Chapter 21
“You’re way too small to understand any of this, but this is a 3/8ths wrench and crap like that--sorry, stuff like that matters,” Roarke said to the small boy staring up at him.
Hanna had been with Jason for most of the past few months. Roarke filed for temporary custody of the boy when a social worker appeared and attempted to take him on as a ward of the state. Hanna, who had nearly been victim to the same fate, nearly panicked at the possibility and Roarke stepped in. He was the boy’s next of kin, his biological uncle. They awarded him foster care and until further notice, Jason was part of the family they were building.
They watched him learn how to smile. He was quiet, a wallflower by nature it seemed and made even shyer in the presence of people he didn’t recognize. He was most comfortable with Hanna and Roarke couldn’t blame the kid. She was kind and soft and, despite his genetic relationship to him, she was probably the one who understood the boy the most.
He liked video games, he was good at them. It had the practical skill of some excellent hand-eye coordination they discovered while playing a pickup game of soccer with him in the park. He could be quite the athlete someday though Hanna warned Roarke several times not to push him, to let whatever was going to happen do so naturally. Despite his annoyance at her constant nagging, he couldn’t blame her, considering how Isabelle turned out.
“One day you’ll be able to get in here and get your hands dirty,” Roarke said
The boy said nothing.
Okay so maybe he wasn’t a natural born mechanic. That’s okay. He could work with that. He could handle it. He didn’t need to be a carbon copy of Roarke, he didn’t need to fit in perfectly with the idea of what the family should look like. He was learning to be okay with that, to let this kid out and do whatever it is he needed to do with his talents. That was the freedom that Isabelle had been denied.
He wouldn’t learn his likes and dislikes and hobbies in one afternoon. It would take year to get to know this boy fully. He was talking more but he was still quiet, reserved, and wanted to remain as anonymous and silent as possible. Roarke was certain at this point it had less to do with him being shy and scared of his new surroundings (after all he had a year to adjust) and more to do with his natural inclination to simply be a quiet, observant kid.
He’d nurture that too. He was learning all about being nurturing and helpful and things from parenting books that said made good fathers.
“Alright, well this has been informative and boring,” he said. “Should we find Aunt Hanna?”
His face lit up at that and nodded. Roarke rolled his eyes but smiled, placing a hand on the back of the boy’s shoulder and giving him a nudge towards the door. He skipped out. He was beginning to think the kid had a little bit of a crush on Hanna. He smiled, he could put up with some competition.
He saw Isabelle sometimes. They took him to the jail once a month or so. He really didn’t like ferrying a kid in and out of a state penitentiary. But Isabelle had rights, she was allowed to see her son, even if she was behind bars. They never took him to see his father. Isaiah wanted nothing to do with his son, too busy trading cigarettes and smuggling coke in and out of the jail to care what his boy was up to. Those visits with Isabelle were often incredibly hard to get through. Hanna was often the one to take him since Roarke wanted little or nothing to do with the entire thing. Isabelle was gone, as far as he was concerned.
“She asks about you,” Hanna said, the third time she returned from a visit with Jason in tow.
“I don’t care,” he said, cranking the bolt on the bike he was working on.
“Are you sure?” she asked, sitting across from him. Her stomach had still been huge then, carrying a nearly full grown baby inside, ready to greet the world.
“Yes. It’s better for everyone if I don’t go, stay here, call it a day on the whole thing.”
They didn’t have conversations about it after that and Hanna never asked him again, silently tugging Jason along when the time came to see Isabelle again.
He did overhear Hanna talking to Amber about it one day, claiming that Isabelle was better, was getting much more human as the days went on. He ignored it, pushed it to the back of his mind. He didn’t need to deal with it. One day he might reconcile with his sister. But as the days went on, it became clearer and clearer that day wasn’t anywhere close.