Chapter Seven

“I can finally read the dam. . . I mean, the DARN thing.” Dan grinned happily. “I can read it!”

“Congratulations!” Taylor was genuinely impressed. “That’s amazing!”

“Isn’t it?” Dan was quite proud of himself. “I think I might have a future.” He squinted at the thermometer. “How ya feelin’, Ike?”

“What’s it say?” Isaac asked, avoiding the question.

Dan sat down on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t ask you what the thermometer said, I want to know how you feel.”

“I’m okay,” Isaac assured him. “I guess.”

“He’s lying!” Zac piped.

“I am not,” Isaac protested, kicking at the blankets. He didn’t have the energy to protest.

“You are too lying,” Taylor agreed.

“Are you?” Dan inquired.

“If I say I’m okay,” Isaac informed him darkly, “I’m okay.”

Dan nodded. “I’m not gonna argue.” He wanted to, though. “You guys can stay another day, if you want. I could call your mother and talk to her.” The look that shot between Isaac, Taylor and Zac did not escape him. “Would that be all right?”

“I don’t know.” Isaac bit his lip.

“We want to. . .” Taylor began.

“But maybe Mommy doesn’t want us to,” Zac finished.

“Oh, shoot. . .” Dan shook his head. “I’m sorry. I forgot. . . Today’s New Years Eve, right? She probably wants you guys around.”

“Yeah,” Isaac agreed, relieved. He didn’t want Dan to call his mother. His mother was probably stoned right now. As much as he knew all three of them wanted to stay, Isaac also knew that it was impossible.

“I tried to talk to her last night, you know, to tell her you were sick? But she wasn’t home. . .” Dan said. “Maybe I should talk to her anyway. . .”

“No!” Isaac exclaimed, too fast.

Dan raised his eyebrows in concern. He couldn’t put his finger in it, but something wasn’t right here. “Ike. . .” he said, “what’s going on?”

“I think we have to go to the bathroom now!” Taylor exclaimed. “C’mon, Zac!” He grabbed his little brother’s hand and dragged him from the room.

Dan shook his head. He fixed the blankets and looked directly into Isaac’s eyes. “Ike, how’s your mother doing? Honestly, I mean.

Isaac swallowed. “She’s fine.

“Is she. . . “ Dan began, then stopped and rephrased what he was going to say. “Isaac, is anything happening that you want to tell me about?”

“No,” Isaac told him.

“Are you sure?” Dan prodded.

“I’m sure,” Isaac agreed.

“Look, Ike, I don’t want to drop you guys off to be with your mother if you don’t feel comfortable being with her.” Dan bit his lip. “I don’t want you to think I’m picking on you, or that I don’t trust your mom, but I won’t bring you guys back to her if she’s doing some of the things she did before. I can’t, Isaac.”

Well, that makes us equal, Isaac thought, because I can’t tell you about the things that she’s doing. He knew Dan required an answer, though. Isaac sighed. “Dan, things aren’t. . . great. She lost her job, and she’s been really. . . stressed out.”

Dan nodded. “That must have been really hard for her.”

“It was,” Isaac agreed. “And so she hasn’t really been. . . you know. Like a TV mother or anything. I mean, things aren’t as bad as they were. . .” (if anything, things were worse) “but they’re not great, either. Because she’s so worried.”

“Isaac,” Dan said, his voice level, “is she hitting you guys?”

Isaac shook his head. He sounded sure of himself. “No.”

Dan nodded. “Is she leaving you guys by yourselves?”

Isaac shook his head. After all, his mother had taken Taylor to the needle exchange program instead of leaving him home alone. He wasn’t telling a total lie. “No.”

Dan paused for what seemed like an eternity, trying to gauge whether Isaac was telling the truth. “Ike,” he said, finally, “if she ever does. . . or if, for any reason, you ever don’t feel comfortable being with her. . . even if you just want to get away for a few days, call me. I will drop whatever I am doing and pick you guys up right away. All right?”

Isaac nodded. “Okay.”

“No,” Dan shook his head. “Promise me that.”

“I promise.” Isaac agreed, lying through his teeth.

Dan gazed out the window for a moment, at the gray midwinter sky. “I just don’t want to see any of you get hurt.”

“I can take care of myself,” Isaac said.

“You’re nine years old,” Dan pointed out. “Why should you have to?”

Isaac thought about that for the rest of the day, especially when Dan was driving them home that afternoon. “You can’t go upstairs to drop us off,” Taylor explained to him, “because they’ll think we have a daddy, and if you have a daddy, they cut your AFDC benefits.”

“How do you know that?” Dan was stupefied.

Taylor shrugged. “Everybody knows that.“

“Do you know what AFDC is?” Dan asked.

Isaac rolled his eyes. “We get it, don’t we? Aid For Families With Delinquent Children. That means you don’t have a father. Everybody gets it, unless they have one.”

“Dependent children,” Dan corrected him, grinning in spite of himself.

Isaac sighed. “Either way. We get it.”

“Because we don’t have a daddy,” Zac agreed. He paused for a moment. “I just had a idea.”

“What?” Dan asked him.

Zac grinned. “YOU could be our daddy!”

Dan bit his lip. “I wish I could, buddy. But I’m not.”

“But we don’t have one.” Zac insisted.

“But I’m not your daddy.” Dan shook his head. “And maybe it would be better if I was just your friend.”

“But we don’t have one,” Zac attempted, losing steam.

“We did a long time ago,” Isaac pointed out.

“Yeah, but I never even saw him!” Zac insisted. “He left before I was even born, even.” His lower lip went out. “I hate that daddy.”

“I don’t ‘member my daddy either,” Taylor ventured.

“I do,” Isaac told them. “You’re not missing much.”

“But you don’t even got any kids,” Zac told Dan. “Do you want some?”

“Zac. . .” Dan didn’t know what to say. Yes, he did want kids. Yes, he wouldn’t hesitate to act as their father, if there weren’t so many things wrong with agreeing that he would. They weren’t his kids, for starters. And what kind of message would that send Kathleen?

“You heard him!” Isaac insisted. “He can’t be your daddy. Because he isn’t. Okay?”

“We could just pretend,” Taylor quavered.

Dan and Isaac exchanged a glance. “Taylor, we could pretend,” Dan agreed. “But we’d all have to remind ourselves that it was pretending. . . and just pretending.”

Taylor nodded happily. “I’m good at pretending.”

“But you’d have to remember that it was just pretending,” Dan repeated.

“It’s just pretending,” Taylor concurred, smiling brightly.

“Do you think, maybe if we go somewhere with you, like a store or something, the people in there think we’re your kids?” Zac asked.

Dan took a deep breath. He had wondered that, and figured that people probably did. He hadn’t done anything to discourage this, either. . . for one thing, you couldn’t run around telling everybody “these kids I’m with aren’t really mine!” For another, as terrible and horrible as it sounded, a not-so-small part of Dan actually enjoyed the fact that, when he took the boys out in public, people automatically assumed they were his.

“Can we go somewhere so that people think that?” Taylor asked.

“Please?” Zac seconded.

“Do you feel good enough to do something like that?” Dan asked Isaac.

Isaac shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay.” Dan nodded. “That’s what we’ll do.” He caught Taylor’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “But,” he said, “it’s just pretending!”

“Okay,” Taylor giggled. “Daddy.”

“Yeah, Daddy!” Zac piped.

Dan shook his head. “What have I started?” he asked Isaac.

“They’ll call you that forever,” Isaac pointed out.

“I know,” Dan nodded. “And I don’t think that’s good. . .”

There was a small ice cream store about a mile down the road. The sign hanging in the window read “Hot Chocolate” and Dan pulled into the parking lot. “Look, you guys, we’ll go in here, get something to drink, and you can call me daddy WHILE WE’RE IN THE STORE!” He was terrified that Taylor and Zac would go home and announce to Kathleen that Dan was their new Daddy, thus ending his visits with the boys.

“Okay, Daddy!” Taylor and Zac piped.

“Okay.” Dan shook his head nervously. “You definitely will?”

“Definitely will,” Taylor repeated. “Definitely absolutely positively posolutely!”

Taking this to mean yes, Dan reached over the seat to unbuckle Zac’s safety belt and caught Taylor by the arm before he could scramble into the path of an oncoming pickup truck. Meticulously, Isaac unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of the car. He locked the door before he closed it. . . something, Dan realized, he’d forgotten to do himself, and kicked at a chunk of ice on the ground outside the car.

“Come on, you three, let’s go in,” Dan suggested, taking Taylor by one hand and Zac by the other. “Watch out for cars. Your mommy will not be happy if one of you gets squished.”

“Okay, Daddy,” the two of them chorused. Isaac rolled his eyes. At this point, they probably believed Dan was their father. They’d probably forgotten they didn’t really have one.

There was a set of bells on the inside of ice-cream shop door, Taylor took a minute to play with them, fascinated. “Like reindeers have on them,” he breathed, wide eyed.

The middle-aged lady behind the counter smiled. “Well, aren’t you adorable,” she observed. Taylor grinned up at her.

“I’m here with my daddy.”

If the woman noticed Dan’s pained grimace, she pretended not to notice. “And your brothers?” she asked.

“Mmmhmm.” Taylor agreed.

“Now, isn’t that nice! And what do you want, dear?” the lady asked.

Taylor looked up at Dan. “What do I want?” he whispered.

“Do you know what you want?” Dan asked him. “Do you want me to read the list of what they have to you?”

“I can read,” Taylor said. “I’m a good reader.”

Isaac rolled his eyes again. It took Taylor forever to read a single word. . . he had to sound out every syllable, because that was what they did in school.

“No you aren’t,” Zac contradicted. “Not as good as Ike.”

“I’m not as good as Ike, but I am too good,” Taylor amended. “You don’t even know how to read yet, so you don’t know how much EFFORT it takes.” With that, he turned back to the lady behind the counter, his six-year old dignity intact. “I would like H. . . Ho. . . Hot. . .” Taylor paused at the second word, swallowing hard. That word was long. He decided to attack it anyway, feeling brave. “C. . . cho. cho. . . co. cho. . . co. . . late.” He raised an eyebrow, confused. “Cho-co-late?”

Isaac sighed. “Chocolate, Tay.”

“Oh, yeah!” Taylor grinned. “Chocolate! I would like hot chocolate, please.”

“Certainly, dear.” The woman punched something into the cash register. “And how about you?” she asked, turning to Zac.

Zac blushed, burying his face in Dan’s side. “He’s s-h-y. . .” Dan whispered.

“SHY!” Taylor burst out, happy to have recognized the word.

“Taylor. . .” Dan shook his head. He put one of his hands on top of Zac’s head, ruffling his hair. “Zac is FEELING a BIT shy RIGHT NOW,” he said loudly, “BUT he is NOT ALWAYS this quiet.”

Isaac put his face in his hands, trying not to giggle.

“Zac, you’re shy!” Taylor persisted. “Dan said you were!”

“Tay. . .” Dan exhaled through clenched teeth and bent down to Zac’s level. “What do you want, buddy?”

Zac whispered something in Dan’s ear. Dan nodded. “Make that two more hot chocolates, please.” He turned to Isaac. “Ike, you want anything?”

Isaac shook his head. “No thanks.”

“Are you sure?” Dan prodded.

“Nah, I don’t feel like it,” Isaac concurred. In fact, he felt kind of like he had to throw up. . . but, by this point, he didn’t think he could throw up any more. “I really, really don’t.”

“He doesn’t feel good,” Dan explained to the woman, realizing suddenly that he tended to divulge a lot of personal information to the outside world.

Isaac didn’t appreciate this very much. He glanced at Dan, clearly wondering “why are you doing this to me?” Dan felt guilty.

“Sorry,” Dan apologized. “He doesn’t want the whole world to know.”

Isaac winced. That was even worse!

“Tsk, tsk.” The lady shook her head. “Poor thing.”

That was the last straw, Isaac thought. “I’m okay!” he piped.

Dan decided to humor him. “Yeah, buddy, you’re okay.” He turned to the lady. “Three hot chocolates please. Medium.”

“Certainly.” The woman smiled at Taylor (Zac was still hiding behind Dan and Isaac was staring out the window) and lifted three cups from a stack next to the row of shiny metal machines. “Three hot chocolates it is.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Taylor chimed.

“Thank you, Daddy,” Zac added.

“Thanks,” Isaac agreed.

“For what?” Dan asked Isaac.

Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know for what.”

Dan rumpled Isaac’s hair and made his way to the counter as best he could, his movements impeded by the fact that Zac was wrapped around his right leg. Dan bent down to face him. “What’re ya thinkin’ about, buddy?”

“I want to stay with you,” Zac whispered. “I wish you really were my daddy.”

Dan swallowed. “Zac. . .”

“I know,” Zac sighed. “You aren’t really my daddy.”

Dan bit his lip. “I’m sorry.”

Zac met his eyes. “Me, too.”

“I liked that lady,” Taylor observed, listening to the faint ringing of the bells as the door swung shut behind him. “She was a nice lady.”

It was a useless attempt at conversation. Isaac didn’t have the energy to respond. Dan was lost in such deep thought that outside noises weren’t registering on his mind. Zac was stepping on all the cracks in the pavement, hoping he’d break his mother’s back. He couldn’t let go of Dan’s hand, though, and so found himself with a limited number of cracks to step on. There aren’t enough, Zac thought, but he stepped on all the cracks he could anyway.

“I thought she was nice,” Taylor whispered. If nobody was going to talk to him, he’d talk to himself. He’d even answer himself. “I thought she was nice too, Tay.” Taylor smiled. “So did I.”

Late that night, Taylor stood next to the window in his bedroom and stared up at the night sky. The frigid air that slipped in through the crack in the window sent shivers down his spine; he wrapped himself in an old sweatshirt and looked for shooting stars. Isaac and Zac were asleep; Kathleen was out somewhere. It was New Year’s Eve, and the street below was alive with music and people. Taylor watched them. They didn’t seem very happy, he thought. They were getting drunk.

From the apartment next to his, he could hear the Spanish radio station beginning a countdown of the last few seconds until the new year. “Nueve,” Taylor chimed in, remembering the numbers from Sesame Street. “Ocho. . . siete. . . sies. . . cinco. . . cuatro. . . tres. . . dos. . . uno. . .”

“Cero!” screeched the radio announcer.

“1990!” someone yelled, from the street below.

“1990,” Taylor repeated. The year stretched ahead of him, filled with promise. He would be seven this year. He would be in second grade. A lot of good things could happen.

Taylor smiled. “It’s 1990,” he said to himself.

“We’re going to have fun this year,” he answered back.

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