Nobody’s Son
By Karen

Rating: R
Disclaimer: If only I got paid for this! But I don't...so I just borrow.
Summary: This takes place 17 years after Four Aliens and a Baby. With that little bit of info, it won't take a rocket scientist to figure out who Nate is Graduation did not happen.
Author's Note: My banner is by the very talented babylisou! Nice work!

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Part One

It was the memory that haunted him, that had been haunting him his entire life.

Nathan Spencer dipped his plastic cup into the fishy-smelling water and retrieved a half dozen minnows.  Wiping the outside of the container dry, he snapped a lid onto it then handed it to the customer with a smile.  Business had slowed down, what with the end of tourist season a week past.  But there were still a few die-hard tourists and a lot of hearty locals who wanted to enjoy fishing on the lake before the onset of winter froze it solid.

As Nate gave the customer his change, he tried to shake the lingering memory from his mind.  It was always there, just at the edge of his conscience, something he could almost get his fingers around before it flitted away again.  It was maddening to say the least.

At the back of the store, Nate’s father Jonathan was taking inventory, deciding what they should order for their next delivery.  Shipments would be smaller now that October was on its way the tourists had returned to their homes, mostly neighboring states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.  Chautauqua was far from being an industrial Mecca, its livelihood based pretty much solely on the tourist trade, those people who had enough money to rent or buy a cabin along the lake’s shores, people who had more money than Nate and his father could ever hope to have.  Nate’s people were country folk, living a simple, quiet life until the droves of vacationers arrived every summer, disturbing their peace, acting like they owned the place.  Nate and his friends called these people “Flatlanders” because their home states were pretty much an even plane compared to the mountainous beauty of western New York.  It wasn’t a kind nickname, but one that showed their resentment of these invading hoards of people.

“We’ll need to start stocking emergency supplies,” Jon was saying, studying his clipboard.

Nate glanced up and nodded.  They’d had the same conversation every mid-September for as long as he could remember.

“Charcoal, gloves, ice salts,” his father mumbled, scribbling on the board.  “Rope.”

Ugh, rope.  Nate paled as he remembered one winter not so long ago when a bunch of children had wandered out onto the frozen lake, thinking it was safe to skate there.  But the winter had been mild, the ice only an inch or so thick, and several of the kids had fallen through.  Nate and his father had been able to pull all but one of them out and it was that one child that would make him dread winter for the rest of his life.  He could still feel the sting of ice water on his skin and the squeeze of the rope around his shoulders as he’d lain on his belly on the surface of the ice, desperately plunging his hands into the water, grasping for that last little boy.  In the end, he’d slipped away, unable to keep struggling, a victim of the frigid water. 

Nate closed his eyes.  The loss of the child had been a tragedy, but to Nate it had seemed so much more.  For some unknown reason he’d felt responsible for letting that boy drown, that somehow he should have been able to save him, to make everything okay.  It was silly, really, since the child falling through the ice had not been Nate’s fault, but he couldn’t help the overwhelming sense that he’d failed, that it was his duty to heal the pains of the world.  Now he just wanted that memory and the memory of whatever it was he couldn’t quite put his hands on to go away forever.

“You okay?” Jon asked, peering at his son over the top of his glasses.

Nate nodded.

Jon gave a short nod of his head and tapped his pen on the clipboard.  “Why don’t you go in the back and unload that shipment that came in this morning?  I’ll watch the register for awhile.”

Nate was more than happy to oblige.  He liked working in the store room because he could work at his own pace, without having to constantly look up to see if someone was waiting to be checked out, or to see if someone was trying to shoplift something.  Back in the drafty stockroom, he could just zone out and go about his business.  He was more than a little bit of a loner and liked his space.

He was a thin young man, eighteen years of age, with dark hair and serious eyes.  In fact, the eyes weren’t the only serious thing about Nate Spencer.  His friends had often made fun of him for being such a sober individual, a ribbing that he took lightly and in good stride because it was true.  Not that he was a downer or a party pooper, he was just…responsible all of the time.  He’d tried to cut loose and do stupid things like climbing the water tower, but something always held him back.  He didn’t know what it was, other than maybe it was just the way he’d been cut out.  Nate Spencer wasn’t designed to be reckless, it seemed.

As he bent over to pick up a case of canned peaches, he heard a low whistle.

“Now, that’s the view I came all of the way over here for,” came a teasing, female voice.

Nate righted himself and turned to see Annie O’Donnell at the door.  His heart tripped twice in his chest as he broke into a wide grin.  Annie.  All strawberry blond hair and shapely legs, a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose.  His Annie.  Her green eyes shift to his shirt and her smile disappeared as she cocked her head to the side.

“Nate, what did I tell you about that?” she scolded lightly.

His gaze drifted downward.  Emblazoned in white letters against the black shirt were the words “Flatlander Go Home.”  Nate broke into a grin.

“It’s bad for business,” Annie said half-heartedly.

Nate crossed over to her and put his hands on her waist.  “Maybe I should take it off, then,” he whispered against her ear, giving the lobe a little nip with his teeth.

Annie drew in a quick breath and giggled.

They’d been together pretty much since they were twelve years old.  The O’Donnells moved to the area when Annie was in sixth grade and one look at her had smitten Nate.  He would never forget the sight of her clutching her books to her chest, looking around in bewilderment at a sea of students, none of whom was paying any attention to her.  But he had given her some attention, as was his caring and sympathetic spirit, even at that tender age. 

He showed her around the school, helped her get to her classes, walked home with her each night.  Eventually, they were old enough to date and with sweaty palms and a thumping heart Nate finally worked up the courage to ask her to a movie.  From that point, they’d been inseparable.  He couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else, and Annie had claimed the same.

Nate reached forward and pulled his petite girlfriend close to his chest, squeezing her mercilessly.  Annie giggled again and protested in a muffle against his chest.

“What?” he asked, pulling back.

“I said you’re squishing me!” she laughed, her eyes bright.

Nate have her a little smile and a quick peck on the forehead.  “Why are you here?” he murmured, his eyes following the soft lines of her face.  He knew that she was supposed to be with her parents on this Saturday.

“I wanted to see you,” she said, sliding her hands under the back of his T-shirt, smoothing the strong muscles of his shoulders.  At six feet tall, he was nearly a foot taller than her, so she had to drop her head back as far as it would go to look into his face.

“You ditched your parents just to come see me?” he asked, lifting one eyebrow.

“Not entirely.  They’re out front.”

“Doing what?  Shopping for bait?”

Annie snorted a laugh.  “Talking to your dad.”

Nate’s brow furrowed.  It was odd that the O’Donnells would come here to talk to his father – it wasn’t like they were best of friends or anything.

Annie sighed.  “Stop looking like that, Nate.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his stomach starting to churn.  He hated it when he had these gut feelings.

Annie shrugged.  “Nothing that I know of.  Daddy just said he needed to talk to your dad about something.  I don’t know what.”  She didn’t seem concerned.

But Nate was.  Annie’s father was an attorney of some sort, but as far as Nate knew his father had never hired his services.  There was something strange going on here and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“So, do you want to come?”

Nate looked down into Annie’s waiting face and realized he’d daydreamed through her question.  “I’m sorry – what?”

She gave a little frown and slid her hands from his shirt.  “Where are you lately, Nathan?”

Ut oh.  She’d called him Nathan.  That was never a good sign.  “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

“Ever since I started school, you’ve been like this,” she explained, stepping back out of his embrace.

Nate sighed and slid his hands into his pockets.  “Like what?”

“Evasive.”

He snorted a laugh.  “I’m not being evasive – I just didn’t hear your question is all.”

“Okay then – preoccupied.  You didn’t hear my question because you were preoccupied.”  She cocked her head to the side, challenging him to disagree with her.

Nate knew better.  She was a master arguer and he would never win.  Besides, she was right – he had been preoccupied.  Preoccupied with visions of drowning children and memories he did and didn’t remember.

“I’m sorry,” he offered.  “You’re right – I have been preoccupied.”

Annie’s eyebrows lifted slightly at his confirmation.  Then a wave of sympathy washed over her and she stepped forward to put her arms around him.  Cradling the back of his head, she pushed his cheek down to her shoulder, running her fingers through his thick, dark hair.

“I know you hate it here,” she said softly against his ear.  “I know you wanted to go to school with me.  And I know that some day you will.  It’s temporary, staying here to help out your dad.”

Nate straightened, a small frown marring his handsome features.  “I hope you’re right,” he told her.  “You don’t know how much I hope you’re right.”  She hadn’t been totally correct about the source of his distraction, but close enough to avert an argument.

She gave him a short kiss, just a tease of what may come later.  “So, say you’ll come.”

Nate grinned.  “Okay, I’ll come.”

She beamed and gave a laugh. 

“Where am I going?” he question, laughing with her.

“Chris is having a party tonight at their cabin.  Sort of the last hurrah before they board the place up for the winter.”

Chris was a Flatlander, an immigrant from PA who had formed a friendship with Annie several summers ago.  As Flatlanders went, Nate didn’t mind Chris so much.

Annie’s eyes traveled downward.  “Only…lose the shirt.”

Nate laughed and gave her a quick hug.  “Of course I’ll go…if only to help them board up the place and get rid of another one of them.”

Annie squealed and smacked him on the arm.  “You’re horrible, Nate!”

He shrugged.  “Yeah, I know.”

Eventually, Annie left Nate to his duties so he could finish up and leave in time for the party.  He worked swiftly, pushing worries to the back of his mind and concentrating on seeing his friends instead.  When he finished in the storeroom, he re-entered the store front to find Mr. O’Donnell saying goodbye to his father.  Nate stopped in his tracks – he’d been working for over an hour and yet his father and Mr. O’Donnell had needed that entire time to finish up their business.  Nate’s stomach twisted again and he swallowed hard as he watched Annie’s father leave the store.  Then he looked back to find his father looking directly at him.

In his hand was a brown envelope and somehow in his gut Nate knew there was something about him inside of it.  But it wasn’t just a gut feeling this time.

It was also reflected in his father’s defeated, broken expression.

Part Two

Dinner was never a lively affair at the Spencer household; both Jonathan and Emma were laid-back individuals and their son had always carried a quiet demeanor himself.  But on this particular night, there seemed to be a dark cloud hanging over the old oak table, forcing everyone into silence.  The only sounds in the dining room were the scrapings of utensils on plates.

Head bent to his dinner, Nate watched his parents from beneath his bangs, looking for some hidden indication that Mr. O’Donnell’s visit had been anything but welcome.  As per usual, however, his father was stoically downing his meal while his mother picked as hers as though she had no appetite.

They were older than most of Nate’s friends’ parents, already in their fifties.  He’d never thought much of it, as people had babies at all ages, though he did find it strange that he was their one and only offspring – it didn’t quite stick to the requisite 2.5 kids the average American family was supposed to have.  Such things weren’t discussed openly in the Spencer house, so Nate often mused that maybe he’d been their miracle baby, that after years of unsuccessful attempts at trying, they’d finally been blessed with him.  He liked that idea, it made him feel like he had a purpose in life.  After all, the Spencers had been kind people, good parents; it was the least he could do for them.

Nate cleared his throat and picked at a piece of roast beef with the prongs of his fork.  “Um, there’s a party tonight,” he announced, his voice sounded suddenly very loud in the silence of the dining room.

Emma’s face lit up.  “A party!  How wonderful!”

Nate hesitated slightly – his mother was over reacting to things.  Something was definitely up.  “Yeah, Annie’s friend Chris – remember her? – is closing up their cabin, so…”

Emma gave her son a warm smile.  “Nathan, you know you don’t have to ask permission to go to a party.”

“I know,” he said, shrugging slightly.  “I just wanted you to know where I was going.”

She beamed, proud of his courteous behavior.  “Well, thank you for thinking of us.”

He gave her a half smile and returned to spinning his fork in a slow circle.  He wanted to ask about that brown envelope, which had mysteriously vanished in the last couple of hours, but he couldn’t just blurt out, “Hey, Pops – what was in the envelope?”  He needed to be more cautious than that.

“I was…um, a little surprised to see Annie today,” he began tentatively, watching his father from his peripheral vision.  The man hesitated only for an instant, but it was enough that Nate knew he’d hit on dangerous territory.

“Well, why should you be surprised?” Emma asked, sounded overly-dumbfounded.  “You two have been attached at the hip since elementary school.”

Nate gave a placating smile.  “That’s true,” he agreed.  “It’s just that I thought she and her parents were going away this weekend.  I didn’t quite understand what would be so important that they’d change their plans.”  He looked straight as his mother as he spoke.

Emma cleared her throat and dabbed her mouth with her napkin.  She was acting nervous, Nate noted, the sinking feeling in his gut increasing.  When she didn’t answer, he turned to his father for an explanation.

Jonathan swallowed his mouthful and sat back in his chair.  “It’s nothing for you to worry about, son.”

Nate’s eyebrows rose.  So it was something.  “Are you okay?  Is it something with the store?”

His father shook his head.  “Nothing to worry about,” he repeated.  “Everything is fine.”

“Is it money?  Because if it is, I have my savings –“

“I said – it’s nothing for you to fret over,” Jonathan said sternly without ever raising his voice and Nate sank back into his chair, his eyes falling into his lap.

From the other end of the table, Nate heard his mother let out a tired sigh.  They both knew how his father was – he was a kind man, but he could be headstrong and stubborn as well.  If he said this was the end of the discussion, then it was the end.  But that didn’t change the fact that Nate still knew nothing about the envelope or why his father had looked so stricken when it had been presented to him.

“Can I be excused?” he mumbled.

“Oh, honey, you’ve barely touched your dinner,” Emma pleaded.

“I’m not very hungry.”  That was no lie – Nate felt like he wanted to vomit.

“Okay then.”

He rose cautiously from the table, gave his father an apologetic look, then retreated to the attic space of the family’s small bungalow.  Long ago, the Spencers had converted the attic into Nate’s bedroom.  Large, with slanted ceilings and dormer windows, it was every child’s dream bedroom.  The room had gone through many metamorphoses, first with Burt and Ernie adorning the walls, then various sports heroes, to a few Budweiser girls before finally becoming the more adult room it now was.  Nate snorted at the irony as he flopped down onto the plaid comforter – he had an adult room but still felt compelled to ask for permission to leave the dinner table.  He needed to get out of here.  He needed to get out and there was no avenue for him to take.

Exhausted, he dropped his forearm over his eyes and tried to sooth his churning belly.  Bad things were going to happen, he just knew it.  Of course, he didn’t know how he knew it, but he did nonetheless.  What was in that envelope?  For the first time in his life, he felt the need to snoop on his parents, to go through their things when they left the house to find the offending envelope and see what was inside of it.  Why were they both acting so strangely?  What could possibly be so harmful that they couldn’t be honest with him about it?  After all, they’d been a pretty open family before.  Why was this different?

Their reluctance to talk about it only affirmed Nate’s belief that it had something to do with him.

“Wake up, sleepy.”

Nate popped open his eyes, not even realizing he’d fallen asleep.  Annie was astride him, a wicked grin on her face.

“I came all of the way up here,” she taunted.  “Knocked on your door, climbed onto your bed and straddled you – without waking you up.”

He grinned with one corner of his mouth.

“I could have…”  Annie’s green eyes followed her hand as it slid down his chest, across his abdomen and grasped his crotch firmly.  “…raped you.”

Nate let out a groan and grabbed her wrist.  “Don’t get started,” he reprimanded gently.  “You know my mom and dad are downstairs.”

She nodded, only tightening her grip.  “Yeah, I know.  Frustrating, isn’t it?”

In a flash, Nate flipped over so that she was pinned beneath him.  She let out a squeal of surprise.  “Not so funny now, is it?” he teased.  “And for all of your teasing, little lady, you know what you get?”

Her eyes were round.  “What?”

He shrugged.  “Tickled to death.”

“What?!  Nate, no!”

But it was too late.  He set about tickling her ribs until she was squirming and laughing uncontrollably beneath him.  He laughed with her, relieved to have a release from some of the stress of the day.  Eventually he stopped and hovered over her while she regained her breath.

“You’re evil!” she chided.

He nodded, pulling a strand of hair away from her face.  “Marry me,” he said, his eyes creasing with a smile.  “Have my babies.”

Annie’s smile matched his own as she waggled her fingers before his face, showing off the ring he’d placed there only a month ago.  “I already said I would.”

He raised an eyebrow.  “You haven’t changed your mind?”

“Not yet.  But I might if you don’t get off me so we can go to that party.”

On the drive to Chris’s cabin, Nate sat silently behind the wheel of his beat up, rusty pickup truck, Annie tucked in close by his side.  When he inhaled, he breathed in the sweet smell of her perfume, the clean scent of her hair.  In an instant, he recalled one memory that would never elude him – the night they first made love.

It had happened nearly three years before, when Nate and Annie were still only fifteen.  They both knew they were still young, but nothing had seemed more right at that moment than being with one another.  They’d made several attempts previously, several times disrobing entirely and then deciding the time wasn’t quite right.  But that night, under a sky full of stars, on a blanket after 4^th of July fireworks, everything had seemed right. 

The thing that Nate couldn’t forget was the way she had looked at him, so vulnerable and yet so strong all at once.  It was in that moment that he realized what an enormous amount of trust they shared, that they would probably never share with anyone else.  In short, Nate trusted Annie with his life, and he assumed it was mutual.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, snuggling close to him.

He gave his characteristic half-smile.  “Making love to you for the first time.”

A slight flush colored her cheeks, dark enough that Nate could see it in the light from the dashboard.  “The first time?  What about all the times after that?”

He looped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head.  “I liked those, too, but that one’s special.  It always will be.”

There was a small throng of people at Chris’s cabin, too many people for the small space to hold.  As a result, half-drunk partiers had spilled outside, some of them huddled together to ward off the early-autumn chill in the air.  Nate pulled the truck to a stop, then pulled Annie out behind him.  Holding hands, they made for the entrance, but not before Eddie, Chris’s inebriated boyfriend, stumbled toward them.

“Townie!” he spouted, bumping drunkenly into Nate and spilling beer down the leg of his pants.

Nate pushed him away with mild irritation.

“Get some brew, dude!” Eddie shouted.  “The keg’s out back!”  With that, he stumbled off to accost someone else.

Nate wiped at his leg, disgust evident on his face.

“You okay?” Annie asked.

He nodded, then mumbled, “Friggin’ Eddie.”

She snorted, then took him by the hand and led him into the cabin.

It had been a bad day, by all accounts, the only good thing being that Annie’s presence was unexpected and pleasant.  But there had been mysterious visits by the attorney, secretive brown envelopes, evasive memories and drowning children to deal with.  So, totally out of character, Nate decided to do some drowning of his own – he dove headlong into a vat of home-made wine.  A few hours later, he’d forgotten all about ‘Friggin’ Eddie’ and was greeting visitors himself.

“Try the wine,” he called after a couple of giggling girls as he waved his plastic cup in the air.

Annie snorted a laugh and held out a hand to steady him.  She’d seen him drunk before – but only once.  It was a rarity and not unamusing.  “You’re drunk,” she observed.

He paused, shrugged, then laughed.  “I am!”

“Why don’t we go sit down?” she suggested, taking him by the arm and leading him toward the lake.

On the shore, Annie located a rock she and Chris used to sunbathe on and pulled Nate down beside her.  His head was buzzing and he was momentarily enthralled by the sound of the gentle waves lapping the shore.

“How much did you drink?”

He turned to face his girlfriend, his world spinning a bit…not that the sensation was at all unpleasant.  “I dunno.  But this shit is good, Annie dear.  Good.”

She giggled and put her arms around him.  “You know I love you, right?”

He nodded, his head rubbing against hers.  “And I love you.”

“More than life itself,” she grinned.

Nate’s smile faded as the trials of the day threatened to deflate his mood.  “More than life itself,” he repeated solemnly.

Annie took his face between her hands.  “Why are you so sad?” she asked, studying his eyes.

He blinked slowly.  “Because I let a boy drowned.”

She withdrew slightly.  “That’s not true, Nate. It was an accident.”

“I should have been able to stop it from happening,” he confessed, resting his forehead against hers.

“Can you hear yourself?” she asked gently.  “You’re not God, Nate.  You saved three other kids.  You did what you could.”

“I should have done better.”  Leaning back, he took her face in his hands and kissed her softly.  “It was my responsibility,” he whispered.

Annie’s brow furrowed in confusion, but soon she was buried beneath his next kiss as he lowered her to the rock.

Nate let himself fall into the sensation of being with her, of tasting her, of touching her.  Annie would always heal all of his wounds.  He had just about forgotten where he was when something screamed across his brain, a flash of images so severe that he gasped in surprise, casting Annie aside.  He heard shrieks of pain, saw splatters of blood, felt the sensation of moving very quickly, and then it was over.

“My God!” Annie breathed heavily, grabbing hold of Nate’s arm.  “What just happened to you?!”

Shaking from the experience and without really understanding why, Nate turned his face to the sky.  To the formation of stars that had suddenly drawn his attention.

The same cluster of stars that had drawn his attention for as long as he could remember.

Part Three

I’m going to be sick…nope, I’m okay…nope, I’m going to be sick…

Nate lay on his stomach on his bed, his fists clenched around matted bunches of his sheet.  The room was tilting every now and then and he was afraid he was going to tumble off the mattress and onto the floor.  For all he knew, the floor had turned into a bottomless pit that was going to swallow him up.  His heart was slamming into his ribs with a heavy thud, his temples throbbing in the wake of each beat.  The inside of his mouth was dry, like someone had lined it with cotton.

I’m going to be sick…

“Nate? Sweetie?”

He cracked open one eye long enough to see his mother bent at the waist, peering into his face, then he shut it again as light drilled all of the way to the back of his skull.

“You okay?” Emma asked.

He shook his head barely perceptibly.

“Are you sick?”

He nodded, wishing she’d go away.

“Did you drink too much?”

He nodded again.  Yes, he was underage.  Yes, he’d been warned about abusing alcohol.  But Emma Spencer was not a stupid woman – she knew a hangover when she saw one.

“Drink plenty of water,” she reminded, her tone void of reprimand.  “Sleep it off.  When you feel better, come downstairs.  Your father and I want to talk to you.”

Nate didn’t hear her leave – he was already willing his body to go back to sleep.  His mind, however, had other ideas.  There were so many ghosts of late, so many things haunting him.  First that memory he couldn’t really remember, then the thoughts of the boy falling through the ice, and this last little incident he couldn’t even explain or describe.

What frightened him most was now that he was regaining sobriety, he wasn’t even really sure it happened.  The thing that haunted him was the look on Annie’s face – she’d seemed terrified of him, of whatever had happened.  Nate needed an explanation for it, but his recollection of the event was slipping away quickly.  Maybe it had all been a hallucination…

High blood-alcohol finally claimed him and he slipped into an intoxicated slumber.  While in his catatonic state, he saw an image glide through his subconscious.  It was the face of a young man with troubled eyes but a kind smile, a face familiar but strange all at the same time.  The image didn’t last long and wasn’t accompanied by any feelings of distress or danger; it merely entered Nate’s mind and slowly departed again.

The next time he awoke, the pounding was gone from his head and his stomach had calmed down significantly.  His body felt the abuse, however, as he sat up and the world spun in a slow circle.  Closing his eyes, he regained his balance and pushed himself to his feet. 

I’m never doing that again, he thought to himself as he slowly took the stairs to the main floor of the bungalow.  Annie must be so pissed at me…

He didn’t remember taking Annie home or bringing himself home, for that matter.  As he passed the hallway window, he glanced into the drive and saw that his truck was missing and easily put together the pieces of the puzzle – his faithful fiancé had dragged his drunk ass home then drove herself home in his truck.  He sighed – apologies (and possibly flowers) were in order.

In the bathroom, Nate brushed his teeth, trying to scrub away the film the wine had left in his mouth.  Then he gargled repeatedly with mouthwash, but the lingering taste of the alcohol was still there.  He grimaced and wiped his mouth on a towel, then drank cup after cup of water.  On about the fourth cup, he realized that his stomach was starting to churn and maybe he needed to slow down.

The house was unusually quiet.  It was a rainy afternoon and someone had started a fire in the fireplace in the living room; it was so quiet Nate could hear the wood crackling out in the hallway.  As he cautiously rounded the corner, he found both of his parents sitting on the couch, looking directly at him.  His mother seemed fretful, his father troubled.

On the coffee table lay the brown envelope.

Nate’s eyes fell to it immediately and he looked quickly back to his parents.  Inside of his ailing body, his heart started to pump a little faster, making him light-headed and woozy.

“Come in here, Nate,” his father ordered in his usual monotone.

Swallowing past his apprehension, Nate stepped into the living room and shoved his hands deep into his pockets, his shoulders rising sharply with the action; it made him appear meeker than he was.

“Sit down, sweetheart,” Emma said, overly-chipper, smiling anxiously.

Nate rounded the wing-back chair and sat down uneasily.  Was it too late to go back upstairs and get back into bed?  As a reflex, his eyes flitted to the clock on the mantel – it was already three in the afternoon.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice cracking.  He cleared his throat and tried again.  “What’s wrong?”

Emma tried to smile again, but it was weak and useless.  “Nate, you know we love you very much.”

He blinked a couple of times, then realized she wasn’t asking him a rhetorical question so he nodded.

“You’ve always been very special to us,” she continued.  “Such a good boy, always polite and considerate.”

Her words were doing nothing to quell the growing fear in his stomach.  Suddenly he wished he hadn’t drunk all of that water.

“Um, thank you,” he replied lamely.

Jonathan shifted in his seat and Nate noticed him eye the envelope on the table.  What was in there that caused his father such distress?  Emma appeared to have noticed the action as well, as she reached over and put a hand on her husband’s leg.

“We have something to tell you,” she started even as she was waiting for Jonathan’s agreement.  He nodded his head once and Nate thought he saw hope drain from his whole body.

“What is it?” he asked, more worried now than he had been when that envelope had first arrived yesterday.  “Is someone sick?”

Another nervous smile.  “No, honey, nothing like that.”  She cleared her throat and straightened her sweater.  “Long ago, we agreed that when you turned eighteen, we’d tell you the truth.”

“The truth?”  Nate was so taken off guard that the words came out in a high-pitched squeak.  “And I turned eighteen three months ago, by the way.”  Why had they waited so long to tell him ‘the truth’?

Emma shifted in her seat.  “I know, dear, but we wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing.”  Jonathan put his hand over hers and squeezed as a gesture of reassurance.  “And we think we are…doing the right thing.”

Unable to handle the suspense, Nate started to fidget, chewing his thumbnail and pumping his knee.  “Please, Mom, just tell me.”

The Spencers shared a long look, then Emma drew in a deep breath.  “You came to us when you were eight months old,” she announced.

Nate’s leg stopped moving and his hand fell to his lap.  The room was silent except for the ticking of the mantel clock and the snap of the logs in the fireplace.  He furrowed his brow in confusion.

“You mean I was born a month early?” he asked, struggling to understand why that would be such a heavily-guarded secret.

Emma released a surprised, nervous laugh.  “No, sweetie.  As far as we know, you were born at term.  When you came to live with us, you were already eight months old.”

That didn’t make sense.  How could they not know if he was born early?  And why wouldn’t they have been able to bring him home for eight months?  Had he been ill as a baby?  None of this made sense to Nate’s hung-over, troubled mind.

Emma and Jonathan exchanged a worried glance and it was obvious neither of them wanted to say the word aloud.  It was Jonathan who spoke.

“Annie’s grandfather handled the legal end of it, entrusting Annie’s father to carry out our wishes before he died.”

“Legal end of what?” Nate asked, shaking his head.  Then in a suddenly spurt of clarity, the truth came crashing down on him.  The air rushed out of his lungs as though someone had sucker punched him in the gut.  Reaching down, he grabbed the arms of the chair to steady himself.  In a matter of three minutes, his entire world had been rocked.  “Oh, God…”

Emma started to get up, but Jonathan urged her to reclaim her seat.

Nate covered his mouth, the taste of mouthwash and toothpaste threatening to gag him.  “Oh, my God…”

“Sweetie,” Emma pleaded.  “We’ve always loved you as our own.  Surely you must know that.”

Nate met her eyes and realized how desperate she was, how afraid she was that he was angry with her.  Truth was that his emotions were so jumbled up he didn’t know how he felt.  “You adopted me,” he said flatly.

Jonathan looked to the floor, almost as though he was ashamed, as Emma nodded her head, tears coming to her blue eyes.

“You aren’t my parents,” Nate said in defeat.

“We are,” Emma assured him.  “In every way but biologically.”

Nate covered his eyes.  “Oh, God…”

The room fell silent again as he tried to control the sickness in his body, the sick feeling in his heart.

“Son,” Jonathan said.

Nate lifted his head.  Son?  It had a whole new ring to it now.  He felt like he was looking at a stranger.

Jonathan picked up the envelope.  “There was a mutual agreement between us and the people who put you up for adoption.  We agreed that once you turned eighteen, if you should ever want to know the details, you’d be able to.”  He dropped the envelope onto the table.  “That’s yours.  If you want it.”

Nate’s gaze fixed on the envelope but his mind couldn’t fathom its significance.  He was still reeling from finding out he wasn’t who he thought he was.  Would opening that envelope be like opening Pandora’s Box?  Were there things in there he should just leave alone?

He couldn’t think about it.  Not today.  Not while he was haunted by dead children, screaming bloodbaths and a memory that wouldn’t stay put.  Not while his body was rejecting the abuse it had taken the night before.

Drawing up as much composure as possible, Nate righted himself in his chair and regarded his adoptive family with as neutral a tone as possible.

“I’m sorry,” he began.  “I’m not well today and I don’t want you to think that I’ve taken what you’ve said lightly.  I’m not angry at you, but right now I just need to go back to bed.”

With that, he rose, excused himself like the well-brought-up person he was, and retreated to his bedroom.  He fell forward onto his bed, unbelievably weary.

Lies.  His whole life had been nothing but one big lie.  What was in the envelope – more lies?  Suddenly Nate wasn’t sure of anything – who he was, who his parents were, why he was where he was.

Unable to escape the fears and doubts, Nate retreated into thoughts of the only thing of which he was still certain.

Annie.

Part Four

The early-morning sunlight danced off the dew-soaked grass far below where Nate sat, turning the landscape into sparkling beauty.  There was an autumn nip in the air and he had to drag his hands inside of his coat sleeves to return the warmth to them.  When he was a child, he’d often escape here, to the tree house Jonathan had built in the woods for him.  It was his “secret” hideaway, though his parents had always know that this was where he always went when he was mad at the world, upset about being scolded, pining over his beloved Annie.  It wasn’t such a secret.

But the Spencers had never called him on it, had let him believe the fantasy that he was getting away with something.  With a frown, he mused that on this Sunday morning they must also guess where he was, especially since Annie had yet to return his truck.  But they were giving him space, letting him think.  He respected that.  The only contact he’d had with either of them since sequestering himself in his bedroom had been late the previous night when Emma had brought him a bowl of chicken soup for his ailing belly, her eyes full of apology.  Nate had accepted the soup and even managed to give her a little smile as she’d turned to leave the room; as usual, his thoughts were not centered solely on himself.

Squinting against the rising sun, he thought about how difficult the last seventeen years must have been for his adoptive parents.  They had to have known this day would come.  Did they dread it every day?  Or did they avoid even thinking about it until they could no longer deny the fact that their son was approaching that magic age?  Whatever the answer, it had to have been discomfiting to live with that knowledge.

As he’d been doing since he’d found out the truth, Nate questioned himself repeatedly.  What did this mean?  How did it change his relationship with Jonathan and Emma?  Up until now, he’d never even considered that he was adopted – after all, he had his mother’s blue eyes…or at least he’d always thought so.  Did the fact that he was adopted really change the fact that the Spencers were good people, that they’d raised him to be a good person himself?  In the end, did it matter at all?

It did.  It might not make them less wonderful, but it changed who Nate was.  The worst part – he didn’t know who he was.  Things that were taken for granted were no longer absolutes.  Nothing was what it seemed.

“Hey, you freakin’ alcoholic, what’re you doing up there?”

Nate couldn’t stop the grin from coming to his face as he leaned out and looked to the ground where Annie was shielding her eyes against the sun.  She was wearing her Clarion University sweatshirt and looking every bit the collegiate student he wasn’t.  “Why don’t you come up and find out?”

Returning his smile, she climbed the ladder to the tree house.  When she was within reach, Nate took hold of her arm to help her up.  With a thud, she plopped down on the floor beside him, then craned her neck this way and that, observing some of the graffiti that had been etched into the wooden walls.  Laughing, her fingers traced a heart with the initials NS and AO in it; Nate had carved it there before Annie had vowed her undying love to him.

“I remember this,” she smiled.

Nate breathed a small laugh.  He remembered it, too.  What an awkward, gawky Poindexter he’d been at fourteen.

“So, where were you yesterday?” Annie asked, dropping her hand and any sense of pretense.

“I wasn’t well,” he answered quietly.

“A little hung over, were we?”  Annie giggled.  “Man, I’ve never seen you drink so much.”  Her mood clouded over for a moment.  “Maybe that was the reason.”

Nate tipped his head to the side.  “The reason for what?”

Her eyebrows rose slightly.  “You don’t remember screaming like a friggin’ banshee for no apparent reason?”

He tried to prevent it, but he knew that he failed in keeping himself from turning pale.  He’d been fighting to remember the weirdness that had occurred by the lake, but it was a drunken, elusive memory.  “Not really,” he mumbled.

Annie waved a hand in the air.  “Whatever.  We’ll just chalk it up to your drunkenness.  I tried to call your cell yesterday.”

Not entirely comfortable, Nate scratched behind his ear, a dead give-away that he was hiding something.

“What’s that for?” Annie yelped, recognizing the sign.  “Did something happen?  Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Drawing in a deep breath and trying to remain calm, Nate slowly broke the news to Annie that he was adopted.  Her emerald eyes were round, but they seemed to be lacking something he’d expected to see there…

“So,” he concluded, looking down at the grass below them.  “I kind of holed up in my room to think things through.”

“Wow,” she said and Nate realized what her actions were missing – surprise.

He eyed her curiously.  “Did you already know, Annie?”

She maintained eye contact and shook her head in denial, but for the first time in their relationship, Nate doubted her sincerity.

But he had other things to deal with and decided to let her behavior slide.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs.

He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Your dad gave my dad an envelope with some information of some kind in it.”  He shook his head and wearily rubbed his eyes.

“What kind of information?” Annie asked.

“I don’t know.  Stuff about the adoption, I guess.”

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

Nate dropped his hand and lifted an eyebrow in her direction.  She seemed rather unaffected by finding out that her fiancé wasn’t who she thought he was.  Her smile was bright and curious, encouraging.  Maybe that was it – maybe she was just trying to be supportive.

“Maybe,” he answered.  “Part of me is afraid to.”  He snorted a laugh of embarrassment.  No guy liked to admit he was afraid of something.

Reaching out, Annie wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.  In the meantime, you know I’m leaving today to go back to school, right?”

That was it?  She was switching topics that quickly?  Nate couldn’t understand why this wasn’t as devastating to her as it was to him.  Then again, every now and then Annie appeased her own agenda regardless of what was going on around her.  It was one of her flaws and Nate had long ago accepted it for what it was.

“I know,” he replied.

“So, I’ve been home for a whole weekend and you and I haven’t had you know what not even once.”  She laughed.  “It might be Thanksgiving before I’m home again, Nate.”

Nate grinned.  Okay, so this “agenda” was going to pay dividends for him as well.  “What do you suggest?” he asked.  “Dropping and doing in here in the tree house?”

She shrugged.  “Why not?”

Speechless, his eyes grew round as she reached for the bottom of her sweatshirt.  “Um, it’s chilly this morning,” he warned lamely.

As Annie dropped her shirt behind herself, she looked down at her breasts, her nipples evident through the thin material of her bra.  “Obviously.”

When Nate returned home an hour later, debating whether he had splinters in his ass, he found his mother in the kitchen making preparations for dinner.  Sunday was a special day in the Spencer house – no matter what was going on, no matter how busy things were, they always sat down as a family and ate dinner together.  Often, Emma would start a roast mid-morning and let it simmer all day long, as she was doing on this day.

Nate stopped in the doorway, shoved his hands into his pockets.  “Morning, Mom,” he said softly.

She turned on her heel and gave him a grin.  “Ah, Nathan.  You hungry, sweetheart?  You didn’t come for breakfast.”

“I was out,” he said.

“Annie catch up with you?” Emma asked as she returned to slicing onions for the roast.

She’d caught up with him – and then some.  “Yeah,” he answered.  “Um, Mom?”

At the cautious tone in his voice, she turned and regarded him silently, waiting patiently for him to finish his thought.

“Where’s Dad?” Nate asked.

“Fishing,” Emma said.

It wasn’t unusual for Jonathan to fish on Sunday mornings.  He loved the lake, loved sitting on the pier or taking out his row boat.  Often, Nate had accompanied him.

“I made a decision,” Nate said uneasily.

He saw just a hint of apprehension in her eyes.  “Okay, honey.”

He cleared his throat, his eyes darting away briefly.  “I want to open it.  I want to open the envelope.”

Emma swallowed, then nodded in agreement, giving him permission that he didn’t need to request.

“Do you already know what’s in it?” he asked, a hint of tremor in his voice.

She gave him an apologetic smile and shook her head.  “No, Nate.  That’s for you to find out.”

He nodded, looked at his feet and then walked into the living room.  The envelope was still lying where Jonathan had dropped it.  Nate stood over it, looking at it like it could sting him if he got too close.  Did he really want to open it?  Did he really want to know?

If he left it alone, then life could stay as it was, right?  He’d continue to be the natural child of Emma and Jon Spencer.  Wasn’t that true?

It couldn’t be true.  Because even if Nate never opened the envelope, he would still know that he wasn’t really the natural child of Emma and Jon Spencer.  There was no rolling back time and erasing what had been revealed yesterday.  If time could be altered, then Nate knew that a child who had once fallen through the ice would still be alive today.  No, there was no going back.

Quickly, as if the envelope would skitter away from him, Nate snatched it from the table and headed for his bedroom.  Inside, he closed the door quietly behind himself and sat down on the bed.  The envelope wasn’t heavy and he doubted there was much more than a few pieces of paper inside.  Both dreading and anticipating opening it, he dragged it beneath his nose, inhaling, looking for the smell of anything that might give him an idea of where it had come from – cigar smoke, the smell of food, anything.  All he smelled was paper.

Closing his eyes and mustering his courage, Nate pulled open the flap of the envelope and reached inside.  Pulling out several pieces of paper, his blue eyes scanned over them quickly, taking in everything and nothing all at once.  Telling himself to calm down and slow down, he drew in a breath and regarded the first paper.

It was a court document, signing over custody of Nate, then unnamed, to Jonathan and Emma Spencer.  At the bottom were his parents’ signatures, his mother’s neat and womanly, his father’s rough and barely legible.  Nate made note of the date but found nothing else interesting on the page.

The next set of pages, stapled together, was written on the letterhead of the law offices of Philip Evans in Roswell, New Mexico.  It was a contract of some kind, laying out the stipulations of accepting the baby into the Spencer home.  Nate sat back and read it in detail, the churning returning to his stomach.  He saw the clause that said he wasn’t to know about his adoption until he’d reached legal age.  It was an odd thing to include in an adoption and it only increased his uneasiness.  What he found on the last page nearly pushed him over the edge.

He had no birth certificate.  No hospital records.  No indication of who his birth parents had been.  It simply stated that he’d been abandoned.  Inside of his heart, Nate felt a pain he’d never thought possible.

Not only was he not Emma and Jon Spencer’s son – he was nobody’s son.

Part Five

Things were starting to make sense now, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place.  As Nate walked toward the lake, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, he thought back on things that had always seemed a bit odd, but never really clicked as being a problem.

Like, where were all of the pictures of him as a newborn?  Annie’s parents had tons of pictures of her only hours after she’d been born, still in the hospital, wearing that tiny little pink stocking hat.  But the Spencers had no pictures of Nate in his little blue hat.  In fact, they had no pictures of him at all until he was a good-sized baby.  Until now, he hadn’t thought much about it – a baby picture was a baby picture to him, regardless of the size of the baby.  It never occurred to him that something was missing.

There were a dozen other things like that that now seemed painfully obvious, but for every one thing that made sense, there were a dozen more that didn’t.

Why did an attorney put him up for adoption?

Why was he abandoned?

Why did someone from New Mexico bring him all of the way to New York to place him with a family?  Weren’t there families in New Mexico who wanted an infant?  From what Nate had always heard, infants were in short supply and usually were adopted quickly.  So why travel the huge distance?

Why was it legally stipulated that he couldn’t know he was adopted until he was eighteen?

Nate kicked at a rock and frowned.  Two days ago, he’d just been Nathan Spencer, yearning to go to school with his fiancé and put the bait shop business behind him.  Now he hadn’t a clue who he was and would give nearly anything to just be back in the fishing business instead of dealing with all of these questions.

Ahead of Nate, Jonathan sat in a lawn chair at the end of the pier, his fishing rod propped against the arm of the chair.  Nate stopped walking and drew in a deep breath.  His father looked so peaceful where he was, basking in the Sunday afternoon sun, and he hated to disturb him.  But he had to do what he had to do.

Nate’s shoes made hollow thumping sounds as he walked the length of the pier and then sat down with his feet dangling over the edge.  Jonathan looked at him wordlessly.

“Catch anything?” Nate asked, squinting against the glare the sun cast on the water.

“Nothing worth keeping,” Jonathan answered.

Nate nodded and continued to look across the lake.  After a few moments, he added, “I opened the envelope.”  He waited for a response and got none.  Looking over his shoulder, he found his father looking at him with his poker face firmly in place.

“Did you?” the older man asked.

Nate nodded.  “Yeah.”

“What did you find?”  Jonathan picked up his tackle box and started fiddling with some lures; it was typical of him to busy his hands in an uncomfortable situation.

“You don’t know?” Nate asked, a little surprised that his adoptive father didn’t know all there was to know.

Jonathan shook his head.

“Oh.”  Nate blinked a couple of times, then decided his father wasn’t being coy – he really didn’t know.  “There, uh, there wasn’t much there.”

“No?”

He shook his head.  “No.  The adoption papers – that you and Mom signed.”

Jonathan grunted in understanding, his fingers tying a knot around a bobber.

“And a contract from someone in New Mexico.”

Jonathan gave him a sidelong glance.  “Yeah?”

Nate nodded.  “Yeah.  Really, not much there.”

“Huh.”

They sat for a while longer, in silence.  Nate waited for his father to take the initiative, but Jonathan wasn’t a man of many words.

“Why New Mexico, Dad?” he finally asked.

Jonathan put his tackle box down and folded his hands between his knees.  “I don’t know, really.”

“Didn’t you find that strange?  Why didn’t they place me with a home in New Mexico?”

He drew in a breath and Nate could tell that he’d never contemplated the question.  “Nate, we were just happy to have you,” he said in resignation.  “We didn’t care where you came from.”

That comment sent up a warning signal in Nate’s head and he began to feel that familiar twisting in his gut.  “Oh, God.  Was I a black market baby of some kind?”  His voice rose in pitch as he finished the sentence.

At that, Jonathan chuckled.  “No, Nate.  We didn’t buy you illegally, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Nate blew out a sigh and relaxed a bit.  “Thank God.”  Another silence ensued, during which the questions kept mounting.  “Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did they want you to keep my adoption secret until I was eighteen?”

Jonathan shrugged.  “I don’t know.  At the time, we didn’t care.  We would have agreed to just about anything to get you.”

Nate’s brow furrowed.  “But, I mean, what legal ramifications were there if you hadn’t done that?  Why didn’t you just tell me once I was old enough to understand?”

Jonathan looked as though his son had just struck him.  “I doubt if they would have thrown me into jail if I had told you, but that’s not what I agreed to, Nate.  I gave my word, I signed a legal document.  If nothing else, be a man of your word.  There’s nothing worse than a liar.”

Nate withdrew, ashamed at having even asked that question.  Growing up, the thing that would get him punished the quickest was fibbing – he should have seen that reaction coming.  “I’m sorry, dad,” he mumbled.

Jonathan waved him off with a hand and picked up his fishing pole.  They sat there for a while longer, until the man finally sighed and addressed his son.

“I know that this can’t be easy for you,” he began.  “Your mom and I knew this day would come.”

“It didn’t have to,” Nate pointed out.  “You could have never told me the truth.”

Jonathan lifted an eyebrow.  “Is that what you would want?  Would you want to never know who you are?” 

Nate worked his mouth, then shook his head.  What if he found out he was adopted after both of his parents had passed away and then never got any answers?  That would be so much worse than this.

“Besides, it’s your right to know,” Jonathan continued.  “If it weren’t for the legal agreement, we would have told you years ago.  We felt like we were lying to you by not letting you know.  That’s why I called Annie’s dad and asked him to bring those papers here.  I knew he had them, and your mom and I decided it was time.”

He gave the pole a jerk and frowned.  Nothing was biting today.  “We tried for many years to have children, Nate,” he said sadly.  “Either your mom would miscarry or we couldn’t get pregnant at all.  After her last miscarriage, her doctor told her not to try again, that it could cost her her life.”  Jonathan gave him a small smile.  “I couldn’t have that.  I love my Emmie too much to see her die.”

Nate grinned in response.  In truth, his father’s one-sided conversation was enthralling him – before now, Nate wasn’t sure he had the ability to string so many words together at once.

Jonathan tipped his head to the side.  “So we started looking into adoption agencies.  The waiting lists were long, years long, for babies.  We were getting up in years and knew that we couldn’t wait fifteen years to get a child – we’d be too old to take care of it!”  His gaze drifted away and Nate could see he was losing himself in his memories.  “I knew Annie’s grandfather because he owned a cabin near the store.  He came in every summer.  We’d bullshit, every now and then have a beer or two.  We weren’t best buddies or anything, but good acquaintances.”

Reaching down, he picked up his canteen and took a swig of water.  “Then one day he came in and said he had a baby that needed a home – he knew we’d been wanting to start a family.  He said it was a special case, that the people who were putting the baby up were asking for special considerations.”  He shrugged.  “So we asked him the specifics and it didn’t seem like anything we couldn’t agree to.”  Jonathan glanced at his enraptured son.  “And here you are.”

“Did you meet them?” Nate asked anxiously.  “The people who put me up for adoption?”

Jonathan shook his head.  “Nope.  Never laid eyes on them.  Annie’s grandfather brought you to us, had us sign the papers.  End of story.”

For some reason, Nate didn’t feel entirely disappointed.  True, he didn’t have any more concrete answers than he did when he’d walked down the pier, but at least he knew something of how he came to be with the Spencers.

“Nate?”

He looked up and met Jonathan’s gaze.

“Don’t repeat any of that baby stuff to your mom.  It makes her sad.”

Nate nodded in understanding. 

His father looked away for a moment, then gave him a tired look.  “I know you have questions, I know you’re curious.”

Nate retreated a bit.  “Dad, it’s not that I’m ungrateful for you and Mom –“

Jonathan held up a hand.  “I believe you, son.  But I can also imagine what it’s like to be in your shoes.  I would want to know everything.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers for you.”

Nate frowned.

“Sometimes, Nathan, a man has to do what a man has to do.”

Nate’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes grew round.  “What are you saying?”

His father smiled a lopsided, understanding smile.  “That you should get the answers you need.  Don’t let this fester, Nate.  Don’t dwell on maybes or what-ifs.  Don’t let it consume you.”  He cocked an eyebrow.  “Don’t think I don’t know about that ulcer you’ve been working on.”

Nate breathed a laugh, his ears reddening at the fact his father knew him so well.

Jonathan gave a wave of his hand.  “Go.  Find your path.  Find what you need to know.”

Excitement suddenly surged through Nate’s veins, replacing the anxiety that had been there for the past couple of days.  An adventure laid ahead, one that would take him farther away from home than he’d ever been.