Sins of the Father

Homer is acutely aware of the wrongness of the way his arm dangles from its socket. Of the protruding bone in his lower arm. Of the blood running freely down his hands, pooling at his wrist and coating his palm. He’s also aware that he can only see out of one eye; he can’t make any assumptions since all of his cognitive functions are focused on keeping one possibly broken foot in front of the other possibly broken foot. There’s a throbbing somewhere in him. He’s not sure where exactly, though it could just be that he is throbbing. He’s been through many unmentionable things at the hands of Kazim’s enemies. Still, he has recently learned that his enemies had it far worse. The neighbourhood he’s trudging through looks familiar enough in the dark spots obscuring his vision that he sort of lets himself drift. Muscle memory- whichever ones remain undamaged in his legs- guide him to the front door of a beautiful house with a nice lawn. He wobbles up to the front door and collapses against it with a thud. “Jack-” he gasps. In his mind, he’s yelling. In reality, he can barely breathe, the words muffled by his lungs’ attempt to get air into his body. “Jack-” he gasps, trying again. The adrenaline from escaping what might have been his death is running out, and the throbbing in his body has turned into a fiery pain that has liquid filling his eyes. He takes another rattling breath, and then darkness fills his vision. He thinks a cloud has passed over the moon for a second, but his other eye has finally swollen shut. Distantly he can make out noises, a commotion maybe? He hopes it’s Jack because he’s in no condition to fight off anyone. Someone moves him, and he makes a low, pained sound that might have embarrassed him if he had the presence of mind to feel anything other than the pain he’s in. “Cr-” he pauses as the person moves him again “-ew,” he finishes, and this time, he feels the darkness as it takes him. It wraps its murky hands around his consciousness and drags him into the unconscious. Blissful silence settles over him. Not even the pain of his injuries can keep him awake. ________________________ Liam is quiet. Not in the way that he is usually quiet, but in the way he gets when he’s disappointed. Eliza hasn't heard from Homer in three days. He was supposed to take Liam to his soccer tryouts on Friday afternoon, but he didn’t show, which was very unlike him. It wasn’t the first time Homer hadn’t been able to make it to something, but if there was one thing she was sure of, he was an excellent communicator. She would have known hours in advance if Homer couldn’t make it. Liam’s silence hadn’t started until Saturday morning when Homer didn’t show up for his morning coffee and cartoons date. This was when Eliza genuinely became concerned. He had never missed one of these. Not in the two years since he’d started it. It was Sunday, and there was no Homer to take Liam to the park or his Taekwondo lessons, and his silence was becoming concerning. Eliza likes to tell herself that a three-year-old who had never been exposed to his other parent shouldn’t be able to imitate that absent parent so well. That it’s just a coincidence—the way his gaze sometimes reminds her of his father’s a little too much, or the way he can become hyper aggressive over his toys (she chalked that up to a regular, only child, three-year-old behaviour, and she’s praying she’s right). God, because it wouldn’t be cute for him to not only be the spitting image of his father but also somehow develop the same affinities as him. Liam shuffles into the kitchen, already dressed in his dobok, his blond brows furrowed and his stuffed sloth Coco dangling from his hands. “Homer?” He asks, and Eliza’s heart falls into the pit of her stomach. She hates disappointing her son; it makes her supremely uncomfortable, not because she feels like she’s failed him but because she works so hard not to disappoint him that it physically hurts on rare occasions. She squats to his level, a piece of fruit in her hands as a bribe. Her throat has already thickened with the threat of tears because, really? What mother wants to tell their kid their favourite person might have pulled a disappearing act on him? None. “I don’t think Homer’s coming over today, bub,” she says carefully. His little shoulders droop, and her muscles tense. She’s going to murder Homer Georges the next time she sees him. But first, she’s going to take her son out and get him the biggest f*****g taiyaki she can find and then attempt to kick the ball around with him until he passes out. Screw Taekwondo. “Hey, you and I can go to the park ourselves, right? And we can totally skip taekwondo, too,” she sits on the floor and pulls him into her arms. Eliza smiles widely at him when he takes the piece of apple she’d been holding and nibbles on it while he thinks about her offer. He shakes his head, chewing dutifully on his apple as he crawls into her lap and looks up at her. “You don’t wanna hang with me?” She fakes a sniffle, and he freezes. “Taekwondo,” he frowns, abandoning Coco to cup her cheeks. “Taekwondo, then, mommy.” He was really the most precious thing in her life. She wraps her arms around him and collapses onto her back on the kitchen floor, laughing as he squeals, his arms tightening around her neck. “Alright, taekwondo, and then you and I will spend some time rolling around in the park,” she hoists herself up, snagging Coco on the way and supporting him with an arm beneath his bottom. “Maybe we’ll stop by Uncle Homer’s apartment afterward.” He nods, and she sighs in relief. Taekwondo had been Homer’s suggestion. He’d managed to convince her that it might be something worth investing in for her son. Ensuring that he was protected in the long run even after she was gone or when she wasn't around to do it herself. She’d agreed almost immediately. Homer may not know who Liam’s father is, or if he did, he hadn’t said anything to her, but she knew one thing about him for sure, he was loyal. She’d observed little things about him over the past three years. When they first met, she’d been rightfully intimidated. He was huge with tattoos and very unfriendly vibes. But then he’d helped her waddle her way into her apartment at eight months pregnant and told her that she was an interesting pregnant woman when she’d crammed a spoonful of peanut butter and pickles into her mouth and cried over the Little Mermaid. And then he’d been there to hear her scream through the birth of Liam, and he’d been the first person other than her to hold her son, to take care of him, and possibly to love him as much as she does. Second only to her older brother Ezra. The two were quite similar, she’d tried to get Homer to meet her brother but he’d steadily declined, citing that it wasn’t necessary whenever she tried to force the matter. Liam’s taekwondo lessons fly by, and by the time they leave the park, it’s dark outside. She hustles Liam into her apartment building, and he tugs her down the hall, past their door to Homer’s. She freezes when she finds the door ajar. Liam releases her hand, and only reflex makes her grab him around the waist. The door handle hangs at an odd angle, the lock clearly broken. Her heart begins to race. Her instincts scream at her to run, but every worst-case scenario has filtered through her mind. For one insane second, she considers that she hasn't heard from Homer for three days because he’s dead. “Homer-” Liam wriggles in her hold, stretching toward the door. “Stop it, Liam,” she whispers urgently. It doesn’t sound like anyone is inside, but the lights are off, and whoever did this could be waiting. Eliza’s tone stills her son, who turns to her with wide, confused eyes. She flips him, so his little legs are wrapped around her waist. She nudges the door wider with the tip of her shoe, and the movement jostles a slip of paper free from the inside of the door. It flutters down to the floor. In an unfamiliar scrawl is a message no doubt addressed to her. ‘Bring the kid.’ There’s an address beneath it, a time and date. Yesterday’s date. Her head snaps up to take in Homer’s apartment, and her blood chills. The apartment is thrashed. His couch has been sliced open, his tv screen shattered, and from what she can see of the kitchen from the doorway, it has also been destroyed. She snatches the note up from the floor and rushes to her apartment. Her grip on Liam is tight, and she soothes him with a gentle kiss to the side of his head when he whimpers. “Where’s Homer?” he asks, pulling his head away from her neck to stare at her. “I don’t know, baby,” Eliza says, even as she scrambles to grab her duffle bag from the back of her closet. Eliza had prepared for this. She had. And yet she was shaking like a leaf at what she was about to do. Whoever found out about Liam had taken Homer and probably tortured the information out of him. What she couldn’t understand was why they hadn’t just grabbed him. Or attacked her. Regardless, the discovery of her son’s parentage meant one thing. It was time to let his father know. Her heart didn’t stop pounding even as she gently coaxed Liam into a change of clothes and comfortable shoes. As she packed Coco into his bag and stuffed his essentials into something, he could carry. And even as she got on the first train heading toward what would undoubtedly be her doom.