Without a word, Brinks reaches down into a below-counter refrigerator and rises again with two longnecks clutched between his fingers. The bottles hiss as he pops the caps. “Cheers,” he says, lofting one.
“Cheers,” Cameron echoes. How bizarre will this story be later? When he tells it to Avery and Elizabeth, in turn?
“So, you have questions about your mother, naturally,” Brinks says, after a long pull on his beer.
Cameron pulls himself up by the shoulders. No more chickenshit. His voice is even when he says, “I have questions about you.”
“Oh?” Simon cocks his head. “Okay, well. Everyone thinks I’m some sort of enigma, but for you, I’m an open book.” He smiles. “So, shoot.”
“Why did you . . .” Cameron swallows, then regroups before trying again. “I mean . . . how could you . . .” A sob messes up his throat. Why didn’t he make a secondary plan for when the words wouldn’t come?
“How could I what?” Simon Brinks scrapes his chin. “Let her go? Well, I cared about her.”
Cameron’s face hardens, and his voice is pure acid when he spits out, “But you never cared about me.”
“You? Of course I care about you. You’re her son. But what could I do, once she was—”
“I’m your son, too!” Cameron’s voice cracks.
Simon Brinks takes a step backward, recovers. “I’m sorry, Cameron. You’re not,” he says softly.
“I’m your son,” Cameron repeats.
Brinks shakes his head. “That’s never how it was with me and Daphne.”
“But it must have been.” To Cameron’s horror, his chin starts to tremble. He knew this might happen, right? The whole thing being a dead end. He prepared himself for this, or tried to. So why is he about to lose his shit right now?
“Like I said, I’m not surprised you’re here, Cameron, but—”
“Why did you give her your class ring?” Cameron fishes it from his pocket and drops it onto the bar. Simon picks it up and a faint smile comes over his face as he examines it. When he turns it over and looks at the underside, the smile fades.
“This isn’t mine,” he says quietly.
“Oh, come on. I saw the picture.”
Brinks carefully places the ring on the bar. “Daphne was my best friend,” he says. “Look, I know how that sounds, but we really were just friends. Best friends.”
Cameron is about to fire back. But then he remembers Aunt Jeanne’s constant digs about him and Elizabeth. A heavy feeling sinks through him like a lead balloon. He’s no closer to finding his father than he was two months ago.
“You never, um . . . slept with her?” Cameron hates how crass the question sounds.
“No, I did not.” Brinks chuckles. Then his face goes somber. “Look, I’ll do a cheek swab if you want. I’m a hundred percent sure on this one.” He picks up the class ring and turns it over again before replacing it on the bar. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”
He returns a few minutes later with a beat-up hardcover book and something cupped in his hand. The book gives off a puff of dust when he sets it on the bar. The cover reads SOWELL BAY HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS OF 1989. Presumably the source of all those photos someone scanned and posted, including the one of Simon and Daphne on the pier. Then Brinks extends his palm. “This one is mine, see.”
Cameron picks up the ring and holds it in his left hand, while holding one he’s brought with him in his right. The weight feels identical. So close, yet . . . wrong.
Brinks tips his head toward the back of the bar. “There’s a big unfinished space back there. I use it for storage. But I suppose it’s also sort of fitting that all this high school stuff lives down here. It was supposed to be our place, after all.”
“Our place”？ What’s that supposed to mean? Cameron turns the ring over, expecting to see the EELS engraving, but to his surprise, it says SOB.
“What’s SOB?” he asks.
Brinks chuckles. “My initials. I’m Simon Orville Brinks. Mind you, I don’t advertise that, because the jokes practically write themselves. Lucky son of a bitch, huh?”
Cameron stares at the two gold rings on the bar top. “You had it engraved with your initials? Did everyone do that?”
“Most people did, I guess.” Brinks shrugs. “Lots of people tried to get cute with the personalization. A bunch of youth-group types all got theirs with ‘GOD.’ And I’m sure more than one kid had a ring that said ‘ASS.’ I thought about getting ‘ASS,’ but my mama would’ve shanked me.”