A Clean Pair of Eyes

3: Genesis

SOOKIE

We left the auction with a '56 Ford F100 pickup and the '41 Coupe that Tray had been dreaming about since he was probably a teenager. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the Coupe ended up in his private collection for a while. If it did, I'd be alright with that. It was a damn good looking car. I ended up having to call Patrick out with a second truck and trailer to load up the pickup. I was pretty sure Tray was going to dive into the Coupe after he was done with the Galaxie.

I, on the other hand, had yet to make contact with my son, so I was headed home to pull the spark plugs out of his truck. If it was gone I'd call my brother and have an APB put out on it. Jason knew as well as I did that Josh wasn't a bad seed kid. Running away wouldn't really occur to him. I wasn't a domineering, oppressive mom. Hell, I probably gave Josh too much freedom.

That was about to change.

I pulled into my driveway just in time to see my son walking to his truck. Quickly I shifted courses to block him in. He wasn't going anywhere until I knew where the hell he'd been all day.

"Is your phone busted?" I asked when I got out of the car a minute later.

"No," he sighed. "Sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to ignore you."

"Why weren't you in school?"

"Girl problems?" He said it as a question like he wasn't sure how to respond.

"Girl problems? What the hell does that mean?" I knew he wasn't dumb enough to think a day date was a good idea.

"Some, uh... I've been seeing a girl for a few months now and yesterday we had... some issues. I have to meet her dad right now."

The girlfriend was news to me. He hadn't mentioned her. Like I told Isabel, either she was a mess or Josh really liked her.

"Oh no you don't. You have to deal with me right now," I countered.

"I'm sorry, Mom, I swear I won't skip school again," he promised. "Madi and I are going out to talk about it some more. I really lik– I love her, Mom. She was upset this morning so we took the day off..."

"I'm sorry she's having problems, but that's no excuse for cutting school and not telling me. You know if you would have told me you needed a day I would have let you have it. Instead you pulled some shit and then ignored me. You're not an adult yet, Joshua. I still make the rules. You're not going out tonight," I told him.

"But, Mom," he whined. "It's a big deal. I don't want to look bad in front of her dad. I..." He paused a moment before he continued. "I need to tell you something..."

"You've got all night to tell me. You can wow her dad tomorrow." I wasn't going to budge. He knew it.

Josh sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked more stressed than I'd seen in a long time. Something was up, that was for sure.

"What is it, Josh?" We weren't besties like we were when he was six, but I liked to think we could still talk about stuff.

"You're gonna be really mad," he said. Josh wasn't a drama queen. I liked that he was a straight shooter like me. He got right to the point, and like me, he didn't play around with what he meant. If he said something, he said what he meant. No guessing games.

"Should I be sitting down for this?" There was a gnawing sense of dread creeping around my gut. I didn't like it.

"Probably lying down," he replied.

Shit.

"You didn't drop out of school, did you?" I asked.

"No, I didn't drop out. I uh... My girlfriend told me that uh... Well she's kinda pregnant," he said.