The Archer Brothers, page 28
The laughter coming from the others is enough to tell me that I shouldn’t be here. Right now, I have nothing to offer EJ and Nate does. He’s offered him stability, a home and father, while I’ve been nothing more than pictures on his wall. He’s better off with Nate, and at this point so is Ryley.
My steps are solid even though the ground has a bit of give to it. My legs feel heavy and slow moving, and short of running, I’m never going to get back to my car without them seeing me.
“Hey, Eban?”
My name and the excitement in his voice is enough stop me in my tracks. I turn to find the mini version of me staring back. He’s wearing his own NWU pants with a matching hat.
“Hey, EJ.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m an adult and this little boy brings me to my knees.
“Are you my dad?”
My eyes widen at his question and I seek out Ryley and Nate who are sitting at a table not far from the swing sets. I sit down on the ground and EJ mimic’s my position. How do you answer a question you’re not prepared for? I thought I was until I got here, but now that he’s in front of me I just want to tell him no because he’d be so much better without the drama that my life is right now.
“Um…” I hesitate but realize that he needs an answer. “Who told you that?” I ask as if I’m back in high school trying to figure out who started a rumor about me.
“My mom and dad,” he says as he turns and looks over his shoulder, making sure they’re still there.
“Right.” They told him without me, but why? Was it to make things easier on me? Did they know I was going to have second thoughts about doing this? Or did they do it just to get it over with?
“Are you?” he asks again, growing impatient.
“I am, but do you know what that means?”
“Yes,” he says, picking at the grass. “It means that you’re the dad that helped make me, but my dad is the one who is helping me be a man. You know I’m going to be in the Navy, too.”
I laugh even though I find nothing funny about this situation. It’s not the Navy part that bothers me, but that he says Nate is the one who’s helping him become the man he should be.
I want to be that person.
“I don’t know how to talk to a five-year old,” I tell him, thinking he probably doesn’t understand me. “Listen EJ, I’m new at this and I’m going to make a lot of mistakes, but I love you and have loved you since you were just this little bean in your mommy’s tummy. I was so excited when we found out you were coming, but I had to go to work. My job took a very long time to finish, but I’m here now and I want to be your dad. Does this make sense to you?”
“I dunno. Mom says that I can call you ‘Dad’ if I want.”
My heart soars with anticipation until he speaks again and says, “But I like calling you Eban because it’s the same name as me.”
Swallowing hard, I try to ward off the emotions threatening to take over. I bring my knees to my chest, resting my arms over them and grabbing my wrist with my hand.
“Are you crying, Eban?”
“No,” I shake my head. “My eyes are just sweating.”
He laughs and I smile, but it’s forced. Clearing my throat, I say, “Do you think that maybe you’ll want to call me ‘Dad’ someday?”
He shrugs and places his picked grass onto his leg. “Do you think my dad will be mad?”
I want to be a damn child and yell at him, telling him that Nate is not his dad, but I’ll save that for Ryley and Nate later.
Instead, I shake my head knowing I’ve not earned the right to say what I want where EJ’s concerned, but realizing he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know me. “I think he’ll understand.”
EJ briefly looks over his shoulder again. His little hand grabs a fist full of grass, pulling hard until he brings up clumps of dirt.
“Why do you look like my dad?”
“Why do you think you look like me?” I counter.
He shrugs. “I dunno.”
I stop talking for fear that I’ll say something stupid. I should’ve stayed at River’s today. I should’ve never agreed to come to the park when Ryley called and invited me. I let River and Frannie encourage me and now here I am, confused and hurt. I feel empty and half of who I am on the inside. The love of my life is in love with a man I share DNA with and they’re raising my son together whether I like it or not.
EJ stands and brushes off his legs. “See ya later, Eban.” And before I can ask him to stay he’s gone. He runs back to Ryley and Nate as if his ass were on fire. I’m watching him the whole way, fighting every urge to scream, kick, fight, run after him, cry and beg for him to just accept me as his dad.
As soon as I see Ryley heading in my direction, I stand and walk away. I don’t want to talk to her, not today and probably not tomorrow. I may be a meathead, but I’m not stupid and I refuse to be treated as such. The writing is on the wall. She and Nate are going to stay together, my feelings be damned.
“Evan, wait.”
“Can’t, gotta go,” I tell her, without stopping. Her hand pulls on my arm until she’s standing in front of me.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. I mean River’s. Away. What does it matter?”
She blanches at my answers and her eyes widen. They’re the same beautiful green eyes that stared at me when she was lying on the ground after I hit her with the football. “What’s going on?”
I shake from the anger coursing through my body right now. Her dumb act isn’t lost on me. Pulling at the ends of my hair in frustration, I let out a loud groan.
“You told him without me being there! So, you and Nate decided that Nate will still be his dad and I’m what? That I’m some guy that comes by every now and again?” My voice is louder than I want, but I can’t control it.
“No,” she answers weakly, pissing me off even more.
“Then, what? I get it, Ry. I’m not stupid. You want to be with Nate, fine, be with him. But that little boy is my son and I’m going to be in his life. I know when to step aside and this... well, this is me walking away.”
For the first time in my life I’m willingly walking away from the one girl I’ve loved my whole life. The one girl I never thought I’d be away from. The one girl who I thought would love me no matter what life threw at us.
CHAPTER 17
NATE
“DO YOU HAVE EVERYTHING?”
Mom fusses, folding another t-shirt and placing it in the pile.
“Yes Mom, I do,” Evan assures her. He’s leaving before me by one week. We thought we’d be in basic together, but he enlisted after me and he told them that he plans to be a SEAL. The Navy plans to kick his ass.
“You can change your mind, you know.” Mom has been telling him this every day since he signed his name on the dotted line. She didn’t say it to me - maybe because this is something I’ve wanted for the last year. That’s what I’m telling myself, at least.
Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I know I have to save Evan. I set my hand on her shoulder, butting in on his behalf. “Mom, he’ll be fine. Just think, next week you can worry about me.” I all but push her out of Evan’s room and shut the door.
“I should kick your ass for leaving a week early,” I tell him, sitting down in the chair at his desk. I pick up a picture of him and Ryley and smile. He loves her. If you had asked me nine months ago, I would’ve said it’s not possible for Evan Archer to love anyone but himself.
“She’s going to miss you,” I say, setting the photo back down on his desk.
“She’ll miss you, too.”
“I’m talking about Ryley.”
Evan sighs. I expected them to break up, but I’ve been proven wrong. This is a new side of my brother. He’s heading to basic training with a girlfriend. It’s either a crazy notion and they won’t last, or he’s going to be the biggest pussy-whipped sailor in the Navy.
“I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I tell him without hesitation.
He walks over to me and pulls out his desk drawer. He picks up a white envelope and my heart drops. “If anything happens to me, ever, give this to Ryley.”
“Evan?”
“No, just listen. I know you like her, Nate, but I love her. I’m going to marry her, but if at any time I don’t make it back, you give her this letter and make sure nothing ever happens to her. Make sure she knows that I love her with everything that I am. I need you to promise me that you’ll take care of her.”
“I promise,” I say, taking the letter from his outstretched hand.
I flip the yellowed worn paper between my fingers. It’s fragile from years of being folded. I came over to Ryley’s to give her a letter that I should’ve given her years ago, but sometimes it takes a word to bring back a memory from a time in your life when everything was perfect.
Evan said something the other night that reminded me of this letter. He gave it to me a few days before he left for basic training. He wrote it the night Ryley tried to break-up with him. He wouldn’t let her. I don’t blame him.
“What’s going on?”
I follow her voice to find her standing in the doorway with a laundry basket on her hip. She smiles, reminding me why I love her, but I can’t help thinking that maybe we don’t belong together. My brother loves her and part of me thinks I should step aside, but I know she loves me too.
“Come here,” I say to her. She sets the basket down and walks over to me, holding her hand out for me when she gets close.
Curling up with her on the couch is my favorite thing to do. The quiet, the calm, especially after a crazy day at work, is all that I need. She and EJ give me solid footing and I know what to expect when I get home: Smiles, hugs and lots of laughs. But lately we haven’t been laughing at all.
“What’s that?” she asks, pointing to the envelope resting on my leg. My lips go into a thin line thinking that what I’m about to tell her could be the catalyst for our demise. Sighing, I put my arm around her and kiss her forehead.
“Evan gave this to me a long time ago. I forgot about it until the other day. I was supposed to give this to you if something happened to him. He wrote it the night you tried to break-up with him. He asked me before he left for basic to hold onto it and give it to you in the event something happened to him. I promised I would and I broke that promise... I’m not trying to make up for it now, but think you should probably read it.”
Giving her the letter, I close my hand around hers. I have a sinking feeling that whatever he wrote on that piece of paper when he was eighteen is going to be enough to end us. It’s my fault if that’s the case. I should’ve given it to her years ago.
“I’m meeting your mom for lunch,” I say, standing. Ryley and I have so much to discuss, but I don’t want to be here when she reads what Evan has written. It’s better for me that way. Decisions need to be made that are going to hurt.
Not her...
Not Evan...
They’ll hurt me.
Yesterday at the park, Ryley and I made a mistake when we told EJ that Evan was his dad. We should’ve waited for him to be there with us, but there’s no handbook on how to break the news about something like this. In that moment, we thought we were doing the right thing. In the end, we only hurt Evan and he’s been hurt enough.
I don’t know if I’m man enough to walk away from Ryley. I’m not sure I’m man enough to even try.
“Thanks for meeting me.” Carole stands and offers her cheek, which I kiss lightly. She’s dressed in black slacks and a white button down blouse, civilian clothing. It’s different seeing her during the workday like this. Usually when I visit her at lunchtime she’s in her Navy uniform, sitting behind her desk in the JAG office. Before I can sit down the waitress is at our table handing us menus and taking my drink order. Carole is already nursing a glass of Chardonnay and as much as I’d love a beer, I order water. I have a lot to talk about and need to keep my wits about me.
“I can understand why you didn’t want to meet on base,” Carole says, bringing her glass to her lips. “I’m not sure public is safe either, though.”
“I know but home may not be the best option. Besides, I’m staying with Carter and Lois, I don’t want to impose.”
“Are you afraid the house is bugged?” she asks, leaning forward to keep her voice down. My soon to be mother-in-law, unless Ryley decides to call off our engagement, is a conspiracy theorist. She’s always looking for the underlying message in a story. Many times I’ve joked with her that if someone is going to uncover the truth, it’s going to be her. I’m not joking anymore, though. The truth needs to come out. The only problem with getting Carole involved is that I’m afraid she’ll lose her job... or worse.
“I’m not sure. I get the feeling that Evan thinks so, but we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now. I need to find out what happened to him and why this is happening to us. Lois told me there has been only one article since they came home. One! And I don’t think for a second that it’s a coincidence that all of this happened days after we were sent out on a training exercise.”
Pulling out a folded piece of paper, I slide it across the table toward Carole and start talking. “The guy who wrote this, Art Liberty, I can’t find him. He doesn’t work for the paper, or he did and isn’t anymore. No phone, no email. It’s like he doesn’t exist. Lois told me that she called the news stations and the papers to get some coverage for Evan and no one would call her back. Four guys return from the dead and they get no air play, that right there tells me something is up.”
“I read this article, but there was never any follow-up. I thought for sure this reporter would come around, but he never did - at least Ryley never said anything,” Carole tells me.
Looking around, I bring my chair closer and lean in. “Do you know where Lcdr. Dawn is?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I asked for her before calling you. She’s not stationed in Coronado, or she’s been transferred. I don’t know, but no one has heard of her.”
“I have,” Carole states, relieving some of the anxiety that’s building. “But I haven’t seen her in a few weeks now that I think about it.”
When the waitress is within eyesight I lean back in my chair, opening the menu to find something to eat. Carole orders first and I ask for a burger and fries. I’m not that hungry, but want people to think we’re just having lunch. It’s not odd for us to be out together, it’s just never happened until now.
“I called the Military News to talk to Candy. She says she doesn’t remember talking to this Liberty reporter.”
“Do you think Liberty is a pseudonym for someone in the Navy?”
Shrugging and now wishing we were someplace more private, I lean in. “I don’t know what to think except my brother is a walking, talking zombie. Someone knows something and they’re not talking and the two people that did some talking are conveniently missing. Our lives are being turned inside out. Evan hates me, Ryley is confused and EJ is trying to grasp the fact that Evan is his dad. I want to know why this happened to my family.”
“Do you think Evan witnessed something?”
“I don’t know, Nate. I’ve been asking the same thing ever since Ryley called and told us he was home. I wouldn’t have believed her had I not seen him for myself.”
Carole and I separate when our food arrives. We both pick at our food, keeping our conversation limited to things like Ryley, EJ and family picnics. Every time the door chimes, I’m watching the people entering. Each one, to me, is a suspect in this bullshit mess. I just need to figure out where to start. Calling around and looking for people who may or may not exist isn’t cutting it.
As soon as we’re finished, I pay the tab and suggest that Carole and I take a walk. She happily agrees and takes my arm, earning some very dubious looks from the other patrons. Trying not to laugh at their expressions, I wink and receive the same scrutiny… If they only knew how much I admire the woman on my arm for everything that she’s achieved in her career, not to mention that she’s been like a second mom to me.
Carole keeps my arm until we’re a block away from the café. The sun is out, warming the afternoon. I should be on base working, but finding out what’s happened in the past six years is far more important. Tomorrow, I’m going to ask for personal leave. My request is likely going to be denied since my Team is being deployed, but there’s no way I can leave right now. Whether Evan wants my help or not, I’m going to find out who did this.
As soon as we step into the park, Carole slips off her shoes. “My heels will get stuck in the grass,” she explains.
“I wasn’t judging,” I respond, trying not to laugh.
“Let’s find a bench. I want to talk freely.” It takes us a few minutes until Carole is happy with one of the benches. She chooses one out in the open when I would’ve chosen one by the trees.
“Why here?” I ask, sitting down next to her.
“You can see everything and no one is able to lurk behind trees to listen to us speak.”
Looking around I see that she’s right.
“When the guys landed, they did so at an abandoned airfield and taxis were waiting for them. That’s all public knowledge. What’s not public is that their CO hasn’t been seen or heard from since that day. He never returned to base. His phone is off and his credit cards haven’t been used. A body was found four days ago, the same day you came home. The body is badly decomposed and was sent to the county morgue for identification. I have a friend in NCIS who did some digging. The body is now missing. I don’t know if there’s a connection, but it seems that everything can be connected to a timeline.
“Senator Lawson has been on base asking questions. He’s from Florida and has been rumored to be putting his name in the mix for Presidency. He seems very interested in Team 3, but is very hush-hush when I’m around. I don’t like it and I don’t like him. He has no business here, especially in California politics. You and Evan are right to think that there’s something not right about this, but I don’t know what it is. And I want to talk to you about Rask. He’s on base, lingering. I know his family has written him off and he needs someone to talk to.”
