A Fatherhood Story
Wiley Could Not Believe His Eyes
A Fatherhood Story doesn’t always reflect long-range plans and fulfilled dreams. The most profound fatherhood experiences are in the surprise of discovery—a background story for my newest novel: Brothers Born.
Wiley could not believe his eyes. He blinked and then glared wide-eyed. Wearing only a grungy pair of sweatpants, he stood frozen in his apartment doorway and considered the tiny child wrapped in a bulky winter coat standing before him. The kid probably didn’t feel the cold swirling down the dim hallway, but Wiley did. His fingers ached to shut the door.
He could clearly hear the woman’s voice as it replayed in his head. Wiley Bortov? That you?
Just awoken from a sound sleep by the buzzer, Wiley hadn’t recognized the thin, tinny voice through the intercom system. It seemed vaguely familiar, but no name came to mind. Shaking his head in a vain hope that the child would dissolve like an unwanted dream, Wiley tried to remember what else the woman had said. I’ve got a package to deliver. Be a good man and look decent, okay?
Annoyed beyond measure at the insult to his character, if not his dress style, so early in the morning, Wiley had jerked open his apartment door ready to fling a few well-chosen words at his agonizer.
No woman in sight. Only an over-dressed little kid. The child wiped his nose with the back of a light brown hand, apparently waiting for permission to enter.
A shiver worked over Wiley as he craned his neck out the doorway. Swiveling it right and left didn’t change the dim, lonely hallway one bit. Empty and silent. No strident voice to explain the presence of a mysterious miniature man standing on his doorstep.
With no other thought than to shut out the chilly breeze, Wiley grabbed the front of the puffy coat, dragged the child inside, and slammed the door.
The hood fell backward, revealing a little boy’s head covered with dark locks of hair.
While slapping one hand against his lean, empty stomach, Wiley snapped his words. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
A shrug that lifted the puffy shoulders against the boy’s ears suggested a mystery that would not be solved before breakfast.
All through a simple repast of cold cereal and toast slathered in grape jelly, Wiley stared at the kid who perched on the edge of the stool at his counter as if he was quite used to strange people and strange places. The boy, not more than four, slurped his cereal clumsily and seemed to have difficulty keeping his toast balanced in his hand. It had dropped to the floor twice and each time the child stared patiently at Wiley, waiting for it to be replaced on the counter, as if that was the known procedure and Wiley was just a tad slow catching on.
The words Be a good man and look decent, okay? ringing in his ears, Wiley retreated to his bedroom and tugged on a sweater. He considered putting on shoes but didn’t want to get too formal. After all, the kid wasn’t staying. He’d call the cops and explain that some miscreant had abandoned a child on his doorstep. It was no business of his.
Wearing his puffy coat in the stiff way a medieval knight might wear armor, the boy shoved the last particle of toast into his mouth and then slid from the stool, nearly toppling to the floor.
Instinct kicking in, Wiley threw out a hand and tried to brace the child, but the boy shrugged him off and bounded over to the couch. He climbed up and flipped himself as only a limber child can into a comfy corner. He then folded his hands on his lap and stared at the blank television screen as if it might blink on at any moment.
After collecting the two milk-slopped bowls and setting them into the sink already accommodating an unwashed dinner plate, a bowl, cutlery, and a glass, Wiley fought a memory that insisted on filling his brain. Himself, at about age four, sitting on his father’s couch, waiting for his half-brother to turn on the television. He hardly ever saw his older brother, Kai, since they lived with their respective mothers. But a few times their father had cajoled visitation rights, and they had gathered together in a “guys’ night” and watched thrillers into the late hours and then fallen into uneasy sleep.
His father, Jano Malik Bortov, and his mother, Karina Sue Hale, were as different as two human beings could be, but it must have been the rule of “opposites attract” since Kai’s mother, Elya Ann Curran, broke the mold when it came to predictable human beings. Wiley was too young to understand the ramifications of a father with two very different mistresses who liked each other better than the father of their sons, but he did know that his half-brother treated him with kindness. As far as Wiley had been concerned, Kai was right out of a superhero movie and could be counted on to protect him during their parents’ frequent, sometimes violent, arguments.
The kid began to rock on the couch, a primate getting anxious and in need of comfort.
Wiley shook off the image of Kai turning on the television while he had hunkered down on his father’s old couch with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Taking a steadying gulp of air, he strode across the room and knelt in front of the boy, nearly touching the little feet that poked over the edge of the seat. “Your mom didn’t tell me your name.”
His face squished as if he’d just been told to eat a squid, the child shook his head. “Not my mom.”
Blinking rapidly to process this tidbit, Wiley grasped for something solid to hold onto. “What’s your name, son?”
“Tam.”
Wiley’s knees ached on the thin carpet. He dragged over a footstool and sat down, eye-level with the boy. “So, who brought you, Tam?”
“A friend. Mom got sick. She told her to bring me so my dad would take care of me.”
A lump the size of the Rock of Gibraltar lodged in Wiley’s throat. He practically gasped his next words. “Who—is—your—dad?”
When he narrowed his eyes, Tam resembled a troubled gnome. He sat up and poked his finger at Wiley. “You.”
The next three hours blurred in Wiley’s mind as he tugged the ridiculously huge coat off Tam’s body, turned on a cartoon channel, left the boy satisfied, washed the dishes like a mindless robot, meandered to his bedroom and had a mini-breakdown, stuffing his face into his pillow and groaning as loud as he dared, and then returned to see if the little guy was still in his apartment.
As Wiley considered the boy staring intently at the colorful action figures flying across the screen, the notion of calling the police fled into the stratosphere. He didn’t even notice it had gone. He just knew that he wouldn’t be able to breathe properly until he knew if the boy was actually his son.
A thousand lines of questions bubbled through his brain, but as a part-time driver for a package delivery system with more broken relationships behind him than he could count and an uncertain bank account, Wiley knew his strength had never been in logical decisions—only emotional ones.
After a hot shower, he returned to the kitchen counter fully dressed in a V-neck sweater over worn jeans, his black dress shoes announcing his decency to the world. He considered the kid for the hundredth time. It was nearly noon, and he had to make a decision. It being Saturday, he had a couple of days to think, but on Monday he’d have to call in sick at work until he made proper plans for the boy. Plans that would not involve the police or social services or any of the other horrors he had endured as a child when his mother overdosed and his father had disappeared. The memory of Kai’s mother carrying a cardboard box stuffed with his belongings to the first of a series of homes that would begin his miserable journey to manhood twisted his stomach into a hard knot. I won’t let that happen. Never again.
As he blinked back tears, a vision of Kai’s face filled his mind. Kai had clutched his hand all the way up the broken sidewalk to the shabby split-level apartment. When Kai’s mom had tugged her son aside, Kai stared over his shoulder at Wiley and seemed to be saying something, but Wiley could never figure out what it was.
They never met again.
A tug on his pant leg redirected Wiley’s attention. He peered down.
With a huff, Tam took matters into his own hands as he launched into a right-to-the-point speech. “Mom said you got a big brother. Maybe, he’ll help.”
Wiley’s mind jumped into overdrive, choking all hope of a clear response.
A sigh and Tam seemed to figure that Wiley needed more immediate direction. “What’s for lunch? I’m hungry.”
No longer blinking, Wiley stared at the child who might be his son, and the nearly forgotten comfort of sitting with his brother on the couch filled him. Kai, where are you now?
His stomach relaxing enough to grouse that it had been hours since his last meal, Wiley slipped on his long black overcoat and then grabbed the puffy kid coat off the end table. “We’re going out to eat and then we’re going to stop at the library. A nice gal, who might be an undercover detective—she’s that sharp, works there. If anyone can help me find my brother, she can.”
After squiggling into his coat with minimal grimaces, Tam slipped his hand into Wiley’s.
Startled at the softness of the boy’s grasp, Wiley clutched it tighter and opened the door. As they passed over the threshold, unmindful of the sudden chill, he made a bold proclamation, “Kai can help us track down your mom, and we’ll get everything straightened out.”
The child’s hesitation only lasted a second, but as Wiley closed the door, he glanced down and ran smack into the doubt in Tam’s eyes. He had to pluck his courage off the floor as he started forward. “Well, let’s start with lunch, okay?”
In a wise gnome way, the boy nodded as he stumble-hopped forward.
His gaze unblinking and clutching the small hand, Wiley marched into the cold December day, surprisingly glad that he wasn’t dreaming.
A. K. Frailey is the author of 21 books, a teacher for 35 years, and a homeschooling mother.
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