After exiting my car, I waved to one of the neighbors helping their kids out of a forest-green minivan, then proceeded up to the door, knocking twice. I glanced back at the street. Where was my sister? Why wasn’t she there to suffer right along with me?
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I waited, staring down at my feet.
I looked up when the front door opened, noticing my stepfather, Alan Kapersky, staring back at me. For the record, it was difficult to think of him as a stepfather considering he was only a few years older than me. No lie.
“Hey, son.”
Was I the only one who found it strange that a man only three and a half years my senior referred to me as “son”?
“What’s up?” I replied in an attempt to be polite as I stepped into the house.
The whole “son” thing was creepy, if I was being completely honest. But I think it gave Alan a sense of authority over me, regardless of how untrue that actually was. Alan had been married to my mother, Deborah, for the past nine months, known her for almost ten. He had moved in with her after they’d been dating for two weeks, claiming his lease had been up—although I was pretty sure he’d lived with his mother—and he’d wanted to take things to the next level. According to Alan, unlike me, he wasn’t a procrastinator.
Maybe so, but unlike me, he didn’t have money.
Not that I had said anything to my mother or him about the whirlwind romance. It wasn’t my business. However, I had vented endlessly to my sister, Paige, and she to me about it. After all, this was husband number nine for my mother. And based on the math, I figured they had two years—three at most—before Alan was out on his ass, looking for a new place to live and another cougar to take him in.
It was thanks to my mother’s endless pool of younger men that I’d had an interesting childhood. Lots and lots of drama. Deborah had me when she was nineteen. My father, William Wild… Well, I didn’t know him. Sure, I knew who he was, that he had three grown kids and a wife, lived in an upscale neighborhood in south Austin, but I hadn’t ever had anything to do with him. Not since I was two, anyway, which, of course, I don’t remember. Since he’d paid his child support without complaint, my mother hadn’t had any issues with him not seeing me, so it wasn’t something I ever let bother me.
After all, I had plenty of stepfathers to choose from.
My sister’s father, Ronald, had been my mother’s second husband. He had come along when I was four, and he’d stuck around long enough for my sister to be born, then hit the road after a short-lived ten-month marriage. According to my mother, he was a wild one who couldn’t be tamed. Oddly, it didn’t seem to bother her, either.
The others—Stan, Robert, Tony, Jeff, Matt, and Tim—they’d come and gone over the years, making waves on both their entrance and their exit. My mother, apparently, could reel them in, but she’d adopted the catch-and-release program. I’d never understood why she bothered to marry them, rather than simply date, nor had I ever asked.
Following Alan through the foyer, I noticed the brand-new seventy-inch flat-screen television mounted on the wall in the room my new stepfather had commandeered as his man cave. I figured the TV was a present from me, in a roundabout way, since my mother had recently asked me for money, and I’d forked it over in an effort to help her, though I doubted she’d really needed it. Then again, I knew Alan didn’t work, so maybe she did. However, if that were the case, it didn’t appear as though she’d used it to pay any past-due bills.
“Nice TV,” I told him.
Alan peered into the den, a grin forming on his weathered face. “Thanks. Anniversary gift.”
Anniversary? That was what he was going with? Really?
Could the guy not do the math? Married nine months, together for ten. When had an anniversary occurred?
Not that I asked. I didn’t want to know.
“Where’s my mother?” I quickly glanced around. Since I came over monthly, I was always aware of the new stuff they purchased, and it looked as though they’d spent some time at the furniture store in recent weeks. The month