40. Epilogue

Epilogue

Cody

I used to dream of this moment until I had no dreams left. How he would look and, more importantly, how he would look at me. Would he recognize me if we passed each other in the street? Or sat next to each other on a flight. Somehow, I always imagined that he would. That there would be this instant flash of recognition—that I’m a part of him just like he’s a part of me because we were made by the same two people, out of the same substance. And that for all these years he’s been missing that part just as much as I have. That there’s been this strange phantom pain—dull and faint yet ever-present—because I’m not with him and he’s not with me.

I think I see him first. Just a few seconds before his gaze lands on me. Luke’s in the bar because he decided, ‘Baby, you need a drink.’ He seems to shake himself, almost like he can’t believe this is real. That the day has finally come. Then a smile grows—hesitant at first—like it’s afraid that it’s too premature. And then it spreads into a full bloom across his beloved face. In eight long strides—yes, I count them because that’s what you do when you suddenly can—he’s at the booth where I’m sitting. Before I locate my tongue in my throat and put together what I want to say, what I need to say, after fourteen years apart, he pulls me from my seat and swallows me up in a bear hug. He just swallows me right up even though I’ve outgrown him by quite a bit. His heart is beating frantically against mine, each beat echoing mine, until once again, our hearts fall into the same rhythm, into the same pace.

“Hey, squirt,” he murmurs into my hair. “Missed ya,” he lets out a long, clipped breath. “A lot,” he rasps, his cheek wet against mine, the source of the tears indeterminable.

“Missed you too, Danny,” I croak. “So fucking much.” He nods against me, his body shaking, and at first, I think he’s crying in earnest. But then I realize that he’s laughing.

“Shit,” he laughs. “My baby brother swears.” He pulls away slightly, holding me out in his arms, taking me in. “Never thought I’d see the day,” he whispers, and then his face morphs as he slowly falls apart. “Cody,” he cries, not letting go of me, his hands in an iron grip around my shoulders. “All this time,” he says. “All this time that she took from us.” It still hurts when I’m hit with the brutal truth of what our mother did. What she took from us. That she somehow, in her selfish mind, found it justifiable to keep not only a child from his father, but also to keep two innocent boys—brothers—apart. That we somehow ended up being collateral damage in her outdrawn revenge against our dad.

“I know,” I say. I know. She took enough time for me to stay bitter for the rest of my life. But life is too short—and too amazing these days—to stay bitter. So, I pick gratitude instead.

I already know from Danny that Dad tried to find me after we moved, but that it was fruitless. Mom had not only changed our last name, but she changed her phone number, too. Dad’s birthday and Christmas cards for me came back with Not at This Address. He called my old school in Utah only to find that we’d moved. With no new address in their files, he had no way of knowing that we’d already left the state. Danny told me that Dad called numerous schools in Utah, but that no one had a Cody Manning listed in their systems. It was like Mom and I had dropped off the face of the earth.

‘I know why it was,’ I told Danny over the phone. ‘She changed my name. My last name. To Mitchell.’ I always knew deep inside that he would look for me. That it wasn’t by choice that he disappeared from my life.

‘At some point, he just gave up, I think,’ Danny said. ‘He was never quite the same after that. Over the years, he suffered from depression. Especially around holidays. It was like he’d just shut down for several weeks at a time. He lost his job for a while. It was hard, Cody. Really fucking hard.’ Maybe I should feel angry that my dad gave up. Maybe my mom is right, and he’s a weak man. But you know what? If you dwell too much on the past, it’ll eat you right up. I choose forgiveness instead. I forgave my dad, not because I think there’s anything to forgive, but because I know he needs it. At the end of the day, we’re all just people, trying to do the best with what we’ve got.

‘He called me one day out of the blue. His voice was shaking. He was talking so fast that none of it made sense,’ Danny told me. Our dad stopped watching hockey years ago. It was just too painful for him. Too many memories of a child that was now nothing but a ghost. ‘A colleague, who’s a big hockey fan, told him about this wicked new goalie who’d been pulled from the AHL. And out of the blue, he was a top-three goalie.’ Cody Mitchell. Cody. Goalie. Dad had told Danny that even if it was me, maybe it was better to let it be. To just let it be. But fuck, if Danny was going to let it be. Turns out, my brother was trying to sum up the courage to reach out while Luke and his sisters were playing internet detectives. Stuff like that can almost make you believe in a greater power. Almost.

“It’s over now, Danny.” He nods furiously through his tears. “There won’t ever be a day again where we won’t talk,” I decide for the both of us right then and there. “Where I won’t know where you are in the world, and you won’t know where I am.”

“There better not be,” he croaks, a smile pulling a few fine lines from the skin around his eyes. He’s twenty-seven. Danny is twenty-seven. I missed fourteen of his birthdays. He missed fourteen of mine, each one where I was missing him terribly. We’ll never miss another.

“Come,” I say, tugging him with me as I sit down in the booth. “Tell me everything.” We’ve already talked about stuff over the phone, but there are still so many blanks to fill in. “I wanna know everything.” I do. I want to know everything. Some of it will hurt and make me cry. Some of it will make me laugh, hopefully. Parts will make me jealous, I know, because there’ll be moments that Danny has had with our dad that I’ll never get to have. That were stolen from me. But I’ll try not to let it overshadow the fact that from now on, Danny and I will be making new memories together. With our dad. And with Luke.

Fuck, Luke. He’s standing at the bar right now, grinning stupidly like it takes more than five minutes to order a drink. I gesture at him to come over, but he just shakes his head, mouthing not yet, baby. I’ve never met a more generous person in my life. Never will, I think. He knows we need this. This moment. It’s long overdue.

“Everything?” Danny laughs, shaking his head, pale trails of dried tears adorning his cheeks. I settle for something random, something safe.

“How was your flight?” Danny flew in from New York where he works for the UNHCR as a human rights attorney. My older brother is a fucking attorney. Can you believe it? At the UNHCR. He rocks my world. Still, after all these years, he rocks my world. He lives with his girlfriend, Kennedy, who’s a school counselor. They’re trying for a baby, he told me. I’ll be an uncle one day. Shit. Maybe I’ll even be a dad, too.

“Long,” he chuckles. “Hate red eyes,” he grins, and yes, his eyes are truly red-rimmed, but I suspect it has little to do with the flight and everything to do with this moment.

“Oops,” I smirk. “Then you’re gonna love…”

“For fuck’s sake, Cody,” he groans because it seems we still—after all this time—know how to fill in each other’s gaps.

“I know, but I didn’t want to waste any more time. I booked the first one out. Dad and Lydia are picking us up.” Danny just shrugs. What are a few more hours on a red-eye compared to the rest of your life with your brother? And your dad. Suddenly I can’t help laughing. “Shit, I can’t believe Dad drives a minivan. Never thought I’d see the day.” Then my voice breaks into a pained sound. Never thought I’d see the day .

“Yeah, I know. Me either. Me either, Cody,” he rasps, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me against him. “I used to look for you all the time, you know. In the beginning.”

“Me too,” I whisper against his neck. He’s wearing one of those preppy V-necks on top of a white button-down. Danny was always the more conservatively dressed out of the two of us. Still, I never expected him to look this grown-up and put-together. “I’ve lost track of all the strangers I’ve waved at, thinking they were you.” He nods.

“No more,” he says. “Never again.”

“Promise?” I ask needily, looking up at my big brother.

“Promise, squirt.”

And then I sense his presence because I always know exactly where he is in a room. It’s like I’m tuned into him on instinct. My Luke. The guy who made all of this happen. I break away from Danny and look at my boyfriend, who’s buzzing with pent-up excitement in front of us, three bottles in his hands. Danny shoots from his seat and grabs the beer from Luke and places them on the table. When Luke offers him his hand, he just shakes his head before he pulls him in, swallowing him up too.

“Good to meet you, finally,” he squeezes the living daylight out of my boyfriend, who, for the first time in maybe ever, appears to be speechless. Slapping his big hand against Luke’s back a couple of times, Danny then holds Luke out in front of him, a broad smile adorning his face that is the spitting image of mine. Because it is. I always thought Danny looked more like our dad, but somehow, the years have changed that. Or my recollection was wrong. Because he looks like me. He does. And he looks like our dad. So much that it hurts. Because that means that I must look like him too. Our dad. “So fucking good, man,” Danny says, letting go of Luke. “If it weren’t for you…” my brother trails off, emotion catching his tongue once again.

“It’s all good, man,” Luke smiles. And he’s right. It is. From now on, everything will be good. Later, the three of us are catching another red eye to Twin Falls where my dad lives with his wife Lydia and her two teenage sons, Matt and Chris. Over the phone, Danny has referred to them as his kid brothers, and it stung like hell the first time. But now I can’t wait to meet them. And Lydia. Dad calls her his rock. Danny calls her mom. It was a little confusing at first, but then we both just laughed it off. Lydia and our dad have been together for ten years. Matt and Chris were just toddlers when they got together.

‘Pretty much decided from day one that they had no fault in this and since I wouldn’t be able to love you up close, Cody, that they’d get it instead.’ Love you up close. I can love Danny up close again. I cried for close to an hour after that first phone call. Luke held me while I just cried. For nine-year-old Cody and thirteen-year-old Danny. For my dad, who only got to watch one of his kids grow up. Out of jealousy because Matt and Chris, no matter how good kids they are, had my dad when I didn’t. Because they are good kids, Danny said. ‘They’re good kids. Fucking annoying most of the time, but good kids. Just like you and me, Cody. We were good kids, too. We didn’t deserve what happened to us.’

‘It didn’t just happen, Danny. She did it. She did that to us.’

‘I know.’

‘Do they call Dad, Dad?’ I croaked. Somehow, that felt strangely important.

‘Nah, they have their own dad. They call him Pops. Glenn when they wanna be all teenage brats and piss him off.’ I laughed at that. Then I cried because I never got to be a teenage brat and wasn’t that just a fucking travesty? I always knew that there was no point in being a brat because it wouldn’t get me the one thing I truly wanted, anyway: my family back. But now I do. I have my family back.

“I can’t wait to hug him,” I blurt, and Luke and Danny both smile at me fondly. “To find out if he smells the same, you know?” I’ve FaceTimed with Dad a couple of times ever since I reconnected with Danny, but it’s not the same as having him in real life. Besides, he just cries most of the time, telling me how sorry he is. That he should’ve tried harder to find me. That he should’ve known that Mom would change our names. That he should’ve… So many regrets pouring off a man that I would never blame for any of this. So, I quoted Ryan O’Neil’s words back to him because, yes, of course, I’ve watched that God-awful movie with Luke and his mom, and yes, I now officially hold a membership to the Ugly Criers Club, too.

Yeah, maybe my dad could’ve tried harder to find me, but does it really matter now? Now that I have him back. Am I going to focus on all the stuff we missed or what lies ahead of us instead? The answer is simple.

“He does,” Danny laughs. “You know Dad. He’ll always be an AXE Gold kinda guy.” I breathe in deeply and my lungs fill with the familiar scent. The scent that will always be Dad to me. Danny squeezes my shoulder, then ruffles my hair. “So, how’s the knee, squirt?” He asks.

“It’s good,” I say. Because it is. My recovery has been uneventful, which is great in medical terms. You want a recovery to be uneventful. And I kind of needed that because the rest of my life has been pretty eventful these past few months. Coming out, telling Mom off and where to stick it, reconnecting with Danny and our dad. Luke. Never a dull moment with him around. Shit, I love him so damn much. I never thought I could love anyone like that. So freely and completely. So unafraid.

Because yes, I’m no longer afraid that I’m not enough and that people will eventually leave one day. Because I’ve realized that I can’t use the past to predict or determine my present anymore. Nor my future. I decide . I choose who I want to be and whom I want to trust. And I trust Luke. But more importantly, I trust myself now. I finally trust myself to be enough.