"Seasons Change"
By Sister Rose
Rated R
Many thanks to famous99, who kindly and sweetly pointed out that the ending of this chapter was cheesetastically over my dairy limit. It might not be perfect, but I know it's better. Thanks, famous!
The characters of "The O.C." belong to Fox, and no infringement of those rights is intended in this fictional work.
Chapter 12
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The Jeep pulling up to the Chino Hills Community Center was full of worried faces.
Fortunately, Summer thought smugly, hers wasn't among them. She had no immediate connection with anything that might happen in the fraught moments to come.
Sure, she was concerned that Seth would be disappointed. But for once, nothing that could happen was her fault. Well, sort of nothing. This meeting with Mr. Cohen had been her idea, after all.
And she was the one who had bullied Atwood into setting it up. She was the one who had spent the morning convincing Seth that he should go through with the plans he had made. She was the one who had convinced Luke to stay in the car for this first meeting with Seth's dad.
Ack. She was entirely to blame. Her face joined the others' in worry. It was all her fault, every single thing that could possibly go wrong as father and son finally met again for the first time in eight years. The single most pivotal moment in her best friend's life. The meeting that could change the course of a divorced alcoholic lawyer's career. The instant when Atwood would be crushed or elated.
And that was the crux of Summer's concern. She wasn't really sure when Atwood had replaced Seth at the top of Summer's special-people list, but he had. Or maybe he had just never moved from the top of that list.
"Park anywhere," Atwood's deep voice rumbled beside her in the cramped back seat. She glanced outside in surprise. They had arrived at an unprepossessing red brick building with all the architectural style of a 1960s elementary school. Charming. She looked into the front seat at a greenish Seth as Luke set the brake on his ragtop Jeep.
"Seth, if you're going to be sick, open the door first," she instructed him.
"Probably not helping," Atwood whispered.
"So not helping," Luke agreed.
"Not a bad idea," Seth said, unlatching the door and poking his curly head out. He breathed fresh air while everyone else in the Jeep waited to see what might come up. Or out.
"But not a useful one, either," Seth concluded, pulling his head back in and closing the fabric door gently. "Maybe we should just go on back to Summer's place, catch some rays, swim some laps."
"Maybe you should stop being a little bitch," Luke said. "Get it over with. One way or another. At least you'll know. If it gets bad, you can always call your Big Gay Boyfriend to come rescue you."
Luke waggled his cell phone.
"I'm only a beep away."
Seth looked at Luke for a long time.
"Promise you won't beat him up until I say you can," he finally said.
"My fists are yours to command," Luke said.
They looked at each other like they always did when things were about to get gooey, Summer thought, rolling her eyes as they leaned across the gear shift toward each other. Time to break up the smoochy-woochiness.
"We're on a schedule," she said, sticking her watch between their kiss and pointing to it ostentatiously. "The yackfest is scheduled for after the meeting with Long Lost Dad, not before. And you guys are making me sick. Now move, so Atwood and I can get out, too."
Seth made a face at her, but he obediently reopened the door and climbed out. Atwood clambered after him, then turned and waited for Summer, offering her a hand. She scooted across the seat, placed her hand in his and felt his strong biceps take her weight as she stumbled from the Jeep into his arms. He held her for a moment, nose in her hair. She got her balance back, but she didn't move out of his embrace.
"Yackfest later, remember?" Seth said right beside her ear.
Summer offered Seth a perfunctory glare, but she moved away from Atwood. Time and place for everything. Now was the time to see Seth's dad; later would be the time to maim Seth; after that, she thought, she could work in a little uninterrupted time with Atwood and her four-poster.
Seth patted his cell phone, reassuring himself of its presence, and turned toward the building entrance. "C-ino H--ls Communi—C-en-er," according to the sign in front. Below the official lettering, a thoughtful individual had hand-spray-painted an invitation to call Debbie for a good time.
"Who's Debbie?" Summer said, elbowing Atwood in the ribs.
"My sister," Atwood said.
Seth stopped. He turned around.
"Your sister?"
A long pause.
Atwood finally said, "Kidding."
Deadpan.
Seth gave Atwood a long look. Summer gave Atwood a long look. Atwood looked blandly back at both of them, eyes open wide in apparent innocence.
Seth turned around again and marched away determinedly. He must have decided it was better to face his father than more of Atwood's so-called humor.
Summer grabbed Atwood's hand and mouthed "thank you" at him.
He smiled.
Summer didn't let go of his hand as they entered the metal double-doors painted an eye-catching shade of puke.
They walked as a group into the entry.
"This way," Atwood said, dropping Summer's hand and taking the lead down a long, dark, narrow corridor that smelled like industrial-grade disinfectant.
His knuckles tapped a wooden door near the end of the hall.
"Mr. Cohen?" he said. "It's Ryan. I've brought Seth."
The door opened so fast that Summer felt a breeze.
A man stood in the door, with Seth's dark, curly hair and Seth's eye shape and Seth's mouth and Seth's rumpled way of wearing clothes and Seth's eyebrows.
The man carried himself with confidence and diffidence, the same combination that said "Seth" to Summer.
The man's dark gray suit had clearly seen better days, but it had been expensive when purchased. Telltale store creases on the crisp white shirt gave away its newness, but the silk tie was well worn. The man smoothed it down a couple of times, the same nervous gesture Summer had seen Seth use so often.
"Come in," the man said.
He gestured toward a musty room full of mismatched chairs and donated wooden tables, all deeply carved with initials and hearts and death threats.
The back wall was shelved with clothbound hardbacks. The chalkboard at the front of the room was covered with case names and arrows and exclamation points.
Summer jerked her attention back to Atwood, who was introducing her. Mr. Cohen noticed her interest and motioned toward the chalkboard.
"From last night's class," he said in a booming voice that had at one time swayed judges and juries to his side of cases. "Property rights of renters."
"Glad to see you're still helping the downtrodden," Seth said, studying the chalkboard.
"It's all I can do since I lost my son," Mr. Cohen said. He was turned more toward the chalkboard than toward Seth. Summer wondered how such a kind man could have hurt Seth so badly.
"You didn't lose him," Seth said. "You walked away from him and never found your way back. Though I see you kept the tie he gave you for Father's Day when he was in fourth grade. Even if you couldn't keep up with the actual defective kid."
Mr. Cohen nodded and then shook his head.
Well, Summer thought, that was a profoundly uncomfortable piece of truth-telling. In the awkward silence that followed, Summer found herself hoping Seth could forgive this rumpled, well-meaning man. She and Atwood should probably leave the family drama now that it had started, but Seth and Mr. Cohen were blocking the door. She reached out for Atwood's hand again and pulled him toward the windows. They could offer that much privacy and would still be able to hear. Perfect! Not that she was snoopy or anything.
"I still have a picture the world's most wonderful kid drew for me when he was in kindergarten," Mr. Cohen said. "It's a picture of the kid with his beautiful mother and his defective father. The wonderful kid told me it was the perfect family. Too bad the defective father ruined it for everyone."
There was a long silence.
"The family wasn't perfect," Seth said, looking at his fingernails. "The boy might have heard a lot of yelling before the divorce came through. So I guess the dad wasn't totally to blame. The kid might not have taken the mom's side, except the mom was the only one left at home. That and the grandpa."
"I heard about Caleb," Mr. Cohen said. "I'm sorry. I only heard about your mom when Ryan told me."
"A thief and a dupe and an absentee," Seth said. "The defective didn't have exactly the greatest role models and is sort of afraid he's going to go down the family primrose path and that's why the kid can't really keep a relationship going and has only three friends but then again, all these people had everything going for them right up to the point when the defective kid entered their lives, so the defective kid kind of thinks he might be the problem, not all the other people. So the defective drinks, too, not that that's any of the business of the absentee, and he tried to get along with the dupe and took a job with the thief and it was really only because the defective started getting drunk at work and had to go to rehab and then get a different job that the defective didn't go to jail, too, not that the absentee cares or at least …"
"The defective drunken absentee father cares," Mr. Cohen interrupted. Good thing. Seth could keep that sort of babble up for hours.
"And he's sure the defective mom cares, too," Mr. Cohen went on. "Maybe the wonderful family was really a defective family, and that's why it worked. Maybe it quit working when all the defective members of the family started thinking they had to be perfect.
"But this defective father loves his defective kid. My Setheleh. If he'll forgive me. Even if he doesn't. I love him forever."
Summer heard Seth's gulp for air past tears and could picture him scrubbing his eyes. She held her breath and bit her lower lip, waiting for Seth's response and found herself wiping her own tears.
Seth spoke.
"I love you, too, Dad."
