It also gave her something else to think about besides what I had to do.
Tomorrow’s activities were set. At least for now, I’d spend my time with my family.
Chapter Eleven
Back in the apartment Franks had set up for Raine and Alex, I sat awkwardly at the table in the kitchen while they ate sandwiches. Raine offered me one, but that was junk food in my book, so I declined.
“Can’t you give him something healthier?” I mumbled.
“He’s just a kid, Bastian. It’s peanut butter and jelly, not candy bars.”
I looked over the sugar content on the label of the jelly jar and cringed. The bread Raine had used for the sandwiches was that squishy white stuff, too.
“Jesus, Raine,” I said, “this is pure shit!”
“Watch your mouth!” she said with a hiss.
I rolled my eyes, but I knew she was right. I looked over at Alex, but he was face-deep in peanut butter and not paying any attention.
“He didn’t hear me,” I said.
“Maybe not this time,” she countered.
“It’s still crap food.”
“Well,” Raine continued, “this is what they give me. It’s not like I’m doing the shopping myself. You know I don’t usually buy this kind of stuff because you always throw a fit.”
All right, I couldn’t argue with that. I could tell the assholes in Franks’ employ to get her some better quality food though. Of course, I had no idea what kids liked to eat—weren’t they supposed to be picky eaters or something? Was I going to have to spout a plethora of arguments about why vegetables had to be eaten?
I’m so unprepared for fatherhood, it’s not even funny.
As I sat there and thought about it, I realized just how correct that statement was. I didn’t know what I was doing. Raine seemed so natural with Alex, and I didn’t even know what he’d want to eat for dinner. I’d spent years of effort pushing the memory of his existence as far into the back of my mind as possible; I never even considered needing any information about children. I couldn’t exactly use my own past as a delinquent skipping from one foster home to another as a model.
I had no clue what a six-year-old was like. I didn’t even know where to start.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
“Bastian!” Raine snarled. “Stop it!”
I was about to take myself out of the room to let out a good string of cuss words when Alex spoke up.
“You aren’t supposed to say bad words, Dad.”
That single word melted me. It flowed over my flesh like warm bath water and sunk into me so deeply, I could feel it in my core. My throat felt like it was closing up on me, and there was burning pressure building up behind my eyes. I felt Raine’s fingers brush over my thigh, and I forced myself to swallow.
“You’re right, Alex,” I finally said. “I shouldn’t.”
Alex and Raine finished their sandwiches, and we spent the rest of the day sitting on the living room floor with Alex, placing little plastic bricks together in such a way that they ended up looking like little spaceships. There were astronaut figures to add to the cockpits, and Alex flew them around the room, sparking memories from my own fucked-up past.
With a plastic airplane in my hand, I make buzzing sounds as I hold it high above my head and run in circles around the room. It’s the very best plane from the box. All the others are scratched up or rusty.
Jared, the new kid in the foster home, finishes the wooden puzzle he’s been working on and looks over to me.
“It’s my turn to play with the plane!”
“No, it isn’t,” I say. My skin quivers through my body as I hold the toy close to my chest. He’d played with it all day yesterday. I’ve only had it for a few minutes, and I’m not about to give it up now.
It is a something. It is a something important, and if I give it to him, I have nothing.
“It’s my turn!” Jared insists. He looks over to Miss Janet and yells to her. “Sebastian’s not sharing!”
“Share the toys,” Miss Janet says without looking up from the crossword in the newspaper. She scribbles in a word then purses her lips and erases it again.
“She said you have to share,” Jared says with a sneer.
My hands shake as I hold the plane tightly in my fingers. I won’t give it to him. I won’t.
Jared reaches out and tries to grab it from me, but I push him away. He lands on the carpet and cries out.
“He pushed me!”
Miss Janet tells me to stop in the same, tired voice.
Jared stands and comes at me, and I shove him again—harder this time. The plastic wing of the plane is cutting into my fingers a little as I hold it tightly. I take a step forward and kick him in the side.
“It’s mine!” I shout. “You can’t play with it!”
“Sebastian!” Miss Janet yells as she looks over at me. “Give Jared the plane!”
The shaking in my hands travels through the rest of my body. It’s all I have. Jared has everything, even parents who are just waiting for the court system to say their house is in good enough shape for him to come home. He has them, he has a home, he has his own toys, and I have nothing.
Screaming at the top of my voice, I throw the plane against the wall. The shaking turns to pressure in my head and chest as I watch it fall in little pieces to the floor.
“You see what you did!” I scream at Jared as I launch myself at him.
Shaking the memory away, I swore to myself again that Alex was not going to have the same kind of life that was forced upon me as a child. I wasn’t going to let that happen to him.
Promptly at eight o’clock, Raine coerced Alex into taking a bath. I watched as he floated little boats around in the water and Raine washed his hair. Seeing her with him made me feel proud of her but also extremely inadequate. How did she know how to do these things? I was at a total loss.
“Can you grab some pajamas for him?” Raine asked.
“Where are they?”
“Second drawer.”
I went into his bedroom and dug around through the dresser until I came up with a faded pair of PJs with Spiderman all over the fabric in various heroic poses. Alex held onto my shoulder as he stepped into them, and Raine dried off his hair and handed him a toothbrush.
“Can Dad pick out a story to read?” Alex asked.
I looked to Raine, nearly panicked. I’d never read a story to a kid in my life.
“Of course he can,” Raine said. She grinned at me and leaned close. “He likes the one called The Hungry Thing.”
After a little digging, I found the book on the floor beneath Alex’s dirty clothes. I tossed the clothes in the hamper near the door and pulled one of the plastic chairs to the edge of the bed. Alex settled in, and Raine pulled the blanket up to his chin.
I held the book in my lap and chewed on the edge of my thumb, unsure of how to begin. Raine raised her eyebrows at me and nodded her head toward the book. I took in a deep breath, opened the cover, and began to read in a shaky voice.