CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WHEN JANICE KELLOGG called, telling him in a whisper that Mitchell Kellogg had returned Charlie, Tom’s fist clenched so hard around his coffee mug that it broke, and the red haze colored his vision.
“Can you take him for a few hours? He’s killing us,” Janice said. “Honestly, how did we get into this?”
“Of course,” Tom said.
“We’ll drop him off in ten minutes.”
“Brilliant.”
Tom’s heart was roaring in his ears. A shard of coffee mug was sticking out of his palm, and without feeling it, he pulled it out.
That fucking Mitchell. Did he have really so little heart that he’d return his son, his boy, back to the Kelloggs like a dog who hadn’t quite worked out being brought back to the pound? No, that wasn’t fair. The pound had standards. They wouldn’t let a person like Mitchell DeLuca take a vicious pit bull, let alone a lovely boy like Charlie. He’d been lovely once, at any rate. He was probably ruined now. How much could a child take, after all?
He cleaned up the broken mug and spilled coffee and bandaged his hand. Then the front door opened, and Charlie walked in.
“Hello, mate,” Tom said as gently as he knew how.
The kid didn’t even pause, just shuffled past, his horrible jeans dragging on the floor, the chain from his belt clinking, and went upstairs, ninety pounds of hate and misery. After a second, Tom followed.
Charlie stood in his room, looking around as if he’d never seen it before.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Tom said.
The boy turned and looked at him, his expression incredulous. Then he turned to the bureau, where the Stearman PT-17 waited, still unfinished, seized it in both hands and hurled it to the floor. It exploded, pieces flying everywhere, and Charlie picked up his foot and stomped on it, again and again and again, obliterating it, the crunching sound sickening, his screaming far worse. Then he ripped down the Manchester United poster, then flew to the nighttable, to the photo of Charlie and Melissa, and hurled it against the wall.
He tore the comforter from the bed, kicked the nighttable over and then, having run out of things to destroy, collapsed to his knees, the sounds coming from him soul-shredding, and then Tom was kneeling there among the shards of airplane, wrapping his arms around the boy.
“Get off me! I hate you! I hate you!” Charlie struggled against him, but Tom didn’t let go.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry.”
Charlie punched him, tried to wrench away, but Tom was bigger and stronger, and for once, it mattered. Charlie punched him again. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you,” he said, but the last one was just a sob.
He went limp, hoarse sobs shuddering out of him, racking his whole body, and Tom closed his eyes and held him tighter.
“Why do you still love me?” Charlie choked out, and the words cracked Tom’s heart.
“I don’t know,” Tom whispered, kissing the boy’s hair. “I just do. I always will.”
“He doesn’t want me,” Charlie said with a sob, and Tom’s heart broke entirely.
“It’s his loss.” God, he wished he could do better, find the words that would heal this boy’s heart. “I’m so sorry, Charlie, but I’m more sorry for him.”
The boy cried and cried, and Tom didn’t dare move, for fear that Charlie would lock himself in his room, or run away and never be found. He held him tight and shushed him and wished he could think of something more to do. But eventually, the sobbing tapered off.
“Don’t you hate my mother?” Charlie asked, his face still hidden against Tom’s shoulder. “She left you for someone else, and you got stuck with the kid she didn’t want.”
Tom pulled back to look at Charlie’s face. The kid looked heartbreakingly young. “I think she really did love your dad, Charlie. She wanted to work things out so the three of you could be a proper family. I don’t hate her. I loved her. And yeah, she hurt me and the whole bit, but that’s life, mate.”
“She was so stupid, texting when she was crossing the street. She didn’t have to die.”
“I know. But she didn’t leave you, Charlie. She left me.”
“She did, though. She and my father went off without me.”
“For a weekend. She never would have left you for good. You were her best thing.”
“Do you know that, or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“I know it.” He looked into Charlie’s eyes, ringed with smeared eyeliner. “I think the reason she stayed with me for as long as she did was because she thought I might be good for you.”
Something flickered through Charlie’s eyes. “Were you really gonna marry Honor so you could stay near me?”
“Who told you that?”
“She did.”
Something squeezed his chest. “Yes.”
Charlie mulled that over, then used his sleeve to wipe his eyes (and nose; honestly, boys were disgusting...he’d been the same way).
The boy was quiet for a long minute before he spoke again. “Tom?”
“Yes, mate?”
Charlie rubbed his eyes. “You know how you call me your stepson?”
“Yeah.”
“I hate that.”
“Right. I just don’t know what else to call you. I won’t do it anymore.”
“Maybe you could just...” Charlie’s voice broke. “Maybe you could drop the step.”
Tom bent his head, the feeling so overwhelming it would’ve brought him to his knees if he hadn’t already been there. He pulled Charlie into a hug, and the boy let him, and if it wasn’t completely returned, it would be. Someday in the not-too-distant future, it would be, and Tom could wait.
From the floor, Melissa’s face smiled up at him from its broken frame.
All this time, Tom realized in the ruins of the room, he thought he was staying so he could save Charlie.
It was the other way around. Charlie had given him a family, a purpose, a place.
In fact, it was Charlie who had saved him.