Chapter 78

Liam’s POV

I headed to Sophia’s house after work to spend time with William. I expected to find a babysitter there, not Sophia. I wondered if she would ever learn to be a responsible mother. William loved her so much, and she barely gave him the time of day.

If she didn’t change her act, and soon, William’s love could twist into resentment instead.

So when I knocked on the door and Sophia herself answered it, I was genuinely surprised and pleased.

“Not going out tonight?” I asked her, as she stepped back to let me in.

“No,” she said, grinning. “Tonight, I thought both you and I could spend time with William.”

I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of spending time with her, but for William’s sake, I could manage. Maybe I was being unfair anyway. Sophia and I used to get along quite well, before she started seeing me more as a man to seduce than as a brother-figure.

Hopefully, we could go back to how things used to be. If Sophia stopped going out and became more like the woman she used to be, maybe she could find a good man who would help her in the ways she wanted to be helped, raising her family, finding love.

I was getting ahead of myself. One night in did not make Sophia an entirely reformed woman.

“Where is William?” I asked. The living room was empty.

She looked around like she had expected to find him here as well. “Oh. I don’t know.” In a shout, she called, “William?!”

“What?!” he yelled back, equally as loudly from upstairs.

“Where are you?!”

“In my room!”

To me, Sophia said, “He’s in his room.”

I stared at her a moment, wondering if she would realize how unnecessary that exchange was. Instead, she just smiled at me, while batting her eyelashes so hard she must have caught something in her eye.

“You should clean out your eye,” I told her. “You wouldn’t want a scratched cornea. I hear those are very painful.”

“I don’t… I’m not…” she fumbled her words around but never strung them together in a way that made sense.

Shrugging, I turned toward the stairs, then took them two at a time.

“William? Do you want to visit?” I said at the end of the hallway.

His head ducked out from his room. “Okay!”

Sophia followed me up the stairs.

“Your mom is here too,” I said.

“Okay,” he said again, slightly less enthused this time.

When I walked into William’s room, he had books for his homework opened on top of his bed, but William himself was sitting on the floor, running his toy cars over a carpet with streets stitched onto it.

“Can I play?” I asked. I’d make sure we’d do the homework before I left, but we could make time for fun too. Both were important for a 6 year old.

“Okay,” William said. He passed me three different cars.

“Where’s the gas station?” I asked at once, playing imagination. “I think this one’s on empty.”

“Here,” William said, pointing.

“You know where it is, Liam,” Sophia scoffed. “How often do you two play this silly game?”

Slowly, William retracted his hand, bringing both of his to his lap. We wasn’t playing with the cars anymore.

“William?” I asked.

“It’s okay,” he said, frowning. “I should do my homework anyway.”

Crossing her arms, Sophia leaned against the doorframe. “See? I’m raising a smart kid.”

She was raising a depressed kid, from the looks of it.

“What do you want for dinner, William?” I asked him. Maybe I could cheer him up with his favorite meal. “Spaghetti?”

“Not spaghetti,” Sophia said, patting her flat stomach. “I’m watching the carbs.”

I gave Sophia an incredulous look, but she only returned it with one of confusion.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep this figure? It’s like you don’t even care.” To William, she said, “We’re having salad tonight. You eat too much junk as it is.”

William drooped even further. He turned his back to the room, facing the wall. “Okay, Mom.”

“Good boy.” Sophia clapped her hands. “Well? Should we get to work, Liam? William can do his homework by himself.”

“If you need help…” I started to say.

“I don’t,” William replied.

“I told you, I’m raising a smart kid,” Sophia said, laughing as she ducked out into the hallway.

I stood up and followed her. Stopping at the door, I looked back. “If you need anything…”

William turned to look up at me. “Actually…”

“Yeah?”

He seemed conflicted for a moment. “Do you have a comb I could borrow?”

Confused, I glanced to his nearby dresser which was covered in an assortment of combs. Still, I wasn’t about to deny the kid the one thing he asked of me. Reaching into my back pocket, I produced a thin plastic comb and handed it over.

With the way William’s eyes lit up, I could have thought it was Christmas.

Maybe he just wanted a gift – any gift.

“When you finish your homework, come downstairs and we’ll watch a movie or something, okay?”

“Okay, Dad,” William said, finally smiling.

The name felt good, every time I heard it. William might not be my flesh and blood, but I’d been the stand-in since his birth. I wouldn’t mind having the job at all, except Sophia made it so difficult.

William returned to his homework, so I stepped out into the hallway and then went downstairs to speak with Sophia about what just went on back there.

Homework was important, there was no disputing that, but William had to be allowed to have playtime too. The kid was only 6.

And a salad for dinner? William might not have argued with his mom, but that didn’t mean when it actually came time for dinner, that William wouldn’t rather starve himself than take one bite of wilty lettuce. The kid liked spaghetti with meat sauce.

He loved proteins of all kinds: chicken, beef, hot dogs, even beans and nuts.

I followed Sophia, expecting a fight.

But she’s still laughing. “Isn’t this great? I’m positively domestic. Tell me you are proud of me, Liam. I’m staying in. I’m being a good mom…”

She was so excited for herself, that I lost my nerve to set her straight. She wasn’t perfect but she was trying. If I gave her too much criticism, she would turn away and likely walk right out again.

“William is going to love the salad I bought at the store.” Sophia pulled a garden salad out of the fridge.

“Do you have any chicken?” I asked.

Sophia shrugged.

Moving past her to the fridge, I found some thawing, thank God.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’ll grill this up. William should have protein.”

She laughed again, and placed her hand on my shoulder. “We make such good parents, Liam. I’m so glad William and I will always have you to depend on…”

Joe’s POV

Joe held open the envelope for William to place in the precious missing piece: Liam’s hair. With it inside, Joe ran to the mailbox on the corner of the street outside the school.

Yet as he started to lift the envelope to put it in the mailbox, he realized he hadn’t sealed it. Everything came fluttering out.