All the characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional.
The story is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author who can be contacted at:
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PJ
D'n'M Part 5
From Chapter 5:
"Apart from the letter there was also your sister's passport, along with her own and Domenico's birth certificates. Although the boy's certificate does not provide details of the identity of his father the bag did also contain a legal statement, signed by a notary public, confirming his status as having dual nationality due to his mother having citizenship of this country. I'm afraid I don't have any particular knowledge of the Argentine legal system but I have been assured by our people here that everything is correct and above board. You can be one hundred percent confident that Domenico is, indeed, your nephew. Now, if you're ready, would you like to read your sister's letter?"
Chapter 6:
Milo looked at D, a silent question in his eyes. Was he ready? Was he prepared for this message from his sister who he hadn't heard from for nearly half his life and who then reappears dead? A sister who had done pretty much everything she could to prove just how much she hated him. D would know. D knew him like the hand inside a glove. D would be able to tell if he was strong enough for whatever was in Kate's letter. D would be there for him if it all got too much.
Dan looked back into M's eyes. He knew what M was thinking. He was doubting himself. He was questioning whether he had the strength to see this through. Convincing himself that whatever was in Kate's letter would be too much for him to bear. But M was stronger than he knew. He had needed to be strong in order to get through all the shit and trauma he'd been dumped with just for being gay, much of it by the sister who was now expecting him to clear up her fucking mess. But whatever was in the letter he, Dan, would be by M's side all the way so, yes, M was ready.
Dan nodded. Milo quietly said, "Yes."
Ms. Lamar pressed a key on her tablet and a scanned, hand-written letter appeared on the screen. She passed the device over, got up and left the room. It was just the two of them now, as it had been for so long, just D'n'M. The letter looked battered and creased as if it had been folded up for a long time and the paper looked as if it had been torn from a school exercise book. The hand writing was untidy but legible, as if the writer had struggled but had just about managed to keep the words in the right order and also sitting on the lines printed on the paper. It was much longer than either Dan or Milo had expected.
Milo, hi.
Fuck. How to start after all this time? I'd sort of hoped you'd never have to read this letter but if you are I guess that must mean that I'm in some serious shit. Probably in jail. Maybe even dead. Definitely not a good place.
Tears welled up in Milo's eyes.
You probably don't want to know, and I totally don't expect you to care, but my life has been a pile of crap ever since that day when mum threw you out. Well, let's be honest here, when mum and me threw you out. I wouldn't blame you for not believing me but I really didn't hate you back then. I know I did everything I could to make your life shit but that had nothing to do with you as a person, as my kid brother, but everything to do with me. I know that now. I've known for a long time. I was so screwed up and angry that the only way I knew to make myself feel any better was to make sure that you felt even worse.
`Well you were certainly an expert at that,' thought Dan, bitterly.
Yes, sick and messed up I know, but it was just the way it was. Honestly, it was nothing personal but you were way too easy a target and I needed someone, something to get mum's attention away from me and the total screw up I was making of my life. So you being gay and so deep inside the closet, well, that was too good an opportunity to pass up. I look back now, most days, and realise that all the stuff that's happened to me since then, at least all the bad stuff, has been the perfect payback for being the complete bitch that I was to you. I'd say sorry but what would be the point? Yeah, it'd be totally genuine, `cause I am really, really sorry, but it wouldn't change anything, it wouldn't turn the clock back or somehow wipe away all the shit I put you through. But I'd like you to believe me when I say that I wish it hadn't happened and I genuinely regret all the crap you had to put up with because of me.
Un-fucking-believable,' thought Dan, angrily, You leave it fifteen years without a word and when you do, finally, come crawling out of the woodwork, you still can't properly say sorry. Fucking typical.'
I dunno how much you know about me and my life since dad had me put in rehab but him and me, we've kept in touch, on and off, over the years so maybe he's filled you in on some of the details. Hopefully not the really bad ones.
Reading this sentence was a real shock to Milo. Yes, he knew there'd been some communication between his sister and dad over the years but he'd never been told any more than that Kate wrote when she wanted money. Nothing about where she was or the sort of life she was living. `Why didn't you tell me, dad? Why not?'
I used to blame them so much for all the stuff that went wrong, dad and mum I mean. How did they ever think they could make a marriage work, much less a family? What a toxic fucking double act they were, her so superior and up herself, thinking she was so good at hiding the drink and the men. And him, spending as much time as he could away from home, away from her, and not giving a fuck about you and me. But somehow I always blamed him more, convinced myself that he loved you more than me and that he really didn't have any time for me at all. But I always thought I was something special to her. Who was I kidding?
`Yeah, who were you kidding, Kate? When did your mum ever think of anyone other than herself?' Dan remembered all the times that M had spent at the Reed house, desperate to get away from his own mother.
You remember how pissed off you used to get when me and mum had our "just us girls" talks, when we said we were talking about The BD'? Well the BD' was dad -- The Big Disappointment. She used to bitch all the time about how, when she married him, she expected they would be living in a big house on Lavender Hill and have a private jet and a chalet in some uber-glam Swiss ski resort. So when she realised he had no interest in any of that stuff, just wanted to be an okay businessman and Mr. Nice Guy, she decided she was going to make sure I didn't make the same mistake, at the same time as making his life as much of a misery as possible. Fuck, she was so good at it. It was during those weeks in rehab that I began to see that it was all way more complicated than I ever knew and that the only totally innocent member of the family was you and that the rest of us had done a fucking wonderful job of screwing you over.
`Too fucking right,' thought Dan.
I knew I was pregnant when I went into rehab, knew the dad was the low-life dealer I'd hooked up with to piss mum off. When I got out of the `facility' there was no way I was gonna go back to any of the old stuff, not mum and dad and definitely not the low-life. So I spoke to the rehab social worker, told her I wanted a fresh start with a job and my own place. Didn't tell her about the baby of course, thought I'd probably use the cash to get rid of it. Not having any qualifications, she said there wasn't much choice but what about working as a nanny, maybe abroad? That way, she said, I'd have a job and free housing in a place where nobody knew me and I could start over, away from temptation (she meant the drugs) and maybe, later, when I was properly sorted, I could come back to prove that I wasn't a waste of space. That's how I described myself when I first went into that place.
And you were right,' thought Dan bitterly. A waste of space that came close to tipping my M over the edge. Don't think I'll ever forgive you for that because I won't.'
So that's how I ended up living here. At first it was New York with the family of a fairly low-ranking Argentine diplomat. It was all really new and exciting and the kids were great but he was near the end of his posting and when they asked me to go back to Buenos Aires with them I agreed cause I couldn't think of a reason not to. So we're back home' and I've not done anything about the baby so, of course, once they realise I'm pregnant, being good, loyal Catholics, they want me out, like yesterday. And that's when everything started to turn the colour of runny shit.
`Here comes the sob story,' thought Dan.
Things weren't too bad at first. I managed to find jobs in bars and cafes which paid enough, just, for me to afford somewhere to live. The places were usually pretty crappy but not too bad. And it's amazing how quickly you can learn a foreign language when you totally have to. But long hours in some random bar in downtown BA is not the ideal situation when you're 7, 8 months pregnant and the baby's about to drop. So the work dried up which meant I couldn't pay the rent so the next stop was sleeping rough in the park or under a railway bridge on the wrong side of town. Believe me, not good. Get that low and there's not many choices. I got friendly with another girl, couldn't have been more than 15, 16. Sofia her name was. She'd been thrown out of home cause of having a kid but was still able to afford a place of her own. So I asked her how she managed and she said there were men who really went for pregnant girls and would pay decent money, and then she laughed and said the best thing was they'd pay more cause they couldn't get you pregnant!
That's sick,' thought Milo. Sick and low and desperate.' He meant the men, not Sofia or his sister.
Yeah, I know, how low could I get? But you've no idea, little brother, no idea at all. And don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. You don't ever want to know what it's like when you hit the bottom, what you'll do so you don't sink even lower.
So I'm doing okay for a while but then the baby comes and suddenly, of course, no one wants a flabby belly and a loose snatch, even if I'd been in the mood for it, which I wasn't. So I'd got this tiny baby who wouldn't stop crying cause I couldn't get the hang of feeding him right and, surprise, surprise, the landlord didn't want an out of work hooker with a screaming kid so, like before, I didn't have many choices. Then Sofia helps me out again. She sets me up with a guy named Miguel, bit of a local Mr. Big, says he can sort me out with regular work doing simple stuff like taking messages and parcels to his business partners'. Well, we meet and, cutting to the end of a not very nice story, it's not long before me and Nico are travelling all round the place -- Brazil, Mexico, Colombia -- delivering Miguel's special cargo'. He says we're perfect cause who's gonna suspect a young mum with a tiny baby, especially one who won't stop crying?
`A drugs mule? Shit, sis, just how low can you get?'
Eventually we were even going to America and places in Europe. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, how could I do that? How could I sink so low and be so stupid? How could I put my kid in danger like that? The answer's simple. I wasn't stupid but I was desperate. Believe it or not, right up to the time Nico was born, I'd been clean. Nothing had gone up my nose or into my bloodstream, nothing at all, honest. But after, when he wouldn't shut up and the landlord was on my back to get out, that's when it all got too much and I needed something to help me get through the day (and the night) and it was then that Sofia put me onto Miguel.
`That's right Kate, blame someone else for the mess you made, even your own baby.' Dan was getting angrier and angrier the more of the letter he read.
And at the start it was all so easy. I'd collect the stuff, hide it somewhere no-one was ever gonna look (butt holes are favourite), even, sometimes, somewhere on Nico. And Miguel was right, a young mum was perfect cover. I almost never got stopped and, if I did, I just had to pinch Nico and make him cry for the guards or police of whoever to back right off.
But it was all too easy and I was sampling too many of the goods and pretty soon there was no way I was in any state to get through customs or passport control. One time when I got stopped, Mexico City it was, and I'd got an unusually big drop to make (a rush job, Miguel had said it was) and I'd hidden it in the lining of Nico's jacket. Yes, you've guessed it, I got stopped and strip searched (nothing up my butt that time, thank fuck) but I did manage to ditch the jacket before the guards searched the baby. So I got out okay but without either the goods or any payment for them from the customer. When we got back to BA Miguel went apeshit. I'd seen him mad before but nothing like this. I'll never know how I survived the beating he gave me. I've still got a damaged hand where the bones never healed properly.
`Oh poor Kate. I'm gonna cry. Are those violins I can hear playing in the background?' There was no way Dan was going to waste any sympathy on her.
And that was it for me and La Casa de los Suenos, at least for a long while. Me and Nico went back to how things had been before Miguel, but now it was worse `cause Social Services knew about him and they were desperate to take him away from me and put him in a children's home or give him to some stuck up family who wanted to look as if they were really special by taking in some low-life kid off the streets. No way.
Milo thought he could understand why Kate had been so anxious, but surely, he wondered, life with a family who wanted a baby and who could give him a decent life would have been better than what he was getting with her, even if she was his mum.
So we had to keep moving on and he grew up seeing a lot of stuff that no kid ever needs to see and doing stuff that no kid should ever have to do. He developed some pretty sharp edges but that was how it had to be or he wouldn't have survived. Eventually, I don't remember exactly how, we ended up back at La Casa. There was no way Miguel would ever trust me again, not like he had before, but I knew how to keep his visitors' happy, happy and spending money, cause, let's face it, I'd had a lot of practice over the years, out there on the streets, in the back alleys and dark corners. At La Casa at least we had our own room, me and Nico, and for a while things were better than they had been for a long time, especially when Miguel took an interest in Nico, had him doing little jobs round the place, running errands, taking messages. He even got to be a bit of a favourite with one of Miguel's `specials'. That's what he called them, the men from the best parts of town with lots of cash and a preference for enjoying their playtime in places where big eyes couldn't see them. This particular guy, His Excellency they called him, was different from most of the others. Expensive clothes but not flashy, quietly spoken, free with his money, never tried to push his weight around. But he really liked Nico, which meant that Miguel was way happy and nothing was too good for Nico and that meant that nothing was too good for Nico's mum. Result! We'd hit the good times. Miguel even said I didn't have to go upstairs with the visitors any more, though, if I'm being honest, by then I would have had a hard time entertaining anyone, even if he'd wanted me to.
`Oh Kate! Kate, Kate!' Milo could barely see the screen through his tears.
Yeah, I was out of it a lot of the time but Nico, poor kid, he tried to make sure I ate and kept more or less clean. He couldn't have been a better son to his fucking hopeless mum. But he became extra hard-edged round about that time, would hardly speak to anyone, sort of went in on himself. Even me, in the state I'd got into by then, even I could see that.
`Hard-edged?! For fuck sake, Kate. He was just a kid. A kid!' Tears were beginning to form in the corners of Dan's eyes but his were more tears of anger than sadness. He'd hated Kate on Milo's behalf for all these years and now he knew he'd been right to.
When we lived on the streets, however bad things got for him, Nico always had his soccer. He loved kicking some useless old ball or bag of rags round the waste ground with a bunch of other kids. He was never happier, pretty good at it too, apparently. But at La Casa there was no soccer for him to escape to so he just got darker and darker and more and more distant. It got so I totally couldn't reach him.
Then something happened, he never did tell me what exactly, but everything at La Casa sort of nose-dived for a second time. Miguel wasn't happy with Nico and Nico, poor kid, got to look more like a ghost every day and we ended up fighting all the time and the stuff I was getting wasn't really hitting the spot any more. It all got really bad. Then one day one of the older boys, Santos his name was, told us that we had to leave, get out of the house, straight away. I remember exactly what he said. He said we had to get out "before Miguel unleashes the dogs." Nico and me, we both knew what that meant. So it was back to the streets for a while until we found the room we're in now. Room did I say? Shithole more like. Bare boards, filthy mattress on the floor, more or less an open sewer in the alley outside. But it's got a door we can lock and Nico earns enough for us to get by. I don't ask what he has to do to hustle some sort of living for us but it's not difficult to work it out. Like mother, like son.
Milo had no words. No words.
So that's how it is and has been for ... for months, maybe more. I really don't know. To be honest I don't know much anymore, except that Nico is a great kid. I don't deserve him and he, sure as fuck, deserves better than me, and that's why I'm writing this letter, just in case. I need to know that if anything happens to me then there's something out there for him that's better than what he's been getting with me for the last fourteen years.
`It's a bit late to suddenly start playing the concerned mother. Or is this just another pathetic and desperate scam to get more money? Play the poor little innocent kid card? You've tapped Gerry too often and he's got wise to you so now it's M's turn? Too bad you went and died before the scam paid out.' Dan had no tears now, just a hot, boiling rage.
He's a bright kid. Even though he hasn't been to school much he can read and write in Spanish and pretty well in English too. It's how we speak to each other, always have done. I know I've said he's got some rough edges but that's just the way it has to be out here. If you don't have them then there's a good chance you won't get through the day. But he's not a bad kid, really he's not. He's just seen and done a lot of bad stuff. But underneath the hardness there's a bright, normal boy waiting to be allowed out. I hope he gets the chance some day.
Surely he couldn't have any more tears. Surely Milo was all cried out? But no, it seemed like there were more yet.
And I made sure I registered his birth and had his nationality legally and officially recorded so there wouldn't be a problem getting him back home. I keep all the documents safe and together.
`Had it all worked out, didn't you Kate? Had M all lined up as your next fall guy. Shame about your unexpected unhappy ending.'
At this point the letter seemed to stop but Dan, scrolling down the screen, found more. The extra section was a lot less legible and the writing seemed to be having difficulty sticking to the lines. It looked to have been written in a hurry or in difficult circumstances. It was soon obvious to both Milo and Dan that both had been the case.
M, I know this is a big ask but I've got nowhere else to turn. I don't think I've got long. I keep having blackouts and headaches and dreadful cramps. I can barely eat or drink. Nico keeps doing his best but he's fighting a losing battle and what makes it worse is that I don't think he realises it. For him it's always been a case that after the bad times come the good. You just have to keep fighting and wait for the cycle to roll around. Well, I'm pretty sure my wheel has run out of road and it's time for me to think about Nico and his future.
`It's a bit late for that Kate, don't you think? You've already turned the kid into a total no-hoper. Good job!.
If he stays here I know he'll either be in jail or dead inside a few years, five at most. On his own on the streets he'll only have two choices, get mean or go under. I know I've been the worst mother any kid could have but at least I've been here. However tragic, however fucking useless, I've been here and we've always been a team. At the start it was me looking out for him -- yes, I know, not exactly the model mum -- but lately it's been the other way around and in a lopsided way that's been good for him `cause looking out for me has been what's kept his feet on the ground and stopped him from running completely wild. But there's no way that I'm gonna be around for much longer so I need help.
Although it probably would be an option, I'm 100% not gonna let my kid get within a million miles of our fuck-up of a mother ...
`That's a bit harsh, Kate. Maybe she's changed over the years,' thought Milo. Not that he'd know, not having had any word from her since before he and D had got married.
... and I know that dad's still recovering from his heart attack ...
`How does she know that?' wondered Milo. Who's she been in touch with? Mum? Hard to imagine. Social media? Maybe. Weird, though. So far away and yet still somehow connected.
... so there's no way I would ask him, and that just leaves you, M. My little brother. My kind, strong, thoughtful little brother. You're it. My last and only hope. Please, please take my boy. Give him a home. Bring him up to have a chance in life. I hear so many good things about you and Dan so I know you can do it, together. Not for me, but for him, my boy. Please. I'm begging ......
Milo sat silent and still, his face wet with tears, his head swamped with bitter- sweet memories of his childhood, with a kaleidoscope of random images and, most of all, with a sea of regrets spreading out in every direction.
Dan stood, equally silent but tense and angry, his fists balled and with his mind swirling with resentment and bitterness.
And Nico, all those thousands of miles away, what of him? Who knew?
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