A giggle escapes me before I can stop it. I really shouldn’t be doing anything to provoke him into more flirting. I watch him place his napkin on his lap before he starts to eat, a hint that he was raised with manners.
“You mentioned a brother. Any other siblings?” I take another bite of food off my fork, ignoring the impish glint in his eye as he watches me chew.
“No,” he answers. “At least I don’t think so. I didn’t even know I had a brother until about five years ago.”
“Really?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. “How did that happen?”
He swallows his food. “According to my grandmother, my father is a famous musician and slept around. A lot. He got a few women pregnant and then just dumped them. He did it to my mother and to my brother’s mother. Who knows who else? Anyway, my mom was only eighteen and had a drug problem.” He pushes his hair back away from his face. “She gave me up to her grandparents, and they raised me. She never came back, and I’ve never met my father.”
What a horrible way for a child to start their life. I can’t even imagine leaving my kids for anything, no matter what. “Lukas, I’m so sorry. That’s terrible beyond words. Did you grow up happy?”
He stares across the room for a moment, like he’s pulling up memories from an old album in his mind. “At times, I was happy, yes. My great-grandparents were pretty old and not equipped to have a little kid. My great-grandmother homeschooled me and didn’t let me out much. They raised my mother, too, and she put them through so much they kinda thought that if they kept me safe inside and away from the outside world, I would turn out better and be easier for them to manage.”
“It sounds like they were just really worried about something happening to you, and like you said, just wanted to keep you safe. Were you lonely?” Thinking of Lukas as a beautiful little boy, being kept in a house and not outside having fun with other kids makes me want to cry.
“I didn’t have any friends to play with, but I didn’t know any better, so I guess, for me, it was all normal. I played in the attic mostly. Even back then, I loved all the old stuff they had stored up there. I drew and painted constantly, and read anything I could get my hands on. They had a lot of old books. I taught myself how to play music on some old instruments they had, too. When I was about ten, they both started to fail mentally and physically, and I took care of them. I cooked, I cleaned, had to remind them to take their meds . . . everything pretty much.”
“Oh my God, you were so young to have to do all that! Tommy is only seven, and I can’t even imagine him having to take on that kind of responsibility.”
He shrugs and takes a bite of his sandwich, chewing carefully before he talks again. “I did what I had to do. They were all I had, and I was all they had. I loved them. They were as good to me as they could be. My grandfather got bad first. He developed dementia and had to be put in a home, and passed away a year later. I tried to take care of my grandmother, but she was having a real hard time with her own health and then grief. She fell in the kitchen one day and smacked her head, and she died right there in front of me. I went into shock and sat there for an entire day on the floor next to her. I was afraid to call 911 because I knew they were going to take me away. I spent some time in the hospital for a little while after that.” His voice wavers and his eyes brim with the beginning of tears. Instinctively, I reach across the table and touch his inked hand.
“Lukas . . . I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say,” I have to blink back my own tears just thinking about how devastating all of that must have been for him. He was way too young to have to go through all of that.
He wipes his eyes with his other hand, not moving his hand from beneath mine. I’m touched by his emotion and the fact that he doesn’t try to hide it or act ashamed of it, like most men would. “It sucked,” he says. “After I was let out of the hospital, I was put in a foster home, but I really didn’t get along with them. They didn’t like how quiet I was, the things I drew, my attraction to antiques, or that I enjoyed sitting in the dark. They wanted me to be social, go to dances, cut my hair, and get involved in sports. I didn’t want to do any of those things. It just wasn’t me. I didn’t feel like I belonged there.”
“You sound like you were a good kid. Maybe just a bit of a loner?”
He smiles a sad smile at me. “Yeah, I was. I still am.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. I am, too, actually. I’ve always been really shy.”
“I sensed that about you.” He turns his hand under mine, so our palms touch, and our eyes shift from our joined hands to slowly meeting each other across the dim table. A warm tingle spreads throughout my body, from my head to my toes, and settles in my stomach. Lowering my eyes, I gently slide my hand out from under his. The candle flame dances on the table, mimicking the waltz slowly starting between us, the tiny steps forward and back. I’m not ready for this.
“So, um, how did you find out about your brother?” I ask, trying to recover from whatever the moment was that just happened.
He clears his throat and runs his hand through his hair, and I find myself wanting that hand to be mine touching that dark silky hair. “My father’s mother found out that her son had two kids he never told the rest of his family about. When her husband died, she hired a private detective to find us so we could be included in his inheritance and become part of the family.”