Weekend Reads: Lord Have Mercy

Heading into the weekend in search of your next read? Lord Have Mercy Part One: The Good Son is now live!  

There was a man sitting at the table. A large man.

Alex stood dripping rainwater on the linoleum, and catalogued all the details he’d never thought to imagine. Dark hair, yes, a black that was true, and rich, nearly blue in the glow of the chandelier, shiny as poured oil. A little shaggy in front, and a little long in the back, almost a mullet, but not quite. He had broad shoulders, and thick, muscled arms that strained the rolled-up sleeves of his black and red flannel shirt. Huge hands, resting on the table, fingers of one half-curled around a beer bottle that looked child-sized in his grip. His skin was several shades darker than Mama’s, a rich tan with deeper, umber undertones, like clay baked in the sun. Eyes the brown of freshly-buffed boots, and black, angled brows above that lent an inquisitive cast to the open, pleasant, eager expression he wore.

He met Alex’s gaze, this big stranger, and a smile broke, slow, and crooked, and white, and handsome, and Alex knew without being told. This was his father.

“Alex!” Mama exclaimed, a little harried, her gaze a little wild above a fixed smile as she turned away from the stove. She wore her cooking apron – but over one of her nice dresses, one of the ones she saved for church or work. She had high heels on, too, and her hair was shiny and curled. Above the fatty scents of searing pork and potatoes, he smelled a generous application of her usual hair spray and perfume.

He spotted all of this in one quick look, and then his attention was drawn back to the stranger. To his father.

Mama clipped her way over to stand beside him, and gripped his shoulder bracingly. “Alex, sweetie, I didn’t hear you come in.”

The man chuckled, and it was a rich, rolling sort of laugh, deep and resonant as distant thunder. “I don’t think he can hear you, now,” he said, and his accent was thick with the swamp, Cajun as could be, rather than Mama’s more traditional Southern drawl. “Hey, kid. Take a breath.”

Alex did, and it was a gasp, room swirling around him, because he hadn’t taken a breath in a whole minute, standing there like a drowned rat, gaping.

“Oh, honey, here, let’s get you a towel,” Mama said, and bustled to get a dish towel to mop his head and shoulders with. “We have company.”

He could see that, but he couldn’t respond.

She fussed over him some more with the towel, while his father looked on smiling. It was a nice smile, full of warmth, eyes sparkling. The sort of benevolent, inviting smile that made him want to follow, and which reminded him, absurdly, of Santa Claus. A safe smile, a good smile.

Mama set the towel aside, and raked her nails through his hair. He leaned into it automatically, the gentle, goosebump-inducing scrape-scrape of her acrylics, like when he’d had a nightmare and she was soothing him back to sleep.

This moment now was a little like a nightmare. And like a dream, too. And maybe Christmas, given the Santa smile.

“Alex, baby,” Mama said, and her voice had gone formal, like it did when she was on the phone with one of her real estate clients. “I’d like you to meet somebody.”

“Is he my daddy?”

The man’s smile widened.

Mama made a quiet noise like she’d stubbed her toe. She said, “Well, honey…yeah. Yeah, he is.” She steered him around the table, hand on his shoulder, so he stood within reach of the man – of his daddy.

A massive hand extended toward him, shiny-smooth with calluses in the palm, dirt caked under the nails, old, pale scars criss-crossing the backs of the fingers. “Hi, Alex,” he said, in that rich, Cajun voice. “It’s good to meet you.”

Slowly, Alex slipped his hand into the much larger one.

“You don’t have to call me Daddy if it doesn’t feel right. My name’s Remy. Remy Lécuyer.”