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Chapter Seventeen - Return of Otis


I woke up late the next morning. I had an interview in downtown Nashville at noon and it was almost ten before I woke up. I took a shower and got dressed and headed downstairs to find Lauren teaching Ethan how to kickbox in the gym in our garage, where she had a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. “You let me sleep in,” I accused her.

“What time is it?” she looked at her watch, “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so late. We were doing this.”

“I’m learning how to kick ass,” Ethan informed me.

I gave him a thumbs-up, “Awesome.”

Lauren glanced at him, then back to me, “Hey I wanna talk to you later, okay?”

“Sure.” I jogged down the couple steps from the kitchen door to where she stood, kissed her on the cheek, waved to Ethan, and headed back through the house to the front door to leave.

There was a lot of traffic on the highway, and I made a probably ill-advised choice to stop at Starbucks in Cool Springs on the way up to Nashville and almost ended up late, only just barely making it in time. The radio station was on the south west side of the city, near the colleges. I was brought into the booth by an overly excited intern with bright blue hair and a nose ring that was kind of distracting. The deejay was a young guy with skinny jeans held up with suspenders and a hipster handlebar mustache that was probably left over from movember. He shook my hand and didn’t bother telling me his name, I have a feeling I was supposed to know it but I so rarely listen to the actual radio that I had no clue.

Once again, we covered the typical questions about the movie and the group, discussing when a new CD might come out, if there was a soundtrack, what it was like doing the filming, etc., and so forth, and then we started the phone calls and once more we got a bunch of the usual stuff, girls calling and squealing and telling me how long they’d loved BSB for and all that. Every time he answered a phone call, I dreaded it being my mother calling for Round Two of our Public Display of Family Drama, but it never came.

Instead, the deejay asked about it.

“So I heard about the, uh, incident on the Florida station last week, when your mom called in,” he said. “What’s the story there, how’d that all turn out, did y’all get to talk after the show?”

I took a deep breath, “I’d rather not comment on it,” I answered. “It was, and still is, a private matter.”

“I get that, I respect that,” he nodded. “Okay let’s word it like this. In the reality show your wife and you did for your wedding - I Heart Nick Carter - Lauren said that your family abuses you and you were really upset about your mom talking about you on social media. Since then, she’s spoken out saying that your accusations on the show were false, calling you a liar and saying that she’s actually the victim. What say you?”

I sighed. I stared down at my hands. Why do deejays and reporters never take I don’t wanna talk about this for an answer? I wondered.

“We didn’t lie about anything,” I answered flatly.

He nodded, “Okay. So you’re saying she lied about you being a liar?”

I took a deep breath. “Dude, I really -- I just don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

He nodded, “Okay. I respect that.”

Like hell you do, I thought.

“So in the end of the show, you and Lauren were talking about making a baby,” he said, nand I already dreaded the rest of his question. “Any news on Baby Carter?”

I shook my head, “No.”

It went on that way for a few minutes, the deejay asking wildly inappropriate questions and me fencing him off until he finally got the hint that I wasn’t going to give him any of the juicy information that he wanted, and he gave up and signed me off the air. I walked back to my car feeling kind of pissed off. I got in and pulled the door shut. I had three texts from Lauren.

Otis called again.

Asked for our address so he can come see Ethan.

Got out of Cumberland Heights early, working on getting a place for him and Ethan to stay he says.

I groaned.

Just a perfect cherry on top of the down-in-flames feeling that the radio interview had just brought on.

Quickly, I searched through my contacts and found my lawyer, Jason. I pressed my thumb to his name when I found it and when he picked up a few minutes later, I said, “What do you know about child guardianship laws?”

“Say what?”

I spent the next ten minutes describing to him the details of everything that had happened, from meeting Ethan at the Cool Springs Galleria to Otis’s plans to pick him up and my reluctance to let him. “Is there anything I can do to… I dunno… stop Otis from taking Ethan?” I asked.

Jason took a deep breath, “To me, it sounds like your biggest challenge is to make the kid realize why he shouldn’t want to go with his father... In most teen custody battles, the kid’s word is just as powerful as anything else because after a certain age they’re considered capable of making their own judgement. It’s only really extreme cases usually that a judge will rule against a kid’s wishes once they’re past that age. Usually it takes like a year to get custody granted. You can file for an emergency custodial ruling, but only in the case of proven physical, sexual, or mental abuse, not just speculation of it. And again you’d have to get the kid to go along with you.”

“Thanks,” I said. I sighed, “Look, I’m gonna talk to him and I’ll probably call you back.”

“Okay,” Jason agreed, “Sounds good.”

I drove home feeling frustrated again. I wished we’d stayed in North Carolina, where the problems had seemed further away than they did now.

Back home, Lauren was a wreck, I could see it in her eyes, but Ethan was excited as could be, oblivious to the worry in her face. “My dad’s coming tomorrow,” he told me in exhilaration as we ate an early dinner.

“Did he say why he got out early?” I asked, shoveling some green beans into my mouth.

Ethan shook his head, “No, but who cares, he’s coming!”

Lauren looked at me with eyes that were wide, wet, and full of nervous energy.

She didn’t like this anymore than I did.

When Ethan had gone to bed, eager to sleep to awaken on the day his dad would be there, Lauren and I sat on the couch until we heard the bedroom door close upstairs. She turned to me, “What do we do?” she asked in a hushed tone.

I sighed, “I dunno,” I answered. “I talked to Jason about it earlier, he said the whole thing is pretty complicated. Basically there’s not a lot we can do. Ethan wants to go with him and we have no proof besides Ethan’s word that anything ever happened between the two of them. There’s like an emergency custody thing we could do, but we’d have to have proof of abuse to do that and again Ethan’s word isn’t much help when he’s so excited about going with him.”

Lauren looked downright sick.

I shrugged.

She pursed her lips. “He shouldn’t have to be abused before we can save him from it,” she said thickly.

“I know that, you know that, the state apparently didn’t get the memo.” I shrugged.

Lauren sighed.

I nudged her, “What did you wanna talk to me about?” I asked.

“Hm?” she raised her eyebrows.

“This morning, when you were out kickboxing with Ethan, you said you wanted to talk to me tonight about something,” I supplied.

“Oh. Yeah.” She licked her lips. “When we stopped… you know… trying…. that was because of the pressure, right, not because you didn’t want a baby anymore?”

I nodded.

“Okay.”

“Why?”

“I was just curious,” she said.

I’d thought for a moment that she was about to tell me she was pregnant. I’m not going to lie, in the three seconds of silence that had hung between the word why and the I was just curious my heart had soared pretty high at the thought of it.

“I have a confession to make,” I said.

Lauren looked up at me.

“I found the pregnancy test,” I said.

“You did?” her eyes were wide.

“Yeah… I know that’s why you didn’t come out on the boat with me and Ethan, I know how the negative tests bother you,” I said. “And it’s okay. I realized when I saw it that… I still wanna keep trying with you. In my heart, I’ve been trying still.”

Lauren smiled slowly, then leaned into me and wrapped her arms around me.

“I wanted to give you a baby for Christmas,” I told her.

She drew a deep breath, “I wanted to give you one for Christmas, too,” she replied.

“Right now, I’d settle for a teenager,” I said, rolling my eyes to look up at the ceiling through which was Ethan, probably squirming with excitement in his bed, trying to fall asleep to bring tomorrow faster. I hated to think of all the hopes and dreams resting on the shoulders of this supposedly new version of his father. I hated to think what would happen if… when… those hopes were shattered. Where would Ethan land, what would happen to his ability to trust? Would he end up the way I had, lost and searching for myself for years, losing myself completely, just trying to numb the pain? I wanted better than that for him.

“Me too,” Lauren said with a sigh.




Typical to the pattern of late, it was rainy and grey out the next day. Nashville December was like that. I brought Nacho for a run in the morning because all of my muscles were tight with dread and when I got back Lauren and Ethan were up and eating breakfast. I took my egg and spinach omelette without complaining about the spinach. We ate in silence, the sounds of the silverware on the plates the only noise between the three of us.

When we’d finished eating, I took a deep breath. “Ethan, before your dad gets here, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Lauren stared at her plate.

“Okay, what?” Ethan asked. I could see the excitement and expectation in his eyes still.

“Well, see, it’s like this… when we were talking on the boat, about our dads and everything, and you said your dad’s hit you before…” I hesitated because a clouded look had come over Ethan’s face, like whatever I said next was going to go in one ear and out the other, “I just have been really worried about you going back with him is all.”

“He’s better,” Ethan replied. “He’s been to rehab.”

“Rehab isn’t a magical place, though,” I said, “It’s a medical facility and just like any other sickness in any other hospital, just because you go there doesn’t mean you leave cured. There’s still stuff you gotta do to keep the cure up or you can leave without a cure at all. Sometimes people gotta go back more than once. Usually they do. Sometimes they seem better but they get out into the world and it’s a different place. Sometimes they go back to their old ways.”

Ethan stared at me. “What do you know about rehab?” he demanded, “It’s not like you’ve been.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Ethan.”

“You’ve been to rehab?”

“I’ve been through addiction.”

“But you didn’t go to rehab, so you can’t judge it.”

I took a deep breath, “One of my very best friends went to rehab - twice - and he still struggles with his addiction.”

“Being addicted and struggling with that doesn’t mean he’s going to hit me,” Ethan snapped, “He’s not gonna drink anymore. It’ll be hard, I know that, but he’s not gonna do it. Because he loves me. He said so. And the doctor said he’s better.”

I could tell by the tone of Ethan’s voice that we weren’t going to get anywhere with the discussion, so I decided I needed to back off. I didn’t want to end up in a fight with the kid, especially on the last day he was with us. I didn’t want him to go home with Otis and feel like he couldn’t tell me if something went wrong. So I bit my tongue and backed down. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I was just concerned because I care about you and I want you to be okay.”

Ethan nodded. He was still upset. He looked down at the table, then stood up and put his plate in the sink.

The doorbell rang.

I looked at Lauren.

Nacho and Igby went running out of the room to the foyer, I could hear Nacho bouncing off the door as the bell rang again, and Ethan charged out after the dogs. “Fuck,” I muttered, as Lauren and I went out, too.

I scooped Nacho and Igby up, one under each arm, as Ethan pulled the door open and Lauren picked up Mulder, who was peeking curiously from behind the table. Otis stood on the stoop, wearing an old pair of jeans, a threadbare white t-shirt and a grease-stained red plaid flannel shirt. “Dad!” Ethan’s excitement took over and he hugged his father with joy.

Otis patted Ethan’s back. “Hey there, boy,” he said. He nodded at Lauren and I. “Mornin’ to ya,” he said.

I nodded.

“Come in,” Lauren said, waving with her free hand, “Have you eaten breakfast? We just finished, but I could make you an omelette if you’re hungry.”

“Thank you, that’d be mighty nice,” Otis replied.

Lauren turned toward the kitchen, “Nick, come put the dogs in the garage so they won’t bother Otis,” she said. She put Mulder down on the stairs and the cat rushed up the steps, body hung low to the ground and eyes glowing with distrust as he got to the top and stared down from between the banister. Nacho didn’t seem much happier, his fur was up on end around his neck and he was growling unhappily. “Nacho, stop that,” Lauren said. “Nick, go put them away.”

I carried the dogs back to the garage door. “Sorry guys,” I said as I put them down on the carpet by Lauren’s weights. Nacho tried to rush the door before I could close it, but he didn’t manage to get through. He laid down and snuffed under the door frame in frustration.

Otis and Ethan were sitting at the table when I got back to the kitchen, Lauren was mixing egg for the omelette. I leaned against the door, my arms crossed.

“So did you find a place?” Ethan was asking excitedly, practically bouncing in his seat.

“I got me an RV from a buddy,” Otis drawled, “It ain’t much to look at, just one of them ridin’ RVs but it’s got a hookup for cable and everything. Water and the like. I got me a site to keep it on up in Nashville by the Opry.”

“Cool,” Ethan said, “An RV, wow, we could drive all over with that.”

“Costs a load in gas,” Otis said, “We ain’t driving that bitch anywhere. You’re lucky I could afford the gas to come out to here.” He cleared his throat.

I had a feeling that was a pitch for gas money.

Lauren looked over at me.

“An RV,” she said, turning back to the egg, “That’s going to be awful cold this time of year, isn’t it?”

“Ain’t bad, s’gotta hookup for the electricity. I got me an area heater, should be ‘nuff to warm it up. Ain’t much square footage on a RV, you ain’t needin’ much to keep ‘er warm.”

I pictured Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation and wondered how long it’d be before Otis was in my front yard emptying his shitter into the sewer drain.

Ethan was grinning, “But it’s a start, right, dad, and when we can we can move out of the RV into a house. Real soon, right? Just as soon as we can?”

Otis shifted, “Well see, boy, that’s the thing is I was thinkin’ maybe you stay with these fine people until I can get us a real place to stay.”

I stood upright, interest peaked. This was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to hear.

“That is, if that’s alright with these people?” Otis looked around at us.

“Yes, yes that’s good, that’s fine,” I said quickly.

Lauren nodded as she flipped the omelette in the pan, “Absolutely. As long as he needs to stay.”

“But dad,” Ethan looked crestfallen, “What about spending Christmas together?”

“We can still spend Christmas together. Maybe you come up and stay with me for Christmas next week and we’ll have some eggnog and ham or somethin’. How’s that?” Otis asked.

“You could come here,” Lauren said quickly without so much as a glance at me. I cringed at the thought of spending Christmas with Otis.

Otis nodded, “Mighty fine of you, mighty fine. Might just take ya up on that,” he smiled. Lauren smiled back, though less eagerly than Otis was, and put the omelette she’d cooked onto a plate in front of him. “You got you a nice woman here,” he said to me as he breathed in the smell of egg.

“Lauren’s great,” Ethan agreed. Then he asked, “How long ‘til we get a house dad? How long would it be? I want us to be together.”

Otis started eating the egg and Lauren wiped her hands on a dish cloth. “I ain’t sure, boy, houses ain’t cheap and I ain’t got a lot of money right now.”

“What about an apartment?”

“Boy, we’ll get us a place as soon as I can, whatever shape it takes.”

“Well you have an RV, why can’t I come live with you on the RV?” Ethan persisted, “It sounds like fun.”

Otis gave him a Look, “It ain’t real spacious and I think you’re better off here with these nice people.”

“But dad --”

“Boy I done told you how it’s gonna be, don’t you be whining about it.” Otis’s voice was final and hard. Ethan sighed and stopped asking.

I glanced at Lauren, eyebrows raised.