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When Miss Pauling showed up at the base, it meant two things: 1) That she came with an armload of contracts the mercs were eager to turn into fat paychecks, and 2) That regardless of whether or not she had any jobs for him, Scout would be there flexing nonexistent bicep muscles and trying hard to get into her pants. Though he was forever unsuccessful at the second part (and often the first part as well) he never stopped trying.
Today Spy was the last mercenary to get his contracts from Miss Pauling, and they were both ignoring a long, rambling, self-aggrandizing story from Scout as Miss Pauling went over the CliffsNotes version of what was expected of him. Sniper had come just before them, with Spy passing him on the way in, and had gotten out of the room as soon as his name was signed. Presently Spy was wishing he’d done the same
"... and you're expected to be back here in sixteen days, I know it's going to be a little tight, but I'm sure you can do it. The Administrator wants-- Scout, please stop shoving your arms in my face!" Miss Pauling pushed Scout's arm aside.
Spy grabbed Scout by the collar and dragged him away. "We're trying to talk business. Not that I expect a child like you to understand, but these are serious matters."
"Hey! I'm not a kid! I'm in my twenties!" Scout's protest was far whinier than one would expect from an adult, which made Spy scowl.
"Then act like it." Spy's response was icy.
Scout began to sulk, but he did back off.
Spy turned back to Miss Pauling. "You were saying?"
"Thank you." Miss Pauling flipped through the stack of papers in her arms. "I do have one more contract for you." She glanced at Scout apprehensively.
"Is something the matter?" asked Spy.
"Scout's not gonna like it."
Scout's interest was visibly piqued. "What? What am I not gonna like?"
"Spy, your last contract is in Boston. The Administrator has some work there that only you can do."
"What?!" Scout shouted
Miss Pauling winced. As expected, Scout didn't like it. "She says no one else has the skills to do what she needs done. It will probably only take you a day, but you've been budgeted for three. You're welcome."
Spy took the contract and looked it over, his face unchanging. Scout, meanwhile, began to rant. "No frickin' way are you sending HIM to Boston! You've got a job where I'm from and you can't get me there for an extra two days to say hi to my family? What could possibly need doing there that I'm not the most qualified for?"
"Something with subtlety," Spy replied without looking up from the papers. To Miss Pauling, he said: "Consider it done."
"Thanks. You're a lifesaver."
"Come on. Miss Pauling. You can’t send him to Boston just so he can perv on my Ma. Come on." Scout was trying to get in front of her, but she turned to the side and Spy blocked him.
"Keep whining, I'm sure Miss Pauling finds it very attractive."
"Okay, I've got to go." Miss Pauling had clearly tuned out Scout, which she had gotten fairly good at in the past year or so. "When you pick your partner for the last contract, just forward me the copy with both your signatures and I'll make a note of it."
"I really wish you hadn't just said that," said Spy.
“What?" Miss Pauling looked up from her arms and saw Scout's face, eyes wide. "Ohhh... sorry about that, Spy."
"He's going to be impossible to deal with, you know that, right?"
"I'm really sorry. Look. Next time you need to requisition any unorthodox equipment, I'll sign off on it, no questions asked. But I've really got to go." And with that, she was out the door, leaving Spy alone with Scout in the front entryway of the base.'
Sensing how this was about to go down, Spy pulled out his cigarette case and lit up a smoke immediately. Thankfully, Scout let him get one good, long, calming drag before he said, "What was that she said about a partner?"
"Nothing. You're hallucinating. Probably from drinking too much radioactivity."
"She said on your last job you were supposed to bring a partner."
"This has nothing to do with you."
"She meant the Boston job, didn't she?"
"No."
"Liar."
"Yes, I am."
"Who are you taking?"
"Nobody. I don't need any help. It's a standard, straightforward assignment."
"That's even better! I won't be taking up space from someone you need!"
"No."
"Come on. Come ooooon!"
Spy flipped the packet closed and started to leave. Scout made to follow him, but Spy said, “If you don’t leave me alone right now, I can’t promise that your record collection is going to remain intact. Do I make myself clear?” He didn’t even wait for an answer. He left the room and started down the corridor, hearing the door close behind him.
Standing halfway down the hall was Sniper. Quiet as always, he seemed to have been camped out waiting for Spy. His expression was his usual standard face of slightly detached disinterest, but with his eyes laser focused on Spy. It was enough to make Spy stop right in front of him and respond to Sniper’s gaze with a quizzical expression.
“You know you’ve got to,” was all Sniper said.
“I don’t have to do anything,” replied Spy
Sniper kept staring, expression unchanged.
“I don’t owe him anything,” Spy continued as if Sniper had countered his previous statement. “I told her they were better off without me in their lives. You don’t know what would have happened if I stayed. It could have been a thousand times worse.”
“Mate.” One word, no inflection or emotion.
Spy glowered at him. Then he let out a world-weary sigh. “All right, you win. He can come. Are you happy now?”
Spy got no response. With a final pointed glare, he turned around and went back the way he came, contract in hand.
"Jeremy!"
Scout's Ma lit up like a Christmas tree when she opened the door to see her youngest son standing on the front step of his childhood home. Immediately she wrapped him in the biggest hug known to humankind. "I thought I was dreamin’ when I heard you were coming by! Haven't seen you since Thanksgiving before last! How’s my little man doing?”
"Come on, Ma, I'm not little anymore." Jeremy hugged back, pretending to be more embarrassed than he was. Even when none of his peers were around, he had an image to maintain.
"You're always gonna be my baby," she replied. "Come on in! See what we’ve done since you’ve been away.”
Ma ushered him inside, and the house was just like he remembered it. A little small, a little dingy, but lived-in and welcoming. There were stains on the wall and spots on the carpet from a million childhood adventures. The ceiling had cracks from where the plaster was aging past its useful life, making shapes that Scout used to look at and find pictures in them as if they were clouds. There were photos hung up on the walls, sports trophies on the mantle, and a thousand other memories that immediately brought a sense of nostalgia that set Scout at ease.
“So, you got my last letter,” Ma continued as they made their way to the kitchen. “I turned your old room into the guest room, so I guess you’re still sleeping in the same place. I turned James, Jacob, and Joshua’s old bedroom into my sewing room. Got a fancy new machine now and everything.”
“What about the other bedroom?”
“That’s the grandkid nursery. Jonathan and Beatrice are over here every other week with their kids, and Justin’s got the twins he brings up from Jersey whenever he and Dorothy are fighting.”
“Man, they’re still going at it?”
“I don’t get involved anymore,” said Ma. “Honest to God, I love your brother to death, but sometimes he can be...” she trailed off as she tried to pin down the exact word.
“A giant gaping asshole?”
“Your words, not mine.” Ma was starting to pull the ingredients for dinner out of the fridge. “You’re early, you know. You tell me you’ll be in at six, I start dinner at five. It was gonna be cooling on the stove by the time you got in.”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Don’t worry, Gladys won’t find out.”
“Don’t even say her name.” Ma slapped a half pound of ground hamburger into a pan on the stove. “She's been bragging all month about their new 43-inch color TV. You know what she did? She looked right at me and said, ‘Oh, I guess we can’t all afford to give our families nice things.’ Right in the church! Can you believe it?”
Their conversation continued as Ma prepared dinner. It didn’t go unnoticed that she was making one of Scout’s favorite dinners. It was just a cheap, simple casserole made with rice and discounted meat, plus some cans of vegetables, but it was one of Scout's favorites. Since it was easy and fairly cheap if you got to the butcher at the right time, it was one of her classic go-to meals when she still had eight hungry mouths to feed. Over the years Scout's portions had gotten bigger and bigger as his brothers trickled out of the home until he was the last one left.
Scout had seen it well, as he got older, how much the stress of her life wore on his mother, coming home from her three jobs to cook and clean the house because no matter how much everyone pitched in, it was still a disaster. Many nights she didn't come home until well after even the oldest was in bed, on nights when one of his brothers cooked the same casserole that was never as good, and Ma came home weary and beat down by life.
Now that she was on her own, a great deal of that weight was lifted off of her. And though Scout's brothers had lives and families of their own now, not a month went by that one of them didn't send her support so she didn't have to work herself into an early grave. Scout especially couldn't wait until his get-rich-slow scheme paid off and she could retire in comfort and style, maybe somewhere tropical where the harsh Boston winters wouldn't get to her ever again.
Even with the stress of her life reduced as it was, she still looked worn out and tired, still had a bit of dullness in her eyes like she did on long days with very little sleep. Because of that, after they had finished eating and Ma stood up to take Scout's plate, he cut her off and said, "No, it's fine, I'll wash up."
"Really?" Ma sounded skeptical. Scout spent most of his childhood weaseling out of any household chores, and since his brothers had fallen into established patterns before he was born, he had an easier time slipping through the cracks until most of them were gone.
"Yeah. We all clean up back at work, too." The others hadn't let Scout weasel out of chores once since he'd been stationed with them. The first night it was his turn on the dishes he'd taken one look at the pile next to the sink and immediately turned to bolt. Heavy had seen that coming, as he had clocked Scout as an irresponsible brat the moment he laid eyes on him. With as little movement as possible, Heavy had blocked Scout's escape with one massive arm, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, picked him up, and dropped him in front of the sink with a brusque, "You wash." Scout had squeaked out some response before burying himself up to his elbows in suds, and Heavy stood there and watched until he was sure that Scout was in it for the long haul before he left.
Cleaning for two was far easier than nine, even if Ma did use more dishes than she needed to. When Scout finished, he found her sitting on the couch in the living room watching Bonanza on her old black-and-white TV. "What's going down at the Ponderosa?" he asked as he plopped down on the couch next to her.
"Hoss found a box of gold. Now they're looking for leprechauns."
That sounded like a decent way to kill the rest of this hour. Scout stayed next to her and watched with her. It was nice to get more than one staticky channel on the television. Most days back in New Mexico they actually drew straws to see who was going to hold the antennae in place, as the reception came in ever so slightly better when someone was touching the rabbit ears. It was a cozy evening, the kind Scout had never appreciated until they were over.
After Bonanza, Ma had gone to bed. Scout had stayed up a little later, investigating all of the changes in the house. It was still run-down, half the home needing to be replaced or repaired or just thrown out and forgotten about. But it still felt like home, was not only livable but enjoyable to live in, even if the plumbing sucked and the wallpaper was yellow with age and cigarette smoke. Half of Scout’s brothers had taken up smoking before moving out, and Ma had only quit a few years ago. There were still matchbooks and ashtrays scattered around. She still entertained people who smoked. One had apparently stopped by earlier, as one of the ashtrays hadn’t been emptied. Scout dumped it out in the trash can under the sink before heading up to bed.
The guest room was frillier than Scout’s room had ever been. Without two bunk beds and an oversized dresser stuffed in, the room felt a lot bigger. The bunks had been replaced with a double bed, made with crisp white sheets and a floral comforter. There was even a duvet. Scout didn’t really understand the purpose of a duvet, but it made the bedroom feel classy. And after lying down in the bed, he realized that the cracks on the ceiling and marks on the wall were the same ones he looked at in the dark when he couldn’t sleep. All the old familiar shapes came back to him, and it was as good as counting sheep. Scout was out like a light in under ten minutes.
He woke up several hours later for seemingly no reason. At first, he thought it was morning, but when he glanced towards the alarm clock, he realized it was too dark for him to see it. The moon was still out, the streetlights giving just a little bit of ambient lighting. He lay there for a few minutes, his sleepy brain catching up to the situation, before he rolled over fully intending to fall back asleep.
As he did, he realized he could hear the faintest sound of talking. It was a murmur with the cadence of human speech, but he couldn’t make out whose voice it was or what it was saying. Scout reached under the bed for his baseball bat before remembering that he hadn’t brought any of his equipment into the house. He got up and carefully opened the door to get a better impression of the sound.
As soon as he stuck his head into the hall, he could hear the voice clearly. It was his mother talking from the bottom of the stairs. Out here he could make out the words perfectly well.
“I know,” she said, not quite whispering but keeping her voice down. “I know, but Jeremy’s here. You know? I can’t just leave him at home when he came all this way to visit.” There was a long silence. “It’s not that. Yeah... no, you haven’t been by for even longer than he has. I love you, but my boys come first. You’ve always known that.”
Scout couldn’t hear the person she was talking to, leading him to deduce that she was on the phone. The phone was right at the bottom of the stairs, and Scout wondered if the ring had woken him up without him really hearing it. Or maybe Ma had made the call, and Scout was just sleeping very lightly.
“How long? ... Oh. Oh, wow. No, I understand. But you’re leaving on the same day he is... Look. I’ll call you back tomorrow morning and let you know for sure. Okay? ... Yeah... m-hm. Okay. I love you, too... No, no, you know how I like it. Say it right.” She laughed softly. “Yeah. Just like that. Jadoor you, too.”
She hung up the phone, and Scout closed the door. He went back to bed, and by the sound of it, Ma came right back upstairs. Scout lay down on top of his covers. This time, the cracks in the ceiling didn’t lull him back to sleep nearly as quickly as they did the first time.
The next morning at breakfast, Scout was enjoying a plate of his mother’s pancakes with her at the kitchen table. She was quiet this morning, not telling him about how great his brothers were doing or complaining about Gladys showing her up or any other neighborhood gossip she kept up on now that she had time for it. She didn’t seem sad, per se, but she did seem somewhat wistful. Scout, meanwhile, was turning the conversation he’d overheard last night around in his head. He couldn’t pick out any specific details from it, nothing he wanted to think about, anyway, but he did come to one solid conclusion: His mother wanted to meet someone, but she wouldn’t do it as long as he was here.
“So, uh...” Scout silently cursed Spy for being right about him lacking subtlety, because he needed it right now. “Is Bucky still around?”
“Still living in the same house,” said Ma. “His parents moved, and he bought it. I think he works in real estate.”
“What about Chester?”
“He works in the pawn shop. Almost got busted for taking stolen merchandise last month. Why do you ask?”
“Just thinking about some of the guys I used to run with,” said Scout. “I was thinking of catching up with one or two of them. Unless you had plans for us.”
“No,” said Ma. “I think that’s a great idea. Sometimes Penny Martin asks after you. You know she would have married you if you’d asked.”
Scout had considered it. They’d had more than a few car backseat adventures that he hoped his mother didn’t know about, but they ultimately didn’t work out because Penny turned out to be a codependent obsessive stalker. To the point where Scout was legitimately surprised she hadn’t found him in New Mexico. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he would rather not run into her.
“She just wasn’t my type,” said Scout. “I had plenty of girls lining up around the block, you know? It wouldn’t be fair to the others if I picked just one.”
“Uh-huh.” His mother was giving him her “Do you really expect me to buy that crap?” look. They both know good and well that there was one caliber of girl he naturally attracted, and it was not the kind that smelled good and could read, let alone had their glasses kind of crooked.
“I’ll go out after breakfast. Unless you’d rather I go out later.”
“You can go out anytime,” said Ma. “I might go down to the markets. They’re having half-off all root vegetables until 3 PM.”
With that settled Scout went out to explore his former neighborhood. He didn’t run into Penny, and the pawn shop said Chester wasn’t going to be in that day, but he did head down to Bucky’s house. Bucky was so pumped to see him that he invited him in for drinks so they could reminisce about high school and how the old neighborhood had changed and all of that. Scout wasn’t sure how long he should stay out, but whenever Bucky was out of beer Scout prompted him to get another, and that kept him talking until well into the afternoon.
At that point Bucky said he had to get back to work, though Scout wondered if he could even work after the amount he drank. Without much else to do, Scout went past his house to see if anyone was home. No one was, so he let himself back in and turned on the TV. He was just in time for Password, so he settled in to wait. He was surprised Ma didn’t come back in time for General Hospital, as she’d mentioned watching it regularly in some of her letters to him. When she wasn’t home by Match Game, he began poking around in the kitchen to see if he could tell what she’d planned for dinner.
Scout was just boiling a pot of water for the dried spaghetti when he heard the door open. “Hello?” came the familiar call of his mother. Scout caught a whiff of something good when she called, “Hello? Anyone home?”
Scout went to greet her. “Hey, it’s just me.”
“Good. You’re the only one I was expecting.” She was carrying a bag of Chinese takeout, clearly the something good Scout had smelled over the scent of perfume and cigarettes. “I brought dinner.”
“Good,” said Scout. “I didn’t want to have to make the sauce. Lemme get the pot off the stove.”
“You were gonna cook for me?”
“Yeah.” After cleaning, cooking was the next thing he hadn’t been able to get away with avoiding. And after his first dinner had turned out inedible, he had it impressed upon him by eight hungry and cranky mercenaries that he was going to do it right or he was going to be the dinner.
“Oh, Jeremy you’re wonderful,” said Ma. She looked like she was about to cry as she wrapped him in an enormous hug. “You really have grown up. You’re one of the best sons a mother could ask for.”
“Jeez, Ma. It’s just spaghetti.”
Ma wiped her eyes as she pulled away. “It’s not just spaghetti. You’re a very good son. I hope you know that.”
She brought the food into the kitchen with Scout as he emptied the pot and set it on the drying rack. He heard her humming as she pulled out the takeout boxes and arranged them on the table. This was interesting; Scout couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard her humming and smiling doing household chores. She wasn’t completely unmusical, but she never hummed for the sake of it unless she was in a really good mood.
“You’re in a good mood,” said Scout.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“You didn’t get the vegetables,” Scout pointed out.
Ma paused for only a second before answering, “I was late. All they had left were beets and rutabagas. No thank you.”
“What’s that song?”
“Oh, I’m not sure. I heard it on the radio.”
She did know what song it was, Scout did, too. She used to listen to it on the old turntable. It wasn’t in English, and he didn’t understand the name when it was told to him. It was a love song, he knew that much, she told him someone gave her the record when Scout was a toddler. She was practically dancing to it now, her movements light and airy like a ballerina as she got the plates, the cups, the silverware, and set them in their places.
As they sat down to eat, Scout noticed that the change in his mother’s demeanor between last night and tonight was completely different. Not in what the mood was, but in how it was expressed. Last night she had been happy to see him, but her expression was very mellow, very even. She was happy but she wasn’t jumping for joy right in the foyer. And she didn’t have to be, Scout didn’t need her to throw a parade for him to know she loved him and was glad he came.
Tonight, though, was different. Tonight her eyes were shining, she was laughing, she was smiling even when Scout turned away, he caught her every time he looked back at her. She joked more, praised more, everything about her was... more. Scout didn’t know what to make of it.
Actually, he did.
After dinner Scout cleaned up again, though it didn’t take nearly as long as it did the night before, and when he joined her the evening news was still on. “What are we watching.”
Ma got up and switched the TV off. “Nothin’.”
“Nothin’?”
“Go to the closet and pick a board game. We’re having a family game night.”
“But it’s only the two of us.”
“So? Just don’t pick something that needs teams.”
Scout ended up picking up Monopoly under the condition that they play by the actual rules, since most house rules end up making the game take months instead of just a few hours. One time they’d left the board on the coffee table and played it every night for a semester until Josh and James were throwing a softball around on a rainy day and it hit the board, knocked it over, and turned into a melee free-for-all between all the brothers before Ma threw all of them out onto the porch until they could act like civilized human beings. After that she had forbidden Monopoly until at least three of her sons had moved out, at which point she relaxed the ban to just no one leaving the board out if no one was playing it at the moment.
The game lasted two and a half hours, mostly because Scout was a slow counter. His poor math and language skills had made going to college an impossibility (not to mention his aggressive defiance had gotten him kicked out of boot camp after three days, meaning that joining the Gravel War was really his best shot at employment. At least he got to keep the dog tags.)
Ma didn’t manage to buy a single house, let alone a hotel. Scout got Boardwalk and Park Place early on, and those properties helped slowly drain her reserves. Still, she was cracking jokes the whole time: “Oh, I gotta pay you rent for Madison Avenue? Did you ever pay me a dime in rent when you were eating my food and using my electricity?” “You’re buying another house, huh? Don’t suppose you could put your Ma up in fancier digs? These walls have so many cracks they're a jigsaw puzzle.” “I'm glad I'm only in jail for not paying rent and not all the murders. Thank goodness no one’s dug up the back yard yet.” “Doctor’s fees, huh? Did you at least win the fight? That’s my boy.”
Eventually the game was over, and with a great yawn, Ma excused herself to bed. “Make sure the door is locked and all the lights are off before you go to bed, too,” she said, and with that she went upstairs. Scout waited until he heard her door close before he went to the music shelf. There were a few dozen albums and singles on the bookshelf by the TV (so called despite the fact that not a single book had ever been placed upon it.) Scout flipped through the albums until he found the one he was looking for. He’d seen it leaned up against the turntable whenever it was playing that song his mother was humming. Back then it didn’t mean anything to him, but right now he noticed that all of the words were in French. The song he couldn’t understand was in French.
Scout put the album back. He needed some air. He crossed the house to the front door, unlocked and unbolted it, and stepped out onto the shabby old porch. There was a chair near the door, but Scout didn’t take it. Instead he leaned against the wall and slid down until he was sitting. The air smelled earthy, like it did after the rain. Scout also caught the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke. Not the brand his mother or oldest brothers used to smoke, but a scent he was far too familiar with.
“I know you’re there, Spy,” said Scout.
A moment later, Spy uncloaked on the chair.
“You came here to see my mom, didn’t you?”
“I came here for a job,” said Spy. “This is a working mission for me.”
“I mean here.” Scout jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “To my house. To see my mom. It’s not a rumor, is it? It’s not just something you say to piss me off?”
Spy was eyeing Scout carefully, sizing him up the way he always did. Trying to figure out what the other one knew. He wasn’t answering, which meant he knew far more than he was willing to say and trying to find exactly where that line lay before he gave his carefully crafted response. When it came out, all he said was, “Yes, I knew your mother. It’s not something we just say.”
“You saw her today. You told her you were coming.”
“I did, and I did.” Spy pulled out his cigarette case to light one.
“Figures.” Scout sat there, knees up with his arms resting on them, quietly thinking. Then he said, “Can I bum a smoke?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Spy. “The team depends on you having clear lungs if you’re going to run the way you do.”
“All right, jeez, no need to lecture me. You’re not my mom.”
That got the faintest chuckle out of Spy. “Well, at least you’re right about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“You’re such a stuck-up prick, you know that?”
“I do.”
Scout was quiet for a few minutes, and Spy took the time to appreciate it. He looked deep in thought, though what he may be thinking Scout had no idea.
“I need to tell you something,” said Scout.
“... I’m listening.”
“My brothers tell me about my dad sometimes.” If Scout were a more perceptive man, he would have seen the way that sentence made Spy freeze. But Scout wasn’t even looking at him. His eyes were fixed on some point across the street, but at the moment he was looking into his own memories. “He was a real dick. I mean, he’d have to be if he got together with a woman, dumped an extra kid on her, and then went off to who knows where and never even called her again. But they say she was broken after that. I wouldn’t know, I mean, I guess that was before I was born. I dunno. But she wasn’t the same. She wasn’t as happy. And when I got older, I was sad that I never got to see her like that, you know?”
He looked at Spy. Spy was nodding, so Scout continued. “But today, she was happy. Happier than I’d ever seen her. And, I dunno. Maybe she hasn’t been this happy since I was little. Maybe this is the Ma that my brothers knew before I was born. And, if you were the one to make her that happy... thanks.”
It was quiet, with only the sound of distant traffic to stave off the silence. Scout couldn't tell what Spy was thinking, if he’d just said something stupid or presumptuous or what have you. Since he was profoundly uncomfortable with this whole conversation he started, he kept talking as if that would make it better. “If you’re gonna make her this happy, she deserves to have you around. Just don’t screw it up. Okay?”
Spy leaned back in the chair and exhaled some smoke before he snubbed his cigarette out. “You have my word, Scout, that I will do everything in my power and beyond to not ‘screw it up.’ I’m not going to abandon her. I’ll take care of her.”
“Good.” Scout stood up and slugged Spy in the arm in a playful manner. “I’m going to bed. If you’re gonna creep out here, can you make sure nobody tries to break in? We used to have a real problem with that.”
“Of course. I owe you both that much.”
“All right, I’m going to bed. Night, Frenchie.”
“Good night, Scout.”
Scout went inside and closed the door behind him. Once he was alone, Spy re-cloaked and, safely invisible, he let out a massive sigh of relief as every muscle in his body went slack to the point where he slid off the chair and sat with his neck against the seat. That conversation could have gone far worse. He was sure Scout had finally put the pieces together. But all he’d noticed was that his mother was happy.
It was enough for Scout. It was more than enough for Spy.
And if it wasn’t enough for her, they would both give her the world until it was.