Chapter 25

Momma was in a car accident.

"I want to see her," I tell Mr. Gavin.

He picked me up from school, and now he's taking me to his house where I'll be staying the night.

"You'll see her first thing tomorrow when she's released. They just want to keep her overnight for observation, just to be safe."

"Why?"

He cuts his gaze to me from where he sits behind the wheel, eyes bunched in the corners. "It's just hospital rules."

Pursing my lips, I stare out the windshield and nod. Normally I'd be so excited to get to ride in Mr. Gavin's black pick-up. I feel like a grown-up, getting to sit up front, and play with the radio. Unlike Dad, Mr. Gavin doesn't care if I touch stuff.

"Okay, then I'll stay with her in the hospital," I say determinedly.

"Mason…" He flicks the blinker, and turns onto the private dirt road leading to him and Mrs. Linda's house. It's still sleetin' out, but Mr. Gavin's got chains around his tires, making it so we don't slip and slide.

Like Momma did.

From the radio, a band Gavin told me is called Alice In Chains plays quietly, singing something about staying away. "I'll write it down for you when we get to the house," he'd told me. And I said back, "I don't care. I don't want it. I just want my mom."

Now, he slows the truck to a grinding crawl as a white mailbox appears between the trees up ahead. Beyond it, through the slant of snowy-looking rain, there's a yellow farmhouse with white shutters.

"We'll call her, okay? As soon as we get ya settled inside."

"But I need to see her."

Parking the truck, he unbuckles, before turning and helping me with mine, unwrapping it from the hooks on my booster.

"I know, Segar," he says gently in that rough, Wolverine voice of his.

My lips twist hearing his nickname for me.

"Who's Segar?" I'd asked him once, when he said if I wasn't a little Segar in the making after he caught me carrying his big guitar around and singing, pretending I was just like rock stars in the videos he'd showed me.

"Bob Segar. A damn legend." And then he'd showed me one of the best songs I'd ever heard—"Old Time Rock Roll."

A legend…

I wanna be a legend someday.

Turning off the engine, taking the music with it, he hops out, shuts the door, and rounds the hood to come help me out.

Grabbing his hand, I jump down.

He gets my backpack from where he shoved it behind the bench, and swings it over his back. Ruffling my hair, he tells me to watch the ice as we make our way to the side door to strip off our wet boots in the mud room.

Heat blasts over us inside. Mr. Gavin helps me get my coat and snow boots off. Once freed and good to go, I bolt for the kitchen where I find Mrs. Linda stirring a pot on the stove.

I scramble for the phone on the wall, jumping and grabbing the curly-cue cord to drag it off the hook.

"Mason?"

Heavy footsteps enter the room, followed by a sigh. "Hold on, kid. Let me grab the number."

Bouncing around impatiently, I watch as Mr. Gavin grabs a sticky note from the fridge.

I hand him the phone, even though I know how to dial. But sometimes I get tripped up, and I don't want to accidentally call the wrong person. I've done that before.

I just wanna talk to my mom.

I need to hear her voice.

"Here ya go. It's ringing," he says, handing me the yellow receiver.

Bringing it to my ear, I chew my lip, staring at the checkered floor as I wait.

After three rings, the line clicks. "Hello?"

"Momma!" I say, my voice hitching.

"Hey, kid," she breathes, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

If she's smiling, then she's gotta be okay. Right?

"Sorry if I scared you, buddy," she says.

"I wasn't scared," I say automatically.

She chuckles, and I duck my head, twisting around and putting my back to Mr. Gavin and Mrs. Linda.

"Can I come stay with you? Pretty please. I'll be good."

Another sigh, and I wonder if she's tired. Is she hurtin'? Mr. Gavin said she was a little banged up—some bruises on her chest and face, and a sprained arm. All from the air bag.

"Isn't the air bag supposed to keep you from getting hurt?" I'd asked him.

And he said, "It's there to keep you from getting hurt worse."

"No, Mason," Momma says through the phone. "You're gonna stay with Mr. Gavin and Mrs. Linda tonight, okay? A hospital is no place for little boys to sleep."

"But there's a lot of beds."

"And patients need them."

I sniffle. "Like you."

A beat passes, then, "Yeah, like me."

I wipe my nose, and whisper, "I lied. I was scared."

"I know."

"How?"

"I told you, silly. Moms always know."

Rolling the cord between my fingers, I tell her, "You can't leave me."

She sucks in a breath.

"You can't leave me," I say again, my voice doing that breaky thing like I might cry. I don't wanna though. Mr. Gavin's watching me, and he's a big tough man. I bet he doesn't cry.

"Kid, I'm not going anywhere. I'd never leave you, not if I could help it."

A frown pulls at my face.

"They're calling for more snow and ice tonight and tomorrow, so you probably won't have school. As soon as they discharge me, you guys can come pick me up, okay? We'll get something to eat. Have ice cream. We'll watch a movie tomorrow night, your pick, just you and me."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

My jaw works side to side.

"Can you put Mrs. Linda on the phone?"

"Okay. Bye Mom."

"Bye, Mase. Love you."

"Love you too." Turning, I hold out the phone to Mrs. Linda who's drying her hands on a rag. "She wants to talk to you."

Nodding, she takes the phone from me, running her hands through my hair as I duck out from under her and the cord.

Mr. Gavin tips his chin. "Come on kid, I wanna show you something."

Feeling a little better now, I perk up at the thought of a surprise.

He leads me down the narrow hallway to the back of the house, and opens the door to the room I stay in. On the bed, there's a small acoustic guitar. Kid-sized.

I grin and look up at him.

"Come on. Let's see what you got."

Running over to the bed, I pick up the instrument and plop down. Unlike Mr. Gavin's, I can actually reach around it and put my fingers on the fret board. I strum and move my fingers around, loud, awful twanging ringing out in the room.

I cringe and look up just as he returns with his guitar.

Chuckling, he says, "We all gotta start somewhere."

AGE 17, APRIL

It's Saturday night,and Mom's pulling an extra shift at the hospital.

So rather than hanging out with my friends, I've got babysitting duty.

Squirt—Phoebe—is nine now—turning ten in June.

She'll be returning to Shiloh Elementary School in the fall, after spending her first four years going to St. Marsh's Catholic School in Ashville, the town just south of us. A precaution Mom took when Phoebe officially took her name and started living as the girl she was always meant to be.

Mom wanted to wait until we could be certain that enough time has passed that teachers and parents and kids from town wouldn't look at her and remember the little boy who spent that first year with us, tagging along to the diner, and holding my hand wherever I went.

Since everyone we introduced Phoebe to originally knew her as Squirt—something even Mom was fully on board with, seeing as the name originally given to Phoebe was the same as our deadbeat dad—it wasn't all too hard to convince everyone eventually that she'd always been a girl. That she was just a tomboy when she was little, especially after that disastrous haircut incident where everything came to light. A tomboy who just so happened to love dolls and the color pink and wear barrettes in her pixie-short hair.

It helped that Linda and Gavin and the Montgomerys were so insistent on backing the story, helping us basically gaslight anyone and everyone who may have questioned it. In particular, Waylon's dad, Chief McAllister, who's a grade-A prick if there ever was one.

Eva, Izzy's Mom, handled that one for us. The last thing we needed was law enforcement or CPS to get involved if he decided to be a dick about it. Especially given how Phoebe came to live with us.

Mom has legal custody now. She filed for it, took it to court, and as a surprise to no one, Dad never showed.

She's trying to take it a step further now by officially adopting her. While Phoebe's not hers biologically, she's her child in every way that counts. She's hers—ours—and no one, least of all our deadbeat sperm donor, is going to take her from us.

But if the local police force or CPS caught wind of Phoebe being trans…and a mom who isn't even legally hers yet allowing her to transition…

It's our biggest fear.

I can't even imagine what Dad would do if he caught wind of it and found out the son he thought he had was actually a daughter this whole time. Not only that, but that Mom let her—his biological kid he put in her care—live as a girl.

He'd be fucking livid. There's no way the sexist, piece of shit, bigoted asshole I remember would allow that. And that's not to mention what's in store for us when she reaches puberty, and it won't be just clothes and hair and a name she has to worry about.

Watching her now, in the living room, as she paces in front of her lined-up dolls, hands behind her back, blonde hair hanging in a knotted mess just above her shoulders, I can't help but wish Dad's dead in a ditch somewhere.

It would be the best case scenario for both of us at this point, but most of all, her.

"Mason," she says in a very serious voice.

"Yes?" I say.

Off to the side, the TV flashes with the opening theme sequence of Charmed—her favorite show, and the inspiration behind her name?—

"Phoebe. Because she's psychic, and so am I."

—casting the room in a blueish glow. The volume's on low, because I'm working on a paper, seeing as I've got nothing better to do tonight—might as well do homework.

"Do you believe in fairies?" she asks, turning to look at me with grave blue-gray eyes like my answer is of the utmost importance.

I set my laptop on the coffee table, and shrug, running a hand through my messy, wavy hair, pushing it away from my eyes. "I don't know."

"You should," she says, her mouth thinning with worry.

I hold back a smile and nod. "Why's that?"

"Because they're dying. Not enough people believe in them anymore."

"Where'd you hear that?"

She looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Everyone knows this."

"Right," I whisper. I turn and look at the clock on the mantle, and crack my neck. "It's just about dinner time, Squirt. Chicken nuggets or pizza?"

"Both."

I stand up, and round the table, ruffling her hair as I pass. "That's my girl."

She beams up at me with a gap-toothed grin.

I make my way into the hall and toward the kitchen, soft sock-clad footfalls scrambling after me. "Oh oh oh," she says, jumping around, "Can we watch My Girl while we eat?"

I glance down at her. "We watched that the other night."

She gives me her best puppy pout, the one that never fails to make me crumble. "But it's my favorite."

Rolling my eyes, I mess her hair up again. "Every movie's your favorite."

"But that's my favoritist."

"Uh huh."

Phoebe climbs up on one of the island stools, watching me as I go about reheating the pizza they had last night, and popping a plate of dinosaur-shaped nuggets in the microwave.

She chatters away, and I do my best to keep up and answer what I can. Once everything's heated, and I'm mixing BBQ sauce and ketchup in a small bowl for dipping—she hates both on their own, but loves them together—I tell her to go get the movie started.

She runs off, and I stack everything on an old tray Mom keeps around for nights like this where she's not around. She likes to have us sit at the table when she's not working at the hospital. She no longer waitresses at Chickie's—hasn't since she got the call-in position at the hospital after she graduated last spring. Now her hours are kind of all over the place, making family dinners in the evenings more sparse than ever.

I've got a year and half before I go off to college in New York City—at least that's the plan for after graduation—so Mom's working her ass off, not only to save up to help me with tuition in case all scholarships fall through, but to hopefully be able to snag a better position should one open. One that allows her to be home on weeknights when I'm no longer here to babysit.

Fortunately, Gavin and Linda are more than willing to help out where they can. Gavin's got his bar, but weeknights are slow, and he's got other bartenders to cover for him if he needs to take off. And Linda's been cutting back hours, working more behind the scenes and delegating at the diner, rather than trying to do it all herself like she has in the past.

In the living room, the movie's just started to play, the title appearing on the screen. I set the tray on the table, along with a glass of milk.

Phoebe makes a disgusted face up at me from where she's curled in a ball on the floor, knees tucked under her teal and purple night shirt.

"If you drink this, you can have a brownie for dessert."

She rolls her eyes, throwing back her head with a dramatic, "Fine." Scooting closer to the table, she grabs a nugget, and swirls in the sauce. I grab a slice of pizza, fold it up, and take a bite just as my cellphone starts ringing from where it's sitting on the end table, plugged into the wall.

I set my pizza down on the tray, and wipe the back of my hand across my mouth. Quickly chewing the single bite I took, I scoot across the couch, and lean over to glance at the screen.

Izzy's picture graces the screen—eyes crossed, and tongue out—her name flashing just under it. I swallow the pizza, and rub my hands on my sweats before picking up the phone, disconnecting it from the charger.

I hit answer, and bring it to my ear.

"Hey."

A sharp sort of hitch of breath greets me, and I frown, glancing behind me to where the movie's still playing on the TV. Phoebe's making obnoxious kissy faces at me, pointing the remote at the screen, cranking the volume up.

"Hold on," I mutter, and angle the phone down so my mouth isn't on the speaker. "Phoebe, lower it."

She crosses her arms, glaring at me.

Jesus.

"You can talk to your girlfriend later," she says, sounding just like Mom.

I bug my eyes out at her, and she bugs them right back.

Lifting the phone, I don't tear my gaze off my sister's stubborn one as I say, "Sorry, I'm watching a movie with Phoebe. Can I?—"

"Mason,"Izzy chokes out on a sob.

And I go bone-cold.

Frozen, I barely feel my lips move as I say, "What happened?"

Jeremy.

That's all I can think.

Something fucking happened to Jeremy.

The world tilts, dimming.

I can't breathe, I can't?—

"Waylon," she forces out, her voice barely even discernible. "It's Waylon."