Trade Paperback Romance: Chapter 18

Month 12: June 

Samantha 

It didn’t rain at my father’s funeral. Instead, we got mist. A moderate fog, the last gasp of the vernal days before we all began to burn in the furnace of California’s summer. The dampness settled over my skin, frizzing my now shoulder length hair as I shivered inside my black dress. I clung to Eli’s arm as they lowered Paul into the grave plot. I squeezed Eli tight as they began to put dirt over the coffin. Tears ran down my face as they finished.

It was a small affair… Or at least, it was supposed to be. I could hardly deny Callum the right to come to his brother’s funeral. What I took issue with, however, was the media circus it mutated into before the priest had even finished giving the ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ speech. 

Eli to my left, Kelsey and Bethany to my right, Reggie and Eve and Miguel and Bianca behind us; that was all I’d asked for. I didn’t even mind Kayla’s cloying presence and crocodile tears as much as I thought I would. I could have even tolerated the dozens upon dozens of microphone-wielding journalistic vultures and shoulder-camera operators attempting to capture the entire sordid affair for the sake of thousands of voters who’d never met Paul and now never would IF the whole thing had actually been about the man who’d died. If any of the people Callum and Kayla had brought with them were in any way interested in the life and death of a good, kind, decent man who’d done everything right and received no reward for it, I could have tolerated all this nonsense, swallowed the explosion of noxious rage building up inside me and threatening to consume the entire graveyard. 

Callum, however… I’d thought going into this that when he offered to do the eulogy for me, that was him acknowledging and accommodating my fear of public speaking. That maybe this was him finally, truly doing me a favor, exercising compassion, acting like a real father. I’d thought, ‘even he wouldn’t be so heartless as to turn a funeral into a promotional event for his campaign.’

Because I’m an idiot.

My worthless excuse for a birth-father stood at a podium behind a picture of his brother who had died in an operation he paid for, smiling for the fucking camera. He reminded me of some sort of psychotic clown. 

I grinded my teeth together as the fog rolled over Callum, just wanting the day to be over. But then he had to start talking.

“My older brother was a good man. The best I ever knew. He always took care of me, took care of my daughter Samantha whenever I was indisposed,” Callum said. “His death speaks to a fundamental failure in our medical industry and in health insurance as well. Perhaps if a better doctor had been within his reach, this would not have happened. Clearly public health insurance needs major overhauls, to weed out those exploiting the system for their own gain, so as to protect those who truly need it. That is the problem with universal healthcare conceptually: bad actors taking advantage of the kindness of others and stealing resources they don’t need. If there were fewer parasites gumming up the works, my brother would have had access to a better doctor-”

“Better than the one you paid for?!” I screamed. 

Callum’s practiced smile shattered for a moment. In its place was the enraged grimace I’d seen on him so many times growing up. 

The crowd all stared at me. Cold vapor wetted my skin but did nothing to cool my rage. My hands trembled in time with my quaking pulse, but I grinded my teeth and breathed slowly through my nose. Eli gripped my hand, looked at me, and mouthed ‘it’s okay.’

The cameras and microphones started to turn in my direction. 

“Perhaps my daughter is a little confused right now,” Callum said, trying to get the attention back on himself. “A perfectly understandable reaction, given she just lost her uncle. My brother was always good to her-”

“Better than you were, jackass!” I said. Fuck, I didn’t even care any more. I’d been holding it all in for… I didn’t know how long. 

Time to let it out. 

“Samantha, darling, let’s not do this in public,” Callum said, clearly trying to maintain his composure… With mixed results. 

“Don’t you ‘darling’ me, Callum!” I said, marching forward, the cameras following me. Eli hesitated a moment before following after me, and we made it up onto the stage together. He stood behind me while I forced my way next to Callum. We both stood before the podium, before the crowd, before everyone watching. I’d always thought that airing out your family’s dirty laundry in public was bad form… But we lived in unprecedented times. And maybe the voters deserved to know the truth.

“Samantha, I mean it,” Callum said in a harsh whisper, leaning forward and putting his hand over the microphone. “You do not want to play this game.”

“It’s not a game!” I said, wrenching his hand off the mic and letting my voice sing out loud and proud and pissed off. “None of this has been a game at any point, to anyone, besides you! Paul Kendrick was more than just my uncle; he was more of a father to me than you’ve ever been in your life!”

“What does that mean, exactly?” a well-dressed female reporter with a microphone said. 

“Nothing,” Callum said. 

“It means your beloved candidate here is a deadbeat,” I said, looking right into a camera as I said it. “When I was twelve years old, my mother ran out on us, and Callum here dropped me off at Uncle Paul’s and never looked back! He went and got himself a rich wife and cleaned himself up and couldn’t even be bothered to reach out to us until the wife guilt-tripped him into doing so. Of course it probably wasn’t even guilt- I’m guessing what convinced you was the bad optics you’d get from your little secret coming out, you manipulative, opportunistic, narcissistic FUCKING SOCIOPATH!”

Everyone went silent. Miguel and Biance and Kelsey and Bethany all nodded with approval. Reggie and Eve’s respective jaws were dropped, and Reggie was holding my sister by the shaking shoulder as she drank in the sight of me dressing down the man who’d pretended to care about the both of us when he couldn’t truly give a shit about anything or anyone besides himself. Poor girl. She didn’t deserve any of this. She and Michael deserved a normal childhood with normal parents who loved them, didn’t see them as props to to position wherever they needed to get a damn career boost. Eve deserved to grow up happy and free of persecution, in a world where she could be herself. She was delicate. Fragile. More than a little sheltered, to be sure, and probably spoiled in her own way, but… God, she deserved the world. She deserved love. No matter what happened, she was family. She was my sister, and Michael was my brother, and I would protect them until the end of the world. 

Kayla, meanwhile, was glaring daggers. Yeah, that wasn’t exactly surprising. She’d also told me when I got here that I needed to get back to my ‘regiment’ because my muffin-top was showing through my dress. It didn’t matter. She’d shown her true colors. She was the kind of woman who only cared about the illusion of a perfect family. Anything that came close to coloring outside of the lines was an anathema to her, something to be controlled, beaten into shape. She and Callum were probably perfect for each other; they each deserved someone as slimy as they were. 

“Samantha, you’re being hysterical,” Callum said. 

“Oh my God, what century are you living in?” I spat. “You’ll just say anything if you think it’ll help your career, won’t you? What are you gonna tell us all next? That mom leaving was my fault?”

“What?!”

“It’s what I’ve been telling myself for years. I told myself it was my fault, your fault, God’s fault. But it’s not. It’s her fault for leaving. Just like it’s your fault that you abandoned me. And maybe it’s not all your fault that Paul is dead, but you do not get to come up here and act like you’re the victim when it happened on your watch. You complete and utter parasite- God, it pisses me off so much that you’re my father! I’m ashamed that we’re related. I’m ashamed to know you!”
Callum glared at me. There he was. There was the bastard who thought he was my father. Hiding behind fancy clothes and rehearsed smile, he’d been lurking the whole freaking time. Under his breath, to me and me alone, he said, “You will regret this.”

“Fuck. You,” I said. 

“Samantha-”

“You heard the lady,” Eli said, finally stepping forward. I loved him for giving me the space to say what I needed to say, and I loved him even more for backing up my words with his actions. When Eli spoke, people listened. And now they were listening to me, to him, to both of us together. The two of us, working as one- we were unstoppable. He’d changed me, and I’d changed him, and now… Now all eyes were on us. “This funeral is for family and friends only. You’re not either of those things.”

Callum’s forehead vein throbbed, his face turning purple-red and his fists shaking. I’d always wondered if I had anything in common with him at all. I guess I’d inherited his temper; just kept it bottled up until now. That scared me, but at least I was willing to use it for something other than myself. 

“Unbelievable,” Callum growled. “Of all the ungrateful bullshit-”

“It’s amazing how abusive parents all sound exactly the same,” Eli said. “My old man talks just like you. He’s a prick too. A grandstanding egomaniac who spent my entire life making me feel small and useless because it made me easier to control. He’s a monster. And so are you. Samantha doesn’t owe you anything.”

“You don’t know what you’re-”

“If you’re not leaving, then we are,” I said, tugging on Eli’s hand as he followed me off the platform. “Come on, babe. We’ve got a will-reading to get to.”

“Samantha! Don’t you walk away from me! Don’t you walk away, you stupid fucking tranny!” Callum screeched. 

Where before the crowd silenced, now it absolutely erupted. Reporters turned their cameras and microphones towards Eli and I as we walked away, as Bethany and Kelsey and Bianca and Miguel trailed after us. 

Behind me, I heard Kayla hollering, “Lance?! Lance, where do you think you’re going? Lance!”

Eve and Reggie caught up to us shortly thereafter, Reggie’s arm around Eve as he looked around them on high alert. Eve was clearly scared out of her mind, but… She’d picked me. She’d picked a real family over the bullshit her mother and stepfather pedalled. It was a good start. It was a first step. Now she just had to keep on the path.

Meanwhile, a sea of reporters asked all the questions Callum had been dreading. Maybe this wouldn’t derail his campaign entirely, but… God, I’d take it at this point. 

***

“The terms of Paul’s will are very straightforward,” the lawyer, Sherman Handler, a stoop-shouldered, balding old black man said as we sat in a nondescript office. Mist condensed on the windows outside, while a few lamps offered scant yellow-white light. He had no photos or personal effects, only a California state flag behind him as he sat at his cedar desk and looked over the papers dictating what to do with everything Paul left behind. His voice, low and steady and calming, carried us through proceedings that weren’t much easier than the funeral itself had been. “He left everything to you, Samantha. The store. The house. The car. His entire life insurance policy payout. All of it is yours.”

I nodded, exhaling a shallow breath while Eli rubbed my back. “I see,” was all I managed to say. 

“Now, the house isn’t paid off, but the insurance policy is just enough to cover the remainder of the mortgage. Is that something you’re interested in?”

“I… I’m not sure,” I said, resting my head on Eli’s shoulder. He sat next to me in front of the attorney’s desk. The others, our friends, our family, stood behind us. Outside, the mist finally yielded to rain, assaulting the unsuspecting California landscape with a torrential downpour. The rhythm of the downpour was brutally fast and loud and intense, an assault of precipitation on a dry city that might not be able to take what nature was throwing at it. “This is all a lot. Do I have to make a decision right now?”

“Of course not,” Handler replied with a gentle smile. “There is, however, one other matter we need to discuss.”

“What’s that?” I said, dreading the answer. 

“Paul had a lot of free time in the hospital. Spent most of it scouring the internet. He was looking for someone.”

“Who?” I asked. 

“Your mother,” the attorney said. “He found her.”

I half expected a thunder-clap to accompany it. But alas, nature didn’t share my sense of humor on that black day. Even if it did look how I felt. “Oh.”

The lawyer took a sheet of paper out of the drawer in his desk and slid it over to me. “Greta Dandridge. Formerly Greta Kendrick, nee Greta Jones. Age forty-six. Lives in Koreatown with her husband and three kids. They run a doughnut shop together.”

I balked. “I’m sorry, did you say-”

“I did.”

“The woman who regularly told me how having kids was the biggest mistake of her life had three more?!” I said, taking my hand out of Eli’s and rising to my feet. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Samantha, babe, don’t shoot the messenger,” Bethany whispered into my ear. 

I pressed my eyes shut and exhaled. “Right. Sorry. And these are her bio kids?”

“Two of them are,” Handler answered. “The youngest one is adopted.”

I collapsed back into my seat and buried my face in my hands. “Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.” Three more siblings. I was the oldest of six kids by two parents who’d abandoned me.

“Her address is on that paper,” the attorney said. “If you want to meet her.”

“I… I need time to think,” I said, raking my hands through my hair. 

“I completely understand,” the attorney said. “You have my number. Call me when you’ve made a decision.”

“Thank you,” I nodded, standing up once more. Eli put a hand on my back and shepherded me towards the front door. 

Kayla was standing on the other side of the door waiting for us, drenched with rainfall, makeup running down her visage, hair a wild and frizzy mess. Hands on her hips and death in her eyes, all by her lonesome, she was ready for war. 

But so was I.

Kayla snarled, “Are you proud of yourself? Of what you’ve done? Do you feel some sense of accomplishment over humiliating a great man just as he was about to secure his victory in the election?”

“Yeah, Kayla, I am proud of myself. I do feel a sense of accomplishment,” I said. Fuck it, I was done. Done done DONE with people intimidating me, done with people using me, done with ceding ground. Fuck. That. She wasn’t my family. And she sure as shit wasn’t Eve or Michael’s family. “Are you proud of your lying, deadbeat husband?”

“That is the father of my child you are talking about, young lady!” she said. God, she sounded like an insane person. She fell apart at the first sign of trouble like some kind of tantruming child. Maybe she thought she was the good guy here, that she’d fixed Callum and done the world a favor by helping him with his campaign. But that was the blind leading blind. Two parasites passing themselves off as functional, decent people and preying on everyone around them. 

I fired back, “Yeah. He is. Where is Michael, anyway? I’m guessing you left him at home with the help? Seems to me you do that a lot. When was the last time you held that baby in your arms? When was the last time you did something for him yourself instead of pawning him off onto everyone else? Hell, when was the last time you told your other kid you love them!? Are you proud of yourself, Kayla? Because the last I checked, the most mothering you’ve done lately is trying to make me into you!”

The claws, as they say, came out then. “You’re making a huge mistake, Samantha,” Kayla said, dropping her voice to a harsh whisper. 

“You made a huge mistake, telling your husband to reach out to me,” I fired back. “Maybe if we hadn’t relied on him, Paul would still be alive!”

“That is preposterous-”

“Nothing preposterous about realizing that Callum Rochester poisons everything he touches. He uses people until they wither away, and then he abandons them. He did it to my mom. He did it to Paul. He was going to do it to me twice-over. And you know something? When he gets what he wants, the money and the power and the control he’s always lusted after, he’ll do it to you too. Maybe it won’t be as obvious as what he did to me, but as soon as you stop providing him with whatever he wants whenever he wants it, he’ll cut you loose. Because that’s the kind of man he is. And I guess the kind of woman you are is the kind who cosigns all of her man’s bullshit and then feigns shock when it blows up in her face.”

“You’re wrong,” Kayla said. “He loves me.”

“In his own way, sure. But that’s not the way a good person loves someone. It’s not the way a real person loves someone. It’s how a narcissist loves someone.”

“It’s true,” Eli said, walking up and standing beside me. “Wanna know how I know? My dad is the same freaking way, and my mom’s not much different. And maybe that’s true of you as well.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kayla said, visibly flinching. “And I don’t have to listen to this. Lance, get over here. We’re leaving.”

My head whipped around and my eyes locked on Eve. She was a deer in headlights, eyes wide and hands trembling. Shit. I didn’t think this through. Not about how this was affecting Eve or how it would affect Michael. Dammit dammit dammit-

“Lance! Did I stutter? Get over here. We need to get out of here-”

“No, Mom,” Eve said, brushing her bangs out of her face. Reggie stood next to her, Kelsey and Bethany behind her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“What are you talking about? I am your mother- you are going to listen to me, dammit!”

“No, you’re going to listen to me,” Eve said, clenching her fists. “Mom, Callum is a bad man. And I… I don’t feel safe around him.”

“Why not?” Kayla rolled her eyes. 

“I don’t think he accepts me as I am. I don’t think he… Don’t think he would accept me if he knew the truth.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m trans. I’m like Samantha. I’m your daughter.”

“No, you’re not,” Kayla said flatly. 

I balked. Bianca gasped. Miguel cracked his knuckles. Reggie growled. Bethany took out her earrings and handed them to Kelsey, then cracked her neck. 

“I am,” Eve said, stepping forward. 

“You’re confused,” Kayla insisted. “You’ve spending too much time with Samantha-”

“No,” Eve said. “My sister has helped me accept who I really am, but this has always been there. Or don’t you remember that time you caught me wearing your clothes?”

“That was one time-”

“It was way more than one time, Mom,” Eve said, standing by my side. “My name is Eve. It’s nice to meet you.”

Kayla fixed her glare on me. “This is your fault.”

“What’s my fault? Giving your kid a choice? Letting her be herself? Protecting her from monsters like you?” I said. “Go fuck yourself, Kayla.”

“Lance, this is your last chance, come with me right now! Or so help me God you will regret it every day for the rest of your life!”

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Bianca said firmly. “Now please leave.”

“This isn’t over. You’ll be hearing from my attorneys-”

“And you’ve said all of this in front of one,” Handler said from the back of the room. “And you never actually answered one of Samantha’s questions: is someone at home with your baby right now?”

Kayla, notably, did not respond. She turned and ran away as fast as she could. 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I said. “But maybe we should call the cops?”

Eli

By the time we made it back home that night, the story was all over the local news. ‘Mayoral Candidate Callum Rochester exposed for deadbeat father by his transgender daughter.’ It was accompanied by a related story about Child Protective Services finding out that Kayla’s cleaning lady was not in fact on site watching baby Michael while his parents were at the funeral. Turns out leaving your baby unaccompanied is a crime- who’d have thunk it? Not that it had ever stopped my folks from doing the exact same bullshit, but hey, live and learn I guess. 

We sat on the couch in Paul’s… In OUR living room, lights off but a few candles pricking the darkness, while Eve was passed out in the guest bedroom. God, it was finally starting to sink in. Paul was gone. And his legacy was ours to keep alive. This house. The shop. The family we were building together. 

“You’re sure about this?” I said as the muted television played a battlebots match. 

“I am,” Samantha nodded. “I know it’s a lot. I know we might not be ready. But Eve and Michael don’t belong with those monsters. They should be here with us.”

I put my arm around her. She was the love of my life. Seeing her today, so determined, so stolid, so righteously pissed off… It clinched it for me. She was it. She was my happily ever after. “I never saw myself becoming a dad before I was twenty.”

“Eli, it… If you’re not ready-”

“I am,” I cut her off. “At least as much as I can be. And we’re not in this alone. Our friends will help us. Miguel and Bianca will help us.”

“It’s gonna be a long custody battle,” Samantha said. “It’s gonna be expensive. I know Bethany’s dad says he’s gonna get us a discount with that guy at his firm, but it’s gonna take everything we’ve got.”

“Well, I have an idea about that,” I offered. “Could help us make extra money.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Kelsey is looking for a summer project for her electrician classes. We could have her set up the apartment above the shop, get everything up to code. Then we could have Edson and Andre move in. They’re looking to get out of Miguel and Bianca’s place. And they both have jobs.”
Samantha’s eyes widened, and I could see the gears turning in that beautiful brain of hers. “That… That could work. We would have to clear it with our landlord, but… We could set up a sublease agreement. Turn it into supplemental income. Then if we use the life insurance payment to cover the rest of the house… We’d have multiple forms of income and a stable home environment! It might not win us the case, but… It would definitely help!”

“Exactly,” I said. Then my heart slammed against the inner wall of my chest. I’d been debating whether or not to do this today. Maybe I shouldn’t. But I knew what I wanted, and I knew I’d regret every day I put this off. “And, uh, hey, there’s one more thing that would probably make us look sympathetic to a jury.”

She crooked an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

I reached underneath a throw-pillow and retrieved the leather case. I slid off the couch and got down on one knee, then opened the box and held up the ring. We might have been young, but we weren’t kids anymore. I don’t know if I was ready for everything adulthood entailed, but I was ready to be her man. “Samantha Kendrick. In the past seven years, seeing you has always been the best part of any day. Even when you were distant, even when we weren’t as close, your presence was something that made my life better all the time. Same with everything that comes with you. And in the past year, I have watched you blossom into the most amazing woman I have ever met in my life. We’re still young, but I wanna grow old with you. I want to make a home with you, raise a family with you. No matter what happens, no matter what the world throws at us, we’ll be fine as long as we’re together. As long as I’m yours, the rest is just details. So, what do you say? Will you marry me?”

Tears ran down her face, her eyes wide and her jaw dropped. “Eli… Yes! Oh my God, yes, yes, yes!” 

My heart soared, and all the problems in the world seemed a million miles away. 

She held out her hand, and I slid the ring onto her finger. She leaned forward, fisting my shirt and planting her lips on mine. “I love you,” she said into my mouth. 

“I love you too.”

“You know this isn’t gonna be easy, right?” she said, pressing our foreheads together. “Even if we pull all this off… It’s us and our friends against the world.”

“Us against the world,” I said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”