Flare (36 page)

Summer’s pregnancy was going well, aside from some morning sickness, which wasn’t surprising. Hugo came home from her next doctor appointment with an ultrasound photo that he proudly posted in the center of the fridge, framed in a magnetic picture frame Brooke had made in second grade: a grainy black-and-white ultrasound image surrounded by red and yellow tulips.

“It’s the best way to celebrate the warmth of spring finally cutting through the cold,” he said as he stood back to show the kids. Finn asked a boatload of questions about how the picture was taken, and Kevin had to fish out Finn and Brooke’s baby books so they could each see their own ultrasound photos as well. They all ended up sitting around the living room as Kevin told them the stories of their births while they paged through the books.

Kevin would catch Hugo looking at the photo on the fridge from time to time, a gentle smile on his face. It usually wasn’t many minutes later Kevin would find him talking to Summer on the phone. He always knew when Hugo talked to Summer because he spoke to no one else like that: a mixture of tender kindness peppered with cocky sass that Kevin didn’t even need to hear to recognize. He could see it in Hugo’s body language, and it always made him smile.

Not even the planning of their wedding had caused any sort of bad stress effect in Hugo, or Kevin for that matter. It was so different than when Kevin married Erin. With her, he had moments where he worried he was settling down too quickly or that maybe she wasn’t the right person. Even the right gender, though he never shared that fear with anyone. In the end, that had all worked out, and on his wedding day he was relaxed and happy with his decision to marry her, knowing it was right. The experience with Hugo was different. There were no doubts. Ever. Kevin was entirely ready.

A spring wedding. Outdoors was what Hugo wanted. When Kevin mentioned rain, Hugo pushed the doubts away, saying, “We’ll just be outside for a short time. The real party will be indoors somewhere. Besides, rain on your wedding day is good luck according to the Hindus.”

Kevin was pleased when he was able to really surprise Hugo by renting one of the premiere wedding venues in Minneapolis, the Nicolett Island Pavilion. It was actually located on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River, overlooking the Minneapolis skyline and St. Anthony Falls. Hugo was practically agog when Kevin finally shared the news.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No,” Kevin said as he allowed a smile to steal across his lips. He’d called in a few favors.

“You did this because you heard me on the phone with the Gold Medal Park people and the Guthrie. Didn’t you?”

Kevin chuckled. For some reason Hugo wanted to get married or at least have the reception down near the historic milling district. That was all Kevin needed to make a few phone calls to see what he could find. The pavilion just so happened to have an opening for the outdoor venue the weekend they needed it. Apparently people weren’t keen on getting married outdoors in May with the possibility of rain—or maybe snow—being so high. But they would set up a tent for the reception, just in case.

Kevin loved how easy Hugo was making this. The words “it has to be perfect” had yet to cross his lips when he talked about the wedding, though they still had time for Hugo to become Groomzilla. Kevin doubted that would happen, because any possible issues Summer or Kevin pointed out were solved with minimal fuss. Of course, Hugo’s years and years of experience of putting together plays may have had something to do with all the ease as well. This was the sort of thing Hugo lived for. Even the clothes they decided to go with were chosen easily and ordered so they’d arrive in plenty of time to be altered. It was like the antithesis of planning the wedding with Erin and her mom, and Summer’s choice of getting married so quickly suddenly made perfect sense.

S
CHOOL
WAS
going well for the kids. They both seemed to be thriving if the reports from their teachers were anything to go by, and Kevin believed they were. Homework didn’t seem to be too much of a struggle, aside from some projects that either required the kids to dramatically shift gears to think in a different way or simply took more time. Hugo and Kevin both devoted their evenings to helping the kids work hard and put effort into their work, especially when they didn’t think they could do it and wanted to give up.

Everything seemed to be golden. That worried Kevin if he allowed himself to think on it for too long. He tried to tell himself he was simply jaded from the experiences of the last year or two, but he wasn’t. Waves started rocking the boat a few days after he’d had that initial thought.

One morning at work, while he impatiently waited on hold, Kevin logged on to Facebook. He saw the name Brooke Magnus in a news story.
Why the hell would Brooke’s name be on Facebook?
He clearly remembered the conversation they’d recently had about cyber bullying once again. He’d told Brooke to stay off all social media, urging her to not set up accounts no matter how many friends had them. His decision was made more as a precaution against anything Felicity might do. He was sure their prior actions and the stance Felicity’s parents had taken had nipped the bullying in the bud, but Kevin wasn’t about to take any chances.

He and Hugo had been quite vigilant about checking Brooke’s phone, both voice mail and text messages, since he’d changed Brooke’s number, just in case Felicity broke through that line of defense. Same thing with Brooke’s e-mail. Brooke no longer argued about it, even if she did think Kevin and Hugo were being dramatically overprotective.

But what was on Facebook that morning as Kevin scanned his news feed was Brooke’s article she’d written for the controversy contest. It had been picked up by some of the LGBT news outlets, he noticed as he clicked through the links and found articles going back a few weeks. He searched her name and the title of the article and found even more sites. It looked as if it had quietly sat on a few obscure blogs but was then shared, albeit slowly, again and again, until it hit a national LGBT news organization Kevin followed. And there it was. Her name and her article linked on his Facebook news feed, and it had already been shared by well over a hundred people and liked by another seven hundred.

Kevin didn’t really know what to think about this. He was very proud, on one hand, to think that his daughter’s essay had stirred enough people, to be shared so often that it caught the national media’s attention, but at the same time, he worried. There weren’t any details written about her life beyond what she had provided in the original essay and that she lived in Edina. It was more about the contest and the project, which had been started by a sociology class. Brooke’s work was the only student’s that was shared in full; otherwise the articles were discussed with wide brush strokes to get across what the topics were. Yet Brooke’s entire story was there because, according to the professor who taught the class, “It exemplified the spirit of the contest in the most honest, personal way, opening up minds better than any other work had.”

Carefully, very carefully, Kevin scrolled down to look at some of the comments people had made to the article. He smiled at some, people talking about how brave his daughter was and that she was lucky to have such caring fathers. Then he got to a few comments that basically ripped not only his and Hugo’s relationship to shreds, but suggested that Brooke and Finn be taken away from “those perverts.”

Kevin clicked away from the page and vowed to not read the comments ever again. He wrote a quick e-mail to Hugo, telling him to check out Facebook and the news page he knew Hugo followed as well. He linked to the article just in case.

“Sorry to keep you waiting so long, Mr. Magnus.” A kind voice rang out from the handset Kevin forgot he’d been holding against his ear.

I
T
DIDN
’
T
take long for Brooke’s article to move from the LGBT news to the local media. As life would have it after golden moments of tranquil peace, horrid timing often followed. Hugo was busy during the evenings working on a play, so Kevin was dealing with the shit mostly alone. And it was shit.

His daughter, who wanted nothing more than to be left to do her own thing, had a spotlight on her so bright that she feigned illness so she wouldn’t have to go to school. There were initially whispers about Brooke’s article at school after her English teacher congratulated her privately before class one day. Other kids must have overheard because the whispers grew louder.

She refused to get out of bed one morning, Kevin later found out from Hugo, who had forced the issue and driven her to school because she’d missed her bus. When he dropped her off, Brooke had to walk through a large group of kids who gawked and pointed at her as she passed. Hugo described it as terrifying, and he’d apparently stayed right there to make sure she got inside okay. As soon as she was in the building, the group turned and looked at Hugo. A woman knocked on the driver’s door of his Mini, startling Hugo half to death, he told Kevin.

“She asked if I was Hugo Thorson, the actor, and if we’d be willing to schedule an interview with her to talk about Brooke’s piece.” Hugo had sounded shaken when he’d called Kevin’s office to tell him about the morning. It seemed prudent to drive home for lunch to get the whole story.

“Who was she?” Kevin asked over a fried-egg sandwich Hugo had waiting for him. “And why the hell was she at the school?”

“Here,” Hugo said as he passed over a business card with the very familiar news logo printed on the corner. “Her son goes to the same school. I didn’t recognize his name when she told me. She must’ve put two and two together.”

“How?”

“It’s not like there are a ton of kids in Edina who lost their mom to brain cancer last year named Brooke with a guy named Hugo planning on adopting her,” Hugo said with a scowl, as if he thought this had happened because of him. “If her son knew even a few of those facts and told her, a good reporter could easily put the pieces together, especially when we’re in fricking magazines on the red carpet. All our names were printed in black and white under our pictures. One look at those photos, and she’d know. Anyone who knew Erin—and that’s a hell of a lot of people in this town—would know exactly how to follow the bread crumbs back to us.”

“I don’t— What does she want?” Kevin spluttered.

“She wants us to do an in-depth interview based on our experience with adoption. It goes along with some piece they’re doing.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I couldn’t make that decision, and that’s when she gave me her card.”

“I’m calling her,” Kevin said with determination. “I’m calling to tell her no. This is the last thing Brooke needs.”

Kevin disappeared into his study and called the hand-written number on the back of the card. The phone rang three times before a woman answered with a friendly hello.

“Hi. This is Kevin Magnus.”

“I’m so glad you contacted me. I met Hugo today at the school.”

“Yes. I understand you wanted to do an interview, but I have to say no.”

“Oh? Please let me tell you what I’m considering before you say no.” She went on to describe the piece she was working on and what she hoped the requested interview would bring to the story. “Because he’s an actor, I think having Hugo involved would bring more attention to the story so the struggles same-sex couples have adopting children could be heard by more people. People love hearing about actors’ lives, especially actors who don’t have everything easily handed to them.”

“You see,” Kevin said with regret, sounding a lot like pity, “about the last thing my daughter needs at the moment is more attention paid to her. Brooke is a very private person, and despite Hugo being an actor, he really prefers to stay under the radar and doesn’t want to be a poster boy. We can’t do it. My daughter’s been through enough in the last two years to be exploited for a story. You don’t know what this could do to my introverted child. Please, just let my family live in peace.”

“Okay. I understand. If you change your mind, you have my number, and I’m sorry I bothered you, Mr. Magnus. Thank you for calling and letting me know.”

Back in the kitchen, Hugo asked, “What happened?”

“It seems she wanted to capitalize on your celebrity. Probably to boost ratings.”

“I wondered,” Hugo said as he shook his head. “The way she looked at me, it was like I was a piece of meat. It’s my fault again.”

“What?”

“I’m fucking up the lives of everyone in this family. You nearly lost them because of me. Finn’s teacher probably treats him like shit because of me, and more and more kids are taunting Brooke every day. If I weren’t in your life, you wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“Stop it, Hugo. Don’t go there.”

“How can I not? None of this would be happening if I weren’t here.”

“It’s not you.”

“Fine! It’s fucking Edina, then.”

“Come here,” Kevin demanded and he tugged Hugo into a tight embrace. “Stop doing this to yourself. Is this the shit that goes on in your head when you’re depressed?”

Hugo finally slipped his arms around Kevin’s back as he mumbled, “Maybe,” into Kevin’s shoulder. “Is she going to let it go?”

“What?”

“Brooke doesn’t need this. Is the reporter lady going to let it go?”

“Sounded like it.”

“Good.”

They held each other, swaying back and forth on the tiled floor, Kevin feeling as if a crisis had been averted with Brooke, but he wasn’t so sure the bullet had been dodged with the way Hugo was talking. After several long minutes, he pulled away and then leaned back in for a kiss.

“No more thinking like that. We’re in this together. Okay?” He waited for Hugo to nod before saying, “I’ve got to go. I have a meeting at one with Mr. Aasen.”

“Have a good rest of your day.” Hugo gave him a smile before he left, but Kevin could see the worry in it, so he leaned in and gave him a longer kiss.

K
EVIN
’
S
MEETING
was good as well as the next hour of sales calls he made, but then his personal assistant buzzed him, saying Brooke was on the line. He could tell even before she spoke that she was upset because of the way her breaths sounded into the phone. Hugo wasn’t home when she’d arrived, having left a note saying he was returning a few books to the library and would be back soon. Brooke needed to talk right then, so she’d called Kevin at work.