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“Most of the food has been eaten,” Jack said, “not all of it because when there's a family get together my mom cooks like she's planning to feed an army and half a football team so there was plenty of tasty stuff still sitting on the good serving platters -”
Jack’s story unfolded as they drove home. Mac thought there might be a message behind it - something to do with being careful about the assumptions you made - he wasn't sure, but that didn't really matter. Mac loved listening to Jack's stories, especially when they featured impressions of his family. His favourite of Jack’s impersonations was the one he did of his mom. He had yet to meet his Nana Bea but was looking forward to getting to know her if she was anything like the bold, charismatic woman of Jacks caricatures.
“Everyone is kind of sitting around, full of potatoes and pie and feeling sleepy, when - boom - the lights go out!” Jack looked to Mac for a reaction.
“You were all sitting in the dark?” Mac asked on cue. His role in Jack’s story telling process was to look intrigued, shocked and amused as appropriate - Jack’s joy in telling his tales came from the enjoyment of the people listening.
“Yep, we were sat around in the pitch black like a bunch of overstuffed bats. And the first thing my momma does is yell my cousin George's name - usually when something funky goes down at a family get together it’s down to him - but he's fast asleep in a chair, so she immediately turns to me!”
Jack threw an arm up to emphasise his outrage. He'd been using his hands as part of his storytelling, waving them around, miming and gesturing, and Mac watched the hand that had just twitched upwards and wondered what it would be like when Jack hit him.
He’d heard of intrusive thoughts, he knew that lots of people had them, he certainly did. Mac didn’t have them persistently but sometimes he found himself wondering what would happen if he stepped out in front of the car driving in his direction or what it would be like to knock the display of glass vases catching sunbeams in a store so that they tumbled and smashed noisily on the floor. He didn’t actually want to get hurt or break anything but there was part of him that wondered what would happen, what would it be like to, what if?
He knew that Jack would never hurt him, he’d said so to Miss Sparrows and he truly believed it but...
“And Momma’s all ‘Jacky!’” Jack put on the high pitched voice and bustling shoulder shuffle that he used when he was pretending to be his mom, “’Jacky, this had better not be your handiwork!’”
Knowing that Jack would never hit him wasn’t the same as not expecting it to happen. Intellectually Mac knew that Jack would never use violence against him but there was a part of him that felt differently. That piece of him was without thought, words or reason and Mac imagined it as being dark, nebulous and fraught as a thundercloud. It came from the part of his awareness that knew to curl towards warmth and cringe back from flames, where his basest instincts lived.
“Can you believe that?” Jack asked Mac, looking at him to share his outrage.
“No," Mac said, shaking himself into awareness at Jack’s question. He’d stopped paying attention to Jack’s story as his focus had shifted onto what was happening inside him.
“Well neither could I, and then my sister snuck back into the room and my sister is about a subtle as a day-glow elephant so everyone noticed and my mom...”
That storm coloured part of Mac had been quiet for months. With all the preparations and worry about the upcoming adoption – the surprise visits from his social worker, his fears that Jack would change his mind and wouldn’t want him anymore or wouldn’t change his mind and would adopt him expecting a normal son – Mac hadn’t had the mental or emotional energy to recognise any of it’s fears. But now that he was officially a Dalton and the other worries had faded Mac understood as he eyed Jacks hands again that his expectation of being hurt had been there all along, silently turning inside him. He’d said that Jack would never hit him; he knew that Jack would never hit him and yet... And yet.
That’s what happened. The person who cared for him hurt him, that’s how it had always been and Mac couldn’t ignore the evidence of his past.
James hadn’t always been a terrible person, Mac thought. He remembered his mom as being kind and sweet. If she’d chosen to be with James he must have been nice too, at least sometimes. Mac couldn’t believe his mom had married and had a child with someone who was unkind. But that changed when James became a single father. Maybe Jack wouldn’t change that much. Mac couldn’t imagine him ever becoming just like James. But the conclusion Mac had reached based on his observations, deductions and from the findings of his previous experience was that dads hit.
Dads got angry, they hit and yelled and they said it was for Mac’s own good and that if he was smarter or faster or better it wouldn’t have to happen.
Mac knew that he wasn’t any smarter or faster or better than he’d been before.
Dads hit.
“And my sister looked so smug. I was really proud of her and really annoyed with her at the same time. That’s my sister for you, she can be infuriating but so ballsy with it that you have to kind of admire her.” Jack shook his head at the complex nature of his sibling and turned the truck around the corner onto the road leading to their street.
Mac watched Jack’s hands casually manoeuver the steering wheel and couldn’t picture them hitting him. Those hands had picked him up literally and figuratively, stroked his hair and held him when he’d been afraid. Mac knew Jack’s hands would never hurt him but underneath that knowledge was a belief that they eventually would. That it was impossible but inevitable. The paradox was sickening. Mac’s stomach turned at it and at his betrayal for thinking it. Jack had been nothing but good to him, he was the best and kindest person in the world and Mac was sure he was betraying him by believing he was capable of hurting anybody.
“So after we’d cleaned the mess up and my Great Aunt Maureen stopped cursing in Spanish I went to my momma expecting an apology – she’d suspected me while I was completely innocent – but she just put her hands on her hips and said that it was a pre-emptive suspicion that she’d carry over to whatever dumb thing I did next. If you ask me that was a little harsh, I mean, it was only ten days until I pulled that prank with the balloons but - but that’s probably a story for another time.” Jack parked the truck outside their house and turned to Mac, studying his face. “Are you okay, kiddo? You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m okay,” Mac shrugged. “I-I’m just – you know.”
“Thinking big thoughts?” Jack filled in with quirked lips and an eyebrow twitch.
Mac nodded, “Something like that.”
“Fair enough, as long as you’re not coming down with something.” Jack gently laid the back of his hand against Mac’s forehead to check for a fever then rested it on the back of Mac’s neck, rubbing his thumb into blond hair. “You’d tell me if something was wrong wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Mac said too quickly. “Yeah,” he said again with a better attempt at sincerity.
“Good.” Jack looked almost convinced. He smiled but there was a wary curiosity around his eyes that had Mac trying to visibly brighten, sitting up straighter in his seat and lowering his shoulders. He couldn’t let Jack know what he was thinking. His thoughts were awful and Jack shouldn’t have to hear them, he deserved better than the terrible, ungrateful things Mac was thinking. Mac didn’t want his dad to know what a horrible person he was. He would try to be smarter, quicker and better.
“I don’t know about you but I’m ready to sit for the evening.” Jack opened his door, “I’m not sure who’s run me ragged more today - the horses or the people taking lessons. The horses just need a handful of oats or a scratch behind the ear to make them happy. I don’t have to smile politely at them while they talk about their investment portfolios. Like, dude, no one except you cares about that.”
Mac nodded. “That guy didn’t stop talking did he?” he said, thinking that if he took part in their usual playful banter Jack would never know that anything was wrong with him. “It all sounded too good to be true. He didn’t offer to sell you shares or something did he?”
“He did tell me that he knew of a venture that would be perfect for me,” Jack rolled his eyes. “What a con artist, I swear if he comes again and says anything about a business opportunity he thinks I’d should put money into I’m going to set Pepper on him, that will make him sorry.” He climbed down from his seat with a groan. “C’mon then, son, let’s get some quality sofa time in.”
Mac opened his own door and stepped carefully out of the truck. He his legs were weak with his knees watery and unreliable. It was like his unwanted thought was a poison spreading through his system leaving him sickened and frail in it’s wake. He had to hold tight to the door handle and grit his teeth before he could steel himself to start walking after Jack.
Mac was walking from stall to stall feeding the horses while Jack was busy giving Cassie a riding lesson. He stepped out of a stall to see Jack with his hands over Cassie’s much smaller ones adjusting her grip on the reins. He was always so gentle with her. He was always so kind to everyone but Mac hadn’t been able to stop himself tensing when Jack had slammed his truck door behind him after he’d sat in the driver’s seat that morning. He hadn’t been able to stop himself watching Jack’s hands as he’d unlocked the stable door and tossed his keys onto his desk.
“Mac!” Mac looked over and saw Cassie waving at him, he raised his hand and waved back.
“You look great, Cassie, ” he called to the excited little girl.
Cassie’s mom Helen said something and she and Jack laughed together. Jack reached out and touched her elbow with his fingertips in a friendly acknowledgement.
Sometimes when he was at the language labs on the top floor of his school building Mac would look down the six flights of stairs that led to the ground floor and want to throw his books into the air to watch them drop through the middle of the spiralling steps. He’d wonder what speed the books would reach as they plummeted and what kind of noise they would make when they thudded on the tiles below. The thought would rush up on him from nowhere and sit in the front of his head, fixating on reaching out and letting go.
Mac wondered if when Jack hit him he’d do it with an open palm or the back of his hand. He wondered if Jack would push him instead, shoving him backwards hard. He wondered if Jack would grip his arms and hiss things at him, horrible cutting words growled in a low, furious voice about how difficult, disrespectful or worthless he was. What’s wrong with you? Why do you always? Why can you never? Stop being childish! Stop being pathetic! You’re useless like this, for God’s sake, Angus!
Mac’s steps shuddered to a halt at the thought, horror a cold weight inside him. He stopped outside Pepper’s stable and, thinking he must be there to pay attention to her, Pepper stuck her neck out of the door and nudged him with her head.
Hearing those awful words from Jack would be worse than being hit. Mac turned and absently reached for Pepper, searching for the comforting feel of her soft nose.
“Hello, girl.”
Jack’s love for and belief in Mac had become a bedrock of security for him. He might not be sure of his worth but Jack was and Jack thinking he was okay was helping him start to believe that he was. The idea that Jack would snarl bitter, hurtful statements at Mac was too painful to bear. He would rather anything than that. He would rather Jack hit him than sneer at him with distain. And really, Mac reasoned as Pepper snuffled into his palm, if he’d done something wrong, if he’d earned a slap, that wouldn’t be so bad. Would it? Jack wouldn’t hurt him for no reason and if he’d been rude, distracted or lazy then he would deserve to be punished. He could live with being hit like that as long as Jack didn’t stop loving him.
Mac heard Cassie’s happy chuckle and Jack tell her, “Good girl, you did it!” and he turned away from the encouragement and care in Jack’s voice.
“Jack wouldn’t ever hit me.” Mac closed his eyes. He didn’t deserve to even look at his dad. He leaned against Pepper, angry and appalled. He’d been rationalising Jack hurting him, that would never happen yet Mac was thinking about it like he was expecting to have to cover up bruises. Jack would be horrified if he knew what Mac was thinking. Mac was horrified with himself. He heard judgements in his head, not in James’ voice but his own. What’s wrong with you? You’re broken, you’re disgusting.
“Jack would never hit me!” Mac snarled at himself again, the words a condemnation of his own stupidity rather than a reassuring reminder.
Wondering what it would be like to put his hand into an open flame was one thing but logically considering Jack being an abuser was something beyond an intrusive thought, Mac thought. It was an insult and a betrayal.
“Well done, Cassie, that was a great lesson.” Mac heard Jack crow, “You worked so hard, you’re amazing! Mac, why don’t you come over to say bye to our superstar here?”
Mac opened his eyes and saw Jack give Cassie a high five. “You coming?” He waved Mac over.
“Okay.” Mac gave Pepper a final pat and walked over to join Jack, Cassie and her mom. Ashamed, he couldn’t meet Jack’s eye.
“Did you see me?” Cassie asked Mac, her happiness almost palpable as refracted sunbeams around her. “Did you see?”
“I saw.” Mac helped Cassie down from her horse’s back. “You were awesome.”
“Thank you.” When Cassie’s feet hit the floor she leaned forward on her tip-toes and launched herself at Mac, squeezing him with her little arms around his neck. He hugged her back feeling unworthy of her pure, childish affection.
When she let go of Mac Cassie hugged Jack, petted her horse, gave Mac and Jack a huge grin and left the stable with one hand in her mother’s and the other waving a cheery goodbye.
As Cassie walked away Mac wanted to fill the silence between him and his dad but couldn’t find anything reasonable to say amid the spiral of distress inside him.
“Are you done giving the horses their lunch, bud?” Jack asked.
“Nearly.” Mac forced the word out of his dry throat.
“Why don’t you finish up while I get us both a snack?” Jack said, “There’s time for a break before the next lesson.” He patted Mac on the shoulder then walked towards the office
Mac silently watched him go.
“Mac,” Jack called from outside Mac’s bedroom, “your breakfast is getting cold! Or it would be if I’d made a cooked breakfast. I’ve put milk and cereal on the table so I guess your breakfast is getting room temperature-y.”
Mac sat on his bed, dressed for school, staring into the mid-distance. He wanted to flop bonelessly onto his side and sink into his covers. He wanted to sink into his mattress, sink through his mattress, through the floorboards of the house and the soil beneath it’s foundations and curl up deep in the earth, quiet and still, where he wouldn’t have to smile, talk or move through the world pretending to be someone who was okay.
The terrible thoughts kept happening. He kept flinching away from the slap he expected Jack to aim at him then being overwhelmed by guilt at the reflex. He was exhausted from bearing the weight of the jolts of fear and shame and he couldn’t make them stop. He and Jack had agreed to talk about anything that was bothering them but Mac couldn’t tell Jack what he’d been thinking. He just couldn’t.
“Son?” Jack’s voice came from the kitchen. He was waiting and Jack waiting could quite quickly become Jack worrying.
Mac pushed himself up to standing, feeling the bones of a weary old man under his skin, and walked to the kitchen. The smell of coffee drifted through the kitchen door and the window behind the open blind showed a sky as bright as a new idea with as much potential for joy. The shining of the new day outside seemed to be affecting Jack’s mood and he was chatting away effervescently as he sat working his way through his own breakfast.
“There’s nothing like the simple things in life,” he said brandishing his spoon around for emphasis, “sometimes all you need is a bowl of cereal, it can really hit the spot, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” Mac nodded, trying to smile. He poured himself some cereal, he wasn’t hungry but didn’t want Jack to comment on his lack of appetite, and sat down opposite his dad with his bowl and coffee mug.
“I think it’s the ice cold milk that does it.” Jack’s soliloquy about breakfast food continued. “You get the crunchy snap of the cereal and the cold hit of the milk, it’s a simple yet nuanced sensory experience.”
Mac hadn’t been eating or sleeping that well. He hadn’t really been living that well since the day in the truck when he’d looked at Jack’s hand and anticipated it hurting him. His phone buzzed and Mac glanced down at it to see a notification of a text from Bozer. It probably wasn’t anything important, just a meme, a ‘good morning’ or a question about their homework. Mac was just deciding to read the message later when he realised that looking at the text while Jack was speaking would be rude. James had hated it when Mac got distracted while he was talking. Mac flicked his gaze up at Jack. He wondered if he should open Bozer’s message - be deliberately disrespectful - and if doing that would finally make it happen.
“With simplicity in mind I was thinking we should get pizza for dinner tonight, what’s simpler than that? You make a choice, you make a phone call and you get food. Easy breezy with extra cheesy.”
The waiting was exhausting. Waiting and wondering about when Jack was going to lose his temper and hurt him was crushing Mac. ‘Is it going to happen now?’ he’d think when Jack moved towards him. He’d flinch, tense or brace himself for the landing of a blow that didn’t come and the waiting continued. As he looked at his phone Mac realised that he wanted Jack to hit him just so the anticipation would end and the grinding pressure of when, when, when would finally be over.
“What do you think?”
Mac almost let a bitter laugh escape. “I think,” he swallowed. I think frightening, vicious things that I’m ashamed of and you should hate me for. “I think that sounds fine.”
Hallway walls, artificial lights and the scurrying of his passing classmates pressed down on Mac. Bozer was telling a story and laughing at his own jokes as they walked together from one class to another. Donnie Sardoza passed them, swaggering through the middle of the corridor expecting everyone to defer to his presence and move out of the way. He deliberately bumped shoulders with Bozer and turned around to call after him, eyes narrowed, smirk fixed, clearly looking for trouble. Bozer refused to give it to him, he responded by simply throwing up an arm in a ‘sorry, bro’ gesture.
Donnie postured and spouted clichéd insults like a bully from and 80’s teen movie and Bozer just shrugged them off but Mac found himself instantly and completely furious. Why does Donnie act like that, he thought, hot with rage. Why does he think it’s okay to hurt people? Nothing gives him the right to treat another person like that.
Bozer turned to walk away and Donnie grabbed his arm and called him...
And Mac lost control.
He curled his fists and struck.
It hurt when his blows connected but there was a bright spark of satisfaction beneath the pain. Mac lashed out. Lashed out again. Mr Hernandez rushed in to separate him and Donnie but Mac wasn’t finished. He tried to claw his way out of his teacher’s hold. He wanted to get to Donnie, to make him stop. He wanted to make it all stop.
“I had a phone call about my son.”
Mac heard Jack’s voice outside the Principal’s office and sagged into himself as his eyes fell closed. He didn’t know how he would bear the disappointment on Jack’s face.
“I’ve been waiting for you to hurt me!” Mac heard himself scream. It was done. Jack would hate him.
“I don’t need you to be perfect, I need you to be you, I love you. I will always love you. When you’re scared, angry, happy or feeling like a tectonic plate on volcano day I’ll love you, " Jack said.
The earth underneath Mac shuddered - that had to have been what happened - the devastating, transformative moment couldn’t just be taking place inside him, surely a whole continent had shifted. Jack still loved him.
An empty pizza box lay open on the coffee table and the TV screen was full of scrolling movie credits. Jack put his arm around Mac and pulled him sideways until they were leaning against one another.
“You’ve been yawning since the second car chase, kiddo,” Jack said, “I’m thinking you’re about ready for bed.”
Mac sighed out a hum in agreement. He was shattered. Drained. Like instead of sharing the painful thoughts he’d been keeping secret he’d ran a marathon.
Jack moved his hand until it was resting in the middle of Mac’s chest. “I can feel your heart beat.” Mac heard the smile in his dad’s voice.
Jack flattened his palm over Mac’s ribs. “I’ve got your heart in my hand,” he chuckled, “but since you carry mine around with you that seems fair.” A moment of quiet contemplation passed and Jack added, “Not actually of course. That would be inconvenient for us both and more than a little messy.”
“There’s a story that the author Mary Shelly kept her husband Percy’s heart in a box on her desk.” Mac said, he’d read the anecdote somewhere and had remembered it because he thought that Jack would like it. “He was cremated and his heart didn’t burn so his friends gave the heart to Mary Shelly and she kept it for her whole life.”
Jack made an interested, nauseated little noise. “That’s romantic in a creepy, body snatcher-ish kind of a way. Luckily both of our hearts are tick-tocking away in our chests right where they should be. Yep,” Jack pressed his hand a little harder into Mac’s chest, “there yours is, honest, simple and strong.”
Mac couldn’t feel his own heart but he knew it was beating. He didn’t have to think about it or check to make sure, the fact that he was alert and breathing meant that his heart was doing exactly what it should have been doing. And the one inside Jack's chest was the most reliable thing he'd ever known.
“You haven’t told me the story about the balloons yet," Mac said, warmed by the comforting weight of his dad’s arm around him and a little reluctant to leave his side. “You know, the story about the prank your mom had pre-emptive suspicions about.”
“I don’t think that’s a story for right now, son, I don’t think you’ll stay awake past the opening scene." Jack nudged Mac with a playful twitch of his chin, "I’ll tell you another day. It will give you something to look forward to.”
The resting heart rate for an average adult is between sixty and one hundred beats per minute, Mac knew, and a healthy person’s heart pulses away every day keeping them alive. The one underneath Jack’s hand was one of the ones doing just what it was meant to. Mac’s brain might create worries and unbidden thoughts about shouting swear words in a hushed library and pressing the red 'staff only' button on the reception desk at the doctor’s office but his heart would carry on being truthful and predictable.
Between them his heart and his mind would have heartbeats and ideas; emotions and rationality; simplicity and complications; fire, ice and truths and hopefully Mac could find a way to create a balance within them all.
He would figure it out.
Jack would help.