Suzie’s House 363 : The Best Dad Around

His mother hadn’t abandoned him. She’d merely been murdered. Gene pulled his guitar onto his lap and strummed a few notes while he considered all the mixed up feelings he had about family and friends now that he knew the truth. Tracy would probably say something like how this would make a good song. Maybe she was right. Maybe he needed to try writing one.

“Gene!” Ben didn’t bother knocking. He just slammed the door open and walked in like he already knew he was invited. Or maybe more like he was too upset to think about it. “Do you think there’s something wrong with Drew?”

“Um… No?” Gene didn’t bother to look up from his guitar.

“I can’t put my finger on it. But there’s something different.” Ben pulled the ladder-back chair around and sat facing the back.

“Yeah?” Gene caught himself strumming the progression for one of Tracy’s songs and made himself try something else.

“I mean, he was doing something really risky in New Mexico. It was for work, but it really messed him up. He told me so.” Ben flopped one arm over the back of the chair, then rested his chin on the arm. His eyes went distant while he looked at the floor.

“We all have our problems.”

“No, this is serious. ‘Cause he’s probably going to be our new dad. You know?”

“Oh.” Gene hadn’t considered that.

It was one thing to let Mrs. H. adopt him. She’d been trying to be his mother all along. He was used to the idea now, and thought he could handle it. Especially since there really wasn’t any way he’d ever see his real mother again.

A new dad was a different thing all together.

“I’m glad.” Ben straightened his back and brought a fist down on the chair. “He’s a lot better than either of our real dads. Right? Right?”

“Kind of hard to argue that,” Gene muttered.

“I mean, I don’t want to put things between Drew and Mom in jeopardy, you know? She really loves him. But….”

“But what if he ends up the same as our real dads?” Gene finished the thought for him.

“Or maybe worse. I mean, my dad is rotten to the core, and maybe a little crazy, but at least he isn’t a drug addict.”

Gene nodded, though he kind of thought a drug addict probably wouldn’t be worse than an alcoholic. He strummed a few cords. Again, he caught himself playing one of Tracy’s songs. Didn’t he have anything original in him?

Ben stared at the floor in moody silence while Gene fought with himself. How did you make a song out of not trusting people? He didn’t trust women even though he knew now that his mom didn’t really betray him. And he sure didn’t trust men because you never knew when they’d start swinging.

“You know him a lot better than me, but don’t you think Drew is… I don’t know… safe?” Gene put his guitar next to him on the bed so he could pretend he wasn’t struggling with it and looked right at Ben.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, your dad and mine tried to get us locked up in the loony bin. Think Drew will do that?”

“No way! He’s not like that.”

“Even now?”

Ben hesitated, but eventually he shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Think he’d beat either of us like mine used to do me?”

“No way.”

“Think he’ll make me move out of this room? No offense, but I’d rather not share with you again.” So far as Gene was concerned, this was the biggest problem with Drew coming back.

“I don’t think so.” Ben laughed. “Looks like he’s already moved into Mom’s room. Although I notice Miranda is moving stuff out of her room. You know, the one she uses like a walk in closet?”

Gene heaved an inward sigh of relief. So his toehold on the world was still safe.

“Then what are you so worried about? Seems to me like Drew is a lot better than anything we could hope for, even with the drug thing.” He reached for his guitar. He had an idea of a melody and maybe a word or two involving fathers and sons. This could be even better than something Tracy wrote.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Ben smiled with a sloppy kind of relief. “I’m glad we had this… um… this cathartic talk. That’s a real word, right?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Right. Mrs. Audrey says I need to learn more words. Tracy was kind of helping me, but you can never be sure she got it right in the first place.”

“Yeah. Better check a dictionary.”

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