“Stop me!” Bill pulled the hood of this jacket up over his head and zipped up the front so that only his eyes were visible through glow-green skeletal sockets. He took a step back off the porch and landed two feet bellow the ledge.
“I can’t stop you. I just ask that you stop to think about how your actions will affect your sister.” Hudson watched as his bother-in law ran off into the rain.
“Motherfucker!”
Shit. Hudson pulled his white bathrobe closer. Things could have played out better than they did. That little…well, I guess this isn’t his fault, but he assumes that it is mine and hers. We couldn’t have known. How could we have known? We couldn’t. It wasn’t in the cards. There was no prophesy, no oracle; I didn’t run from home or my adopted parents in some prideful attempt to avoid some cursed fate. I accepted that my adopted parents loved me as much as they did my sister, their blood-born child.
The wind blew the rain up onto the porch. The darkness kept eyes and whatever else lurked beyond the porch in shadow. The damp leaves and grass muffled sounds so that not even the anguished sobs of enlightenment could be heard beyond the steps.
Hudson looked at the birth certificate in his hands. It read: Hudson Butte. I’m a Butte. I’m a Butte. At least I know who I am, but I can’t for the life of me remember why I wanted to know. The Bell and Kurt Thurston were parents enough, but when they died…Well, I wanted my children to know who are, from what stock they come from. Then James got that genealogy assignment as a language arts project.
Twenty-five dollars and two rolls of tape later, I’m a Butte. I’d always admired older women for their ridged acceptance that they destined to fulfill the duel role of sex-object and surrogate-mother figure for perpetual-pubescent man-boys. How could I know!
Hudson shut the door behind. June was sitting with James and Sandra Lee. Well, it looks like June has found a way to avoid talking to me. We just celebrated her forty-eighth last week, which means that she would have been fifteen. I can understand, but can June and I forget and move-on…is that what is right…can love?
June looks up at Hudson. “Honey, come sit with us. Sandra Lee wants to read to us.” She smiles and winks.
Hudson folds the documents and tosses them into the fire. “Okay Sandra Lee, what do you have there?” He slips his hand around the kids to touch June on the shoulder. I just don’t care. I love her. I love my kids.
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