Josh is still staring across the yard at Tim, but I can see that he’s soaking up every word I’m saying.
“My father never sent a penny of child support. He never made an effort at all. My father never bothered to do a Google search, because if he had, he would have easily found me. Hell, you did that at the age of twelve. You found me, and you’re a kid. He’s a grown-ass adult.”
I move so that I have Josh’s full attention. “So is Tim. He is a capable, grown man, and if he cared about anything more than himself, he would have made an effort. He knows your name, he knows what city you live in, he knows how old you are.”
Josh’s eyes are starting to tear up.
“It blows my mind that this man has you for a son, and you want to be in his life, yet he still hasn’t made an effort. You’re a privilege, Josh. Believe me, if I’d known you existed, I would have knocked over buildings to find you.”
As soon as I say that, a tear trickles out of his eye, so Josh quickly looks out his passenger window, away from Tim’s house, away from me. I see him wipe at his eyes, and it breaks my heart.
It also makes me angry as hell that they kept him from me knowingly. My mother knew I would have been a good brother to him, which is why she chose not to let us be a part of each other’s lives. She knew my love for him would outweigh the love she was capable of, so she selfishly kept us apart.
But I don’t want my anger for my mother or Tim or even my father to bleed into Josh’s decision. He’s old enough to make up his own mind, so he can take my honesty and his hope, and I’ll support him in whatever he decides to do with those things.
When Josh finally looks back at me, his eyes are still filled with tears and questions and indecision. He’s looking at me like I need to be the one to make this decision for him.
I just shake my head. “They took twelve years from us, Josh. I don’t think I can forgive them for that, but I won’t be upset if you do want to forgive them. I only ever want to be honest with you, but you are your own person, and if you want to give your father a chance to get to know you, I’ll put a smile on my face and walk you straight to his front door. You just let me know how to be here for you and I’ll be here.”
Josh nods and uses his shirt to wipe away another tear. He inhales, and on his exhale, he says, “He has a truck.”
I don’t know what he means by that, but I follow his line of sight back to Tim’s truck.
“All this time I imagined him to be really poor, without a way back to Boston,” he says. “I even thought maybe he never came because he wasn’t physically able to drive, like maybe his vision was too bad or something. I don’t know. But he has a truck and he never even tried.”
I don’t interfere with his thought process. I just want to be here for him when he finalizes it.
“He doesn’t deserve me, does he.” He says it like a statement rather than a question.
“Neither of them deserves you.”
He doesn’t move for an entire minute as he stares past me out the window. But then he looks at me firmly, sitting a little taller. “You know that homework I’m behind on? The family tree?” Josh pulls at his seat belt and begins to fasten it. “They never said how big the tree needed to be. I’ll just draw a baby seedling. They don’t have branches.” He pats the dash. “Let’s go.”
I laugh hard at that. I wasn’t expecting it. The way this kid weaves humor into the most depressing moments gives me hope for him. I think he’s gonna be okay.
“A seedling, huh?” I start the car and pull on my own seat belt. “That might work.”
“I can draw a seedling with two tiny branches. Yours and mine. We’ll be on our own brand-new, tiny family tree—one that starts with us.”
I feel heat behind my eyes, so I grab my sunglasses off the dash and put them on. “A whole new family tree that starts with us. I like it.”
He nods. “And we’ll do a much better job of keeping it alive than our shitty parents did.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.” I am absolutely relieved by this decision. Josh may change his mind in the future, but I have a strong suspicion that even if he contacts his father going forward, he’s never going to choose him over me. Josh reminds me a lot of myself, and devotion is a trait we have in spades.
“Atlas?” Josh says my name right as I put the car in drive.
“Yeah?”
“Can I flip him off?”