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No Way Home	By : Flagg1991 Category: +G through L > The Loud House Views: 2161 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Loud House nor will I profit in any way from this story

Chapter List
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Lemy stepped off the bus at 2:45pm, two hours later than he was supposed to: In Italy, the trains run on time like clockwork, in America, the buses run behind like clockwork. He didn’t know why, they made, like, four stops, but he couldn’t say he minded...every moment he was on the road was a moment he wasn’t standing in front of his kids and feeling like the world’s biggest piece of shit because hey, here I am, two years later.

When he got on in New York, he was full of nerves, but by the time the bus sailed across the Michigan state line, he seethed with them, his stomach twisting and turning like a wet dishrag and his heart racing faster and faster until he could hear it, a sick, steady buh-DUMP, buh-DUMP, buh-DUMP. He tried to focus on the countryside flashing past the window, but his mind kept going to his children; he spent two years wanting to be a good father but maybe kind of not really trying...the longing wasn’t new, nor was the vague guilt, but the burning, all consuming shame was. He imagined walking through the front door and finding them lined up waiting for him, hurt and accusation in their eyes. Why did you leave us, Daddy? He tried to imagine his response, but couldn’t...because he didn’t have one. When he left Royal Woods two years ago, he was angry - Lupa was mad at him, Leia was mad at him, Dad was mad at him, and no matter what he did, every time he tried to be better, he fucked it up. He fumed with hatred, pointed both in and out, and with panic, because, subconsciously, he saw his life crashing down around him and he knew that he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t leave so much as he fled, like a pioneer striking west in search of a new, better life.

Or maybe he was being kinder to himself than he deserved.

He wasn’t sure, but at the time, leaving made sense. He thought he would come back soon, surly no more than a couple months, and everything would be okay: He’d somehow have a good job, decent money, a nice place to live with extra bedrooms so the kids could come visit. In fact, sitting in the seat of a Greyhound, maybe even this selfsame one, he built magnificent yet shadowy castles in the sky, the future dim and indistinct, but promising nevertheless.

Yeah.

It didn’t work out.

And on some level, he always knew that it wouldn’t.

When he spotted the first sign for Detroit, white text on a green background and hanging from an overpass, a pang cut through his heart. 150 miles until he was there...another twenty-five to the Royal Woods town limit...three to the house on Franklin Avenue: 178 miles until he would have to face his children.

Maybe coming here was a mistake. Maybe he should get off at the next stop and go somewhere else, anywhere else; he could crashland in one of the endless small towns strung out along the interstate, get a job washing dishes, sleep in someone’s shed, and then fall in love with someone’s pretty daughter; they could get married, have kids, and start over. This time, he could get it right, this time he could be better.

The thought was appealing, but repellant at the same time - appealing because, God, a second chance sounded nice and repellant because he couldn’t just leave his children like that, forget they existed like they were mistakes. They weren’t.

He was the mistake.

From the time he was young to even now, he blundered his way through life, leaving things broken and burning behind him. King Midas (was he in the Bible?) turned everything he touched to gold. Lemy Loud turned everything he touched to shit. If he touched their lives, he’d turn those to shit too. They’d be better off without him.

But he couldn’t turn his back on them.

Then again, isn’t that what he was doing right now? He wasn’t driving out for a nice weekend visit full of laser tag, ice cream, and bonding, he was coming to sign them over to Dad, to put into writing, in the most official way possible, that he was shit...and that he couldn’t care for them, wouldn’t care for them.

During that last 150 miles to Detroit, Lemy spent a lot of time in the onboard bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet lid and drinking from a warm, half-empty bottle of Canadian Mist. By the time the bus pulled into the depot on Brickhouse Street, a row of vacant lots and abandoned factories almost identical to the one he just left, he was fuzzy and unsteady on his feet, his steps lurching and his path wavering. The station was a low brick building with an overhang covering a breezeway where people milled, smoked, and talked into cell phones as they waited for their departure. The air was crisper than it had been in New York, its edge sharper; Lemy exhaled, and his breath puffed faintly out before him in a thin white cloud. Numbness crept into his brain, and he smiled wanly to himself as he made his way to a bench and sat.

He was still nervous, but not as badly as before. In fact, the more he turned the idea over in his head, the more excited he became. He had long missed playing with Meagan. What she lacked in physicalities, she more than made up for in spunk and imagination: He used to cover kitchen chairs with sheets, and they would spend hours pretending to be in a submarine exploring the ocean floor, or in a rocket, or navigating their way through catacombs beneath an Egyptian pyramid. He had no idea where she got it - he wasn’t very creative, and Leia was just as shallow as her mother; her body was a 10.10 but her brain was a 3.5. She wasn’t dumb, quite the opposite in fact, but she was materialistic and all about her looks, not very deep, a trickling brook who somehow birthed a vast river in the form of Meagan. Two blondes make a blonde baby, and two black people make a black baby - how two dumbasses like him and Leia made Meagan he would never know, but he was proud of his daughter and loved her to death. Beauty, brains...she almost had it all.

She was only missing brawn. She was farsighted and had really bad asthma when she was younger; from the rare conversation with Leia, it was mostly cleared up now, but she still had the occasional attack. She was also small for her age, and always had been: She was born prematurely and barely weighed five pounds. She spent the first week of her life in an incubator at the NICU, and despite all the horrible shit that had happened to him over the years, that was the worst. He remembered sitting next to the machine and staring at her through the plastic side, worry gnawing him from the inside out and his eyes leaking like the broken faucets in one of the motel rooms he’d lived in. She was so small, so fragile, and seeing her like that scared him sober for almost two years - for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to drink or drug, he wanted to hold his little girl and be the father she deserved.

Then he fucked it up like he fucked everything up.

Sighing, he slipped his cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, shook one out, and cupped it against the wind as he sparked the cheap plastic lighter against the end. He drew the smoke into his lungs, held it, then let it out. He texted Dad and people-watched as he waited for a response; a fat black woman with dyed red hair yelled abrasively into a cell phone, and an old man in a Members Only jacket stood with his hands in his pockets, impatiently scanning the interstate off ramp, looking, presumably, for his bus. Sit down, pops, it’ll be here when it gets here, okay? God, people were so uptight about shit. Why thrash and fight against something you can’t change? Why can’t you just accept that your bus is gonna be late, or that it’s raining…

...or that you’re a hopeless piece of shit.

His mood darkened and he took a deep drag. His phone buzzed in his lap, and he picked it up to find a text from Dad. Leni should be there soon.

Oh, thank God, they sent aunt Leni. Whew. She was literally the only person in the family he could imagine himself being 100 percent comfortable with right now. Anyone else, and it’d be a long, awkward ride back to Royal Woods; aunt Leni was what you might call a cinnamon roll...sweet and sugary. She never judged, she never talked behind your back, she never stopped caring about you and never, ever called you mean names. She was pureness and goodness personified.

Which made her easy to swindle.

He hated himself for it, but there were times in the past that he took advantage of her unending kindness...and her ditziness. He’d ask for twenty dollars, wait a little while, then ask again. I thought I, like, already gave it to you.

No, auntie Leni, you forgot.

Oh, totes sorry. Then she’d pat his head and call him her favorite nephew or something, which made him feel so fucking dirty.

That was the past, though. He was still a fuck-up hated and loathed by the universe, but he was done hurting his family, even the members who deserved it, like Dad, Mr. I’m-So-Much-Better-Than-You. He was a goddamn insufferable prick, but Lemy just didn’t have it in him to fight the guy anymore. He didn’t want to be mad and upset, he didn’t want to turn everything he touched to shit, he didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life anymore.

Coming here was the right decision.

Signing those papers was the right decision.

He threw his cigarette to the ground, and the wind rolled it away.

It was another twenty minutes before he spotted auntie Leni’s car pulling into the parking lot, a canary yellow Volkswagen Beetle with a smiley face topper on the antenna that bobbed jauntily back and forth with the motion of the tires. Bumper stickers covered the back end: HONK IF YOU’RE HAPPY; a bumble bee next to the legend BEE KIND; FREE HUGS; and a giant pink heart. Oh, God; he wasn’t surprised she still had that dumb car (it was only a few years old when he left), but he was kind of hoping she wasn’t in it. This was Detroit, and anyone riding around in an upbeat eyesore like that was liable to get to shot.

She pulled to the curb a little down from him, and he got up, dropping his current cigarette and stepping on it as he started over. The driver door opened, and she got out, a tall, thin woman in jeans and a rich forest green sweater; her blonde hair fell down the back of her shoulders in a gentle sweep, and her blues eyes sparkled with delight. She was fiftysomething - only a year younger than Lori - but she resembled a woman barely into her late thirties. Being as good-natured and...comparatively simple...as she was, the stress and rigors of life did not affect her as greatly as it did other people. She never worried, she never stewed, and if she was angry, she always got over it before bedtime; was it any wonder that she didn’t age?

Her face glowed and she trembled like a small, excitable dog. Lemy couldn’t suppress a smile; he couldn’t remember the last time someone was that happy to see him. They either looked at him like he was garbage, sighed and rolled their eyes...or ignored him completely. “Hi, Lemy!” Before he could reply, she threw her arms around him and squeezed. She was strong for a cinnamon roll, and Lemy’s eyes bugged out of his head as she crushed him against her.

“Hi,” he said and returned the hug.

She let him go and held him at arm’s length, staring up at him with giddy eyes. “It’s been a long time, how are you? Lincy said you’re coming to sign papers and you’re going to stay with us for a couple days and I was, like, totes excited because you’re my favorite nephew and I really missed you. How was the city? Did you, like, see lots of famous people and stuff?”

Two years isn’t a long time, but it’s long enough to forget how much your aunt prattles when she’s excited. He started to say something, but she cut him off. “Tell me in the car.”

Five minutes later they were heading north on the interstate. Leni sat ramrod straight behind the wheel, her hands perfectly at ten and two and her eyes pointed firmly at the road. Mom told him once that Leni failed her driver’s test more times than Spongebob, but Lemy always found that a little hard to believe as she was the most by-the-book driver he’d ever seen. If the posted speed limit was 35, brother, she went exactly 35. She followed the rules to the letter, even in those not-so-uncommon cases where they need to be broken; in fact, she didn’t even turn the radio on because it might distract her. But she did talk. And listen. “What’s it like?” she asked of New York City. “I always wanted to go there but never, like, had the time.”

Lemy stared out the window at the economically depressed neighborhoods of South Detroit clustered beneath the raised highway, grimy, boarded up buildings rotting on either side of narrow, pock-marked streets. His drunk was starting to burn off like ground fog in the morning sun, and those ghettos down there looked the way he felt. “It was okay,” he lied. “Central Park’s really pretty in the fall.” He had no idea what Central Park looked like in the fall - he spent two years within walking distance and never once visited. He never visited the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, or the One World Trade Center either. Like a million other New Yorkers, he was too busy trying to hold his life together to run around Manhattan playing tourist.

“It looks really pretty on TV,” Leni said and changed lanes to go around a lumbering Mac truck. “Did you ever go up in one of the real tall buildings? Those are scary. I wouldn’t want to.” A shiver raced through her body.

“No, I never did,” he said.

“I’d be scared of, like, that thingie happening where the airplanes crashed and all the people had to jump out the windows or burn up. Those poor people, that was so awful.”

A black and white cop car with its sirens blaring appeared behind them; Leni’s eyes darted to the rearview mirror, then she changed lanes and allowed it to pass. “Terrorism?” Lemy asked.

She nodded. “Umhm. That. Lenis don’t like jumping out of tall places and falling to their deaths. They like staying alive and not going boom on the ground.”

Lemy snickered. His aunt was a card.

After that, they drove in silence for a while, the outlying suburbs of Detroit blending together in a gray, conformist sprawl. Lemy anxious gazed out the window and spotted a dozen McDonald’s, a dozen Sheetz, and a dozen strip malls anchored by grocery stores both high end and low. His stomach twinged when he saw a sign proclaiming ROYAL WOODS 5. “Who’s all at the house?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t everyone. The fewer, the better.

Leni hummed. “Uhhh, well, Lori is there. Leia. Lizy. She works at nighttime now so she’s probably asleep. I think that’s it. Everyone else is at work.” She swung into the opposite lane and passed a slow moving pick-up. “Oh, the kids are there, too.”

Oh. Leia and Lizy were among the last two people he wanted to see right now. Lizy outright hated him and Leia...he and Leia had a lot of history and when they were together, things had a way of being volatile. Imagine dropping a single Mentos candy into a two liter of Coca-Cola: That was their relationship. There were times he loved her, times he hated her, times just looking at her haughty little face and listening to the vapid shit that came out of her mouth made him want to strangle her, and times when he needed her like a fish needs water. They lost their virginity to each other when he was fourteen and she eleven; they slept in the same bed for years, first at home, then at the trailer; even when he started seeing Lizy and Lupa too, he always went back to Leia at the end of the day, and he was content to. They fought like cats and dogs (she was a control freak...bad) then had wall-shattering make up sex that lasted for hours and kept the neighbors (and their families) awake long into the night. When Dad kicked him out and he lived in a succession of motel rooms, friends’ garages, and even in the park for a time, Leia would go between refusing to speak to him and sneaking out to meet him, sometimes with money, sometimes with just herself.

During the past two years, far from the source of his problems, he was able to think clearly, or at least as clearly as a drunk fuck up like him could, and he reached the conclusion that he loved Leia, that she was the only woman he ever had loved.

He just couldn’t be with her; he couldn’t deal with being bossed around like a slave, couldn’t deal with his thoughts and opinions not amounting to shit in her eyes. She had this pathological need to be in charge, to do things her way come hell or high water, everyone and everything - including logic, common sense, and good advice - be damned. Lemy envisioned a marriage or even a common law union as a partnership. Leia did not: She saw it as a dictatorship with herself on the throne. He thought it had something to do with her mother; Lola was very fussy and involved. Lemy wouldn’t say she was overprotected, she didn’t necessarily coddle Leia, but she was the kind of woman who thought her daughter was an angel and never did anything wrong. She also inserted herself into Leia’s life wherever she could, buying her clothes without asking if she liked them first (sometimes she did, most times she didn’t), fighting her battles for her whether Leia asked or not, that sort of thing. He always suspected that Leia felt stifled and was secretly afraid of it happening again, so she established dominance in all of her interpersonal relationships before the other person could.

Lemy wasn’t interested in dominating anyone, but he also wasn’t interested in being dominated.

Whatever, Leia wasn’t important and neither was Lizy; his kids were what mattered. He pictured them in his head, Luya with white hair like her mother and grandfather, Meagan with her big glasses, and Lucas...try as he might, he couldn’t come up with an image of his son. He was six now. Did he look like he did when he was four, or did he change? Two years isn’t a long time when you’re an adult, but when you’re a child, it’s like night and day. In two years, Lemy went from puny and thin to tall and thin (with facial hair). At thirteen he was 5’6 and had a boyish face; at fifteen he was 6’1 with slightly less boyish features. Like the old Bob Seger song, he was a little too tall and could have used a few pounds. He didn’t think Lucas would have changed much, but not knowing what his own son looked like depressed him. At the very least he could say it wasn’t his fault: It was Lizy’s. As soon as he left, he ceased to exist to her; she cut him off like a hangnail and wouldn’t even send him pictures. The few he did get came from Mom and those stopped when she left Dad.

They were in town now, quaint brick storefronts flanking tree-lined sidewalks. People walked unhurriedly through the park fronting the county courthouse. Nothing changed while he was away, not that he expected it to have; things rarely did in a town like this. They were closed rooms, stagnant, stifling, gathering dust and staying the same year after year after year. Familiar claustrophobia clutched his chest and he turned away, sparing a sidelong glance at Leni. She saw him in her periphery and smiled. “I made chocolate chip cookies last night. I gave some to Lucas and Meagan, but I saved a few for you.” The last seven words came out in a conspiratorial whisper, and she winked.

Eating was the last thing on his mind. “Sounds good,” he said. “I missed your cookies.” The former statement may have been something of a lie, but the latter was not. Leni was the best baker he’d ever known; Lydia, her daughter, came in a close second. Growing up, they were always in the kitchen making cookies or cakes or candies, the warm smell of banana bread, muffins, and cinnamon perpetually lingering in the air, even when the oven was dark. Every once in a while, back in New York, he’d go into the bread section a grocery store, and the scent would be close, but not as sweet, not as comforting.

Leni pulled onto Franklin Avenue, and Lemy took a deep, calming breath. His stomach turned inside out and his heart palpitated sickly against his ribs, but he was genuinely excited to see his kids.

The house appeared on the left, looking just as it had his entire life: Grimy white siding streaked brown with dirt and green with algae, loose shingles, overgrown front lawn littered with riding toys, only instead of pink they were blue now. He spotted a bike with training wheels leaning against the oak tree flanking the cracked, flagstone walk, and couldn’t remember if he bought it or if someone else did. Probably someone else - his last two years in Royal Woods, he had no money, barely any work, and passed his time in a perpetual stupor. Seeing his childhood home now, like a phantom rising mistily from a grave, he felt a twinge of loss in his heart that moved down to his stomach. His childhood wasn’t the best, but it sure beat the fuck out of his adulthood.

Swinging into the driveway, Leni parked behind Lori’s blue 2053 Chevy Volt station wagon and killed the engine; it ticked as it began to cool. “Here we are,” Leni said arily.

“Yeah,” he said, “here we are.”

Neither of them moved, and she looked at him strangely, her head tilting to one side. “Aren’t you going to get out?”

He was. He just...needed a few more seconds. “Uh, drivers first.”

She blinked. “Oh, right. I forgot.” She took the keys out of the ignition, shoved them into her purse, then unbuckled her seatbelt and got out.

Alright, Lemy thought, it was time to be a man and face his mistakes; he couldn’t cower out here like a fucking bitch, he had to go in there and own up to what he did, even if it meant his kids looked at him like he was a piece of shit, even if it meant they wanted nothing to do with him.

He opened the door and got out, slamming it behind him. The day was sunny when they left the city, but during the ride it grew windy and overcast, and now the sky churned a dark shade of gray that threatened rain. Leni crossed the lawn and went up the porch steps, her hands up and dangling limply in front of her. Lemy trudged behind, gaze downcast and hands in his pockets, the back of his neck prickling with the sensation of being watched. He glanced around, but didn’t see anyone.

Leni waited by the door, looking at him over her shoulder with a smile. “Everyone’s gonna totes be excited. I know I am.” She reached up and pinched his cheek.

Wincing, he pulled back and she giggled, then opened the door and went in. Lemy hesitated, then crossed the threshold.

“Everyone! Lemy’s home!” Leni sang out, and Lemy felt like an escaping convict caught in the burning beam of a tower searchlight. He darted his eyes to the couch and saw a strange girl with black hair watching TV, her feet kicked up on the coffee table and her arms crossed sullenly over her chest. Must be a friend of -

She turned and holy shit, it was Luya. What happened to her hair??? Did she dye it? And if so, why did she leave a Bride of Frankenstein streak in the front?

Her brow lowered ever so slightly, and one corner of her mouth turned up in a sneer of distaste that stabbed like an icepick in the guts. Her dark eyes, so much like her mother’s, simmered with contempt, and with a heavy, put-upon sigh, she turned back to the TV.

Something told him she would resent him, and he had no one to blame but himself.

He looked toward the kitchen as Meagan came tentatively out, clad in a white dress with a blue splatter pattern that made it look like a tissue a Smurf blew his nose on. She wore big glasses and her sandy blonde hair in a jaunty ponytail. A head poked around the frame, and Lemy felt a rush of relief when he saw that his son hadn’t undergone dramatic changes in his absence. His face was a little thinner and not as babyish, but largely unchanged. His big, brown eyes muddled as if with confusion, and he cast a questioning look at Meagan.

“Hi, kids!” Leni said and waved, drawing their attention. “Your dad’s here. See?” She stepped aside and stood on her tippy toes to pat Lemy’s shoulder. His and Meagan’s eyes met, and he tried to take heart in the fact that she looked just as nervous as he felt, but couldn’t. She wasn’t to blame for this, but he was. She glanced at Lucas, gestured with her head, then came over, her little brother falling in behind her, literally walking in her footsteps, his little legs stretching to match her longer stride. He wore dark blue jean shorts and a faded red T-shirt with a yellow stripe across the front, and he aimed his eyes firmly at his feet to keep from tripping. A wan smile spread across Lemy’s lips; the last time he saw his little boy, he could barely talk, now, from what Leia said, he was in school and doing well except for being too damn hyper.

Meagan came up and stood stiff as a board, her hands behind her back like a soldier presenting herself to the general. Her mouth was a straight line, but twitched into a genuine smile that lit up her whole face. “Hi,” she said.

Lucas stood next to her, copying her posture but looking at her instead of his father.

Love so intense it stung flooded his chest, and tears welled in his eyes - tears of joy, sadness, or something in-between he couldn’t say.

Going with his instincts, he dropped to one knee, coming level with her soft hazel eyes. “Hi,” he said. He didn’t know what to do next, so he just held out his arms; she hugged him, her tense body thawing when he squeezed her tight. He’d taken a thousand different drugs in his life, experienced rushes high and low and the warm, roaring good cheer that comes with a happy drunk, but none of those things even came close to hugging his daughter after two years. It might be cliche to say that he felt fuzzy inside, but he actually did, as though his chest were stuffed with cotton fresh from the dryer.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as he rubbed his hand up and down her back. He felt more tears but choked them back and kissed her cheek. “I missed you,” he said earnestly.

“I missed you too,” she said.

He released her and turned to Lucas, who looked like he was trying to process what was happening. “Hey, buddy,” Lemy said and clapped him on the arm, then: “Remember me?”

Lucas, head hitherto down, looked up and studied Lemy’s face closely, his brows scrunching with the effort of his concentration. He favored him more than Lizy, but Lemy could clearly see his mother in him. He pursed his lips and moved them from side to side, thinking, thinking, thinking. Lemy’s smile faltered and the warmth from hugging Meagan began to dissipate. Finally, Lucas said, “Kind of. You’re my dad, right?”

Those words stung, but Lemy had his bearings enough to keep rolling. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m your dad. It’s been a while. How’s it going?”

Lucas shrugged. “Okay. You?”

His nonchalance amused Lemy. “I’m doing good,” he said, then lifted his arm. “I’d be a lot better if you gave me a hug.”

“Okay,” Lucas said, and allowed Lemy to take him in his arms. For a moment he just stood there, arms at his sides, then he hugged Lemy back. Lemy did not see his son looking at Meagan for guidance, did not see her wave her hands and mouth hug. Luya did, though, and she blew an angry puff of breath through her nose. A very, very, very small, withered, part of her, like a flickering ember in a bed of ashes, wanted to hug him too. Why should she go to him, though? He was the one who left them like they were garbage, left her like she was garbage, if he was sorry he could come to her.

And even then she probably wouldn’t forgive him.

When he broke the hug and got to his feet, he looked at her, their eyes locking. Her heartbeat sped up and she tried to sneer but couldn’t, so she turned to the TV instead. Did she look needy? She hoped to fuck she didn’t because she wasn’t. She’d gone two years without a father around, and it’s not like he was around very much before he moved; she didn’t need a fucking Daddy, especially one like him. Really, how could she respect herself if she went up there, hugged him, told him how much she missed him...then watched him walk out again? She couldn’t, because she’d be dumb and undeserving of respect.

You know what? Fuck him. She wasn’t gonna go crawling over there like Meagan and Lucas, and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to give her father the satisfaction of forgiving him just so he could fuck off into the sunset again laughing to himself. What a dumb bitch that girl was. She thought I actually meant it when I hugged her. Pfft.

If Luya was one thing, it was proud, and she would rather fucking die than have him laugh at her over his shoulder as he walked away.

She didn’t think she could handle it. Her mom hated her, Dad thinking she was a stupid, gullible kid who’d fall for his I missed yous would be the fucking last nail in the fucking coffin.

A flash of movement filled her phiperhery, and she tensed; he sat, the sofa dipping under his weight, and rested his forearms on his knees, his head bowing in false contrition. “Hey,” he said and glanced at her.

“Hey,” she said without turning. He filled the side of her vision and she moved her head slightly to the right to block him out.

He drew a deep breath. “I know you’re probably mad at me -”

“No,” she said quickly.

“ - and that’s okay. I deserve it.”

Okay, huh? Glad I have your permission, “dad”. She glowered at the screen, her arms crossing even tighter. Walking out the way he did and leaving them behind proved that he was selfish two years ago, and that it’s okay shit proved that he was still selfish today.

“...sorry. If you don’t want anything to do with me, okay. I just...hope we can spend time together.”

She wanted to tell him she didn’t want anything to do with him, to tell him to fuck off and leave her alone, but she found that she couldn't, and that terrified her. She opened her mouth, to say what she didn’t know, and out came a flat, indifferent, “Sure.”

Dad nodded his head and stared at her for a moment. “Can I have a hug?”

Luya stiffened. No. You can deal with the Devil, but it’s not official until you sign your name...or give him a hug. “My show’s on,” she said.

He darted his eyes to his feet and gave a jerky, self-conscious nod. “Alright. M-Maybe later.”

She couldn’t stop her reply and almost kind of regretted it once it was out. “Maybe.”

An awkward moment passed, then Meagan and Lucas were in front of him, Lucas proudly holding out a piece of paper and Meagan grinning like the cat who got the canary. Luya could understand Lucas being excited, he was just a dumb kid, but Meagan was supposed to be smart. Then again, there’s a big difference between knowing big words from reading little fairy tales and having common sense. She was a dweeb and a dork and a fucking geek, but Luya still didn’t want to see her get hurt, didn’t want her to feel the same pain that she did the first time, to wonder if it was something she did that drove him away. She might deserve an Indian burn or a wicked noogie, but she didn’t deserve to think it was her fault Dad left, that she was unlovable or something. No one deserved that.

Dad took the picture and looked from it to Lucas. “I made this for Meagan,” he said, “she really likes pirate shits.”

Meagan’s eyes widened in alarm and Dad snickered. “Ships,” Meagan said, “pirate ships.”

He turned to her in confusion. “That’s what I said.”

“No, you said sh - another word.”

Dad snorted. “Yeah, man, you said a real bad word.”

Hm. Like he had any room to be a moral arbitrator; he used that word and worse when he used to argue with Mom. In fact, he was the only person she’d ever heard use cunt. She read it on 4chan all the time, but no one in her life ever said it out loud.

Hypocrite.

“Wow, this is really good,” Dad said of the drawing, impressed. “You really did this?”

Lucas’s head bobbed up and down. “Yep. I like drawing.”

“When he can sit still enough to actually do it,” Meagan put in. “He’s really hyper.”

Dad snorted. “I heard. You play any sports?”

If he’s anything like his father, I’m sure he plays a lot of things. Like people. Luya took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. She was getting madder and madder as she thought, and she couldn't stop feeding the flames, because if she did and the fire died, she might do something she would bitterly regret later on. She spared her father a contemptuous sidelong glance, scanning him up and down, desperately searching for things to hate. His eyes were red, and when she sniffed the air, she caught the pungent odor of booze. Fucking drunk. What kind of man, what kind of person, can’t make it through their day without getting trashed? Oh, boo hoo life is hard. Yeah, it is, deal with it. And if you’re too weak to deal with it, go die in a corner and leave everyone else alone.

And his hair...it was dirty and matted. When’s the last time he bathed? Okay, we get it, you’re a drunken piece of shit who doesn’t care about his kids, but take a shower every once in a while.

A sudden, inexplicable memory flashed across her mind: Coming out of her room one morning when she was seven to find her mother sitting on the couch, her face buried in her hands and sobbing. Luya’s heart skipped a beat and she went to her; she didn’t like seeing her mother cry and she wanted to make her feel better. What’s wrong? she asked.

Mom’s head whipped whipped, and Luya stumbled back at the burning hatred in her eyes. Your father robbed me. That’s when she noticed a bare spot where the TV should have been, and that the steroero was missing from the bank of shelves against the flanking wall. Your piece of shit father did this, Mom spat. Luya’s cheeks burned and she felt like she did something wrong, even though she didn’t.

Your father.

Your.

You.

He was the reason Mom had always been so cold to her. He was the reason she, Luya, stayed out as late as she could, then came home and went right to her room, he was the reason tension hung like a black cloud in that cheap, stupid fucking trailer. Him.

And what kind of father was he anyway? He rarely ever came to see her after Mom kicked him out. He, Leia, and Meagan lived in a trailer two streets over for almost two years, and she saw the moon turn blue more times than she saw him. The one time she went over there herself, she climbed the back porch steps, proud and excited because she finally brought her grade in math up to a B- from a C-, and knocked; she clearly heard his voice from inside, but Leia said he wasn’t there. She knew he was, but she pretended that she didn’t, and as she walked away, her head hung, she felt two inches tall. Her mother didn’t want to talk to her half the time, and neither did her father now. If one person doesn’t want to hang out with you, maybe it’s them, if two people don’t, maybe it’s you.

Now she was really mad. She uncrossed her arms, shot to her feet, and walked out with a huff. She’d go hang out in the backyard or something; anywhere was better than in the same room with that asshole.

Lemy watched her go with a frown, his gaze going ashamedly to the spot she just vacated. Should he go after her? Give her space? When he was her age, he wanted to be alone when he was mad, but he wasn’t Luya, he was Lemy. He didn’t know what to do; he hadn’t seen her in two years, and before that he saw her only infrequently, not enough to really know who she was.

Regret sharp as the blade of a knife cut through his center and he sighed. He fucked up with all the kids, but he fucked up with Luya especially. When he and Lupa went sour, he kind of turned his back on Luya. He had a line of reasoning, but it was wrong and so screwed up that right now, sitting in the living room with his son on one side and his daughter on the other, both prattling, her always open and him just beginning to open, he saw that so vividly it might as well have been literally in front of his face like a movie.

He started to get up, to go to her whether she wanted him to or not, but Leni’s singsong voice stopped him. “Look who I have!”

He twisted around just as Leni reached the bottom of the stairs, dragging someone behind her like an excited girl tugging her mother along on Christmas morning. Meagan looked over her shoulder and preened “Hi, Mom.”

Leia, in tight blue jeans and a pink blouse with a square neck and short, frilly sleeves, stood woodenly on the bottom tread, her thick blonde hair rippling down her shoulders like rivers of gold. Her clear blue eyes fleetingly met his gaze, then flicked away, her pink lips pursing as though she were blowing him a kiss. She looked annoyed, and when Leni held her hand up, reminiscent of a ref declaring one boxer triumphant over another, she shot the older woman a dirty look.

“It’s Leia,” Leni stated.

Lemy’s heart knocked against his chest and even though he wanted to look away, to hide himself from her like Cain hiding himself from God, he couldn’t. Despite everything between them, all the fights, all the name calling, all the tears, all the times he wanted to slap her across the face and strangle her...she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and knowing even what he knew now, she still took his breath away.

Every good memory he had of her crashed over him like a wave, blotting out the bad; the taste of her mouth when they kissed in the light of the morning sun, neither fully awake but both yearning for the other; the sensation of her fingers weaving through his; the warm, tantalizing smell of her hair, the look of soul-stirring rapture on her face when he made love to her, her sighs rising until she was panting his name and trying but failing to keep quiet because Meagan was asleep in the bassinet next to the bed; and simply holding her in his arms late, late at night, their noses touching and their bodies tangled, her heart beating against his and his heart beating against hers.

Sometimes when he was trying to fall asleep, he would think back to the feeling of her body flush with his, the shape of her in his arms, and he would ache for her, literally ache. Now, staring at her mouth agape like a Bible character meeting an angel from the sky, he realized just how much he missed her.

Looking well to the right of him as if trying to see him from the corner of her right eye, she flashed a strained smile. “Hi,” she said simply.

He lifted his hand in a half-hearted wave and let it drop back to his lap. “Hey,” he said.

Lucas spun, got to his knees, and laid his hands on the back of the sofa, his brow pinching. “This is my dad?”

“That’s your dad,” Leia confirmed with a nod.

The little boy gave a final shrug of assent, turned, and dropped onto his butt with a bounce. Lemy’s eyes were glued to Leia, his kids forgotten. She threaded her fingers nervously through her hair and combed, her gaze still not directly meeting his. “How was the trip?” she asked.

“It was good,” Lemy said and rubbed the back of his neck.

For a moment, he and Leia both looked at the ground, then Leni’s voice roused them; grnning up the stairs, she waved. “Hi, Liz!” She held her hands out to Lemy with a flourish. “It’s Lemy.”

Lemy winced. He already knew what to expect.

“That son of a bitch is here?” Lizy’s voice came back.

Leni’s face fell and Leia blushed, her hand covering the sly simper playing at the corner of her lips. She was radiant when she smiled, even if it was a shy, embarrassed, or mean-spirited...especially when it was shy, embarrassed, or mean-spirited. When they were kids, she’d make fun of his dick until he was trembling with rage, her eyes glinting with mocking light, her mouth turned sharply up, her hands on her hips. Even though it pissed him off, it turned him on more than anything else ever had. You think you’re big, but you’re not. I get it better at school. I don’t have to fake it there, but I do with you. He always wound up throwing her onto the bed and fucking her as hard as he could just to prove to himself that he was good, and even though he learned real quick that that was exactly what she wanted, he still let it get to him. No one in the world could cut him as deeply as she could, not even Dad.

“Yeah,” she said now, “and he heard you.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Lizy spat. “Tell him to keep his son out of my room. I’m trying to sleep.”

Leia finally looked him in the eye, her wicked little grin sending pangs rippling through his entire body. “Keep your son out of Lizy’s room. She’s trying to sleep.”

He recalled the soft, warm texture of her hips in his hands and salty-sweet taste of her skin on his lips, her fingers running through his hair, her nails lightly grazing his scalp and sending shivers down his spine. His dick stirred, and in that moment, he wanted her worse than he ever had before.

“I will,” he said and smiled slyly.

“Good,” she said, her eyes twinkling. The air between them crackled with electricity and Lemy could see she wanted him too.

Lucas tugged at his jacket. “Dad?”

Lemy waved him off. “In a second,” he said absently, never breaking eye contact with Leia. He had to choose his next words carefully; if he came on too strong, she might be put off. He looked up her up and down for something to compliment. She was a shallow woman, and all you have to do with those is tell them they’re pretty. “I like what you did with your hair,” he said.

She laughed. “Thanks,” she said and ran it through one hand. “I wanted to try something new.”

“It looks good,” he said. The hook was baited, and, satisfied with himself, he turned to Lucas. Give them a little taste and leave them wanting more. That’s the trick. “What’s up, buddy?” He was aware of Leia in his phiprery, a fuzzy, indistinct blur of yellow and pink. Leni brushed behind her and went upstairs, but Leia lingered for a moment before drifting off, her hand trailing the bannister. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she was checking him out as she went.

Ha.

When he realized Lucas was looking up at him with questioning eyes, he shook his head, a blush of guilt creeping across the back of his neck. Two years away from his kids and here he was, so captivated by Leia that he was fucking ignoring them.

The passion he felt sparking to life in his loins turned cold, and he frowned at himself. “What was that?” he asked.

“I said do you want to play pirate sword fight with me and Meagan?”

Pirate sword fight? Why did that sound like a gay porn movie? An image of two gruff, hairy buccaneers holding their cocks and slapping them together shot through his mind, and he cringed a little. He glanced at Meagan, who nodded and widened her smile, the milky afternoon light reflecting off the lenses of her glasses like quicksilver. “Sure,” he shrugged. Playing with his kids sounded like a blast.

“Cool,” Lucas said and jumped up. “Me and Meagan vs you.”

“Two on one?” Lemy asked playfully and stood. “How is that fair?”

Meagan got to her feet and smoothed the front of her dress, then looked up at him. “Because you’re bigger and stronger than us.”

“Oh, I’m not that strong,” he demurred.

They looked at each other for a second...then Lemy grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off the floor. She let out a shocked squeal and kicked her legs, the tips of her shoes battering Lemy’s knees. Lucas jumped back and watched warily, his shoulders squared and his fists balled. This dad guy seemed okay, but if he hurt Meagan, he was gonna punch him in the balls.

Lemy hooked his arm under his daughter’s butt and hefted her up like a giant baby. She giggled and held onto her glasses to keep them from falling off her face. “Actually, I am,” he teased. He spun toward the kitchen, and she cried out in a mixture of delight and alarm, her ponytail whipping and one hand shooting out to grasp his jacket.

“Be careful! These are my last glasses!”

Oh? “Well, we don’t wanna break ‘em, do we?” Lemy asked and grinned. Before she could stop him, he plucked them from her face and shoved them onto his own.

The world was a hazy blur, worse than during even his worst drunk. “I can’t see shit,” he said and stumbled, bumping into Lucas and nearly losing his balance.

“Neither can I!” Meagan cried. “Give them back!”

Lemy slipped them off and returned them to their rightful spot...crooked. Combined with the strands of hair that came free from her ponytail in the struggle and hung in her face, they made her look like daddy’s little alcoholic. “There,” he proclaimed, “good as new.” He glanced down at Lucas; the little boy looked like he was coiled and ready to strike at the slightest provocation. What was his problem?

Actually, Lemy knew exactly was his problem was. “Hold onto your glasses,” he intoned over his shoulder, “cuz we’re taking on another passenger.” Lucas’s brow pinched, then his eyes widened in shock when Lemy stooped, wrapped his free arm around his midsection, and yanked him off the floor too. His tiny body went rigid...then his face darkened; he slapped his hands against Lemy’s chest and pushed away, his back arching against Lemy’s forearm.

“Let me go!”

“Not until we reach our destination, bud,” Lemy said. He scooped his arm under Lucas’s butt and held him the way he held Meagan, then started toward the kitchen. Lucas continued to thrash and squirm in an attempt to escape, and Lemy staggered when his son’s foot struck the side of his leg.

Meagan leaned forward to see around Lemy’s face and gave her brother a withering look. “Stop,” she said, “you’re gonna make him drop us.”

Lucas huffed and puffed, kicking Lemy and pushing his palm against the side of his face. “That’s the point,” he said through his teeth.

“Don’t! You already broke one glasses today, you don’t need to make it two.”

They were in the kitchen now, the backdoor ahead, hidden beyond the refrigerator. Lemy wanted to stop and take a moment to admire his son’s spirit and tenacity, but Meagan was right; Lucas was starting to slip, and he'd get free if they didn’t hurry. He rounded the fridge and came to the door; past the window, the yard was deep green and drifted with brown leaves. Luya sat with her back against the gnarled trunk of a barren tree with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms crossed. She probably wasn’t going to like them coming out, and for a moment he hesitated, then forged ahead anyway.

Or tried to; both of his hands were currently engaged holding his kids, and the doorknob wasn’t going to turn itself. “Can you get that, honey?” he asked Meagan and leaned forward. Lucas was still now, his face screwed up in an unhappy pout of defeat.

“Yep,” she chirped. She stretched out her arm, grabbed the handle, and twisted, a gust of cold air pushing the door open and kicking in a rush of leaves.

“Uh-oh,” Meagan said, “auntie Lori’s not gonna be happy about that.”

Lori was the closest thing Dad had to a traditional wife (ha, traditional!), and as such she was the resident bitch-on-wheels / Betty Crocker housefrau. She wore a pink apron around her waist and carried a wooden spoon like a general with his riding crop. He never actually saw her hit anyone with it, but she sure as fuck threatened to. You smell like cigarettes, Lemy, she’d say when he got home as a kid, then cross her arms and stare down at him like a bug. Go to your room. Joke’s on you, bitch, that’s where my other pack is. She walked an endless beat, looking for dust, dirt, and messes to bitch about, and if she caught you doing something wrong, you were in for the finger wagging of a lifetime. Once she caught Lupa trying to sneak out her bedroom window, and went to this forced momesque tirade filled with young ladys and other sitcom buzzwords that sounded fine on TV but lame and stupid in real life.

No, he figured, she wouldn’t like it.

Too bad.

He made sure to crunch them under his feet, breaking them into smaller pieces. “What auntie Lori doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he grinned.

Outside, Luya looked up, saw them, and threw her head back in a kill-me-now gesture that wounded Lemy. His first instinct was to feel annoyed and offended, but he deserved this, so he bore down and took it. He sat Meagan down first, then Lucas, then looked from one to the other. “Alright, how do we play this game?”

“We get swords and beat each other up,” Meagan said with an enthusiastic smile, her hands unconsciously lifting and balling to fists.

“Sounds painful,” Lemy said. “What do you guys use for swords?”

Meagan turned to Lucas, but he was already kneeling in the soft dirt next to the porch, reaching into the shadows beneath and rummaging around. Lemy looked at his daughter and lifted his brows. From what little he’d seen, she and Lucas were a well-oiled machine. “You got him trained, huh?” he asked and nudged her shoulder with his elbow.

Grinning, she clasped her hands behind her back and twisted from side-to-side. “Yep,” she said proudly. “I also taught him to read and write.” She frowned and stopped moving. “Well...I helped. It was mainly his teacher, but I had a little to do with it.” She held the thumb and index finger of her right hand a hair’s breadth apart.

“Just that much?” Lemy asked.

She nodded. “Maybe a little more. Or maybe a little less. It was a team effort at any rate.”

Lemy snickered; he’d forgotten how cute she could be. When she was younger and had just discovered the joys of reading, she insisted on reading him and Leia a bedtime story every night. He thought it was the most adorable shit ever, but Leia wasn’t a fan. A little girl shouldn’t have her nose buried in a book all the time, she told him in that snotty tone of hers. She needs to be pretty and popular and look just like me and Lola. She didn’t actually say that last part, but he knew damn well that’s what she wanted of Meagan. She talked about having her go out for cheerleading when she was younger, but everyone, even her mother, told her it was a bad idea, and for once she actually listened and backed off. She knew damn well that Meagan’s asthma precluded shit like that, she just wanted her daughter to be like her, as every mother does. He couldn’t begrudge her that. He could begrudge her the way she was sometimes chilly toward Meagan, like she was a fucking disappointment or something.

It was never anything big, just more a...a vibe he got, and it used to bother the hell out of him, and hurt too. Was his daughter not “good” enough for her?

Now he was remembering the bad times with Leia, and the momentary lust in the living room was forgotten. Lucas pulled out a foam pirate sword, tossed it aside, then grabbed two more and got to his feet. He picked them up, came over, and handed Meagan a purple one. “This one’s mine,” she told Lemy.

Lucas held a red one out to Lemy and kept a blue for himself. “That’s the guest sword,” Meagan explained as Lemy took it and looked it over. “I cheat sometimes and use it to dual wield.”

“She loves cheating,” Lucas said sullenly.

“Hey, pirates are bad guys.”

Lemy threw a look at Luya: She stared gloomily into the yard, a brown leaf stuck in her hair and fluttering against the rising wind. He didn’t want to prod her and piss her off even more, but he didn’t want to just leave her there, either. “Hey,” he called, and she favored him with a nasty sidelong glance. Ignoring it, he continued, holding the sword up and forcing a warm smile. “Wanna play?”

She bared her teeth and turned away, dashing Lemy’s admittedly small hopes. Lucas and Meagan looked at each other. “She doesn’t like this game,” Meagan said in hushed tones, “she’s too old and cool for it.”

“She’s a lame-o,” Lucas said and knitted his brows at his oldest sister.

Lemy’s head told him to quit while he was ahead, but he his heart told him to keep going until she was laughing, smiling, and whacking someone with a sword.

That gave him an idea.

“You can beat the shit of me,” he sang and shook the sword.

She flicked her eyes to the side and seemed to think for a moment. She opened her mouth, paused, then said, “Tempting, but no.”

Goddamn it. She had a lot of pent-up aggression toward him, and he was almost certain offering her the opportunity to get it out would get her. “I won’t fight back,” he said, hating the pleading edge in his voice. “I’ll even let you hit me in the nads.”

Sighing, she got to her feet, and hope burst in Lemy’s chest...only to drain away when she crossed the yard, went up the porch steps, and disappeared into the house. He slumped his shoulders and hung his head. She was going to be a tough nut to crack. He had no one to blame but himself, though...and probably her mother. God knows what kind of dumb shit Lupa told her over the years.

Did she tell her the...big thing?

He looked up at the house as though he could see through the walls and into Luya’s mind beyond, but couldn’t; his aunt Lucy claimed to be a psychic (which she totally fucking wasn’t), but that gene must skip a generation. He doubted Lupa told her because if she did, Luya would have said something already.

A frown touched his lips and he wondered if he should tell her.

It’d probably only make her feel worse, though.

He was still thinking when something smacked the back of his leg with a soft pfft. He turned, and Meagan grinned smugly at him. “That was a warning shot.”

Lemy smiled. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Umhm,” she said, “I would never go in for the kill on a novice who wasn’t even looking.”

Lucas whipped his head in her direction. “That’s a lie. You kill me in the back all the time.”

“You’re not a novice,” she pointed out, “we’ve been sparring for years. Dad’s callow.”

Lemy tilted his head. He had a pretty good command of the English language, but he didn’t think he’d ever heard that one before. “What’s callow mean?” he asked, feeling like an idiot and hoping she mispronounced another word, like callous.

Taking evident delight in stumping her old man, Meagan said, “It means wet-behind-the-ears.”

Okay, Lemy knew what -

“In other words, you’re a total noob.”

A shocked laugh escaped Lemy’s throat. He knew that word all too well; every time he posted in 4chan as a kid, he was called that and worse. “I’m a noob huh?”

Meagan nodded slowly. “Noob.”

He smirked. “Take off your glasses, cuz I’m gonna make you eat those words.”

She lowered her brow and stared at him intently, then slipped her glasses off. “Challenge accepted,” she said. She brushed past him, started toward the porch, and promptly tripped over her feet with a breathless umph. Lemy and Lucas both winced.

“It’s okay,” she said quickly, “I didn’t break my glasses.”
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