Page 6 of Small-Town Secrets
"Tyler!" I said sharply.
His head whipped to me and then he scrambled to hide the tablet under his sweater as if I hadn't already seen it.
"What do you have there?" I approached the couch and held my hand out to him.
"Nothing."
I glanced at his tummy where he’d hidden the tablet. "If you're not hiding something there you must have eaten a lot of cookies since this morning. You stole the cookies from the shelf, didn't you?"
"No! I didn't! I'm not fat! Look!" He pulled the tablet out from under his sweater to show that his stomach was still flat.
"You're an idiot, Ty," Chris piped up from the corner where he was sitting. "I told you not to take the tablet."
"Chris, don't call your brother an idiot," I admonished, even though I was having a hard time holding back a chuckle at my children's antics. At least Gregory wasn't around to see Tyler holding his tablet. I grabbed the object from my son before those circumstances could change.
Tyler huffed. "I was only looking at it!"
"We look with our eyes, not our hands." Carefully, I laid the tablet down on the coffee table. "You can't mess with Uncle Gregory's things." Who knew how long my cousin's thin patience would last? I didn't enjoy living here, but I didn't know where else to go if he were to throw us out either.
"It's not fair!" my son insisted. "He has all these cool things and we have nothing!"
"I know it's not fair. I'm sorry. I promise things will get better."
"Everyone at school has their own room!" Tyler complained as if I hadn't said anything.
"Don't you like sharing with Daddy and Chris?" I'll admit it wasn't an ideal situation, but it could have been worse. At least it was a big room and we hardly spent any time in it when we weren't sleeping.
"Daddy snores!"
"Do I?" That was news to me. I looked at my other son.
Chris shrugged. "It's not so bad."
"Maybe I can sleep on the couch if it gets bad," I offered.
"Why can't we have our own rooms?" Tyler asked. "We had our own rooms when we were little."
He wasstilllittle, of course, but I knew what he was referring to. Not having as many toys as the other children in his class would have been hard for any young boy, but it was especially hard for the child who used to have everything in abundance. My ex had little love for the twins, but he had money.
"Why can't we go back to Paps?" Tyler asked before I'd even thought of a response to his first question.
"Because Paps doesn't want us anymore," Chris said without even looking up from his Gameboy.
"What makes you think that?“ I stared at my son. I'd tried explaining the situation to my children multiple times in multiple ways, and while I was sure that I hadn't always done a great job of it, I'dneversaid that the man they believed to be their other father didn't want them anymore. In fact, I'd always been careful to make it about my ex and me, stressing the fact that our separation had nothing to do with them.
Chris still didn't look up from his game. "If he wanted us he would visit," he said simply. "Or call. He called sometimes. Now he doesn't."
That was... I didn't know how to refute my son's logic. Howard had indeed stopped trying to call or visit the twins a few months ago. At first, he'd been furious at me for taking the children with me because he considered them his property. Only then he'd learned that he hadn't actually fathered the twins. The moment that fact came to light he'd lost all interest.
I'd been relieved, to be honest, because that ended his attempts to gain custody.
But of course this rejection would have an effect on my boys.
"Paps is very busy," I said, grasping for something,anythingI could offer my children as a reason for why their other parent was being an asshole.
Chris didn't seem impressed with my response, but he didn't ask any questions either. It was obvious that his mind was made up on the matter. Tyler wasn't ready to let it go, though. "How busy?" he asked. "Is he coming for Christmas?"
"I don't know," I said in an effort to delay the conversation to a point in the future when I would be more prepared to deal with it. At least Christmas was still two months off. "What do you guys say we go to the park now? And you can have some candy from the corner store."
