Their house was tidy, but old and modest. Despite the frayed sofa arms and the scratches on the old hardwood floor that had a small threadbare area rug over it, there was not a speck of dust anywhere and the place had been filled with signs of love and care. Crocheted doilies. Framed photos. All Luke’s school pictures. Their wedding photo and pictures of other loved ones.
From the way she described him, to deal with their loss, I suspected Mr. Hanson stared emotionless at the television and she cleaned the already clean house.
I had an hour-long visit with her, and she didn’t want to go out, citing that she had housework to catch up on (on a house that was spotless), so I said goodbye, telling her I’d investigate the Melanie situation. When I got into my car, I called the number she’d given me.
“Is this Melanie?” I greeted after the phone was answered with a suspicious-sounding feminine Hello. I heard a baby crying in the background.
“Who’s askin’?”
“I’m Jojo. I know, um… knew, Luke Hanson. I was just with his mother. Is it true he’s the father of your baby?”
She held the phone. The baby continued crying.
“Can we meet?” I asked.
“Jojo. Jojo who?” Her voice had gone alarmed. “Not Valentine? You related to Rider?”
“He’s my brother.”
“He told me to stay away, said if I came anywhere near anyone he cared about again, he’d make me sorry.”
“This is me asking you to meet. Don’t worry about Rider getting mad.”
She held the phone a second before saying, “Fine. Meet me at the park.”
“Which park?”
She told me the spot and I knew it well. Me and my friends used to score dope there when we were in high school.
When I got to the park, I saw a scraggly pale chick on a bench rocking a stroller with a crying toddler in it. She rocked that stroller absently, staring off into space.
I made my approach.
“Melanie?”
She looked up at me and she assessed me as she did.
I did the same. I recognized her. I couldn’t place from where, though.
She was dirty. Her clothes. Her hair. She had dark circles under her eyes. My eyes moved to the baby, who I could see was around a year old and he was crying hard, his little face red, his fingers in his mouth and drool dripping down his chin. His stroller was filthy.
“You’re Jojo. Of course you are. You have the same eyes as Rider. And his mom.”
I gave her a tight smile. She was correct; me and Ride got Mom’s turquoise eyes. Spence and Deacon had brown and gold eyes like Dad. And at the mention of my mom it dawned, and I remembered her. She was in my driveway talking to my mother one day, not long before Dad sold the house. Mom rushed me off, not telling me who she was.
“Thought he might have been Rider’s, but Ride says it couldn’t have been and now I see Lick more ‘n more every time I look at Trevor. But, I told him, Trev, your daddy’s dead, just like mine, so…” She shrugged. “It’s just me. I thought maybe his gran and gramps would wanna know him seein as they lost Lick, but… that man don’t like me. Looks at me like I’m trash. Lick’s momma seemed like she wanted to know Trev, but now she’s ditched me just like everyone else has.”
I sat on the bench beside her.
“Can we back up a sec? You thought this baby was my brother’s?”
She lit a cigarette and took a long drag before blowing the smoke out. I wanted to pull that baby stroller away so that little guy wouldn’t have to breathe that smoke in, but forced myself to clench my hands instead. Not my baby, not my business.
“Mm hm. Had a threesome. Ride swears he was in back and Lick in front, but I thought it was the other way around. What do I know, apparently Rider remembers better than me?” She shrugged. ”But, he looks like Lick. Don’t ya think?”
She looked at the little guy, who had cried himself to sleep. He was now flopped forward with his thumb in his mouth.
He didn’t. He didn’t look like either Lick or Rider. He looked like his mom.
“Thank God, finally. He never sleeps. I never get any fucking rest.” She rubbed her forehead. “I need sleep. Badly.”
Seeing the state of her, I believed it.
“Why did you call me?” She sat up straight suddenly, eyeing me shrewdly.
“Me and Luke… Lick… we were…close. His mother told me about you; she was upset. I was…”
“Curious?” she asked after I’d trailed off, looking for words.
“I guess. I mean, finding out you’re saying either Rider or Luke are a daddy, it impacts me either way.” I looked down at the sleeping baby. “Ride’s my brother and Lu-Lick… I cared about him and I’d absolutely look out for his child.”
She stared at me, eyes active.
“So…” I continued, “You fooled around with him and my brother together. That means you weren’t in a serious relationship?”
“We just fucked sometimes. He was real good at it. Lick’d party with me, get me high. Rider… I just fucked the one time. Real good at it, too. Oh. Sorry. I know he’s your brother ‘n all, but that man and his dick piercing are hot.” She took another long drag of her smoke.
I couldn’t hide my grimace but said nothing in reply. “When was the last time you slept with Lick?” I asked.
“The night this guy was conceived. You doing math to figure out if he was stepping out on you?”
He was stepping out on me, though not at that time because we hadn’t been anything but friends yet. Not to mention, we weren’t ever actually ‘official’.
I shrugged. “No. He and I weren’t together that long and we … we hadn’t put a label on it. But, I cared. Known him since I was a kid. Listen. Uh, no offence, but is there a chance he could be someone else’s? If my brother doesn’t think Luke is the father---”
“I know my cycles.”
“So, you weren’t with anyone else that cycle?” I pressed.
“I wasn’t with anyone else that weekend and that’s when I would’ve been ova-latin’. Two weeks from the last day of my last period.”
Luke had never told me anyone told him he might have a kid. Would he have told me? Was this just another of the reasons he had for not wanting us to go public, take our relationship to the next level?
“Did Luke know about him?”
She looked at me shrewdly. “What’s your point?”
That wasn’t an answer. Clearly, he didn’t.
“Maybe a DNA test is a good idea. If he’s Luke’s, you’ll have proof for Mr. and Mrs. Hanson and then if they had real proof that Trevor is their grandson, they would for sure want to know him. But Melanie, they don’t have a lot. The kind of help you might get could be a break once in a while in the form of babysitting. Or, just having people in his orbit that care, you know? People to love him. The Hansons don’t have much money.”
The Hansons lived in a nice neighborhood but just looking at their house, you could tell it was older, not flashy. It needed a new roof a long time ago and could use some work to spruce it up. Mr. Hanson drove a beater. Mrs. Hanson didn’t dress flashy. Luke had told me the house belonged to his grandparents before they died, and his parents inherited it.