younger sister, was asleep on the sofa. The TV was on, showing the home screen for Hulu. She’d been watchingBlack Sailswhen she’d conked out.
Raising Ajax had been a full-family enterprise from before he was born. Her mother, her sister and brother-in-law, and even her dad put their time in so Marcella could keep working. Yvonne and Chase had moved into the same apartment complex specifically so they could just hop over and be with him during Marcella’s late nights without disrupting anyone’s life overmuch.
Maybe it all would have been easier with a dad in the picture, but considering that the dad is question was Eight Ball, Marcella highly doubted it. No, they had it worked out just fine. Ajax was a happy kid with a good life. He did well in school, had good friends, played sports, and was completely surrounded by family who thought he hung the moon.
Even the question of his father, though it came up occasionally, didn’t seem to cause him damage. Around the Christmas when he was eight, he’d walked into the kitchen while she was baking cookies for his school party and announced, “It’s okay I don’t have a dad. I’ve got Paps and Uncle Chase, and they do everything a dad does. They want me. I don’t want anybody who doesn’t want me. That’s stupid, and I’m smart.”
He’d brought up the topic only a handful of times since, and each of those were incidental, sidelong comments, like remarking that a new kid in the complex didn’t have a dad, either.
So no, they had no need for a man named Eight Ball—he seriously wanted to say her son’s name was stupid? Him of all people?—in their lives. And they sure as shit didn’t need him to drop in and then drop back out the second he got whatever it was he suddenly thought he needed—or the second shit got a little bit real.
Shit wasalwaysreal with a kid.
Marcella went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of sweet tea and munch a handful of green grapes, and noticed a weird assortment of dishes on the drainer, including a rack of test tubes. Looked like her boy had gotten his food science kit out again.
At ten, Ajax was interested in almost everything. He loved science, and art, and books, and movies. He loved sports, and video games, and board games. He loved the zoo, and the planetarium. Bikes and skateboards, camping and hiking. No one thing captured his interest entirely. The world was a constant source of wonder and joy.
Marcella saw it as her mission in life to make sure he never had to lose that.
She went out and gave her sister’s shoulder a gentle shake.
Yvonne’s eyes popped open. After a blink and a stretch, she swung her legs off the sofa. “Hey.”
“Hey. Good night?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s always good with the Jaxman. We played mad scientist with that kit he got for his birthday. He made you a birthday present with it, so don’t get too nosy in his room for awhile.”
Marcella laughed and sat beside her sister. “Understood.”
