This chapter takes place in Plattsburg, New York. Liam and Jay have lived there for a few months, after leaving the city. Things had been going well, until they hit a bump in the road called the holiday season. Liam is homesick for Chicago and isn't shy about telling his father his feelings. At the end, Jay parts with a few revelations as to what drove him from Chicago. Next week will be a follow-up on this one. Then we'll see where we go next. (I have been working on the requests)

I Just Want To Go Home

Jay

"Have you forgotten who you're talking to?" I ask, looking over at Liam who is in the middle of a teenage tantrum about Christmas travel, or non-travel plans. He wants to go back to Chicago and I have said no, more than once. He is still twelve but is certainly sharpening up his teenage skills of arguing and I have about had it.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. I cooked a turkey that came out pretty tasty. Liam made some side dishes and we welcomed a single co-worker of mine who had no family in the area. But before his break from school was over he had started in about going home for Christmas. There was no hesitation in my denial to his request and the near daily arguments began.

"You have to work and I'll just be sitting here. I can stay at Uncle Will's."

It was true I hadn't been here long enough to garner any time off. With Christmas Eve and Day landing on the weekend I didn't need any time. I did manage to get the morning of the 26th off, but I didn't dare ask for more. It wasn't uncommon for the dealers to up their distribution during the chaos of the holiday season and there was a possibility I could even get called out over the holiday weekend.

"I'm sure you can find something to do during your vacation and besides I'm sure Will is working as well. All you'll do is sit in his apartment."

"But at least I'll be at home." He had shot back, raising his voice at the word home. This last go-around had escalated to where he had accused me of not allowing him to go because I didn't want him to tell Hailey that I had been talking to his teacher on a few different nights. I had met her a local diner for dessert and coffee and at a bookstore to hear a discussion on banned books. But both times the reason to get together was to talk about Liam. He thinks he is seeing something that isn't there, or maybe it is, a slight spark, I'm not even sure. But that's where I shut him down. Besides he wouldn't need to be in Chicago to share his beliefs with her.

"I asked you a question. Have you forgotten who you are talking to?" I ask him again. He exhales forcefully through his nose.

"No I haven't. I'm talking to my captor," he bellows.

"Room. Now!" I point in the general direction of the stairs.

"I can book the tickets myself," he threatens.

It's a bluff and we both know it but it reminds me of something. "I want your phone," I tell him holding my hand out for it.

"Why?" He asks staring back at me. And to think it wasn't all that long ago that I had wished he would stop being so well-behaved. I'm beginning to regret that.

"Because you're being punished," I point out the obvious.

He hands me the phone, but reluctantly. I can tell he is trying to think of a way he can continue the argument. But he just turns and stomps up the steps.

Liam

I am so angry. My guidance counselor told me to write a journal, that it would help me with my feelings. She told me to write my pros and cons for everything when I felt conflicted and it would help clarify things for me. But I had already done that, Dad had asked me a couple of months ago what was good about being here and what I missed about home. I just wanted to go home for a couple of weeks. He was being so unreasonable, but he was claiming I was being unreasonable. What was so irrational about just wanting to be home, the place where I had lived my whole life? Nothing that's what! I took my journal out and used my red pen to stab out the words: I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!

I could travel by myself, but Dad said he wasn't comfortable with that. And he said that he didn't have the time or money to take me there and back. So here I sit. Of course if I went back to Chicago I wouldn't just sit in Uncle Will's apartment. I'd go out and see everything that I miss in the city. I didn't expect it to be this hard. I struggled when we first got here, but then everything felt better, but with Christmas coming the homesickness hit me hard. Christmas in the city was special. We would skate in Millennium Park, track down so many Christmas trees around town that we would lose count. The Christmas parade, the storefronts on Michigan Avenue, the Christkindlmarket, all the things that make Christmas special and they're all in Chicago. Just last year we did it all and we had done as a family—the three of us. Dad pushed me and Hailey to bond and then just like that took it all away. I don't understand how he could just leave Chicago and leave her so easily. I knew things hadn't been great the last couple of months before we left, but I didn't realize their relationship had been so fractured. He was never good with women, women who weren't my mom anyway. I still remember when they would be together and everything felt right. It was if the atmosphere would change in the room when they were together. The world seemed to slow, relax. Or maybe I'm just making up the scenario that I preferred. I know he loved Erin, they felt good together, but at the same time it didn't feel sticky enough to last—and it didn't. I didn't see Hailey coming at all. I knew they got along well, but I didn't get any romantic vibes. And when they insisted they were there I didn't have a choice to but to accept it. But everything felt forced with them. Like there was a reason that pushed them to blindly reach out for one another and they held on for dear life, until whatever it was lessened its grip on them and then they lost their hold on each other.

I knew they were done, even if Dad insisted they weren't. But I could see it even if he couldn't. He barely spoke to her. I saw three missed calls from her in his phone log last week and no return calls. I wanted to check for texts but he was coming down the stairs so I had to put his phone back. Was he running from the job or her? Maybe both I guess. And why did we have to move so far to get away? Couldn't he have just moved us back to Bucktown and gotten a different job? Did he marry Hailey because of me? Did he think he wasn't enough or that I was too much for him? We had had good talks since we've been here, but there never seemed to be enough answers.

He's denying having feelings for Mrs. Finley, but I can see that look in his eye. Oh sure it isn't anything overt, but I can tell. She's going through a divorce I guess, I heard her tell Dad that. She doesn't wear a wedding band, but he still has his on—I think. She's an okay teacher, pretty nice. She has me read different books for English class sometimes and then for extra credit she gives me a reading list. She's trying to keep me engaged, she tells Dad, but I think she's trying to engage with him. She always wears nail polish on her fingernails; dark colors or bright red. I don't like it. My mom never wore nail polish and Hailey didn't either.

I saw them at the local diner a few days ago. They were sitting in a booth by the window eating lunch. I was supposed to be in school but had slipped out for lunch so I really couldn't say anything about it. School security here is beyond lax. He had a happy look on his face, one I hadn't seen in a while. I didn't know if it was because he was happy to be away from Chicago, the Intelligence Unit or to be with her. As I was standing there, she got up and began to put her coat on so I stepped further away. They didn't kiss or anything, not even a hug, but something just felt weird about it all.

If he isn't going to stay with Hailey the least he could do is let her know. He is living his own life here and she is still living as if they are a couple. I can't wrap my head around exactly why we are here and what made him run so far so fast. Did we move because he realized his relationship with Hailey was a mistake and this was the easiest way to leave her? But that didn't seem right either. I couldn't imagine him going to all this trouble just to split up with her.

I wouldn't tell her my suspicions even if I went to Chicago. At least I don't think I would. She texts me a lot, but doesn't ask about Dad. I don't think she wants to put me in the middle and I appreciate that. Scott at school has his mother pump him about what his father is doing and vise versa. He said it totally sucks.

Jay

Liam is late and not answering his phone. It's early, but dark already. I can see by the app he is over towards the center of town heading this way. But he didn't let me know that he was going anywhere after school, which is rule number one, or answer my inquiries which is rule number two when rule number one is forgotten or ignored. I debate whether or not to drive to him or let him come to me. We barely spoke yesterday, he spent much of the evening in his room, claiming he had a ton of homework. I understand his desire to return to Chicago, I wouldn't mind going back into her depths, but it's just not possible right now, for multiple reasons. Besides we wouldn't be able to recreate the Christmas magic that he is hoping for. I fear our Chicago magic is all but gone. I miss the city, I miss my friends and I miss my brother. But I don't miss much of the rest, and it's the rest that is the burden that I can't pretend isn't heavy.

I can't make Liam any promises about future visits, because I don't know if I'll be able to go back anytime soon. It's not just the job, it's the way I left Hailey. It was so wrong and I knew when I promised her that it would be temporary I already knew it wouldn't be. It's not that I had fallen out of love for her, it's just that I realized I never had been. Oh I had feelings for her, big feelings that I wanted to believe was love, but I soon discovered wasn't. I had been her advocate, fighting for her against the FBI, sacrificing a piece of myself to keep her safe, so in my mind that had to be love. Those are the things you did for people that you loved. And if I looked even deeper I liked what I saw even less. I wanted a partner to help me with my son. Someone else to bear the weight of his growing up. To ease my responsibilities of single parenthood. I didn't know if another opportunity would present itself. A woman who knew the ravages of the job, the hours, the stress. Who Liam already knew. Who knew and loved Chicago as much as I did—the irony in that. Hailey filled all that. And I thought I loved her. But it had started out as a lie. She had asked me to marry her after the Roy Walton murder, I had been her lifeboat, then she became mine. I tried and I really thought I could make it work, that we could make it work, but that night in the warehouse something snapped and I knew there was nothing left to tether us together. I couldn't continue to go down the road that she was so comfortable with and that part of her scared me. I had done plenty of wrong things for the right reasons, but I just couldn't live like that anymore. The constant lies, the sidestepping of facts, the twisting of narratives. She and Voight, easily launched right into a plausible story and I just couldn't do it again. Because there would be another time and another time after that and each lie took a bite from me and sooner than later there would be nothing left.

I didn't recall making a conscious decision about what to do, go find Liam or just start dinner. But I here I was chopping vegetables for dinner and finishing my second beer when I didn't recall having the first one. I picked up my phone and checked Liam's progress as I looked down at Win who was busy hoovering up any piece of food that fell to the floor. I had just put the phone back on the counter when I heard the front door open. I put the knife down and headed to the door.

"Where have you been?" I asked sharply.

"Skating. I texted you." He said as he set his skates and backpack down.

"No you didn't," I replied pulling my phone from my pocket and double-checking. "I called you twice and texted you twice with no response to anything and no message from you," I told him, relieved that I hadn't missed his message.

"I left my phone in my backpack in case I fell. I didn't want to crack it." He tells me as he digs his phone out from his bag and looks at it. "Oh, I wrote the message but never sent it. I must not have hit send hard enough." He says showing me the phone.

"Why didn't you check your phone when you were done skating?"

"Because I thought I told you where I was. You complain I'm on my phone all the time, but here I was outside and not on it and you still have problems. I can't get a break. I left it on, you could have tracked me."

"I did track you."

"Okay then, what's the problem?"

"Next time make sure your message goes through."

"Sorry."

"Want to help me with dinner?"

"Not really. I need to start my homework. And I'm tired." He said as he pulled his boots off.

I watch him shed his coat and head up the stairs, followed by the dog.

Liam

I hadn't forgotten to text him. I purposely hadn't and then I wrote the message out a block away with the excuse that I had forgotten to send it. The rest was true, my phone was in my bag and it was on so that he could track me. But I noticed the missed calls and texts right after I got off the ice. I don't know why I ignored them or didn't text him what I was doing. I guess I am still mad at him. Christmas break starts in a few days and all I can think about is Chicago. I look at the posters on my bedroom wall that he got me of the skyline and iconic city buildings and wish I was there. Sometimes when I first wake up in the morning I forget that I'm not in the city anymore. It's so hard to sort out my feelings because on one hand I love that I'm with my dad and no longer have to share him with a ridiculously time-consuming job and a wife. But on the other hand this just isn't home. One is more important that the other but I just can't let the loss of my hometown go, and the only person to blame is the one who dragged me here. And he happens to be the one I love most in the world.

I think back to my short story about my mother aka the witch in the woods and wonder what she is doing right now. I wonder where she is and I wonder if Dad wonders. People have asked me about my mom and I just tell my parents split when I was little and I've been with my dad ever since. Nobody has bothered to ferret out anything more, which is fine. But at the same time it's weird and unsettling that nobody knows. I text some old friends regularly and Uncle Will too. I used to text Hailey every day, but now it's like a few times a week. I wonder if she knows we're never coming back.

Dad calls me for dinner and I head to the bathroom to wash my hands and splash some water on my face. When I look at him I love him so much all the while I hate him for upending my life. If I was in Chicago and he was in Bolivia I'd be losing my mind, and even though I'm somewhat distraught here, I know I'd be much worse off in the city I love without the father I love. I have to keep reminding myself that. But it is still so hard when you want it all. Why can't we have it all?

Jay

I finally hear Liam and Win thump down the stairs. He looks worn out and I hope that means less energy to fight about what he can't have. He sits across from me at the table and digs into his veggie chili. I cooked up hamburger and added it to mine. I do eat less meat having a vegetarian child, but cannot completely give it up. He jumps up saying he forgot something and reappears a minute later with one of those energy drinks; something he knows I won't allow.

"Where'd you get that?" I ask calmly.

"Jeremy gave it to me."

"You know I don't want you drinking those. They're all sugar and caffeine."

"You don't let me have anything. You know I can drink soda when I'm by myself."

I am fully aware that he is growing up and reaching for his independence, but of course he can't pass up an opportunity to remind me. "I know that. Do you? Do you drink soda when you are out with your friends?" He remains silent, uncertain what to say now that he has invited this conversation out into the open.

"I don't really like it," he quietly admits. "It's too sweet and gross."

"What do you think that will taste like?"

He shrugs and then pops the top and takes what looks like a small sip. "Yuck. It's worse than soda," he says and gets up and goes to the sink. He returns with a glass of water, discolored slightly by the drink he had just claimed to dislike. "I put just a little in for flavor."

"Good compromise." I can tell he is somewhat surprised that I hadn't demanded that he dump it first thing, which is exactly why I didn't. I was finally figuring out a thing or two on how to handle teenagers and their demanding ways. Even if I am in the right, arguing with him is an exercise in futility, as the realm of teen-world makes zero sense so any logical argument is nothing but a waste of breath. Same with butting heads, I end up with the headache. So now I let him decide a few things for himself and am happy that most of the time he chooses what I had hoped for without the argument. Plus he feels he has some control in the matter. Win-win in my book. What do you know, twelve years into it and I'm finally getting a clue how to parent.

"So I guess you're not going to surprise me with a plane ticket to Chicago?"

"You guessed right. I spoke with Uncle Will last night and told him he is welcome here anytime. I had hoped that maybe he could get away for a few days over Christmas, but he said he volunteered to work the entire weekend."

"Because he has no family left in Chicago," Liam eagerly points out. "Can't you take me there? I won't tell Hailey about how you like my teacher."

I practically drop my spoon. "First of all, no I can't. We're going to spend Christmas together. I mean look at that great tree," I tell him pointing in the general direction of the living room and our freshly cut tree. In an effort to make new holiday traditions and fun we went out to a Christmas tree farm and cut down our own. We walked through over a foot of snow and found the perfect tree and I even let him saw it down once I got it started. Then we went and picked out ornaments and lights and made quite the day of it.

"You could come to Chicago for Christmas, then Uncle Will wouldn't be alone."

"So you want me to fly to Chicago with you on a Saturday, fly home on Sunday, then fly back to Chicago on Christmas Eve and then fly back here on Christmas morning and then fly back to Chicago the next Saturday and then back here on Sunday?"

"I guess not," he says dejectedly. "But here isn't home. You said fly to Chicago then back home, Chicago is home." I'm not sure what to say to that so I take a bite of chili. "You need to talk to Hailey. You need to visit her." He tells me after pushing his food around the bowl.

"You need to leave our relationship to us." I reply.

"But you aren't doing anything Dad. You don't call or text her. You're getting divorced I just know it."

"You weren't particularly thrilled with our marriage to begin with, why are you so concerned now?" I ask as I wonder how he knows that I haven't called or texted her.

He doesn't reply, just pushes his bowl away from him. "I know you like Mrs. Finley and I sure as hell know that you can't go eight months without having sex so you need to go see Hailey!" He snaps.

Now I do drop my spoon and it clatters loudly as it hits my bowl. "Excuse me? My sex life is none of your business young man. What I can and can't do shouldn't even enter your mind." He sits quietly, arms folded, looking wounded as Win whines, quietly sensing something in the air. Liam had zeroed in on our sex life a while back, claiming it was the glue in our marriage, his newfound testosterone talking I suppose.

"I haven't told Hailey you like Mrs. Finley, that you have meetings with her all the time. I know that she misses you and you miss her too, you have just forgotten what it's like when you are together."

"Tell me why you are thinking about all of this?" I ask him trying to stay reasonable.

"Because Hailey is in Chicago and if you still love her then we'll go back. Or maybe you left her before she could leave you. I mean Mom left and Erin left so you left first this time. But we still can go home even if you don't get back together. I just want to go home, and I want you home with me and I hate that I can't have both."

I sit back finally understanding his fixation on Hailey and our marriage as well as deep seated abandonment issues. I think he knows as well as I do that there is little hope for our reunion. I knew this move would be difficult, but I thought by now he would have adjusted a little more, assimilated into small town life. But the Christmas season has brought all kind of angst with it—damn holidays, more of a curse than anything. I don't want to rehash the same things that I have been telling him since we arrived, but I don't know what else to say. I know that he can't understand the depth of my need to get away from not only the Intelligence Unit but everything and everyone around it. Perhaps it's time to share a little more, allow him the understanding of just how important it was for me to start over. I start talking and our food is long cold before I finish.

I don't tell him everything of course, but I tell him a lot, enough so that he understands the magnitude of all that I had been dealing with over the last couple of years. The Walton case, no specific details, but he already knew enough that I didn't need to add them. That the FBI had included him in the case, and even from a distance that was unacceptable. I never felt the same after the incident, fearing that Liam would be sucked into some kind of legal vortex at any moment. I didn't tell him of the exact encounter with Joey North, but gave the gist that I had to do something I didn't want to in order to get us out from under suspicion because we didn't follow all the rules. The warehouse where my final decision had been made, I left out the stabbing part, but gave him enough to know that I was tired of the tangled mess that my life and career had become. That the spinning of stories was no longer going to be part of my life.

He sat and listened, not once interrupting. His eyebrows raised and lowered and his eyes occasionally moistened. I feared that I was overwhelming him and terrified that I wouldn't be able to take anything back that I had said. This would leave a stain, one that would last forever, but I just didn't know what else to do. My biggest fear was that he would hate me, fear me, or no longer have any respect for me. I hadn't planned on dumping this on him, but there was something about his admission to not liking soda or the energy drink that made me realize he is able to see the bigger picture; that he is maturing. I had totally expected him to claim that he loved soda and drank it all the time, even if it was a lie. I also imagined there would be an escalating argument over his energy drink, that he would drink it until I physically took it away from him. The fact that he told me the truth despite the fact that it was exactly what I wanted to hear, allowed me to believe he could accept some difficult truths. Now he sat there across the table from me mute. I don't want to pressure him to react or say something, so we sit quietly for a minute.

Liam

I had no idea. I mean I knew he carried a heavy load but I had no idea how heavy. I know he is waiting for me to say something, anything, but I can't make my tongue work. He had been a scraped and bruised when we left Chicago, a result of his run-in inside the warehouse. I know he left out details out, that the ordeal had been bigger than he let on, but I would spare him any demand to know more, because, I really didn't want to know any more. Besides he would never tell me anyway. All the nights he came home with bruises or moving slowly, stiffly, the stories he kept to himself—how many of them had become battles he had never stopped fighting. How much he has protected me by swallowing the truth. I am beginning to realize just how imperative it was that he get away from all of that. Like switching schools when your circle of friends has become something unrecognizable and you can feel the damage and devastation leaking into your soul. And once it takes hold, there is no more room for the few pieces of you that is left. We are here because if we weren't, there would be no more Dad left. His desperation is clear and he trusted me enough to share it.

"I'm sorry," I finally utter, lost in a blitzkrieg of thoughts and emotion.

"Me too. I didn't want to uproot your life, but I really had no other option. If I was going to save myself, save us, then we had to go."

I shove my chair back and stand up; I don't have any plan, not even sure why I got up. I stand there as Win thumps her tail as if she is going to be on the receiving end of something great. Dad gets up as well with an uncertainty that paints his face. I'm sure he is wondering if he has said too much. I lick my lips and stall because I have no idea what the right thing to do is. Suddenly I burst into tears, my body shuddering as if I had been hit. It only takes a moment before I feel my dad's arms around me, pulling me close. I hear him apologizing as if his survival is something that needs restitution. I feel like such a loser, putting him through so much when he was just trying to endure his present while dealing with his past. I apologize again through my sobs and there we stand for what feels like seconds or hours.

Once we part, we put the dog outside to spare her the rampant emotions that are flying around. She doesn't hesitate as I open the door. In seconds she is tossing her rope toy over her head and galloping after it. I envy her ability to focus on what is in front of her, which lucky for her, is simply a rope toy. I have a broken father to attend to.

I open my mouth and Dad, knowing me so well, puts his hand up. "You don't owe me anything, I didn't tell you all that so you would feel sorry for me. What has happened to me is my responsibility and mine alone. My choices and decisions have brought me here and I'm sorry that you had come along for the ride. That's why it is so important to me that you have better judgment. Why I push you the way I do, demand the things I do."

"Respect you." I add knowing just how important that is to him.

"Yeah, respect me, because if you respect me, then you'll listen to me and if you listen to me then maybe one day you won't have to have the burden of a life filled with secrets and lies and memories you'd rather forget."

I sit down on the couch, my breath rushes out of me as I do. I sit as he stands, neither of us certain of what should happen next. We both start to talk at the same time but I push him to go first.

"If you hadn't been born, if you hadn't been in my life, I don't know where I would be now. No, wait, I think I do." He stops and is quiet for a minute. I don't know what he is thinking or if he'll say what is on his mind so I finally ask.

"Where would you be?" I wait to hear his answer, but it doesn't come so finally I speak again. "I know where you would be, Bolivia, you'd be in South America."

Jay

I'm so glad Liam answered his own question because the word on the tip of my tongue is one he should never hear. I was ready to tell him that I would be dead. But a twelve-year-old boy does not need to hear that he is the reason that his father is alive; it is simply too high of an expectation, the pressure too great. Nevertheless, he is, he is the very reason that I still walk this earth. As recently as a few months ago as the meth dealer's hands squeezed my throat closed, I had wanted to succumb and may have given up if it hadn't been for Liam's existence. There were other times in the past when all the fight was out of me and it was just easier to slip away, but I would think of him and battle my way back. However, he doesn't need to know any of this so I just smile and agree that yes, I would be in Bolivia.

After another big talk we ended up having a great Christmas. However, February held its own challenges.