Chapter Text
Abby sits in her seat, fidgeting with her hair, braiding and unbraiding little strands of it. It's brown, curling where Shawn's fell straight. She's been kissed by the California sun, cheeks lightly freckled, just like Shawn when he was her age. She's warm against Henry's side, tucked in the middle of the truck between him and Shawn, the toes of her sneakers brushing against the floor.
Shawn's a father. His son is a father. Followed by the logical conclusion that Abby got to earlier: I'm a grandfather.
It's all he can do to keep his eyes on the road, catching glimpses of his granddaughter (his granddaughter, he's a grandfather, Shawn has a daughter) in the halogen beams of oncoming headlights and at every stoplight, hoping he gets every single one, wishing the dull red glow would stay on her face just a second longer.
Shawn presses himself against the passenger door. He'd argued with Henry, weakly, that Gus was leaving the office any second now, that he'd pick them up on the way home, that their apartment was in the opposite direction of Henry's house.
Henry said he didn't mind; he'd just filled his tank.
Shawn reminded him that he'd already missed the first quarter of the game. He'd maybe be able to finish the second, if he hurried.
Henry looked at the big brown eyes peering up at him, swallowed the shock and rage and hurt, and told his son, calmly, that he'd already put it on DVR. He could watch it tomorrow.
Shawn hasn't said anything since he got in the truck. Neither has Henry. He's got no idea what to say.
That's not true. He's got plenty of words, all of them ricocheting inside his skull like stray bullets, making a horrible cacophony of banging and screaming. They whizz past his ears, shouting things like, Why wouldn't you tell me, I'm your father, you can hate me all you want but we're still family, why would you keep her from me, why wouldn't you let her have me in her life, you didn't even let me try-
"Dad." Shawn nods at the stoplight, face half-hidden in shadow and the hand he's mumbling into, elbow jammed up against the lip of the passenger window. "Light's green."
Henry hadn't realized he'd stopped. He hadn't even looked at Abby. Fuck.
Does Madeleine know? Henry took that shot for her, letting Shawn blame him for the divorce, and he knows they've spoken more than zero in the past ten years.
But, no. She can't have known. She would've told him. He'll have to call, pretend things are normal, like she won't have a mental page of patient notes before he can even ask How've you been? and then he'll have to ask So, did our estranged son mention anything about a daughter to you? No? Well have I got a surprise for you.
And she'll be surprised, for once. Henry tries to scrounge up some excitement. He's never been able to surprise her. She hadn't skipped a beat when he told her he was moving back to Santa Barbara. She'd just said, Of course you are, that Florida was never his final destination. That he was just stretching his limbs, testing new waters, but - sooner or later - he was always going to shrink back into his roots, settled so deep in that little house in California, just like Shawn would, someday soon, find himself back on their doorstep.
It's always their house, when she brings Shawn into it. It was always supposed to be their house. At night, when Henry's trying to sleep, it creaks under the weight of absence. The woman he was supposed to grow old with, the son who was supposed to come back home with his own wife and children. Christmases and Thanksgivings and Fourth of July cookouts, Shawn crouching beside his son - he'd always imagined a grandson, though he doesn't know why - and pointing out the stories in every corner. The best hiding places he and Gus would use when they were his size, the brown spot out in the yard where he and Gus once tried digging for oil that never grew back right, the one time he and Gus-
It occurs to Henry that a lot of those memories are of Shawn and Gus. Even when Madeleine left, even when Henry was the last person in the world he wanted to see, when his boy was throwing his future away, and for what?
Shawn had Gus. Gus might be the longest-lasting influence in Shawn's life.
It's for the best, Henry thinks, that they've at least had Gus. He thinks about how Shawn had spoken to him in the parking lot, one hand holding Abby's, the other gripping his cell phone to his ear as he said, Yeah, he's giving us a ride, it's- No, he's being... fine, and Abby's fine. We're all fine. A pause. Then, softly, quietly: Yeah, I'm okay. We'll see you at home.
Shawn had girlfriends. He vaguely remembers Gus talking about one or two dates with girls in their class, when their serious discussions of cooties turned into crushes. And it was always girls. Henry would've remembered otherwise. Shawn had never-
Well. It doesn't matter what he thought, does it.
He tightens his grip on the steering wheel. How long had Gus known? How long had he known that Shawn considered Henry undeserving of meeting his granddaughter, let alone knowing she existed, and went along with it? How long has Shawn been in Santa Barbara, carving out a life for his new family in the cover of darkness, so that Henry finds a barb wire fence the next morning with a thin metal sign reading No salesmen, canvassers, landscapers, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Jehovah's Witnesses, actually Girl Scouts get a pass if they have a box or three of Thin Mints on 'em, but especially, ESPECIALLY, no Henry Spencers.
Abby points and partially blocks his line of sight. "Gus!"
Gus is, indeed, there. He's standing on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, looking around himself under a streetlamp like he's expecting a mugger to pop out at any moment, only to start flailing wildly when a moth takes a break from the light to hover around his face.
"Open the window," says Abby. It takes a minute for Henry to realize she's talking to him. He rolls it down as they pull over, and Abby leans over his lap much to Shawn's protesting to shout directly into Henry's ear, "Hi, Gus!"
Gus whips around. Abby giggles at his startled expression. The ends of her hair tickle Henry's forearm, eyes crinkling in delight. "Gus, Gus! I'm taller than you!"
"Oh, are you?" says Gus. His voice is playful, the recovery impressive, but his smile is twitchy and falters when his eyes meet Henry's for a brief moment. "You're sure this isn't cheating?"
"No," says Abby, dragging the word out, voice lilting upwards, and she giggles again. She sways a little, pressing up against Henry's chest for balance, not even thinking about how she's only known him for half an hour, in the way young kids do.
The truck jostles when Shawn shoves the door open. "Yay, we're home. Hey, Gus."
Abby regales Gus with exaggerated tales of the grocery store while Henry and Shawn unload the truck - or Shawn struggles to get all the groceries out himself because they got all mixed up with Henry's, and when Henry tries to help, Shawn insists that it's fine, he's got it, "No, Dad, seriously, it's fine, I can do it-"
"Would you just let me-"
"I don't need your help!"
The silence is deafening in the empty street. Abby stops her excited bouncing. Gus stands very still. Shawn is breathing hard, like he's being just reached the end of a long struggle, like he's a kid at the end of a tantrum.
He doesn't know what he expected. From Shawn, tonight and yesterday and every day since he turned sixteen. Shawn's always been this tightly-coiled spring, talking back and refusing every lesson, holding onto all the misplaced contempt he's looking at him with right now. Henry gave him the tools to grow up. It's not his fault if he threw them out the window out of spite.
"Hey," says Gus, suddenly there. He places a hand on Shawn's arm, rubbing up and down, up and down. "I can grab the rest. Go take Abby up."
Shawn's hard eyes start to fracture. "Gus..."
"Go." His voice is soft and easy. "I got this."
His smile looks real, face turned toward Shawn's. Shawn looks raw. He looks at Gus with this... expression, all soft, and Henry can't help but think about dogs and their people. Henry has to look away, eyes darting toward Abby standing alone on the sidewalk. She worries at her t-shirt, then looks down at his yolk-stained shoes. He realizes his hands are clenched. He forces them to relax.
"G'night, Dad."
Henry's jaw is locked. He nods, stiff, and Shawn stands there for another minute. At some point, he sighs, shoulders slumping as he turns to take Abby's hand. Henry's tongue goes to remind him of his posture; he bites it and imagines the taste of copper.
The building door is almost shut when Abby pokes back out, Shawn's arm shooting out to stop her head from becoming a doorstop. "Good night, Daddy’s dad! Thanks for the ride!"
He still can't speak. He goes for an awkward, tight-lipped smile. She waves back with her whole arm, body wiggling, before running in after her father. Gus is already unloading the rest of their groceries from the truck bed.
They don't talk. Henry feels like his head is stuffed with cotton and sawdust. He picks up his gallon of milk so Gus can reach the egg carton and feels older than he is. He doesn't like it.
"You know," says Gus, breaking the silence of plastic bags rustling and the occasional car going a little too fast in a residential zone. Henry does not startle. "I told Shawn this was gonna happen sooner or later."
He rustles through his groceries, setting everything in the proper places, staring into the dark of the truck bed. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah, really." There's a pause. "That was only when you came back, though."
The implication makes his words heavy. "How long has he been back in Santa Barbara?"
"I feel like I shouldn't tell you that."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I don't think Shawn would want me talking to you about it."
Henry remembers a nervous kid, always letting himself get caught up in his son's schemes, looking for all the world like a hostage victim whenever they got in trouble afterwards. He knows his mother worried about him, a lot, even going as far as to not-so-subtly ask Madeleine once if maybe, just maybe, he could use an evaluation. He's a pharmaceutical rep now, isn't he? He could probably get Prozac on demand.
Right now, though, he's very calm. He talks with a sort of surety that Henry has never seen in him before, like he's just describing the way things are, like it's all so simple. It's unnerving. Henry can't find his usual footing and he hates it.
"Right." He slams the truck bed shut. Gus flinches. That just makes Henry grit his teeth harder, tighten his fists till his nails feel like they're stabbing his palms. "Why would he? I'm just the guy who raised him for eighteen years."
Gus says nothing.
Henry stalks past him, climbing back into the driver's seat and slamming the door behind him. He glances at Gus in the side mirror. Gus looks back at him, face impassive, arms crossed against the slight evening chill. Henry starts to say, "Tell him-"
But what is there to say? Shawn made up his mind. Henry has words, plenty of them, but none of them can get a decade back. They can't reach back in time to when Shawn decided to hate him for the rest of his life. Their family ended a long time ago.
He starts the engine. "Have a good one, Gus." Then he floors it out of the neighborhood going twelve over the limit, not looking back.