"A passport," Tess said. "You mentioned that before, right?"
"Yeah. Want to look?"
Tess told herself that she was eager to know what her best friend found so exciting, and she was determined to support him in whatever it was. Because that's what friends do. But she couldn't deny the sudden excitement when Spike's fingertips brushed hers, or how much the slightest contact always made her feel like she was the luckiest woman in the world. She'd missed him so much while she was away, and she wanted to be close to him in every way possible now; even if she didn't really know what half of those ways were. She pushed down those rebellious thoughts, putting them down to a demon on her shoulder whispering in a language she didn't know. Today was all about Spike.
She carefully opened the passport, and saw Spike's picture. He looked as cute as ever, and she found herself blushing just from meeting the eyes of his photo. But then she saw the name, and surprise joined attraction fighting to be at the forefront of her mind.
"Spike... Luger?"
"That's my name," he said with a smile.
"But..."
"That's Dad's name," he answered, fiddling with the bracelet again. She already knew that his dad meant an awful lot to him, and the bracelet was a reminder of that. "Should I start from the beginning? Make sure that you've heard the whole story."
Tess nodded, and Spike looked sad for a moment, and then he started to speak. When Spike was younger, he'd lived with a family just like all his friends. Mum, Dad, and two boys. They did normal family things, and had normal quarrels that might have been a little rough, but never turned into a major problem, and no animosity was ever allowed to fester below the surface.
Then there had been a house fire. A neighbour, somebody they had seen around but didn't know that well. A strict woman who yelled at Spike and Brad if they ever dared set foot on her lawn, and considered her flower beds to be the pride of the neighbourhood. She wasn't strict that day, she was staring at a blazing building and screaming that the twins were still inside. The fire service had been called, and everybody prayed that they would be there fast enough. Until a ground-floor window burst open, and Mr Luger rolled out with two young girls in his arms, wrapped in wet blankets to protect against the heat. He was a hero, and everybody wanted to buy him a drink. Everybody cheered him, and sent gifts to the house. But he wasn't okay. He was injured in his rescue attempts. The damage from smoke inhalation got worse instead of better, and six weeks later he was dead.
Everybody dealt with it in a different way. Spike resolved to be like his father, so it was as if he was still there. Brad started drinking, though they never figured out who would sell booze to a kid his age. Mrs Luger – Shawna – stayed home and cried. She yelled at Spike, terrified that he was going to take after his father and sacrifice himself for some stranger.
Spike did the chores, got a part time job to make ends meet, and sorted out the bills while his mother just cried and tried to ignore the world. Brad became a bully, thinking that everyone was disrespecting his family now, and went from alcohol to drugs. Shawna tried to stop him, but there was nothing she could do. Not long after promising that she would restore their family's pride, she announced that the boys would have a father again. She was marrying Duke Torrance, the jerk who'd been selling drugs to her son. And for all his promises, he never supported them. Duke expected Shawna to cook and clean, but rarely paid any attention to her. He was a tyrant, and getting money out of him to pay the bills was so tough that Spike still needed his part-time jobs as often as not.
"I'm sorry," Tess said as the story paused. She put her arms around Spike, and there was no distance between them today. No excitement from his touch, either, just a well of sympathy. All she could think of was comforting him now.
"It was rough," he said. "But I can cope. They needed me. Shawna and Brad. Nik too, when he came along. I can help so I do. If I didn't, it'd feel like I wasn't my father's son anymore. He would never let anybody he cared about be hurt, no matter what it cost him. I could quit the jobs when I didn't have time anymore, but I can't quit caring about my responsibilities."
"So..."
"So. Mum said that Duke was going to help us all, and for a while I trusted her judgement. She was curled up in grief, staying in bed most days, but she was more in denial then. No drugs yet. So when she said this guy would make it better, I could only hope. I even thought I could let myself relax, stop working so hard and be a child sometimes. And one of the things Duke insisted on was that we were his family. Shawna changed her name when they got married, but he said we all had to. And I hoped he would make her happy, and take some of my burden, so I didn't fight him."
"Oh... I think I understand. So you're changing your name back again?"
"Not quite. Practically, yes. Legally, no. It's one of these weird technicalities. Did you know there's fourteen different government-issued documents that have your legal name on? Only fourteen, all the rest show a name that you use, but it's not legally binding. The first one you get is probably either an education transcript, the certificate to prove to a university that you have the grades you claim, or a passport. But here's the really weird thing; a birth certificate has a given name, not a legal name. Technically you don't even have a legal name until you are issued one of those documents."
"Does that mean you have to get a passport before you can get a deed poll?" Tess was trying to keep up, but still felt like she was missing a few pieces of this jigsaw.
"No. You can have your name changed by a court order or formal adoption record. But there's also this thing called 'informal adoption of title'. Basically, the first time you apply for one of those official documents, you can submit proof of the name you're known by, and that's the one they use. The law is convenient, because it allows you to ignore a typo on the birth certificate or something. So when Shawna and Duke married, she just notified the school and doctors that we had a new name and new address. Her marriage was proof enough, so the school records changed. All my teachers got a letter saying to call me Torrance. And when they come to prepare my educational transcript, the school will use the name that's on their records. Makes an informally-changed name legally binding, and after that I'd need a deed poll or court order."
"Or when you order a passport..." Tess finally got it.
"Exactly. I need the same proof of what my currently-used name is. But in the case of the one on my birth certificate, a signed declaration by a professional is sufficient to confirm it. Ffrances is a doctor, and I asked Shawna's caseworker as well, just to be doubly sure. So that's it, I'm Spike Luger now. Once I have the passport, it needs a court order to change it, and there's no way a court would do that against my wishes."
"Wow. I never realised there was so much to it. I thought a name was just a name, but there's all this law..."
"Yeah. To be fair, there's this much law about everything. The law needs to cover every possible case, even the one in a million things. There's two hundred pages of law on when you can sell food as 'healthy' and what ingredients it's allowed to contain. It's fascinating, once you get into it. Maybe I'll go on to study law, if I do well enough."
"You'll do great. I wouldn't have been able to handle this. And seriously, you saw what you wanted and you got it. You're incredible."
"I need help, though. I still have to tell the school, and persuade them to use my name. It's a legal right, but I'm terrified to actually ask. I was going to say..."
"You want me to go with you?"
"Please. I know I should be able–"
"Don't make excuses. You might have to be the big man at home, but you're not there now. Okay? You're just a kid. I mean, so am I, Gabby keeps telling me that. But I'm older than you, so I'm allowed to be the responsible one. No arguments from you, young man."
"I... umm..." he blushed crimson, as embarrassed as Tess had ever been, and she realised that talking down to him like that had probably been a bad idea. She hadn't even thought about it; she just knew that he needed to stop putting so much pressure on himself, and in that moment it was so easy to think of him as a child. "Thank you."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to be like... I don't want to be condescending. You know I like to deal with everything myself, right? I take responsibility for everything, and it's like a thrill, I love the feeling of being able to make everything happen right. But when I do that, Gabby says it's like I'm under pressure to act adult, and she should treat me like a child to remind me I don't have to."
"I can't imagine you being comfortable with that," he said. "You seem like you love the responsibility. Don't you?"
"Yeah. But... for a moment, I wondered if she was onto something. Like, you're as mature as I am, and you've taken on way more responsibility, but maybe it'd be good for you to let go of it. And for a second my instincts went to treating you like Gabby tried to treat me."
"Like you can make all my problems go away," he grinned. "You told her where to stuff that idea, right? I mean, I can see some people need that, need to be told when they're shouldering too much burden. But I can't see you needing that. You like responsibility, don't you?"
"Yeah. Maybe we should trade places and see if she notices. Sometimes it seems..." Tess surveyed the sentence ahead, and she knew she'd never meant to say it aloud. But now she'd started, why not go through with it? "Seems like she wants a kid who wants to let go of all the responsibility. She's been trying to persuade me since I moved in to act like a little kid again, like when she used to babysit. So she can indulge her nostalgia or something, maybe."
"I guess kids don't have so much to worry about?"
"Right. But that's not me. I told her not to treat me like a kid even if she thinks I'm trying to carry the world on my shoulders. If she thinks I'm pushing myself too hard, she has to ask you and Ffrances before she can tell me... Look, I shouldn't have said this. But I think you're the only person I trust enough to tell me that I'm not looking after myself. So if Gabby wants me to take a break and I think I can cope, she has to ask you. She agreed to that, by the way, which is probably why she was trying to get you on her side before Christmas."
"I kind of wondered. So... I don't get this thing really, but I think I don't need to. I just know you're happy being responsible, so if Gabby asks me if you're okay, I'll tell her you're fine. And if you think I'm not coping... well, I'll trust whatever you say."
"Maybe we should see if Kim and Evan are around," Tess changed the subject after a little thought. She didn't want Spike to be stressing. "I mean, it's nearly the time we agreed on."
"Yeah," he said. "And... I don't know if I'm jumping to conclusions. But when Ffrances talked about coping mechanisms, she did mention being treated like a kid again. As a way to deal with stress, I mean. And I want you to know that I don't have a problem with it. I want to say that clearly. If that's something you're interested in, there's no reason to hide it from me. Everything I've read, I totally get it. Is there something like that with you? If there is, I want you to know that I won't judge. You've helped me so much, and maybe I do need help to stop worrying. But more than anything, I want you to be comfortable."
Tess blushed and made some excuse to move on, saying that they needed to meet up with their friends soon. But she couldn't stop thinking about Spike getting involved in the way Gabby treated her like a child. If he could take her place, she thought that might actually help him. But then she thought of him taking on the role that Gabby was more used to; having such a kind, strong, and supportive guy as her Daddy, and she realised that she might not have only been accepting the regression thing for Gabby's sake. If it was Spike there, she could imagine that she'd really be enthusiastic.
Right now, Tess was lost for words.