None were.
I went to my place, grabbed the rest of the rent checks left in my manager’s box, stuffed them in a manila envelope, and headed back out again.
Somehow, the Bluffs complex looked even more shitty since last I’d seen it. The roof was in worse shape after a rainy winter, and the cheap, dark green paint was already chipping off in huge chunks.
I knocked on my uncle’s door.
“It’s open.”
I stepped inside, mentally preparing myself for the claustrophobia of his crammed apartment. It was worse.
There was a second small coffee table in his living room with a foldable bedframe stacked on top of it. A brand-new mattress, still in its plastic, leaned against one wall. The TV was on—I wondered if it ever got a break—with Nelson parked in front of it. The scent of microwaved ravioli hung in the air.
I nodded at the furniture. “What’s all this?”
“Tenant eviction,” Nelson said. He was wearing a stained undershirt, boxers that brushed his knees, and black socks pulled up his pale legs that were crisscrossed with bulging veins. “But the mattress is new. Figured you could use it.”
“This is for me?”
“You had a birthday, right?”
My birthday was weeks ago. Usually it came and went, uneventful. Except this year I’d had Shiloh’s pendant, Holden’s boots, and Miller’s song. And now a real bed instead of that shitty futon.
Maybe I’ll sleep.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“That social worker, Alicia, called me. Made me promise not to forget, but I did. Hey, better late than never, right? She sends her regards.”
Alicia Marquez was one of the few people who’d ever shown me kindness over the years, going above and beyond the duties of her job to make sure I was okay. Hell, even after I turned eighteen, she found Nelson.
Except that didn’t make sense.
I hadn’t thought about it at the time; I was just happy to get the fuck out of Wisconsin and be with family. But Alicia had been searching for a blood relative since I was eight years old, and Nelson shows up after I age out of the system…?
I turned the thought over and over in my mind, like the envelope in my hands.
“That’s the rent?” Nelson held out his hand. I gave it to him. “Any issues?”
“No. What’s our late fee policy again?”
He frowned, peering into the envelope. “Seventy-five dollars for the first week. One-fifty for the next. If they’re late more than once, they’re out.”
“Seems kind of rough.”
“Rough? That’s the rules.”
“Do you ever let it slide?”
“Why the hell would I do that?”
I shrugged. “Shit happens. Circumstances.”
“Not my problem. I got my own circumstances. Don’t need to deal with someone else’s.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
I shrugged again, not looking at him.
Nelson snorted and hauled himself out of his recliner to hobble to the kitchen. He didn’t look well. His skin had a yellowish tinge to it, his hair thin and brittle. The strength under his bulk that had reminded me of my father was just bulk now.
“You’re doing a good job,” he said, poking his head inside the fridge so I barely heard him. “Better than I expected.”
“Thanks.”
“Keep it up. Don’t get soft just because you know the tenants now. And their circumstances.”
Too late.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Huh?”
I raised my voice. “How are you?”
His head popped out of the fridge. “What’s it to you?”
Nelson emerged from the kitchen with two beers. “Here.” He thrust one at me and clinked his to mine. “Happy Birthday.”
We both drank and then Nelson sank down heavily in his chair. I sat in the other, toying with the bottle. The TV blared a commercial for a local used car dealership.
Maybe it was last night’s fuck up with Shiloh—another good thing in my life that had slipped through my fingers. Or maybe it was that I knew, even with a decent bed and a real mattress, the nightmares would still find me because they were in my blood. My blood that was his blood, while hers had been splattered all over the kitchen floor so I was alone for ten fucking years…
I couldn’t let it go.
“Alicia called you?” My voice sounded tight.
“That’s what I said.”
“And she found you last summer? When I was at the farm in Manitowoc?”
He grunted what might’ve been a yes, not looking at me.
“Nelson.”
“What? Christ, I’m trying to watch my show…”
I concentrated on peeling the label off my beer bottle. “Alicia’s job ended when I turned eighteen. But she worked her ass off for ten years before that. Looking for you.”
“Yeah? So?”
“She found you, didn’t she?” I said, peeling. “But you waited until I was eighteen to come forward.”
He shifted in his recliner. “You’re asking this now?”
“I’m asking.”
His eyes went back on the TV, not answering.
The label came off. I crumpled it up in my hand. My voice was low. Stony. “I did ten years in foster care, Nelson.”
“So?”
“So?”
“That’s what I said. We all got tough luck stories. You think you’re special?”
“No, but—”
“Good, ’cause you aren’t. Remember that.”
The old anger boiled up in me and spilled over. I chucked the balled-up label on the floor where it joined the rest of the trash. “I remember. I remember being a scared little kid, shuffled around from house to house. No family. No nothing,” I said, my voice rising. “Just where the fuck were you?”
Nelson’s head jerked back and swiveled to me, his eyes wide. “Beg your pardon? You talk to me like that when I’m trying to do something nice for you? Well, shit, I learned my lesson, didn’t I? Never again. You get nothing else from me if that’s how you’re going to act. Spoiled brat…”
I barely heard him, the bloody memories washing over me. “I was eight years old when he killed her.”
“Here we go again…”
“You knew. You fucking knew what happened and you stayed away. I was in the system for ten fucking years.”
Ten years of foster life. A soul-crushing weight I carried every day on top of losing my mother. Abusive guardians or negligent ones that used me for a paycheck. Beatings, locked closets, hunger and cold, harsh words and violence. It all pressed down on me until I couldn’t breathe, until I wanted to hit something until my bones broke. To feel anything that wasn’t that.
“You knew I was out there…and you let me fucking rot until I could be useful to you. Free labor. Not family.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo,” Nelson snapped back. “You look all right. You survived.”
I put the naked beer bottle down before it shattered in my grip.
“Look,” he said into my silence. “I wasn’t ever going to be any kind of a parent. Can you see me with a kid? Doing what…cooking you breakfast? Sack lunches? Making sure you did your homework?”