" Lacrosse an Baseball...I was pretty good in Lacrosse, but I like baseball..."
" Weren't you also on the track team ?" Megan asked. She remembered watching him in ninth grade, as he gracefully sailed over the jumps...
"I tried it, but " ...he looked thoughtful a moment or two..." Mom n Dad said I needed more time to study n shit, so I dropped it.."
He crammed some more fries in his mouth, unable to keep from watching as she licked her ice cream cone.
Tommy returned with some toffee corn, and Emily, as she carried a stick of cotton candy. It was almost bigger then her head, Abel thought.
All four were sitting on a bench that faced towards Dolly's Taffy Kitchen on the boardwalk.
" I'm trying out for track this spring, but our coach says I should do Lacrosse too. He remembers you...but he's kinda strange...!"
" Strange ? What's he do? I thought Mr Zaraw taught metal n wood shop."
Abel started t grin. " Does he still say weird shit?"
" Yea , when he sends us to the locker room, he yells ..' Hope for your souls, and soap for your holes !" Tommy yelled out. People turned and stared, as his brother and Megan burst out laughing. "
The arcade wasn't overly crowded, so Abel watched Emily play Skee Ball.
" She'll play that all day if you let her " he grinned.
Megan finished her ice cream cone.
" You guys are lucky to have both you mom and dad together...it's not easy living with just my mom." She had a few memories of her dad, but not many.
" He was killed in action, right ?"
" Yeah, in Afghanistan. I was only four years old when it happened."
" Isn't your mom going out with Ryan? He's one of Opie's foremen."
Megan was taken by surprise. " Seriously? She doesn't go out with anyone...she never said shit to me about it!" But I'm gonna find out when I get home , she thought. Secrets like this weren't ok...
Abel laughed at her reaction.
" Wat the fuk? He talks about her all the time, I think it's awesome!"
" She shoulda said something to me anyway, she's my mom. It's not like it won't affect me if they hook up n get married. Jeezis, Abel, your mom an dad wouldn't keep u in the dark about shit like that...I mean if they'd ever split up!"
Megan saw his expression suddenly darken.
" What...what's wrong ?"
It took him a moment to answer.
" They would too...an they did..."
" What the hell are you talking about ? Are they splitting up?" She saw some tense moments between Jax n Tara , but they were usually arguing about Abel. Was that it?
His eyes met hers, but there wasn't any light in them...and he looked very sad.
" Mom...or I guess Tara...isn't my birth mother..."
It took a moment or two for this to sink in.
" Who told you that?"
" Mom n Dad...when I turned 16 last year, they sat down with me and told me. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around it."
His expression began to lighten again, as he looks into her eyes. " My real mom lives out in California."
" So...why did she stay away all this time?"
Emily's shrieks of delight distracted them as the Skee Ball machine announced her high score.
" Dad said she had a pretty bad drug problem when I was born an after that. So everyone decided I'd be better off with Dad. Then after he n Mom got married, they had Tommy...n then we moved here...he said I was about six at the time."
" Did you get to meet her ?" Megan was feeling morbidly curious.
He smiled, sort of to himself, she thought, as he explained further.
" Yea, she had me fly out there for a couple weeks after that. I got a step dad, step brother n step sister...their about as old as Em..."
He paused. " I was remembering how strange it was meeting them. If she kept them, why couldn't she have kept me ?"
Megan remembered her mom's battle with alcohol, and her own experience with a local ala teen group. As her mom progressed in recovery, she went to fewer meetings.
" Her priority wasn't you . It was her addiction.
So it was probably a good thing your dad stepped up. "
" I spose so..." He trailed off. " It's still kinda fukt up she waited so long to meet me..n strange dad never said anything till then too."
" Who else knows? Does your brother-?"
" Yea he knows..." Abel shook his head, remembering when Tommy called him a crack baby in the middle of an argument. It was a mistake he knew not to repeat again after a bloody beat down Abel gave him.