apparently.
“Are there any more of you? Any siblings, I mean?” he asked.
Zach shook his head. “Nah. It’s just me.”
“What are you looking for, Zach? From me.” Cade hoped the words didn’t sound callous; he was just trying to wrap his mind around all this and be as direct as possible.
Zach shrugged. “Look, I get that I’m basically this total stranger to you, but I don’t know . . . maybe we could grab a burger sometime or whatever. Just hang out.”
Cade saw the eagerness in Zach’s eyes, a look he understood. Because twenty-three years ago, he’d felt the exact same thing, and had put himself out there for a near stranger, just as Zach was doing now.
He didn’t know jack squat about being a brother. And, no doubt, he was wholly unprepared to have suddenly acquired one at 3:45 on a Friday afternoon. But he did know one thing.
He would not do to this kid what Noah Garrity had once done to him.
So he nodded. “I’d like that, Zach.”
* * *
AFTER ZACH LEFT, Cade shut his office door and took a seat at his desk. The two of them had agreed to meet for lunch the following weekend at DMK Burger Bar. Cade had only one condition, and it was non-negotiable.
“Noah can’t be there,” he’d said. “I don’t care what you do or don’t tell him about the fact that you came to see me. That’s your business with him. But he is not a part of this.”
Zach had seemed a little surprised by his vehemence, but he’d nodded nevertheless. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”
Cade didn’t know what it meant that Noah had been crying over his Rose Bowl game, and he didn’t care. He was a lawyer; he dealt with facts. And in this case, there was one irrefutable fact, the only one that mattered: Noah Garrity hadn’t bothered to contact him in twenty-three years. He wasn’t a part of Cade’s life, and never would be.
Cade knew enough of the story, although it had taken him years as a kid to piece it together. Noah Garrity got his mother, Christine Morgan, pregnant during their last semester of high school. Christine’s parents had remained surprisingly levelheaded that their homecoming queen daughter was going to have a baby; Noah, on the other hand, had freaked out. His older brother had flunked out of Illinois State University and decided to move to California with a buddy to open a landscaping business. When they asked Noah to join them, he packed his bags for the sunny west coast, and broke up with Christine by leaving a note in her school locker. Don’t hate me, babe. I’m just not ready to be someone’s father.
Luckily for Cade, Christine realized that—ready or not—the arrival of a baby, one she’d decided to keep, meant that somebody needed to act responsibly. She finished high school and enrolled in the local community college. Cade, never one to cause his mother too much trouble, conveniently arrived during winter break, allowing Christine—with her mother as a babysitter—to resume classes by February. After two years, she received her associate’s degree and transferred, with Cade, to Northern Illinois University where she earned a nursing degree.
When Cade was about five years old, right around the time he and his mother moved back to the Chicago area and she took her first nursing job, he began to ask questions about his father. Quickly, he realized it was a sore subject. His grandparents tried to skirt around the topic as much as possible, and his mother, only twenty-three years old at the time, talked about Noah exclusively in the negative: how he’d dropped out of school, how he’d flaked on them when she’d gotten pregnant, how he’d never tried to contact them once. Eventually, Cade just stopped asking.
Until the day, five years later, when his mother came to him .
He’d been in his room, playing Super Mario Land on his Nintendo Game Boy before bedtime, when she knocked on the door and said they needed to talk.
Cade knew exactly what that meant. Trou-ble. “It was
“Are there any more of you? Any siblings, I mean?” he asked.
Zach shook his head. “Nah. It’s just me.”
“What are you looking for, Zach? From me.” Cade hoped the words didn’t sound callous; he was just trying to wrap his mind around all this and be as direct as possible.
Zach shrugged. “Look, I get that I’m basically this total stranger to you, but I don’t know . . . maybe we could grab a burger sometime or whatever. Just hang out.”
Cade saw the eagerness in Zach’s eyes, a look he understood. Because twenty-three years ago, he’d felt the exact same thing, and had put himself out there for a near stranger, just as Zach was doing now.
He didn’t know jack squat about being a brother. And, no doubt, he was wholly unprepared to have suddenly acquired one at 3:45 on a Friday afternoon. But he did know one thing.
He would not do to this kid what Noah Garrity had once done to him.
So he nodded. “I’d like that, Zach.”
* * *
AFTER ZACH LEFT, Cade shut his office door and took a seat at his desk. The two of them had agreed to meet for lunch the following weekend at DMK Burger Bar. Cade had only one condition, and it was non-negotiable.
“Noah can’t be there,” he’d said. “I don’t care what you do or don’t tell him about the fact that you came to see me. That’s your business with him. But he is not a part of this.”
Zach had seemed a little surprised by his vehemence, but he’d nodded nevertheless. “Yeah. Sure. No problem.”
Cade didn’t know what it meant that Noah had been crying over his Rose Bowl game, and he didn’t care. He was a lawyer; he dealt with facts. And in this case, there was one irrefutable fact, the only one that mattered: Noah Garrity hadn’t bothered to contact him in twenty-three years. He wasn’t a part of Cade’s life, and never would be.
Cade knew enough of the story, although it had taken him years as a kid to piece it together. Noah Garrity got his mother, Christine Morgan, pregnant during their last semester of high school. Christine’s parents had remained surprisingly levelheaded that their homecoming queen daughter was going to have a baby; Noah, on the other hand, had freaked out. His older brother had flunked out of Illinois State University and decided to move to California with a buddy to open a landscaping business. When they asked Noah to join them, he packed his bags for the sunny west coast, and broke up with Christine by leaving a note in her school locker. Don’t hate me, babe. I’m just not ready to be someone’s father.
Luckily for Cade, Christine realized that—ready or not—the arrival of a baby, one she’d decided to keep, meant that somebody needed to act responsibly. She finished high school and enrolled in the local community college. Cade, never one to cause his mother too much trouble, conveniently arrived during winter break, allowing Christine—with her mother as a babysitter—to resume classes by February. After two years, she received her associate’s degree and transferred, with Cade, to Northern Illinois University where she earned a nursing degree.
When Cade was about five years old, right around the time he and his mother moved back to the Chicago area and she took her first nursing job, he began to ask questions about his father. Quickly, he realized it was a sore subject. His grandparents tried to skirt around the topic as much as possible, and his mother, only twenty-three years old at the time, talked about Noah exclusively in the negative: how he’d dropped out of school, how he’d flaked on them when she’d gotten pregnant, how he’d never tried to contact them once. Eventually, Cade just stopped asking.
Until the day, five years later, when his mother came to him .
He’d been in his room, playing Super Mario Land on his Nintendo Game Boy before bedtime, when she knocked on the door and said they needed to talk.
Cade knew exactly what that meant. Trou-ble. “It was
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