“I know now that at one time, my mother was an activist, much like my birth father, and when she had me, she stopped her involvement. I think my papa’s disappointment in her and the reason for their fights is that she refused to fight along with him. After she spoke, only one person left that night. The next week my parents died, and no one at that plant was talking. No one knew a single detail about what happened. But Delphine found out the shift supervisor who wasn’t even on the floor when they died, got a raise and a promotion shortly after.”
“Confirming Roman’s guilt.” My stomach drops.
“That was the assumption. After that, Delphine took us in. And that’s when Dominic started to cry, and often.”
Snow begins to settle silently, coating the grounds around us.
“We grew up dirt poor. In some pretty shitty conditions.”
“I saw.”
Tobias pauses, eyeing me. “Her piece of shit of a husband left her a few months before my parents died. She drank a lot and was heavy-handed at times, especially with Dom when he started to act up. It wasn’t all bad, but it…” he sighs. “Well, you saw.”
I nod, batting a tear away.
“A few weeks after we moved in with Delphine, we got a curious visitor.”
“Sean?”
“Yeah,” he says softly. “He was younger, but he just kept coming around. He and Dominic took up together fast, and I was often in charge of watching them and walking them to and from school.” Tobias shakes his head, a soft smile playing on his lips. “He was a fucking mess. His hair was always jacked, always. He was a dirty little shit, always hanging from the trees and never going home until way after dark. He used to sneak into my room at night, and the three of us would go off into the woods. He was fearless, even at seven-years-old. Almost every morning, he tore the clothes off his mother dressed him in and put on the same raggedy shirt. He refused to follow rules, even back then.”
We share a smile.
“Tyler came along just after. We didn’t have much at Delphine’s, but we made do. And the men from the brotherhood never forgot my parents and were our saving grace. They would come by and give us treats. Sometimes they would send clothes and money by mail—little things to help us along the way. My aunt would allow it, and not long after they died, she started hosting meetings in her home. The more time that passed, the more time I would sit in. Delphine was far more extreme. Her ideas on how to fight back were argued about, but for the most part, she was the leader. There were only a handful of the originals left by then. Most of them had died out or left the cause because of what happened to my parents. But the more I listened in, the more I became involved, and on my fifteenth birthday, I stood and spoke for the first time.”
“And they listened.”
He nods.
“Right before I left for prep, I was running the meetings, networking to get more people. And Sean and Dom were starting to pay attention. My plans for the brotherhood had grown exponentially. I would come back home during the summers to be with Dom and Sean, who were slowly becoming more involved. Dom was taking over meetings and running the local chapter by the time I returned after my sophomore year of college, and that was the first time I laid eyes on you.”
That’s when Tobias lifts his eyes to mine and looks at me, really looks at me for the first time, and I feel it down to my toes.
He pulls out my library copy of The Thorn Birds beneath his jacket. It fits easily in the palm of his hand. My eyes widen with shock.
“You were there when I stole it?”
“Dominic lived at the library. It was his favorite place in the world to be. He despised Delphine most days because she was a nasty drunk and escaped there when he wasn’t out gallivanting with Sean. I was there to pick him up, and I ended up browsing while I waited for him. You were a row over when I spotted you, and I didn’t pay you much attention until Roman walked up behind you and told you he would buy you books, and you didn’t need to rent them. You rolled your eyes and called him a ‘butt munch’ under your breath before you stuffed this book in your pants.”
Stunned by his confession, my eyes drift to the book in his hand.
“It’s when I saw you that I knew you were just a kid. Innocent in this and with no knowledge of who your father truly was or his fucked-up business dealings. I knew you weren’t close. He ushered you out, and I followed you both out to the parking lot. You looked so miserable, but you wore this faint smile on your lips. Like you were happy about your silent rebellion in stealing the book.”