“Hey man,” he said, easily. “Can I help you with somethin’?”
“I’m looking for Morgan Riley,” I said, automatically reaching out to shake the guy’s hand. “I’m Trevor Harris.”
His head cocked to the side as he took my measure, then he grasped my hand for a quick shake. “I’m Linc. Sorry, Morgan moved out about a month ago.”
“She did?” I asked dumbly, my mind barely wrapping around the fact that I’d driven all that way for nothing.
“Yeah, she’s up in Anaheim now.”
“Shit.” I reached up and ran a hand over my head in frustration.
“Why are you looking for her?” he asked, leaning against the door frame.
“She knew my brother Henry,” I replied, clearing my throat. “He passed away not too long ago, so—”
“Aw, man. That sucks. Sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, hey, I think I’ve got her address here somewhere,” he said, turning to open a kitchen drawer near the door. “She left it in case we got any of her mail.”
He rifled through the drawer for a minute, then lifted up a small sheet of paper and waved it from side to side. “Got it. You got a pen?”
For a split second I panicked because I didn’t, in fact, have a pen. Then I realized that my phone was in my damn pocket.
Five minutes later, I was walking back toward my truck, both relieved and disappointed that I hadn’t come face-to-face with my brother’s ex. Half of me was glad that I had another day to psych myself up for the upcoming interaction, but the other half was frustrated that I hadn’t gotten that first meet over with yet.
I called Katie as I pulled back on to the busy freeway.
“How’d it go?” she asked without preamble. “Is she nice? What does Henry’s daughter look like? Is she going to let us see her?”
“Take a breath,” I replied drily.
“I can’t. This is huge.”
“It’s nothing, yet,” I said. “She doesn’t live there anymore.”
“Oh no!”
“The guy who’s in the apartment now gave me her address, though. She’s up in Anaheim.”
“Well, that was shitty of him. I mean, good for us, but who freaking gives up info like that to some dude they don’t know?” She paused, probably to inhale after her little rant. “What are you going to do now?”
“Go up there tomorrow, I guess. Can I stay at your place—”
“Yes!” she replied before I’d even gotten the words out.
“All right, I’ll be there in a bit.”
* * *
“Uncle Trev!” my nephews yelled as I climbed out of my truck an hour later. I threw Gavin up in the air, then hugged Keller against my side as I made my way slowly toward the front of the house. The drive between Morgan’s old apartment and Shane and Kate’s house wasn’t far, but it had been such a fucking headache. Between the road construction and the sheer number of people getting home, I’d been mostly stopped in the stop-and-go traffic.
“You made it,” Kate said happily as she ushered me into the house. “I know you’re only here for the night, but I’m so glad we get to see you!”
“Me too,” I murmured, leaning forward to kiss the top of her head. I still had Keller clinging to my side and Gavin in my arms. They were both built like little tanks, and their warm bodies pressing up against me were making me sweat even worse than I had been.
“You look like you need a beer,” Shane called, laughing at the look on my face. “Or five.”
“Just one would be great,” I said, setting Gavin down as I moved toward the kitchen. “Where are the other kids?”
“Iris is sleeping, and Gunner and Sage are out back,” Katie said with a smile. “I didn’t tell them you were here yet.” She went to go get the kids as Shane handed me a beer.
“She moved?” he asked, leaning against the counter.
“Yeah, but I’ve got her address in Anaheim. Gonna head up there in the morning.”
“There’s a hotel up there that we stayed at when we took the kids to Disney for a weekend. I’ll get you the info,” he replied. “It’s nice, cheap, and they do a full breakfast in the morning. Worth the price for just that.”
“Yeah, eating fast food is getting old,” I replied.
“When did you get here?” Sage called as she ran through the back door in a swimsuit. She was soaking wet, but I didn’t stop her as she came barreling toward me.
“Just now,” I answered as I leaned down to hug her. Half a second later, her arms and legs were wrapped around me as I lifted her off the floor. She was probably getting too big for her parents to carry around, but I was the fun uncle and as long as I could lift her I’d do it. “How’s school going?”
“Good,” she said, leaning back so she could see my face. “A couple weeks ago we had a new girl come to class, and I showed her around so now we’re best friends.”
“Funny how that happens, huh?”
“Yep. Auntie Kate says you never know what cool things will happen when you’re nice to people.”
“That’s true,” I replied, nodding.
“Time for a shower and pajamas, Sage,” Kate said as she came inside with Gunner under her arm. “Then you can come back down and hang with Uncle Trev for a while.”
A few minutes later, it was quiet in the kitchen as the kids got ready for bed upstairs.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Shane asked as we got comfortable at the kitchen table. “Might be easier with me there.”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “It’ll be bad enough when I show up.”
“You think she’ll react badly?”
“I have no idea,” I replied honestly. “I figure it could go either way.”
“Hopefully she believes that you’re Hen’s brother,” he said with a small smile.
“I’m sure she’ll see the resemblance,” I joked with a shrug, thankful for the small humor that made my shoulders relax for the first time that day.
“Well, if you do need me, let me know.”
“I will,” I said with a nod, thankful for his support. Everyone had offered to help or go in my place, but Shane’s offer was different. He didn’t think he could handle it better than I would, and he wasn’t worried that I’d fuck it up, he just wanted me to know that he had my back.
“I’ve got a sleepy boy for you,” Kate said as she came back in the kitchen and handed Gunner to Shane. “If you let him sit on your lap, I have a feeling he’ll be you-know-what in about five minutes.”
We gathered around the table as the older kids trickled in, and spent the next hour listening to the kids tell me everything I’d missed since the last time I’d seen them. They were full of stories about school and the bus and weird things they’d found at the park. It was exactly what I’d needed to relax, and after driving for the last three days and barely sleeping, by eleven that night I’d fallen asleep fully dressed on the couch.
* * *
My good-byes the next morning were easy as the kids left for school, but it was always hard to leave Kate. We’d grown up next door to each other, played and fought and gotten into trouble like we were brother and sister. It felt weird to have her living so far away, even though she’d been living in San Diego for most of our adult lives.
The house Morgan had moved to wasn’t nearly as nice as the apartments I’d been at the day before. It was stucco, like most of the houses in that part of California, but the walls were stained, and the grass in the front yard was completely dead and fried from the sun. From what I could see, the place looked clean like someone was taking care of it, but it still had the worn-down look of a house whose tenants didn’t have much money for repairs.
I didn’t even pause as I walked up the cracked sidewalk and knocked on the door. After going to the wrong place the day before, I think a part of me hadn’t really expected an answer.
When she opened the door with her eyebrows raised like she didn’t understand why anyone would kn
ock, I almost swallowed my tongue. I knew immediately that I was looking at Morgan, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand why I had the instant recognition.
“Can I help you?” she asked, not friendly, but not rude, either.
“Morgan?” I asked, cataloging her features. She was blond. Slim. No makeup, but she didn’t really need it. Her eyebrows were darker than her hair. Gorgeous.
She didn’t answer me.
“Morgan Riley?” I asked again, meeting her eyes in an effort to focus.
“Who are you?” she asked, closing the door a little and setting one foot behind it as if she was getting ready to slam it.
“I’m Trevor Harris,” I replied slowly. “I think you knew my brother Henry.”
I saw the recognition hit her swift and hard, but she didn’t immediately respond. Instead, she looked me over. It wasn’t assessing. It was more like the look you give someone when you haven’t seen them in a long time and you’re trying to pull up the memory of them so you can compare the present with the past.
Eventually, she swung the door open a little farther and motioned me inside.
“I thought I’d see you a lot sooner,” she said easily as I walked into her living room.
There were toys scattered in front of the television and a few odds and ends around the room, but for the most part the place was tidy. None of the furniture was expensive, but you could tell the owner took care of it. I breathed a little sigh of relief. The place was cozy.
“What do you mean?” I asked as I met her eyes again.
“After—” She cleared her throat. “I figured someone would come eventually, once they contacted me about that franking insurance money.”
“Franking?”
“I have a two-year-old,” she said, sitting on the one chair in the room and gesturing for me to sit on the couch. “And, look, if I didn’t have her, I’d give that money back. I wasn’t expecting it and I don’t particularly want it, but—”
“So you did get it?” I asked, my eyes wandering a little around the small house.
“Yeah,” she said defensively. “It’s put away for emergencies or Etta’s college. We don’t need it right now—”
“I’m not here about the money,” I said, cutting her off with a wave of my hand. I’d gotten off track. What she did with that insurance money was none of my business.
“Well, why are you here then?” she asked, her shoulders visibly tensing.
I wiped my sweaty palms down the thighs of my shorts. I’d always been the calm one in my family. I’d always known what to say and how to say it, and I didn’t even have to mince words most of the time. But right then, in that tiny living room, I wasn’t quite sure what to say or how to say it. So many words played through my mind, and I shuffled through them quickly, trying to find the right ones. I hadn’t expected her to let me in right away, and I’d known she’d be pretty but I hadn’t imagined she’d be beautiful. I was feeling a bit off-kilter.
“First,” I said slowly, pausing my fidgeting hands, “I want to apologize.”
“For what?” she said with a scoff.
“For my brother.” I let that sink in as her mouth snapped shut. “I don’t know what you guys had, if it was a one-time thing or a relationship.” Jesus, I hoped it wasn’t a relationship. “But whatever it was…he wasn’t raised to run out on his responsibilities.”
“Let me stop you right there,” she said with a soft smile. “Because I think you might be confused about some stuff.”
I watched her closely as she settled more firmly into her chair, her body relaxing fractionally.
“I’ve never been angry with Henry,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. “We didn’t plan to get pregnant. Honestly, we took every precaution there was, but ship happens, you know?”
My mouth twitched at her alternative word for shit.
“But Henry didn’t want kids. It wasn’t just a ‘for now’ thing, and it wasn’t about me. He never wanted kids.”
That was news to me.
“I could’ve made him step up,” she continued. “I could have forced it. But it was my decision to go through with the pregnancy, not his.”
“That’s a pretty forgiving way to look at it,” I said, surprise coloring my voice. A small voice inside my head wondered if the reason Henry didn’t have a relationship with his daughter was because Morgan hadn’t allowed it, and that was why she was so forgiving, but I quickly silenced it. Even if Morgan had made Henry’s life a living hell, there hadn’t been any excuse for what he’d done.
She shrugged again.
“His good days as a parent wouldn’t have been as good as my worst days,” she said gently, her voice filled with understanding that I hadn’t afforded my brother since the minute I’d learned of his daughter’s existence. “He just wasn’t equipped for it, and she deserves better than that.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, a little bit in awe of the calm woman in front of me. I couldn’t understand how she was just okay with the way Henry had bailed on her. What she was saying made sense intellectually, but emotionally I was still grappling with her words. Part of me, a big part, wondered if she was full of shit. Something didn’t feel right.
“Is that all you wanted?” she asked after I’d been quiet too long.
“No,” I said, swallowing hard again. “We—me and my family—we’d like to get to know you. You and the baby, I mean.” I stumbled over the words. “No pressure, whatever you’re comfortable with. We were just hoping that we could meet her, maybe, or—”
“I’m cool with that,” she said, saving me from my word vomit.
“You are?” I asked, watching her closely. Now would be the time she would state her demands.
“Sure.” She nodded, surprising the hell out of me. “A kid can’t have enough family.”
“Well, she’s got a big one,” I replied idiotically as I tried to figure out why this was going so smoothly.
“I know.”
I nodded, then paused. “Wait, what? Did Henry talk about us?”
She laughed a little and tilted her head to the side.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” she asked, smiling.
I stared at her, but recognition was just out of reach. “Should I?”
“When you knew me, I was about six inches shorter and about fifteen pounds heavier,” she said. “And my last name was Harlan.”
“Morgan Harlan,” I said out loud.
“I was fostered at your house for about two months when I was thirteen,” she said, and just like that, recognition dawned.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, looking her over again.
“That’s what Henry said when I ran into him at a bar,” she said, laughing. “He recognized me, though.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice still a little bit high with surprise. I wondered if she’d been this beautiful when we were kids and I just hadn’t noticed. Thirteen-year-old girls weren’t on my radar back then.
“No worries.” She waved her hand from side to side. “I look different than I did ten years ago, and you were too old to pay any attention to me when we were kids anyway.”
“Hen had the biggest crush on you,” I remembered out loud before I could catch myself.
“I know,” she said, still laughing a little. “But he was such a scrawny thing back then, I didn’t even care.”
“Damn,” I said, shaking my head a little as memories, one after another, played through my mind. She’d come to us just as school was letting out for the summer, and she’d spent those two months with us running wild all over the property with the rest of the kids. I’d been too old to spend my days playing in the creek—by then I’d already started working with my dad at the logging company—but I still remembered sitting down to dinner with all the muddy, sunburned, disheveled kids each night.
“What happened after you left?” I asked. I’d always wondered what happened to the kids who stayed with us after they were gone, but beyond the few who
had stayed in contact with my parents, I’d never had the chance to ask.
“That’s a long story,” she said, still smiling. “But eventually, my dad got out of prison and got us back.”
“Prison, huh?” I tried to keep the judgment out of my voice.
“A marijuana charge,” she murmured, rolling her eyes. “Pretty much bullship.”
“Didn’t you have a little sister?” I asked, changing the subject since it seemed like a sore one.
“Yeah, Miranda,” she said, happily. “They put us back together after I left your house.”
“I always felt like shit when kids came to us without their siblings,” I said with a small shake of my head. “I didn’t understand why they did that.”
“Sometimes it just worked out that way,” she said pragmatically. “Your parents were some of the good ones, though. They made that summer bearable.”
“We had a full house then,” I remembered out loud. “I was surprised when you got placed with us.”
A sound from somewhere in the house made me freeze, and seconds later a small voice called out.
“Hold that thought,” Morgan said, standing up. “I’ll be right back.”
It took everything in me not to pull out my phone the minute she walked away. I couldn’t believe how well things were going. The best-case scenario I’d imagined hadn’t even come close to what I was actually dealing with.
“You hungry?” Morgan asked, coming up behind me. Her tone made it clear she wasn’t addressing me, but I turned around anyway.
There she was. Henry’s blond-haired, brown-eyed little girl. Shit, she was cute.
“This is Etta,” Morgan said, bouncing the baby on her hip. “And her hair is a mess when she wakes up from a nap.”
I smiled as Etta said, “Mess,” and threw her hands into the air.
“Hi, Etta,” I said, getting to my feet.
“That’s Trevor,” Morgan told her, pointing at me. “Wanna say hi?”
“Hi!” Etta gave a little wave, and a lump settled in my throat.
She looked like my brother when he’d first come to live with us. The cheeks were the same, and the shape of her nose and eyes were pretty much identical to Hen’s. Her mouth was all Morgan, though, especially when she smiled.