Work Text:
The house is loud as Luke grabs a two-day-old sandwich wrapped in plastic from the fridge. He gives it a sniff, shrugs one shoulder, and then tosses it into the top of his work bag. He grabs a can of beer too, only hesitating for a second before shoving it in. There’s a half-squished banana, already browning, in the bag from three days ago, and he tosses it on the counter next to his half-empty ‘Best Daddy Ever!’ mug as JJ comes hopping into the room.
He giggles and throws himself at Luke’s leg, wrapping his tiny arms around it and tossing his head back to see his daddy fully. He cheeses through his crooked baby teeth and shakes Luke’s leg as he chirps, “Santa, Daddy! Santa!”
Brushing his fingers through JJ’s soft hair, he shoots Georgia a skeptical look as she dances into the room. She sets her radio down on the counter a little carelessly as another Christmas song comes on, then snatches JJ up like he weighs nothing. He giggles and sets his sticky baby hands on her cheeks as she peppers kisses all over his face between tone-deaf lyrics.
Voice a little rough, Luke gives her a pointed look, “Santa?”
“Yeah, Daddy, Santa!” She winks and leans in close to press her lips to his. She’s pale today, a little sweaty, lips chapped. But she smiles and presses her next kiss to his cheek, her voice playful against his stubble, “Cara from church said they’re doing a whole thing at The Island Club today.”
Face souring, Luke snaps his work bag shut and leans back against the counter, arms crossing over his chest as he puts space between them, “You forget we ain’t exactly members?”
“We don’t have to be members. The whole island is invited,” Georgia insists as JJ tugs a little on her hair. She catches his sticky little hand and kisses it as she adds pointedly, “JJ’s really excited about this, Luke. He even wrote Santa a letter this mornin’. You want to see, baby?”
She pulls the sloppily folded letter from her back pocket and slides it over before twirling away with JJ giggling on her hip. He sings along with her – some horrible rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with half the words missing – as Luke unfurls the ‘letter.’
It’s mostly just scribbles Luke can’t even pretend to understand and little drawings he’s impressed came from a four-year old – a bike without training wheels, a remote-control truck, a fishing pole, a swing set, a bouncy house, a jellyfish in a fish tank.
Luke’s face falls more and more with each addition to the list. He feels Georgia’s eyes on him, and – sure enough – she’s looking right at him when he shakes the list and mutters, “Georgia–”
She kisses the top of JJ’s head as she sets him down. He bounces a little in his dirty shoes, one of the heels giving off a faint glow each time it touches the floor; Luke had snatched ‘em from a lost-and-found somewhere back before JJ’s feet had grown into them. She pats his butt and mumbles, “Why don’t you go color a picture for when Daddy gets home from work?”
“But Mamaaaaa,” JJ whines as he tugs at the hem of her shirt. “We gosta see Santa!”
Kneeling, she holds out her pinkie to him, wiggling it until he hooks his own through hers, “I promise, my little Jellyfish. Just five minutes.”
Luke barely waits for the blonde head of hair to disappear into the hall before he rounds on Georgia, eyes flashing, “Why the hell you fillin’ that kid’s head with shit that ain’t gonna happen?”
Dark eyes flashing right back, Georgia jerks her arm out of his hold and pokes her finger into his chest, “Oh, fuck off. As if believin’ in a bit of magic is going to ruin his life.”
She softens her voice and curls her fingers into the front of his shirt just when he can feel the heat crawling up his neck to his face. She pulls him closer and wraps her other arm around his neck, “All kids believe in Santa at that age.”
“Not all kids ask for a damn bouncy house or a pet jellyfish.”
Giggling, Georgia bumps her nose against his and murmurs, “You telling me you didn’t want a pet jellyfish at his age? It’s normal to dream, Luke.”
Luke clenches his jaw and eyes the doorway their son just disappeared through; he knows the taste of disappointment well enough that her half-joke doesn’t quite land, “Kid’s gonna be lucky if we can afford a damn pack of plastic army men, George.”
“Then they’ll be the best damn army men on this island,” she smiles as she presses herself fully to him.
He can taste nicotine and something tangy and metallic – like blood – on her tongue when she kisses him. He can also feel the tremble of her hand on the back of his neck, the way she squeezes a little too tight as she mumbles, “Look, you worry about work, and I’ll worry about managing JJ’s expectations, okay?”
Trying to ignore the shake in his own hand, Luke shoves it into his pocket and tugs her back in for another kiss and a gruff, “Yeah… yeah, okay.”
Backing her against the counter now, he sighs as she slips her hand beneath his work shirt and breathes, “I’ll make a stop at Mike’s before you get home. I think we deserve a little treat, don’t you?”
Georgia rides the effects of her party favors from Barracuda Mike, while Santa makes promises only parents on the Figure Eight can keep.
JJ comes home with stars in his eyes and an unfailing smile, Georgia comes home with color in her cheeks and a wobble in her step, and Luke comes home with a stiff back and a bottle of pills in someone else’s name.
For the next three days, JJ barely leaves his place kneeling by the coffee table except to eat and to hang drawings around the house – Santa, his elves, the reindeer, an assortment of snowflakes he asks his mama to help him cut out and tape to the walls.
Georgia loves it, teaching him more and more Christmas songs as she lifts him up high to hang their crooked, handmade snowflake banner above the living room door. She tickles him and tells him her favorite Christmas movie plots as bedtime stories while they’re curled up together on the couch. And when he sleepily asks if they can visit Santa’s workshop, she whispers, “We’ll go there together someday, Jellyfish.”
While JJ and Georgia plan for the perfect Christmas, Luke drinks a sixpack and adds another overdue bill to the stack. He hears them giggling in the kitchen about what sort of cookies Santa might like, sees them hanging a sign on the mailbox ‘so Santa don’t get lost!’ JJ insists, and listens as Georgia explains the magic behind Santa and his ability to fill every tree with gifts.
“And the best part,” she says as she hands JJ the spoon of brownie mix to lick clean, “is that because Santa and his elves are magic, they never run out of gifts.”
“Never ever?” JJ breathes as he wipes the back of his hand over his mouth and smears the chocolate on his cheek.
“Nope, never,” Georgia dips her finger into the brownie mixture and steps between Luke and the table. She’s unsteady, her eyes glazed and happy and barely there as she leans down to kiss him. There are fresh bruises dotted on the inside of her arm that pair well with the fingerprints on her bicep.
Luke turns his face away when she presents her chocolatey fingers to him. JJ’s right there, eyes still full of wonder and hope, while the bills grow by the second in front of Luke and the cash dwindles quicker than he can bring it in. His hands shake as he sets them on Georgia’s hips and shifts her out of his way.
His chair scratches across the floor as he stands abruptly and his jaw works back and forth before he snaps, “Stop fillin’ his head with that shit, Georgia. The way things are goin’ with my back, Santa ain’t bringin’ him nothin’!”
Georgia blinks, stunned, and then glances back at their son. JJ’s wide-eyed wonderment turns to confusion, to hurt, and he squeaks out a quiet, “But I was good?”
His brows furrow as he turns his eyes on Georgia and whines, “He knows if you been bad or good. Right, Mama?”
Lips twisting a little to the side, he looks between his parents before landing back on Georgia, “And I was good! Real good!”
“Oh baby, of course,” she breathes immediately as she elbows past Luke. “You have been Mama’s good boy, and Santa is going to bring yo–”
“Damn it, Georgia,” Luke snatches her elbow so quick her hip knocks the knocks the table a couple inches across the floor. Her dark eyes flash as he leans in so that their noses almost touch, “I said, that’s enough! It don’t do him no good to think he’s gettin’ shit he ain’t.”
He shifts his eyes to where JJ is still watching them. One glance at their boy, at Luke’s mini-me in so many ways, is almost enough to pull Luke back, to still his tongue. But then he catches sight of the chocolate on his trembling chin, the Christmas cookie cutters scattered across the counter behind him, the latest picture he’d drawn – a fancy Christmas tree, the kind you’d see up in the Figure Eight, surrounded by a mountain of presents he wasn’t ever gonna get – and heat spreads up his neck again as he barks at his son, “Your mama’s a damn liar and you’re old enough now to know it.”
“Luke, stop it, you’re being cruel!” Georgia hisses between those perfectly straight teeth of hers. They’d been white when he met her. White and straight and perfect from years of braces and expensive dental work. Now though, the nicotine has gotten to them. The heroin too. And that smile, those teeth, are proof that the Cut’s gotten right into her blood like he has.
She jerks her arm, but Luke tightens his fingers and leans in, “You got somethin’ to say?”
Her chest rises and falls with quick breaths before she cries, “Luke, please. Not in front of JJ,” she adds in a hiss that hits his panting lips.
And then, voice quieter, shaky as she tries to pretend everything is okay, she glances down at their son’s teary blue eyes and adds, “Jesse, baby, everything’s okay. Go to your room and finish up that drawing of Santa we–”
“Enough already with this fuckin’ shit!”
Luke gives her a hard shake and doesn’t take his eyes off her as he barks in JJ’s direction, “There ain’t no Santa, no reindeer, no magic fuckin’ bag of presents!”
Something small and solid knocks into Luke’s leg, only the top of JJ’s little head visible as he swings his skinny arms at Luke’s thigh, “There is too a Santa!”
Luke catches the next tiny fist that swings, holding it tight as he releases Georgia. Swinging JJ up onto the table is easy, his big hand locking around the back of his son’s neck as the other holds his little fist down on the tabletop. When he tries to lift the other, Luke just squeezes the back of his neck harder and hisses, “Jay, Santa ain’t real.”
“Luke, stop it! He’s just a baby,” she grabs his shoulder, but Luke just shoves her back with one arm.
She hits the counter, sinking a little with wide eyes, but Luke keeps his own gaze on JJ. The boy tries to look away, but Luke tilts his head a little until their eyes meet and repeats himself, “Santa ain’t real. It’s just make-believe like when you and Mama play mermaids or pirates.”
“B-but we meeted him,” JJ’s chin wobbles and his eyes fill with tears as he tries again to pull away. “H-he promiseded he won’t forgot us.”
Something shifts in Luke’s chest, but he swallows it down and lifts his chin higher, “The man you and Mama met was playin’ pretend. He ain’t bringin’ you nothin’ for Christmas, you understand me?”
JJ’s eyes stray to the doorway where the dim lights from the Christmas tree reflect off the wood floor. He shakes his head and whimpers, “But Mama sayed–”
“I know what your mama said,” his blue-gray eyes stray to Georgia. She’s sunk down to the floor completely now, arms locked around her knees as she watches them. When her eyes meet Luke’s, she turns her face away and bites her lip. “But she was wrong.”
Big droplets roll down JJ’s cheek as he shakes his head, but Luke holds on tighter, pushing force into his voice when it threatens to crack, “We ain’t like those people over on Figure Eight, Jay. We ain’t ever gonna be given shit for free. And we ain’t got money like them.”
“Santa don’t need money,” JJ mumbles before averting his eyes and gnawing on his cheek.
“But Santa ain’t real, and we are. Presents don’t come from a little gnome factory–”
“I’s a elf workshop,” JJ corrects under his breath.
“All that shit you asked for, it costs money, Jay. Money that we ain’t got and we ain’t gonna get,” Luke’s fingers move to JJ’s shoulders, just a little too rough as he gives him a sharp shake. It works; his eyes find Luke’s face again immediately.
“We ain’t got all the extra shit they got on the other side of the island, alright? We ain’t like the Kooks.” Unable to tell how much of this is sticking, Luke follows JJ’s eyes every time his son tries to look away. He catches his chin and trains their gazes to match, “I know Mama told you to ask for whatever you wanted for Christmas, but you ain’t gettin’ a swing set or a bouncy house or a bike. You ain’t gettin’ any of that shit, you understand me?”
“Y-yes I am,” JJ mumbles through his tears. He shoves at Luke’s chest with his tiny hands; weak as they are, Luke isn’t expecting it and falls back on his ass as JJ scrambles off the table. He points his little hand at Luke and cries, “You just a lie-teller! Santa p’omised.”
“S-so, what’s your big plan there, dad of the year?” Georgia hisses when JJ’s tiny steps disappear behind the sound of his bedroom door slamming. She pushes herself up from the ground, hissing as she cups her elbow and comes away with blood, “Kill his whole belief in magic and – what, exactly? Have him open more of Ricky’s old shit and tell him that’s what he’s worth?”
Luke’s back cracks as he stands, but he ignores the way it aches as he straightens up to tower over Georgia. She lifts her chin, though it wobbles the way JJ’s had just a minute before, and she doesn’t even flinch as he steps closer to box her in with his hands on the counter on either side of her.
“If you hadn’t filled his head with that bullshit in the first place–”
“He’s just a kid!” She hisses, pushing hard against his shoulder now. Luke steps closer so that they’re chest to chest, her hand half-trapped between them. “Luke… I just wanted him to have the same stuff all the other kids get. I was– I was going to find a way,” she argues weakly.
“Yeah? You were gonna find a way?” he mocks even as her dark eyes fill with tears. He grabs her chin, eyes sliding over her face and hisses, “You wanna save his belief in magic and fairness in the world? Then, do it. You got a week until Christmas, George. Prove me wrong.”
JJ doesn’t get a pet jellyfish that Christmas.
He doesn’t wake to a bouncy house. Or a swing set. Or a new bike.
No, when JJ slips on the soles of his too-small footie pajamas in the rush from his bedroom to the living room on Christmas morning, all he finds is an empty tree with half the lights burnt out, a spilled beer from the night before, and his mama’s medicine on the coffee table. The two half-burnt chocolate chip cookies he and his mama left out next to the couch for Santa are still there, untouched.
Chin wobbling, he opens the front door to make sure the sign pointing to their house is still on the mailbox, that the other sign is still on the front door – it is, they are.
“Santa just forgotted… he’s comin’,” he mumbles as he shuts the front door behind him and sits on the middle step of the porch to wait.
By the time Luke and Georgia finally stumble out of bed a little before noon, JJ’s practically an icicle out on the porch.
He doesn’t protest as Luke wraps him in a big blanket and brings him inside. He just rolls over where his daddy lays him, so he’s facing the back of the couch, and presses his thumb between his lips.
Luke thinks about making him stop – they’d broken him of the thumb-sucking habit just a few months before – but then he hears the quiet sniffle as JJ pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps himself into a ball. His protests die on his lips as he meets Georgia’s eyes across the room.
Luke and Georgia don’t talk for a week. They move around the house like strangers. Her downturned gaze always avoids his glare, and his guilty eyes fall quickly from the purple gash on her elbow, the yellowing bruises on her bicep, the fresher one he sees on her side when her shirt rides up.
Christmas, and then New Years, come without a word between them until Georgia crawls into bed with a little clear baggie between her fingers and whispers, “I got you a late Christmas present, Daddy.”
JJ doesn’t talk for even longer than that.
He just lifts his skinny shoulders when Luke asks him a question. Averts his eyes and pretends not to hear when his mama calls his name. Walks right past the mostly-filled coloring books Georgia leaves on the coffee table for him to find.
He never brings up the empty tree. Doesn’t bring up Santa or the presents or his mama’s broken promises. And when the kids in his Sunday School class talk about all the goodies Santa brought them, he chews his cheek until it bleeds and rips pages out of his illustrated Bible.
In April, JJ turns five and gets a remote-control car with erosion where the batteries should be, a fishing pole with more rust than paint and Ricky’s faded name on the handle in sharpie, and a pack of plastic army men that sends Georgia into a fit of too-loud giggles that makes tears well in JJ’s eyes.
Georgia bakes a birthday cake with a little too much sugar while Luke takes JJ out on The Phantom to test out his pole. After, when they’re all high on sugar, Luke teaches JJ how to replace the battery pack on his remote-control car and Georgia helps him paint his army men so they’re not all the same.
JJ drags a chair from room to room on the first floor and lines his army men along all the windowsills. They melt in the summer heat a couple months later. Luke finds them just one week after Georgia packs her bags and fucks off to the mainland, their little bodies misshapen and stuck to the old baby blue paint on the east side of the house.
He leaves bruises on his son’s skin for the first time that summer and finds the remaining colorful army men shoved deep in the trash along with a ripped up photo of Georgia, JJ, and Luke.
The new pack of army men Luke sets on JJ’s shelf as an apology is still there – untouched – come the next Christmas. And the one after that too.
Other things join the shelf over the years – a selection of free shirts from his various odd jobs around the island, random hats in all different colors from Heyward’s boy, a dozen colorful bracelets JJ tucks into his sleeves when he comes home from hanging out with that little Kook princess, and a collection of bandanas and rings Luke’s seen first on Big John’s kid. No matter what else goes onto the shelf, those army men remain.
Untouched.
Unloved.
Christmases and birthdays come and go without much fanfare.
Luke tosses JJ an old zippo he found working on a boat at the junkyard, mutters a quick, “Don’t say I never gave you nothin’,” in lieu of a happy birthday.
Leaves a couple cans of cheap spray paint and a junker of a bike with bent wheel spokes next to the porch; two weeks later, JJ crashes the damn thing in the woods and breaks his arm. He smiles the whole three weeks of winter break and takes off back into the woods the second his cast is off.
He’s 12 when Luke hands him the flask, 13 when they drink from it together, and 15 the first time Luke notices he’s carved his initials into the side of it to match his lighter.
The art set he gets when he’s 14 is beautiful in a way that highlights how damaged their house truly is.
The foldable easel is mostly made of smooth wood, and the hinges shine real pretty when the sun shines through the big window in the living room. The pencils, brushes, and paints are all the expensive kind only shops on the Figure Eight or the mainland sell. The whole thing screams one word to Luke as he watches JJ set it up in front of the window –
Kook.
For three days after his 14th birthday, JJ doesn’t even use it.
He walks in, smooths his hand over all that pretty wood, traces the hand-carved initials in that girl’s curvy scrawl, and just stares at the blank canvas with stars in his eyes.
“What, she feel guilty for somethin’?”
Luke takes a slow swig of his beer and watches the slump sink into his son’s shoulders. Kicking his feet up onto the coffee table, he catches the flinch in the corner of his eye when one of his old bottles clanks on the floor. Something ticks in his jaw.
“I mean, shit, boy,” he whistles low and knocks himself in the teeth when he brings the bottle to his mouth again, “either you’re givin’ it to her good–”
“Shut up,” JJ mutters, blue eyes flashing hard even he quickly lowers them from his dad’s face.
“–or your little Kook girlfriend is feelin’ bad for somethin’.”
“Or she gives a shit about me.”
Luke doesn’t miss the insinuation. He doesn’t miss the way JJ’s fists are shaking by his sides either.
He laughs and slides a hand through his hair, “Whatever you say, kid. But trust your old man on this one,” he tips his bottle at JJ – seeing Georgia in the hard line of his jaw as he avoids Luke’s eyes – and shrugs, “Girls like that don’t waste money on losers from the Cut for nothin’.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ ‘bout,” JJ’s words run together a little, speeding up as he lifts his eyes. He puffs out his chest, lifts his chin, and looks his father right in the eye. “Just because Mama walked out on you don’t mean shit about Kiara.”
JJ hits the floor with a thump. His easel hits the floor with a splinter.
“Why the fuck you all mopey for?” Luke asks a week later through a mouthful of sticky smoke. “That girl o’ yours finally figure out what you are? A dirty Pogue?”
He blows it out slowly, eyes the bruise that’s still dark along his son’s cheek, and then glances at the bag of broken pencils, brushes, and spilled paints dangling from his wrist. His bare wrist. The overlapping friendship bracelets are gone now, though there are pale lines there from the sun.
The real giveaway, though, is the way JJ’s lips tremble before he flattens them out into a thin line. He hooks his backpack over his shoulder and slides his tongue across his split lip, “I’m goin’…” He finishes the sentence in a mumble, though Luke’s pretty sure he said ‘home.’
“What was that?”
JJ pauses in the door and mutters, “I’m going to the Chateau.”
“Stop lookin’ at me like that,” Luke mutters as he drops a mixed bag of rusty bolts and nails on the coffee table. “You ain’t goin’ to no damn aquarium. We ain’t got money for shit like that.”
A couple bolts roll free, clanging together on the hardwood floor by JJ’s bare toes. He picks them up one at a time and lays them with the rest, forehead crinkling when Luke knocks his old toolbox across the floor with the side of his boot, “Get to sortin’.”
Chewing the inside of his cheek, JJ plucks the bolts and nails two at a time. He compares them before letting them drop into different compartments of the toolbox. He sorts in silence until there’s just a short pile left and then peeks over at Luke as he fiddles with the dials of an old radio.
“Daddy?”
“I said no, J. Don’t ask again,” the warning is clear.
Luke doesn’t bother to look up from his radio. He doesn’t have to.
He already knows without a glance that JJ’s shuffling his feet on the hardwood, that he’s chewing his cheek, that he’s peeking from the corner of his eye instead of making direct contact.
He also knows that the kid ain’t gettin’ what he wants.
From the corner of his eye, he sees JJ rolling one of the bolts between his hands. He slides it around his finger, twists it over the knuckle, then twirls it.
He’s got his lip between his teeth now, worrying at it hard before he murmurs, “The whole class is goin’ though.”
JJ stares at the coffee table when Luke drops the radio. Tension draws across his whole body, tightening just before his dad’s hand snaps out and catches the back of his neck.
Luke squeezes hard as he jerks the ten-year-old in front of him by the back of the neck. He waits for the apology, for the begging, for the big crocodile tears that remind him too much of Georgia. But what he gets instead is, “John B and Pope get to go!”
“Do I look like John B and Pope’s daddy?” Luke squeezes harder until JJ’s shoulders lift in an attempt to knock him off. He jerks the boy unsteady and leans in close until he can smell the bubblegum on his son’s breath, “You say one more fuckin’ word about this fieldtrip–”
“O-okay, okay, okay,” JJ whines now as he digs his dirty nails into the hand at the back of his neck. Tears spring to his eyes then as he pants, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll stop!”
Then, in a whine that sounds so much younger, “Daddy, please… I’m sorry.”
Luke drops him so abruptly that JJ hits his ass on the floor. He scrambles back a few inches and pushes up to his feet. Before he can get too far, Luke catches his wrist and drags him back toward the couch.
“Sit your ass down and finish the job I gave you.”
The bruise on the back and sides of JJ’s neck haunts Luke for the next week until he comes home from school with a black cord wrapped around it. The tooth is sharp, some mixture of white and black, with wire woven through a small hole.
It doesn’t hide the bruises – hell, it barely covers them at all – but the stark black against JJ’s tan skin does distract.
He touches the damn thing constantly. Drags the tooth back and forth while Luke talks. Tugs on the cord while he sips the beer Luke hands him after helping mow the lawn. Twists the cord around his finger as he doodles on the corner of his homework.
“Where the hell that come from?” Luke finally mutters two weeks later as he holds his hand out for a wrench.
Brows furrowing in confusion, JJ hands Luke the wrench and glances behind him, “Where did what come from?”
Luke tightens two of the boat’s rusted bolts, then reaches for his beer. There’s only one sip left, but when he sets the can down, there’s another already sweating in JJ’s hand. He takes it, patting his boy roughly on the shoulder, and then pops it open to take a long, gulping drink.
Pointing at the necklace with his beer, he wipes his chin with the back of his other hand, uncaring of the grease there, “That.”
The hesitation is brief, just a quick pause, but Luke sees it anyway before JJ lifts his shoulder, “It’s nothin’. Just uh,” he scratches the back of his neck and focuses on the engine, “somethin’ John B gave me.”
Brow lifting, Luke snorts into his beer, “Oh yeah? And what’d you have to give him?”
“I didn’t give him nothin’,” JJ reaches for the empty beer, wiggling the tab back and forth slowly. His skinny shoulders lift as he adds, “He got it at the aquarium for me.”
“Nothin’, huh? I ain’t teach you nothin’?” Luke asks.
When JJ doesn’t answer, Luke reaches for the back of his neck. JJ’s quick this time, scrambling back, and Luke’s hand hovers in the air between them before he drops it onto his knee and scoffs, “Nothin’ in this world is free for people like us, J. If he ain’t expectin’ anything from you now,” he blows a breath through his nose, “he will.”
Like the rings that come later, like the friendship bracelets he only stops wearing for a few months when he’s 14, the shark tooth never leaves his neck.
Even when Luke’s got him pinned to the porch, hands wrapped tight around his neck, he can feel that cord, that sharp tooth. A barrier between his own callused hands and his son’s throat.
And when JJ wields that wrench – the one he’s handed him a hundred times over the years – it’s the shark tooth that catches Luke’s eye. The way it dangles at JJ’s throat as his hand shakes, then goes steady, ready to strike.
That necklace stares right at him when his son breathed through bloody teeth, “I ain’t scared of you anymore.”
He tells himself – as he slides one hand to the back of JJ’s neck and the other to the back of his head – that this, this, is a gift.
Not one he can wear. Not one that will go dusty on a shelf. Not something broken or bearing the wrong name. Or one he’ll play with until the batteries go rusty and threaten to detonate.
It’s not the kind of gift you buy. Not even the kind you barter for. Not the kind a kid begs for on Santa’s lap. Or the kind he creates on a brand new easel.
No, Luke thinks as he settles his hands on the steering column of the boat and glances back at his son holding the ropes, this isn’t that kind of gift at all.
They’re right there on his tongue as he watches JJ throw the ropes onto the boat – those words, the ones that had tempted him as he pulled his son close – “Come with me, J.”
Blue-gray eyes shifting further up the dock, Luke sees her. That little kook princess. The one with the easel. With the bracelets. With the curls doodled onto old homework sheets. With the sketchbooks and new hoodies loaned and never taken back.
On the dock, JJ slides one finger beneath his friendship bracelet and tugs at the thin material.
On the boat, Luke swallows every word after ‘Take care, Dad’ and gives his son one last gift.
It takes six years.
Two drug busts.
Two stints in jail.
Three stays in rehab – two against his will, one voluntary.
Before finally, finally, Luke Maybank steps foot back on the Outer Banks.
It’s cool when he steps off the ferry from the mainland, but the sun shines bright despite the misty rain dampening his hair. All around him, people shuffle by with their luggage – Tourons visiting for Spring Break, Kooks returning from their own trips off-island, and working class people from the Cut with equipment and parts strapped to their backs. As for Luke, his small duffle hangs light on his shoulder.
It’s just him and the sound of ruffling paper with every step he takes further south.
He takes the trip by foot, wiping sweat and rain from his forehead every few minutes. He goes to the Chateau first, finds an entirely different building where Big John’s place had once been. The shape is similar, the old bell is still down by the marsh, and ‘Routledge’ is painted across the mailbox near the old gravel road. But it’s definitely a different house. Bigger, maybe. Cleaner, definitely.
But empty. Not abandoned, just… quiet.
The rain picks up as he heads further into the Cut, and with each step he gets closer to the old shack, the heavier his duffle gets.
He almost passes right by the house. With its pretty blue mailbox and slightly crooked fence surrounding the front yard. The freshly mowed grass he can smell through the scent of rain. The yard clear of old machinery and debris.
The yellow siding is prettier than when he left, freshly-painted and patched up in various parts. The windows look new, the roof repaired, and the screens of the porch have all been replaced. He spots the old workbench in the back as he slowly circles the house; it’s the only sign at all he’d ever been here.
Well, one of two.
That pretty blue mailbox at the end of the road – the one he’d laid his callused hand on as he passed – the one with Maybank painted in a curvy scrawl he knows he doesn’t belong to his son. The one with Carrera painted beneath it in a messy scrawl he knows does belong to his son.
He hears the laughter before he spots them through the large, clear windows of the dining room. Even from outside, he can tell they’ve replaced the table. It’s hardly Kook-standard, but it’s not the old dingy wood from Luke’s childhood anymore. The chairs are different too, a little mismatched, but cute.
JJ sits at the center of the table – that pretty little Kook on one side of him, Big John’s boy on the other side – head thrown back in laughter. Directly in front of him is a lopsided cake with blue and green icing and a little plastic surfboard sticking out the top. Two candles burn as everyone standing around the table sings.
There are six of them total, Heyward’s boy reaching across to squeeze JJ’s shoulder while a dark-skinned girl Luke’s never seen before sticks her finger right into the icing. Ward Cameron’s girl claps the loudest when JJ blows the candles out. He turns his head, eyes sparkling and smile threatening to crack his whole face in half, and that girl – Mike and Anna’s little princess – cups JJ’s cheek before leaning in.
There are woops and whistles, the sounds drowning out in laughter when JJ slides his hand into the girl’s hair and deepens the kiss. Behind her head, he flips the others off and grins into the kiss.
The second they pull apart, Big John’s boy is there, leaning over the corner of the table and puckering his lips.
Luke turns away and presses his fingers to his chest. He bends them, digging his knuckles into his sternum as he sucks in a shaky breath. He doesn’t understand it – the ache that builds in his belly and spreads up to his chest. It sticks there, angry and painful, and he clenches his other hand into a fist just to immediately release it with another glance at the window.
When he looks back, there’s a stack of colorfully wrapped boxes and birthday bags half-blocking his view of JJ. His boy laughs, full and real, as he grabs one of the bags. There’s icing on one of his cheeks; the Carrera girl wipes it away with her thumb before popping it in her mouth.
JJ’s smile gets even bigger.
One by one he goes through the presents.
There’s a new friendship bracelet – blue and yellow – that his girlfriend ties around his wrist next to a dingy orange one. She ties one around her own wrist as well, curling their fingers together before raising their hands to show them off.
He gets a new Heyward’s Seafood snapback that he immediately plops onto his head backwards, his dimple popping as he winks at the girl Luke’s never seen before.
There’s a bag full of books or magazines; from here, Luke can’t tell which. JJ skims through them, eyes slowly moving over the front cover of each one, and Luke wipes rainwater off his face with a scoff – his boy’s never been a good reader. But whatever reaction Luke expected, it’s not even close to the one he gets. There’s no disappointment, no embarrassment – no, JJ hops right out of his seat, mouth moving a mile a minute as he tugs Heyward Jr. into a rough hug.
There’s a knife, a new tacklebox, shirts from at least three different businesses on the island, surf wax, a host of new lures he goes through one at a time.
The Pogues all grin at each other as Big John’s boy claps JJ on the shoulder and nods toward the door. Luke stumbles back until he’s sure he’ll still be out of sight as the kids slip out onto the screened-in porch.
In the corner of the porch, on the side of the house where the sun shines brightest each morning, he spots a wooden easel. It’s not silky and smooth and new the way the other one was. This easel’s old. Used.
Splotches of paint stain the old, mismatched wood. It looks familiar, some of the wood near the top, a light baby blue color. And after a moment, Luke realizes that the reason it looks like this is because it’s hand-made. Pieced together from different types and colors of wood, then stained in droplets from nights spent up painting.
The easel half-faces away from him, but even through the screen, he can see that it’s partly filled.
At first, he thinks the big gift they’re showing off is the dirt bike tucked into the opposite corner of the porch. It looks new until he spots the dent on the side where JJ fell off the first time he rode it. There’s a fresh paint job and some new tires, sure, but nah, this isn’t the gift.
The box is long and thin. The boys hold it up as JJ rips the paper, looking eager and bright and practically vibrating in his excitement.
He’d been like that for Luke once upon a time. For Georgia.
He’d run around every inch of this house once, sticky fingers pressing drawings to the walls. He’d ripped into his birthday and Christmas presents with gusto those first few years. Had lit up as he opened hand-me-down tees and used toys just as much as when Luke had given him his first brand new baseball mitt.
Luke watches him light up now as he pulls a fishing pole from the box. The handle is black, the main pole a dark, shiny blue that reflects in JJ’s eyes even from across the whole yard. His mouth falls open as he rubs the tips of his fingers over each part of the pole. He looks to his girl first, then the Routledge boy, then the others.
Luke averts his eyes when he sees JJ knuckle at his eye, but when he looks up, they’re all smiling, not a hint of embarrassment visible for his emotion.
But what stings, what makes his stomach flip and chest ache all over again, is the way JJ wraps his fingers around the shark tooth at his throat as he laughs at something the Cameron girl says. He drags the tooth back and forth. Fiddles with his rings. Tugs his new hat off and plops it on his girl’s head before moving in for a kiss. Slides his fingers into her bracelets that match his own.
He doesn’t even realize the rain has stopped until he hears the bang of the screen door and the sound of feet slapping against wet grass. The kids all hoot and holler the whole way out to the dock, arms full of coolers and poles and even a grill. JJ’s giving his girl a piggyback ride down to the dock, both of them howling with laughter when he slips in the mud and almost takes them both down. Then they laugh harder when he loses a boot right before reaching the boat.
Luke doesn’t move until he watches the boat drift out into the water. He waits until he loses sight of it and then shrugs his duffle off his shoulder.
The box inside is hastily wrapped, half in newspaper, half in old tissue paper he found in the closet of the halfway house.
“Fuck this,” he mutters, shoving the box back into the bag and taking off toward the road again.
His eyes catch on the mailbox as he passes it, and something stops him from taking another step. With shaky hands, Luke opens the mailbox. There are a couple bills inside, some junk mail, and – now – a box.
The box is ugly as hell. Wrapped in last year’s newspapers and some weird-smelling tissue paper Kiara immediately tosses into the outside recycling bin she put on the back porch. It’s not heavy, whatever’s inside, but it does shift noisily as JJ wiggles the lid free and tosses it on the kitchen table with the other gifts.
John B drapes himself over the back of JJ’s chair, brows furrowing as he presses his chin into JJ’s shoulder and mutters, “I don’t get it.”
“Me either,” Kiara admits as she bends down to try and read the paper inside the little fish bowl.
“Someone wants you to get a pet goldfish?” Pope guesses skeptically.
Sarah scoffs, “Even a goldfish needs a home bigger than that.”
Cleo doesn’t say anything at first, just reaches into the bowl and pulls the little certificate free. She unfolds it, eyes moving quickly as she mutters, “You people can be so slow sometimes.”
Pope angles himself behind her to read it, his face growing even more confused, “It’s a–”
He frowns and leans back a little, “A certificate for one of those wildlife adoption agencies?”
Kiara snatches the certificate, her entire face lighting up as she waves it at JJ, “Oh, I’ve heard of these! They basically let you ‘adopt’ a sea creature for a donation.”
“That sounds so nice,” Sarah coos at the same time John B mutters, “Sounds like a scam.”
“A lot of them are,” Pope agrees as he reaches for the certificate.
Kiara jerks it back and narrows her eyes at him, “But a lot of them aren’t. They donate the proceeds to different conservation and wildlife research groups. And this one,” she says, turning it over to read the mission statement on the back, “is donating to whale research.”
“Well?” Sarah asks impatiently as she – like Pope – tries to grab the certificate from Kie, “What kind of pet are we getting?”
“A jellyfish in a fish tank,” JJ breathes as he lifts the empty glass bowl in front of his face. It makes his eyes look huge from the other side; Cleo laughs, though the sound goes softer at the way she can see JJ’s lips curving into a hesitant smile.
“It’s more of a fish bowl,” John B comments.
Flipping the certificate back over to read it, Kiara looks at JJ in surprise. She hands it to him, her eyes lingering on his smile as hesitation turns to something soft and a little sad.
Carefully, he tucks the certificate back inside as she asks, “How did you know?”
And then, quieter, Pope asks, “Who’s it from anyway?”
JJ lifts the fish bowl, watches the dining room light reflect off of it. The other five Pogues watch him. Watch the way his eyes go all wide and wet before he blinks it away and answers softly, “Just someone I used to know.”
Kiara doesn’t even ask. She doesn’t have to.
Wordlessly, she shifts the sailboat, the mermaid print, the picture of the six Pogues from the last party at the Boneyard back in high school. She puts the new books and magazines on surfing and fishing techniques next to her books on conservation and sea life. She puts all of his fishing equipment into the new tacklebox, hangs his new hat on the edge of a shelf, and then carefully arranges the fish bowl right in the center.
JJ pauses in the doorway, his throat bobbing as Kiara pulls a photo out of one of the old picture albums she keeps on the shelf beneath their desk.
The picture of JJ, Luke, and Georgia is old, a little faded from years of sitting in the sun on the kitchen windowsill when he was a kid. JJ, just a toddler then, is on his daddy’s shoulders, and Georgia rests back against Luke’s chest, her smile wide and bright and so much like JJ’s.
“Kie…”
She just smiles and holds her hand out for him. Instead of taking it, JJ’s arms curl around her waist. He tugs her in until he can bury his face in her wild curls.
Sliding her fingers into his hair, she tugs gently and whispers, “Sometimes I think you forget.”
“Forget what?” he mumbles.
“That I know you,” she scratches her nails along his scalp and smiles when he leans into it. “That I love you.”
She presses her nose into his hair, inhales the scent of his ocean shampoo, and slides her hand down to cup the back of his neck, “I have one last present for you, birthday boy.”
He perks up, eyes twinkling as he pulls back, “Is it a naked present?”
“Nope,” she grins at his pout, presses her lips against it, and then pushes him onto the edge of the bed. He lands with a bounce, dramatically throwing himself back, arms splayed at his sides; he can practically hear her roll her eyes.
When she doesn’t say anything, when she doesn’t climb into bed with him, when there’s only the soft shuffle of her grabbing something out of her bedside table, JJ peeks his eyes open and then pushes up onto his elbows.
Kiara looks nervous, her doe eyes skimming his face as her fingers tighten around a small box in her hand.
Getting one hand braced behind himself, JJ pushes up the rest of the way. He eyes the box and then her face and then, in a shaky breath, “Kie–”
“Marry me.”
The ring reminds him a bit of her hair. Tendrils of silver curling over each other into an intricate braid like the ones he winds into her hair on hot summer days. It reminds him, too, of the ring he’s got tucked in his own bedside table.
Blowing out a quiet laugh, he shakes his head, “You can’t propose to me.”
Kiara rolls her eyes – mid-proposal – and scoffs as she crosses her arms over her chest, “Says who?”
JJ just grins and shifts his eyes toward his bedside table. Kiara eyes it suspiciously, a grumpy curve to her brow as she stomps over and jerks it open. His ring still in her hand, she reaches into the drawer with her other.
“I have one last present for you too,” JJ murmurs as he watches her bottom lip tremble.
She meets his eye, her smile growing quickly as she breathes, “You can’t give me a present on your birthday.”
“Says who?”
The box itself is nondescript. Just plain cardboard beneath a simple white label. Despite its size, it’s light in Luke’s hand.
The return address has his hands shaking as he carefully cuts through the tape at the edges. He drags it off the front of the box, pushes open the flaps, and then slowly unwraps the colorful paper.
The canvas isn’t large, but it’s filled from edge to edge.
At first, Luke can’t quite make it out. Just splotches of light blues and dark grays mixed together. He props it against the coffee table – a little card slipping loose from the back – and sits back as the image comes into focus. As his son’s vision of their life together comes into focus.
The marsh, the dock, the side of the house with the screened-in porch. All of it stares at him from behind those colors, from behind those eyes, he realizes.
His eyes.
Hand shaking as he reaches for the card, it takes three swipes at his eyes before Luke can see past the blur there.
The card isn’t a card at all, Luke realizes as his fingers brush over the glossy edge of the photo.
They’re grinning wide, their eyes locked on each other as they dance in the sand. The sun bathes them in light as the ocean and sky shine blue behind them. Her hair, curly and a little wild, floats in the breeze behind her as JJ dips her a little toward the sand. They’re barefoot, her in a simple white sundress, him in a light blue button up and tan pants rolled up and a little damp from the water.
Turning the photo over slowly, the message isn’t much. Just JJ’s scrawl across the center.
Just three words.
Merry Christmas, Dad.