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corrodedthorn · 2 years

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OH MY FUCKING GOD I CRIED SO HARD

I CANT EVEN WRAP MY HEAD AROUND THIS, THAT WAS SO GOOOOOD

Coffee Cups and Unconditional Love

Summary: Wayne Munson has been there for his nephew since before he was born, and he'll be there for him for the rest of his life - a.k.a. an explanation of why Wayne Munson owns so many coffee mugs as told through his relationship with his nephew

CW/TW: alcoholism, mentions of child neglect, death, illegal activities, dismissal of mental health issues because it's the 70s/80s, season 4 spoilers if you haven't finished yet

Word Count: 17.6k

A/N: I'm just gonna apologize in advance for this one. It was a labor of love, and I hurt my own feelings writing it.

April 1965

Wayne Munson was a simple man with simple tastes. It didn't take much to make him happy. A couple cigarettes from his pack of smokes, a cold beer, and a working radio were the only things he needed to unwind after a long shift at the plant. He mostly lived off of TV dinners, cold sandwiches, and cereal, and that was fine with him. He had never been the greatest cook, and not wasting his time in the kitchen gave him more energy for work anyway.

At the age of twenty-three, he only had a few more payments left to make on his trailer before he owned it outright, and he had a foldout bed for his younger brother Richard to use when things weren't going so great with their parents. He'd made it clear that his home was always open to him, no questions asked.

However, that didn't mean he wasn't surprised to find his brother and a crying girl sitting on his front step when he got back from the grocery store.

Wayne was a man of few words, and the few he did have did not equip him with the skills to handle a clearly distraught, sixteen year old girl. He and his brother exchanged a look before he wordlessly ushered the two inside.

He put on a fresh pot of coffee before busying himself with putting away his groceries, occasionally glancing over to where his brother was attempting to calm down the crying girl on his sofa.

"Everything is gonna be okay, Linda," he heard his brother say. "Wayne'll know what to do."

Once his groceries were put away and the coffee was finished brewing, he realized that he only had the one coffee mug. He found a couple of plastic juice cups in the back of one of his cabinets and poured the coffee into those and the lone mug. He set the mug in front of the girl and then handed one of the cups to his brother. He held his own cup as he sat down in the chair across from the couch.

Before he could ask what in the world was going on, the girl gave him a funny look.

“Where are your other mugs?” she asked as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

“I’ve only got the one,” he replied.

“Who only owns one coffee mug?”

Wayne shrugged.

“My mother owns three entertaining sets in different patterns with eight mugs a piece. I can’t imagine someone only having one mug.”

She sniffled a bit, but it seemed as though she’d stopped crying for now.

“Don’t really need more than one when you live alone,” he said before taking a sip of his coffee. “Now, does someone wanna tell me why you were crying on my porch?”

Wayne looked back and forth between the two as they shared a look, both hesitant to come right out and say it.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, Richie.”

“Linda’s pregnant,” Richie blurted out as he started talking a mile a minute. “We didn’t plan for it to happen or anything, but it did. And then her parents found out, and all hell broke loose. You shoulda heard what they said about me, Wayne. About us. About our family.”

Even without being there, Wayne could imagine it pretty perfectly. Their parents weren’t exactly the greatest people, and there was a reason he’d left home as soon as he could, a reason why he had a spare bed specifically for his brother. Their dad was a mean drunk and took it out on everyone around him. The neighbors would hear him yelling, and the next morning, broken furniture would be sitting on the curb waiting for the next garbage pickup. Their mom just made excuses for him and watched as it happened. A bystander in her own life sweeping up broken glass and scrubbing beer stains out of the carpet. They weren’t exactly the kind of family that you’d want your daughter to involve herself with. Wayne had some firsthand experience with that fact.

“It was just awful,” Linda said as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “They told me I could either stay with my cousins in Kentucky until I had the baby and gave it up, or I could get out of their house. So, I got up, and I marched out with Richie.”

“I didn’t know where else to take her,” Richie continued. “There’s no way I’d leave her at mom and dad’s, and I just panicked and brought her here. We could help pay your bills or buy groceries or anything else you need. I got that job that I was telling you about - the one as a bag boy down at the grocery store.”

“And I’m going to pick up as many extra shifts at the diner as I can until I’m too pregnant to work,” Linda added, talking over Richie. “And we’ll help out around here with anything you need. You’ll barely even know we’re here.”

Wayne ran a hand over the back of his neck and abandoned his coffee on the table.

“Where’s all your stuff?” he asked. “You’re gonna need stuff if you’re moving in.”

“They didn’t give me time to pack when they threw me out,” she replied. “But I still have my house key, so Richie was going to take me back over there to get my things tomorrow when I know they’re both out of the house.”

“And I was gonna head over and grab my own stuff after we talked to you,” Richie continued. “Didn’t want to show up here with a bunch of stuff if we were gonna have to go somewhere else. I figured she could use the fold out I usually sleep on, and I can sleep on the couch.”

“No, you’ll take my room,” Wayne said as he moved to get up from his seat. “I’ll be fine out here. Just gotta straighten it up a little bit for you.”

Before he could leave the room, Wayne was practically knocked over by the force of Linda leaping up to wrap her arms around him in a tight embrace.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said.

He awkwardly patted her on the back.

“It’s fine,” he replied. “I’d do anything for my brother.”

The next day, Wayne busied himself with getting his room ready for Linda and Richie to move into while they were out collecting Linda’s things. When the couple returned, Linda handed a brown paper bag to Wayne.

“These are for you,” she said with a smile. “A little thank you for all that you’re doing for us.”

Wayne opened the bag, and inside, he found three different coffee mugs - one dark green, one light blue with pink rosettes, and one yellow and white striped.

“I snagged a mug from each of my mother’s entertaining sets. It’ll drive her nuts, and now you have enough mugs for us all to have a cup of coffee. Everybody wins.”

The gift of coffee mugs wasn’t the only way Linda started to improve his life. She actively scolded him about the way he’d been eating and told him that she was going to fix his diet even if it killed her in the process. And so his TV dinners were reserved for the nights when Linda was working the dinner shift at the diner and hadn’t planned for leftovers that Wayne and Richie could easily reheat on their own.

She’d promised that he’d barely even know that they were there, but she made her loving presence known.

October 1965

Wayne ducked out of his shift at the plant several hours early when he got the call that Linda had gone into labor. His brother wanted him there for support, and he wanted to meet his niece or nephew the second they were born, so he was happy to do it. He sat in the waiting room for hours until his brother came to grab him.

“Ready to meet your nephew?” Richie asked him as they entered the hospital room.

Wayne’s attention was immediately drawn to Linda sitting up in bed cradling her tiny son. She was sweaty, and her wavy, dark hair was even messier than it normally was, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen her look happier in the six months he’d known her.

“Do you want to hold him?” Linda asked, never looking away from the baby in her arms.

Wayne nodded and made his way to sit in one of the chairs by her bed. Richie carefully took the baby from his girlfriend’s arms and placed him in Wayne’s awaiting hold.

“Wayne, meet Eddie. Eddie, this is your Uncle Wayne.”

"Hey Eddie," Wayne whispered, as he cradled the newborn. "It's nice to meet you."

"His full name is Edward Wayne Munson," Linda said, causing Wayne's gaze to snap up from the baby in his arms to look over at her.

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?"

Wayne's heart swelled, and he would have been lying if he said that he didn't get a bit choked up.

Wayne was often awake with Linda during the late night feedings. With Richie still going to school and working extra shifts whenever he could to support his little family, he needed all the sleep he could get, so Linda would take Eddie into the living room whenever he got fussy.

"Are you sure this is alright?" she'd asked the first time she accidentally woke him up.

"Don't worry about it," he reassured her. "I've always been more of a night owl anyway."

So the two would sit together at the tiny kitchen table as Linda fed her son, a light blanket draped over her chest to protect her modesty. Not that Wayne would have ever stared at his brother's girl. He'd come to think of her as the sister he never had, and he was fiercely protective of her. He'd make her tea, and she'd tease him about how nice it was to have more than one mug to share between them.

"If I didn't steal my mother's mugs, we wouldn't be able to have nights like these," she said. "And wouldn't that be a shame?"

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he asked with a small laugh.

"The handle was chipped, Wayne. You only had one mug, and it wasn't even in good condition."

"I've never needed much."

"Well, you'll never have to drink out of a chipped mug again. I'll make sure of it."

On the nights where Eddie was particularly fussy and wouldn't go back to sleep after being fed and changed, Linda would move over to the couch and pass the baby over to Wayne. Wayne would sit in the worn out rocking chair that he'd picked up at the Goodwill, and he'd slowly rock with him as she made herself comfortable. By the dim light of the lamp on the end table, she'd read aloud from her beat up copies of the Lord of the Rings novels, and Eddie would fall asleep to the daring adventures of hobbits and elves with his uncle’s finger in his grasp.

December 1965

Eddie was only a little bit over two months old for his first Christmas, and he could barely hold his own head up, but Linda still went over the top to make it as special as she could on her limited budget.

They couldn’t afford to get Eddie’s photo professionally taken with the Santa at the big department store in the city. It was just too expensive if she wanted to put any gifts under the modest tree that they were all pretty sure Richie had chopped down illegally. Instead, she placed her son in the Christmas stocking that she’d found at Goodwill and stitched his name onto and had Wayne take pictures of him with his beat up polaroid camera. They didn’t have anyone that they wanted to send the pictures to, so every single one was hung up on the refrigerator until Linda decided it was time to add them to her photo album.

“Next year, I want pictures of him playing in the snow,” Linda said as she looked at the collage of photos on their fridge. “And I’m getting a picture of him with Santa even if I have to force one of you to dress up to make it happen.”

On Christmas morning, the three of them sat in a circle on the floor in front of the tree with baby Eddie laying on his stomach in the middle. They all knew that he was too young to know what was going on, but Linda made a point of setting each of Eddie’s gifts in front of him so he could marvel at the brightly colored comics that she’d wrapped them in. There weren’t many presents under the tree, and they were all for Eddie anyway, so everyone was content to sit there with their morning cups of coffee for as long as the baby wasn’t fussy.

“Oh, before I forget,” Linda said as she popped up from her seat leaning against the sofa. She headed back to the bedroom and returned with a small parcel wrapped up in newsprint. She handed it over to Wayne as she sat back down and pulled her son into her lap.

“I thought we agreed on no gifts?” Wayne asked. “Save all our money to make things special for the kid?”

“It’s not from me,” Linda said as Eddie gripped her finger. “It’s from Eddie, of course, and you can’t expect him to follow our rules. He’s just a baby after all.”

Wayne sighed and carefully unwrapped the gift. Inside the crumpled newspaper was a coffee mug with “World’s Best Uncle” hand-painted on the side along with a bright blue baby handprint of Eddie’s.

“It’s not much,” Richie said. “But we hope it shows even a little bit of how thankful we are for everything you’ve done for us.”

“It’s perfect,” Wayne replied. “Really. Thank you.”

April 1967

For Wayne’s twenty-fifth birthday, he insisted that he didn’t need any gifts, and he didn’t want them to make any sort of a fuss over him.

“You’re being absolutely ridiculous,” Linda told him. “We can’t just skip your birthday.”

“I’m happy with what I have,” he said with a shrug. “We don’t need to bring more stuff into this trailer, and I’d much rather just spend the day playing with Eddie and maybe listen to the ball game on the radio if there is one.”

“That’s fine, I guess. But I’m making you your favorite dinner. And a cake. I’ll maybe even get some ice cream to go with it. And we’re singing to you while wearing party hats made out of newspaper whether you like it or not. It’s been decided, and I will not fight with you on this one, Wayne.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a laugh.

So, on his birthday, Linda made a pot roast slow roasted with carrots and onions and a side of mashed potatoes with extra, extra gravy. For dessert, there was a double chocolate chip cake with vanilla frosting and strawberry ice cream. Wayne didn’t fight about the newspaper hat that Linda made him wear, and he pretended that he didn’t hate being the center of attention when they all sang to him if only because he got to hold Eddie while it was happening. The eighteen month old tried to feed him a handful of cake before shoving it in his own mouth and giggling wildly.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Linda set a small gift in front of him. He knew what it was without even opening it. Every time she thought of giving him a gift, it was a coffee mug, and he had started giving the same to her. They’d started an almost competition of sorts, seeing who could find the most interesting mug at Goodwill or one of the small thrift stores in the city. This one was beige and had the words Ohio University Grandma printed in green on the side. It might have been the best one yet.

“We have something else for you,” Richie told him after sharing a look with Linda. “A gift we couldn’t really wrap.”

“I expected the mug, but I told you guys that you didn’t have to give me anything.”

“We know, but this is a really important gift,” his brother continued. “We’re giving you your bedroom back.”

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind sleeping in the living room. We’ve been over this a hundred times. You need your privacy more than I do, and with the kid, you need the extra space.”

“We know that’s how you feel, Wayne,” Linda said. “But it’s time for you to start sleeping on a real bed again.”

“Which is why we’re moving out,” Richie blurted out.

“You’ve been so good to us these past two years,” Linda continued. “And we are so grateful for everything you’ve done for us and the life you helped us build. It’s because of everything that you did that we know we’re ready to take this step.”

“I finally grew a pair and asked her to marry me, and we found an apartment that’ll be ready for us to move into next month. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re excited. Really excited.”

“Well, I’m really happy for you guys,” Wayne told them. “Truly. But you’re gonna leave the kid with me, right? I’m way too attached to him to let him leave.”

As if agreeing with Wayne, Eddie reached up and pressed a sticky, chocolate-covered hand onto his uncle’s cheek. Wayne dug his fingers into the boy’s side and smiled down at him as he giggled and squirmed.

“I don’t know,” Linda said. “I think I’d miss him too much.”

She looked at her son as if he was the whole world, and to her, he probably was.

“You’re probably right.”

“But you’ll still see us all the time,” she promised. “We’ll be over here bothering you every chance that we get, and as soon as we’re settled into our place, we’ll be having you over for dinner every single Sunday night. You’ll get sick of us and be longing for some peace and quiet before you know it.”

Wayne didn’t know how to tell them he didn’t need peace and quiet anymore. He’d grown used to coming home from work to see his nephew playing in the living room and laughing as he toddled around the trailer. He was used to Linda singing loudly and off-key along with every song on the radio as she busied herself in the kitchen. He was used to his brother cracking jokes and making loud comments about every single sport he watched on TV. He was used to there being too many people in his tiny trailer, and he didn’t want that to change.

But he was proud of them. So extraordinarily proud of the two of them and the life they were building together. In the past two years, he’d watched them grow from a couple of scared kids into the loving parents that neither of them had ever had themselves. It would hurt to live apart from them, but he knew that it was what was best for all of them.

May 1970

“Munson residence,” Wayne said as he answered his ringing phone.

“Wayne, it’s Linda,” the voice on the other end of the phone replied.

“I was just about to head over to your apartment. Need me to pick up anything on my way?”

It wasn’t unusual for Linda to ask him to pick up something on the way to dinner. Especially now that she was in college. She’d gotten her GED the year before and was about to finish her first year of schooling to become a teacher. Now that Eddie was a little older and getting ready to start preschool, she was ready to give up her waitressing job and work towards something more stable that fit better with her life as a young mom. Something that would allow her to be home for his bedtime every night.

“Actually, I was calling to ask you for a different sort of favor. I hate to cancel our dinner so last minute, but Richie got called into work for an extra overnight inventory shift at the grocery store, and I have a huge group presentation for one of my classes due tomorrow. Normally, I would give you more notice, but I was wondering if I could maybe drop Eddie off over there for a sleepover? Richie would be able to pick him up first thing in the morning when he gets off work, and this way I can meet up with my classmates to put the finishing touches on our project. I’d owe you a huge favor.”

“You know he’s always welcome over here. Are you heading over now?”

“In a little bit. I still have to pack an overnight bag for the kiddo. One of the girls from my group is going to pick me up, and then we’ll drop Eddie off with you before we head over to the library.”

“Sounds good to me. See you soon.”

While waiting for his sister-in-law and nephew to show up, Wayne looked through the kitchen to see if he actually had anything that he could feed Eddie for dinner. He hadn’t been expecting to have to cook that night, and he usually did his weekly grocery shopping on Mondays before he came home from work. He supposed he could make the kid a TV dinner if it came down to it, and he maybe had a can of soup or two in the cupboard, but neither were up to the standards of the food that Linda normally made him.

But, when Linda arrived with Eddie, she entered the trailer carrying dinner for them.

“I’d already started cooking before Richie got called into work,” she said as she set the lasagna down on the table. “I knew you wouldn’t have had a solid dinner plan, and I wasn’t going to let two of my favorite boys get stuck eating what I’m sure would have been TV dinners.”

“You know me too well.”

Before Linda could respond, Eddie took a running leap at his uncle who caught him easily.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie said as he clung to his uncle’s chest. “We get to have a sleepover! And mama said I can stay up an extra half hour ‘cause it’s a special occasion!”

“She did? Well, that’s a good thing because I was thinking we could have a campout in the living room, and maybe if it’s okay with your mama, we could even make some hot chocolate.”

Eddie shifted in Wayne’s arms to face his mom and fixed her with his best pleading gaze, all puppy dog eyes and pouty bottom lip. The kid had them all wrapped around his little finger, and he knew it.

“How could I say no to this precious face? It’s fine with me,” Linda said with a small laugh at her son’s excitement at her answer.

Wayne set Eddie down on the counter next to the sink.

“Why don’t you wash your hands while I talk to your mama, and then you and I will have some dinner, okay?”

Eddie nodded vigorously and turned on the water, so Wayne turned his attention back to Linda.

“Alright, so bedtime is anywhere between seven thirty and eight tonight. He’s gonna be home with Richie all day tomorrow, and I know it’s going to be a lazy sleepy day anyway, so he’ll get plenty of rest if he doesn’t sleep enough tonight. His pajamas and clothes for tomorrow are in his backpack, but if you don’t have him dressed before he gets picked up, that’s fine, too. If he wants a bedtime story, Peter Pan is his favorite right now, and he usually falls asleep around the second chapter. That’s somewhere in his bag with Mister Lion. I gave him a bath earlier, so you don't need to worry about that, but make sure he brushes his teeth. He will try to convince you that he doesn’t need to, but he wants to be just like his Uncle Wayne, so if you brush your teeth when it’s time for him to, he shouldn’t put up too much of a fight. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything, but it’s not like you’ve never watched him before. You know how to handle my little hellraiser better than anyone.”

She looked over towards her son who was now laying with his stomach flat against the counter as he clapped his hands under the running water repeatedly trying to make the biggest splash he possibly could. She moved to turn off the sink before sitting her son upright on the counter and drying his hands off with the dish towel.

“Were you making a mess of the kitchen, you little stinker?” she teased as she skittered her fingers across her son’s belly.

“No,” he replied through his giggles as he curled in on himself. She stopped tickling him and ruffled his messy curls that matched her own.

“You be good for your Uncle Wayne, okay? Daddy will be here to pick you up first thing in the morning. Now give mama big hugs and kisses.”

Eddie stood up on the counter and flung his arms around Linda’s neck. Once she’d wrapped her arms around the boy, he moved his hands to squish her cheeks as he smothered her with as many kisses as he could give.

“I love you so much, Eddie Bear,” she told him, laughing as he kissed one of her eyes.

“I love you more,” he replied.

“And I love you most.”

She gave him one last big squeeze and kissed his forehead before setting him down on the ground.

“Alright, I’ve kept Sandy waiting out in the car long enough. Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Wayne and Eddie had a relatively easy night together. They ate dinner, and Eddie didn’t fuss when Wayne had to wash the sauce off of his face afterwards. He sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures with the crayons and notebook paper they kept at the trailer for him while his uncle cleaned up the kitchen, and he narrated all of his art as he drew. They had the hot chocolate that Wayne promised with extra marshmallows, and there were no complaints about brushing teeth since Wayne was brushing his teeth, too. Wayne set up the foldout bed in the living room with an extra set of sheets and the fuzzy yellow blanket that was Eddie’s favorite. They both changed into their pajamas, and then they read four chapters of Peter Pan before Eddie fell asleep on the couch curled up against his uncle’s side with his fingers threaded through Mister Lion’s mane. Wayne carefully moved the sleeping boy to the bed and placed a kiss on his forehead. He fell asleep on the couch shortly after.

Wayne always woke up at five without an alarm clock no matter what time he went to bed the night before. It was both a blessing and a curse. Being careful to keep quiet enough that he wouldn’t wake Eddie, he made his way to the bathroom to take a quick shower before his brother got there. He didn’t know when his brother would be there, so he wanted to be ready to head to the plant early just in case he’d be racing out the door.

When he was finished getting ready, he headed into the kitchen where he found a very sleepy looking Eddie with the fuzzy, yellow blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was dragging Mister Lion by his tail behind him.

"What are you doing up, Eds? Did I wake you?" he asked.

"Bad dream," Eddie replied, sniffling a little. “‘Mnot scared, but Mister Lion needed a hug.”

Wayne scooped Eddie up, and the boy immediately wrapped his arms around his uncle’s neck.

“I got ya, buddy,” he said as he rubbed the boy’s back. “I got ya.”

Wayne continued to hold Eddie as he moved around the kitchen and started his morning coffee. Once he’d poured himself a cup, he headed to sit down on the couch.

“Why don’t you try to get a little more sleep, Eds?” he suggested. “I’ll start making breakfast after I finish my coffee, and then I’ll get you up, okay?”

Eddie nodded a little and moved to curl up next to his uncle on the couch not wanting to stray too far from the comfort that he’d found.

By the time Wayne had finished his coffee and used the little he had left in his kitchen to make some scrambled eggs and toast for the boy, it was close to seven. He had to be at the plant by seven thirty, so he was going to have to call in sick if his brother didn’t show up soon.

Eddie was not a morning person, so it took a few minutes for Wayne to get him up and seated at the table, and when he glanced at the clock on his wall, he knew he wasn’t going to make it to work on time.

“Mr. O’Grady? It’s Wayne Munson,” he started when his boss at the plant finally answered the phone. “I’m gonna be a little late for my shift. I’m watching my nephew. My brother was supposed to pick him up by now, but I’ve still got the kid, and I can’t leave him here alone.”

“It’s fine, Munson,” his boss answered. “In the ten years you’ve worked here, you’ve never taken a vacation, and the only times you’ve ever called off were when your nephew was born and when he broke his wrist last year. Take the day to spend with the kid. Sullivan has been asking for more hours anyway, and I can call him in to cover for you this time.”

“Thanks, Mr. O’Grady,” he said as he lunged to take the ketchup bottle away from Eddie before he could empty the entire thing onto his plate. “I really appreciate it.”

Wayne poured himself another cup of coffee and sat down across from Eddie who was more interested in eating ketchup than the eggs on his plate. He figured that inventory took a little bit longer than expected. The grocery store opened at nine, so they’d have to be done by then, and if his brother wasn’t at the trailer by nine thirty, he’d start calling their apartment.

Nine thirty came and went, and the phone call to Richie and Linda’s apartment went unanswered. The same happened every other time he called between then and noon. Wayne was starting to get worried, but he was trying his best not to let it show. His focus was on Eddie who didn’t seem to mind that he got to spend extra time there.

Finally, when Wayne was getting ready to set the table with the TV dinners that he’d ended up making for their lunch, someone answered the phone at the apartment.

“Hello?”

“Is everything okay over there?” Wayne asked, skipping the pleasantries. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all morning.”

“Everything’s fine. I was sleeping,” Richie replied. “What time is it?”

“For the love of god, Richie.” Wayne lowered his voice and glanced into the living room to make sure Eddie wasn’t paying attention to him before he continued. “I was starting to think something bad had happened. I called you at least a dozen times. Scared the shit outta me.”

“I’m sorry. I came home from work and passed out immediately. Didn’t hear the phone until just now.”

“But you were supposed to pick up Eddie before you went home.”

“I stopped on the way to change my clothes. Smelled like sweat and pickle juice after someone dropped a box and the shit splattered everywhere. I figured Linda changed her mind and was picking him up since she wasn’t home when I got here.”

“Well, she definitely didn’t come here.”

“She had a group presentation due today, and she was really hounding the other girls to make sure it was perfect. She probably just caught the bus and headed over to campus early. Do you want me to come over and get Eddie?”

“Don’t worry about it. You should get some more sleep. One of you can come and grab him after Linda gets home from class.”

“Are you sure? I know he can be a handful.”

“We’re fine. I’ll take him to the park or something, and he can do my grocery shopping with me. Besides, I just made him lunch, and I kinda like having him around.”

“You wanna keep him?” Richie asked with a laugh.

“Don’t tempt me,” Wayne responded with a laugh of his own. “But I don’t think Linda would be too happy about it.”

“You’re probably right. We’ll give you a call when we’re on our way to get him, okay? Most likely right around dinner time?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After lunch, Wayne finally got Eddie dressed and took him to the playground across town. Since they’d done nothing but sit around the trailer all morning, the kid had a lot of energy to burn, and he chose to burn it by giving his uncle a heart attack every time he went to leap off of something he probably shouldn’t have climbed in the first place. Eventually, he got tired of scaring years off of his uncle’s life, and Wayne agreed to push him on the swings as long as he promised not to jump off of those, too.

Once he’d successfully tired out the kid, Wayne loaded Eddie into his truck and headed to the grocery store. His usual get in, get what he needs, and get out trip took a lot longer than normal with his nephew riding in the cart, but debating about breakfast cereal and lunch meat with a kid who wasn’t even going to be eating them was wildly entertaining. In the end, he only ended up with three things that Eddie had wanted in his cart, and he was taking that as a win.

Standing in the checkout line, Wayne couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between the two housewives behind him. He wasn’t one to pay attention to town gossip, but he couldn’t ignore them.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the accident last night,” the first woman said.

“News travels fast in a small town like Hawkins,” the second replied. “It’s a shame really. Those poor girls.”

“Oh, I know. I wonder if they’ve been able to find their families by now. Eleanor said that they weren’t sure who to call.”

“How did Eleanor get so much information about this anyway? It wasn’t in any of the papers today.”

“Her husband was on duty, and you know he went home and told her every detail. The man can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

“Can you blame him? A drunk driver crashing into a car full of girls leaving the community college library is probably the most exciting thing he’s ever seen working around here. Not that a tragedy is exciting mind you. It’s just more interesting to talk about than the occasional traffic violation.”

Wayne almost dropped the milk that he was holding on the ground. Their conversation meant nothing to him. To him, or his brother, or the little boy who was currently fighting to stay awake in his shopping cart. The fact that no one had seen Linda since last night was merely a coincidence. She was probably at home with Richie right now telling him all about how her presentation went and getting ready to pick up her son. She had to be.

But, when Wayne pulled up to his trailer to find his brother sitting on his front step looking more scared and alone than he had when he came to tell him that Linda was pregnant, he knew that wasn’t the case.

Wayne held Eddie throughout the funeral. Richie was an absolute wreck and could barely hold himself together let alone take care of his son. But he had his older brother to help pick up the pieces, and that was a comfort in such an upsetting time.

Wayne hadn’t expected such a large turnout for the funeral. With the way she lit up every room she entered, the fact that she had had an effect on so many people in her short twenty one years shouldn’t have been a huge surprise. There were groups of girls from all of Linda’s classes, and the diner had closed for the day because all of the waitresses and cooks wanted to be there. There were high school friends who had just arrived home from college, and there were families from their apartment building. All there to pay their respects. The only notable absence was Linda’s own parents. Not that anyone had really expected them to show up anyway. They hadn’t tried to contact her at all in the time since they’d kicked her out, and Wayne would have forced them to leave if they’d tried to show their faces.

After the services, Wayne took Eddie straight back to the apartment. He and Richie had discussed it beforehand, and they figured that the whole situation would be too overwhelming for him. They’d explained to him what had happened in a way that was simple enough for a child to understand, but the boy was still so young and confused about why his mother wasn’t coming home. He didn’t need to be surrounded by a bunch of people he didn’t know talking about what a shame it was that his mother was gone.

So, while his brother stayed behind to receive condolences, Wayne reheated one of the many casseroles people had dropped off at the apartment for them, gave Eddie a bath, and put him to bed. But throughout it all, he couldn’t help but notice that his usually bright and talkative nephew was the most quiet and reserved he’d ever been since he learned how to talk.

When Richie finally came home, he didn’t say anything. Just grabbed the casserole dish that Wayne had left on the counter along with a fork and sat down on the sofa where Wayne was pretending he cared about whatever was on TV.

Without saying anything, Wayne got up and grabbed a drink for his brother. Nothing fancy. Just a glass of the iced tea from the fridge. But there was an unspoken meaning behind it that they both could feel. That Wayne was always going to take care of them and get them what they needed. No matter what, he would always be there.

“Thanks,” Richie said as he accepted the glass. “For everything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Wayne replied. “It’s what I’m here for.”

August 1970

Sunday dinners had remained the norm for the three Munson men, but Linda’s absence was always in the forefront of their minds. Not just because she was the best cook out of the three, but because she was the one who really got them to talk to each other. Wayne and Richie were never big talkers, and she had bridged their gap in communication.

And maybe that was why Wayne had accepted the Sunday overtime shifts that were offered to him. He hated missing the time with his family, but he hated the awkward silences more.

After not attending Sunday dinner for nearly a month, he figured that it was time to start going back. Eddie was starting school soon, and he felt guilty for the time he was missing with the kid. He felt even more guilty once he saw the state of their apartment.

He’d let himself in like he normally did, and the first thing he noticed was his brother passed out on the couch. There were empty beer cans strewn across the floor around him, and the room was in complete disarray. The kitchen wasn’t any better. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, and the trashcan was filled with enough beer cans to show that this probably wasn’t the first time this had happened.

He made his way back to Eddie’s room since the kid was nowhere to be found in the front of the apartment, and he found his nephew happily playing alone. It wasn’t exactly a comforting sight though. While the room was in relatively decent shape, the laundry hamper was overflowing to the point where there were small piles of clothes surrounding it, and there was a distinct odor hanging in the air. But the worst part was Eddie himself. The boy looked dirty. This definitely wasn’t the first day that he’d worn those clothes, and his hair was a tangled mess that obviously hadn’t been washed anytime recently.

“How’s it goin’, Eds?” Wayne asked, finally alerting his nephew to his presence.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie leaped up from his spot on the floor to give his uncle a hug.

As Wayne picked up the boy, he was hit with another wave of that stench, and his suspicions about said stench coming from Eddie were confirmed.

“So, when was the last time you had a bath?” he asked.

“We don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said with a little shrug.

“And I’m guessing you’d have the same answer if I asked why the kitchen isn’t clean?”

“Yep.”

“And why the laundry isn’t done?”

“Yep.”

“Do you know anything?” Wayne teased.

“I know we’re eating TV dinners tonight!” Eddie said, excited that he could tell his uncle something.

“And how do you know that?”

“‘Cause we eat ‘em every night. Daddy puts ‘em on a plate so I won’t know, but he never throws out the box cause he’s too busy sleeping on the couch.”

“Does he do that a lot? Sleep on the couch like that, I mean?”

“Yeah. He’s no good at bedtime anymore.”

Wayne couldn’t tell if he was more heartbroken for his nephew or angry at his brother at that moment. All he knew was that he needed to do something.

“How do you feel about coming over for a sleepover?” Wayne asked. “We haven’t had one of those in awhile, and I miss hanging out with my favorite kid.”

Eddie’s response was an enthusiastic yes, so Wayne set him back down.

“I’m gonna go talk to your daddy, and then we’ll get your stuff ready to go, okay?”

“Okay!”

Part of Wayne wanted to be thankful that at least Eddie still seemed happy. He was okay on the inside even if it was clear that his dad had dropped the ball. But a much larger part of him was consumed by his anger. Angry at his brother for letting his home get this messy. Angry at his brother for clearly not taking care of his child. Angry at his brother for picking up their father’s bad habits.

But, most of all, Wayne was angry at himself for avoiding the awkward silences. If he’d kept going over for Sunday dinners, he would have caught the warning signs sooner. He could have kept things from getting this bad. He could have done something to help, and he was going to live with the guilt of not helping sooner for a very long time.

When Richie didn’t respond to his name or being shaken, Wayne grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and dumped it over his brother’s head.

“What the hell, Wayne?” Richie sputtered as he came to and glared up at his brother.

“Don’t what the hell me,” Wayne replied. He was trying to keep his volume down so Eddie wouldn’t hear them. “It’s barely five o’clock on a Sunday, and you were passed out drunk.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. I shouldn’t have to tell you that with the way we grew up. Do you really want to put your kid through that?”

“I’m not turning into dad.” Richie sat up and laid his head in his hands. “I will never be anything like that man. I’m just not doing the best right now, okay? After everything, I lost my job. Missed too many shifts. It all spiraled from there. I just need some time to get back on my feet so we don’t lose the apartment.”

“You can’t take time when you’ve got Eddie to think about,” Wayne said as he took a seat next to his brother. “I’m bringing him home with me. This isn’t good for him, and you know it.”

“You can’t take my kid away from me.”

“The boy stinks, and I’m guessing he barely has any clean clothes left from what I saw in his room. This place is a wreck, and you don’t seem to care because you’re too busy drinking. He told me all you do is sleep on the couch like you were when I got here.”

Wayne ran a hand over the back of his neck. He hated putting this out there, but he had to open his brother’s eyes, and he didn’t see any other way.

“He starts preschool next week, Richie. If he gets there looking and smelling the way he does now or tells anyone anything about the way you’re living, someone is going to come here and take him away from you. He needs a safe and stable living environment, and this isn’t one right now. So you can either let him come with me while you pull yourself together, and you can still come and see him everyday. Or you can keep living like this, and you could wind up losing him for good. The choice is yours, and one of those options seems a lot better than the other to me.”

“Shit.”

Richie kicked the coffee table in frustration and sent empty beer cans flying.

“So, I can come see him everyday?” he asked after a moment.

“Whenever you want. I promise.”

“Okay . . . I’m not really turning into dad, am I?”

“No. I just think you went through some shit that you’re way too young for, and it made you make some bad choices. You’ve at least acknowledged it, so you’re doing better than he ever did.”

Wayne didn’t wait for a response from his brother. He just grabbed a garbage bag from the cabinet under the sink and headed back to Eddie’s room where he started shoving all of the dirty clothes into the bag.

“You can’t throw away my clothes,” Eddie pouted. “I need those.”

“I’m not throwing them away. I’m gonna do your laundry. Your daddy is awake, so why don’t you go talk to him while I get your stuff ready to go?”

Once Eddie’s clothes were taken care of, Wayne moved around the room grabbing whatever he saw that he thought his nephew would maybe want at his house and loading it into the duffle bag he found under the bed. He took the dinosaurs and toy cars that Eddie had been playing with when he came in. He took the stack of books and photo albums that were sitting on the tiny nightstand by his bed. He even grabbed the toy guitar that he was sure he was going to regret bringing with him. And, of course, he grabbed Mister Lion.

After a quick trip into the bathroom to grab Eddie’s toothbrush and other toiletries, he headed back into the living room where Eddie was giving his dad a goodbye hug.

“You be extra good for your uncle, okay?” Richie said as he pulled away from his son. “And I’ll be over to see you every day.”

“You promise?” Eddie asked.

“Cross my heart.”

Once they were back at the trailer, the first thing Wayne did was give Eddie a bath.

“I thought I didn’t need to do this anymore,” Eddie pouted as his uncle worked the shampoo into his hair.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Eds,” Wayne replied. “You smell, and I can’t have you stinking up my trailer. So, it’s either you take a bath on a regular basis, or you’re sleeping on the porch.”

Eddie looked up at his uncle with wide eyes.

“You’d make me sleep on the porch?

“Never. Which is why we need to get you cleaned up.”

Getting Eddie bathed was the easy part. Tackling the tangled mess of his hair was an entirely different beast. Wayne tried to be as careful as possible as he worked through the knots, but Eddie was especially tender-headed, and his hair was a mess from the neglect, so there were plenty of complaints and tears.

“Mama never made it hurt,” Eddie said between his sniffles.

“I’m sorry, Eds,” Wayne replied. “I’m being as gentle as I can.”

“I miss her.”

“I know. Me, too.”

Wayne made grilled cheese and tomato soup for their dinner. It wasn’t anything special, but it was better than a TV dinner, and he made himself a promise that he’d never feed his nephew one of those for dinner ever again if he could help it. And, after the table was cleared and the dishes were done, he put the kettle on the stove to start heating up some water to make tea for himself and hot chocolate for Eddie.

When Wayne’s mug collection started to outgrow the small cabinet shelf, he’d moved most of them into the living room to put on display, but his favorites were kept in the kitchen for easy use. He pulled out the mug from Eddie’s first Christmas for himself, and then he grabbed Linda’s favorite mug - the light blue one with the pink rosettes - for Eddie. He carefully carried the mugs over to the coffee table before going through the bag of Eddie’s things to find the book he was looking for.

“Hey, Eddie, can you come over here?” he called over to his nephew as he sat down on the couch.

Eddie abandoned his crayons and the picture he was drawing to climb onto the couch with his uncle.

“You were too little to remember it, but did your mama and daddy ever tell you that you all lived here with me when you were a baby?”

“We did?”

“You did. The three of you shared my bedroom, and I slept out here. Whenever you were up at night, your mama would come sit in the kitchen, and we’d have tea together while she fed you. And then, when you still wouldn’t go back to sleep, she’d hand you over to me. We’d sit over here, and she’d read her favorite book to you until you fell asleep in my arms.”

Wayne grabbed the mugs off of the table and passed Eddie’s to him before picking up the copy of The Hobbit that he’d set aside.

“I know you miss your mama, and I know this isn’t the same as having her here, but this is a little piece of her that I can share with you.”

Eddie curled up against his uncle, and they sipped their drinks as Wayne started to read Linda’s most favorite adventure out loud to her son. It wasn’t much, but it was all Wayne could do to make Eddie’s first night in his trailer a little bit easier.

December 1970

Richie had made good on his promise to come and visit every day for the first two months that Eddie was staying with Wayne. But right around Halloween, he started missing days. And then multiple days in a row. It broke Wayne’s heart every time he saw Eddie realize that his dad had forgotten about him again, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Richie had either stopped answering his phone at the apartment, or he was never home no matter what time of day Wayne called. Nor did he answer the door any of the times Wayne dropped by to check on him.

On Christmas Eve, Wayne realized that his brother hadn’t been over to see them since Thanksgiving, and he wasn’t sure if they’d be seeing him at all the next day. Wayne wasn’t going to let his brother’s screw ups ruin the holiday for Eddie though. It was going to be hard enough on him to spend his first Christmas without his mom. He didn’t want the whole day to be miserable.

Wayne had hidden all of Eddie’s gifts from Santa in the cabinet over the fridge - the only cabinet that Eddie hadn’t found a way to climb to yet - and he had gotten a small tree to prop up in the corner. It wasn’t very impressive, but Eddie was all smiles when he got to put the star on top, and that was good enough for him. He’d even picked up everything he needed to make cinnamon french toast for breakfast and a roast for Christmas dinner. It was shaping up to be a fairly decent holiday.

But, when he asked Eddie if he was excited for Santa to visit them that night, he was met with frustrated tears instead of the happiness he’d expected. Wayne stopped what he was doing and went over to where Eddie was sitting on the couch. The boy had tears streaming down his cheeks, and his tiny hands were balled into tight fists.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Wayne asked as he knelt down to get on Eddie’s level.

“I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“I forgot your present, and now it’s too late.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to get me anything. I promise.”

“No, I gotta,” Eddie said as he wiped at his tears. “Mama said it wasn’t special if you didn’t get a mug, and I wanted it to be special.”

Wayne moved to sit on the couch and scooped Eddie up in his arms, allowing the boy to cry into his shoulder and get his feelings out.

“I was going to ask daddy to take me, but he’s never here.”

Wayne could pinpoint a lot of things about his brother that had angered him lately, but he didn’t know if he could ever forgive him for hurting Eddie like this. Still, he didn’t want his nephew to end up hating his dad. When Richie pulled it together, they’d be a family again, and he didn’t want moments like this to sour that.

“It’s my fault, Eds,” Wayne lied as he rubbed Eddie’s back in an attempt to soothe him. “Your daddy gave me some money so you could buy me a Christmas gift and told me that I should take you, and I got so busy with work that I just forgot about it. But if we leave right now, I bet we can make it to the Goodwill in time for you to pick out something real special.”

The opportunity to go present shopping cheered Eddie up immediately, and before Wayne knew it, the boy was pulling at his arm to get him to help grab his coat and shoes.

The Goodwill was still open when they got there, and nobody was inside except for the very bored looking teenager running the cash register.

“Now, you go pick something out, and I’ll wait here until after you’ve paid so whatever you pick can be a surprise,” Wayne said as he handed Eddie a few dollars.

Eddie took the money and wandered off towards where the homegoods were kept, and Wayne busied himself by looking at a rack of kids clothes near the front of the store. He wasn’t necessarily planning on buying anything, but if he could maybe find something decent that would fit Eddie, he might as well look. He only turned his attention back to the checkout counter when he heard his nephew’s voice.

“Excuse me,” Eddie said as he reached up to set his purchase on the counter. The counter was taller than he was, so he had to stretch just a little bit. “I want to buy this as a Christmas gift for my uncle, please. I have my own money and everything.”

“Well, aren’t you the cutest,” the girl working the cash register said as she picked up his mug. “Are you sure this is the one you want to get him though?”

“Yes, it’s the best one.”

“Okay, that’ll be one dollar. And for an extra quarter, I can even put it in one of these fancy gift bags for you if you’d like.”

“Yes, please.” Eddie set his money on the counter and waited as the girl got his change and wrapped his purchase.

“Here you go, sweetie,” the girl said as she handed Eddie his things.

“Thank you! Merry Christmas!”

Eddie raced back over to his uncle, and it was apparent that the tears from earlier were long forgotten.

When Wayne unwrapped his new “Virginia is for Lovers” mug in front of the tree on Christmas morning, he couldn’t contain his laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Eddie asked.

“It’s nothing Eds. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Did I pick a good one then?”

“You picked the best one. I love it.”

And he did. Not just because it was Eddie that gave it to him, but because he knew it was the exact mug Linda would have chosen if she was there.

June 1973

Wayne and Eddie had settled into a routine together. During the school year, Wayne put Eddie on the bus before heading to work, and then he picked him up from after school care on the way home. Wayne made them dinner while Eddie did whatever homework he had to do, and then it was bathtime and books before bed. There wasn’t really enough room for two beds in Wayne’s bedroom, but he’d rearranged the furniture enough that they could just barely fit the fold out bed in his room when Eddie had expressed that he didn’t like sleeping out in the living room alone.

The only difference during the summer was that Eddie went to daycare instead of school. It was a little too expensive, but Wayne was doing his best to make it work.

Richie’s visits were few and far between at this point. They were lucky if he came to visit Eddie once a month, but it was usually a longer absence than that. They didn’t even have a way to contact him when he was gone anymore because he’d lost the apartment, and the only reason they knew he lost the apartment was because he’d told Wayne that if there was anything of Eddie’s still there, he should probably get it before the landlord changed the locks. When Wayne had showed up to grab the rest of Eddie’s toys and books, he’d grabbed the rest of the photo albums and a few of Linda’s things that were still around that he thought Eddie might like to have one day. Richie was supposed to give them his new address and phone number once he’d settled into a new place, but that had been nearly a year ago, and Wayne wasn’t holding his breath. His brother had broken so many promises since Eddie had moved in with Wayne, that he had a hard time believing anything his brother said.

So, when Richie showed up that morning and said that he wanted to take Eddie for the whole day, Wayne couldn’t have been more surprised. Even when Richie did remember to show up, he never spent the whole day with his own kid. But his brother said he had a new job, and he wanted to celebrate with his son. Wayne was reluctant to let it happen, but he knew the kid missed his dad, and if Richie wanted to step up, it would at least give him a chance to get some work done around the trailer without any distractions.

But when they came back around dinner time, Wayne regretted letting them go alone. Physically, Eddie was fine, but they returned in a different car than the one they’d left in. A much nicer car that Wayne knew his brother wouldn’t have been able to afford. He’d heard some rumors about cars getting stolen around Hawkins and getting brought to a chop shop somewhere outside of the town, but he hadn’t given it much thought since no one wanted to steal a car from someone who lived in a trailer park.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie said as he climbed out the car and ran to his uncle. “We had the best day!”

“You did?”

“Yeah! First, we went to the arcade, and then we got hot dogs, and after that, dad showed me how I can get any car I want for free!”

“Oh really?” Wayne glanced over at his brother who was leaning against the hood of what Eddie had all but confirmed was definitely a stolen car. “That sounds like a really great day, Eds. Why don’t you go inside and get washed up for dinner while your dad and I have a little chat, okay?”

Wayne waited until Eddie was out of earshot before he walked over to his brother.

“Seriously, Richie? Is that what your new job is? Stealing cars?”

“Lighten up. Do you know how much money I get for each car I bring in? I might actually be able to afford a decent apartment again, and I can quit sleeping on people’s couches. Eddie could even come stay with me.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. Being enmeshed in illegal activities is exactly what every seven year old needs. Do you even hear yourself?”

“Don’t tell me how to raise my son, Wayne. I think I know what I’m doing here.”

“Well, that’s rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Since when are you the one raising him, Richie? The last time I checked, we haven’t seen you since March.”

“He’s still my son.”

“Then act like it. Because I’m the one who gets him to and from school and makes sure he gets his homework done. I’m the one who makes sure that he’s fed and clothed and has a roof over his head. I’m the one that he cries out for whenever he has a bad dream or he’s sick. And I’m the one who comforts him and distracts him every time you say you’ll be here and then don’t show up because you’re too drunk or you overslept or just forgot and didn’t care. And I am sick of you coming back around for a day and lying to him about how you’re going to be around more often and promising to spend more time with him because every time you break that promise, his heart breaks all over again. He deserves better than that, and you know it.”

“Shut up.”

“You can’t just tell me to shut up when you don’t want to hear the truth, and frankly, I’ve stayed quiet long enough. This is something you should have heard a long time ago.”

“I said shut up.”

“If she could see the way that you’re treating her boy, Linda would be so ashamed of you right now.”

“Fuck you!”

Richie launched up from where he was leaning on the car to post up to his brother. For a minute, Wayne was convinced that Richie was going to take a swing at him from the anger burning in his eyes, but nothing happened.

“You want me to be a better dad? Fine. I’ll be a better dad,” he spat as he stormed toward the trailer door. “We don’t need any help from you anymore.”

Before Wayne knew it, his brother was marching out of the trailer pulling a very confused looking Eddie behind him.

“Say goodbye to your uncle, Eddie,” Richie said as he opened his car door. “You’re not going to be seeing him for a while.”

“Richie, be reasonable.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Wayne. Either I’m the dad that you want me to be, or I leave him here with you. So I’m taking my son, and we’re leaving because I will not stand here and listen to you insult me. And if I ever hear Linda’s name leave your mouth again, that’ll be the last time you ever speak.”

Richie climbed into the car and slammed his door shut. Once Eddie was inside with him, he sped away and out of the trailer park leaving Wayne to spend the night alone for the first time in years.

February 1976

It was after midnight when Wayne got the call. He'd been asleep for a few hours at that point, and he'd been woken up by the phone. At first, he'd tried to ignore the call, but the person on the other end of the line was persistent, so the phone just kept ringing. He stumbled out of his bedroom and into the kitchen to grab the phone.

“Hello?” Wayne answered the phone, his voice hoarse from barely being awake.

“Have we reached Wayne Munson?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Munson, this is Chief Carver with the Hawkins police department. We currently have your brother in custody down at the station. His bail hasn’t been set just yet, and he declined his one phone call, but I’m calling to inform you that we also have your nephew here. He was asleep in the back of the car when my officers picked up your brother, and we’ve been told that you’re the only other family the boy has. We were hoping to place the child in your care as we’d rather contact family than anyone else in situations like these.”

“I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

Wayne didn’t need to hear anything else before he was putting on real pants and racing down to the station. He’d barely seen his brother and nephew since their fight as Richie had cut him out of their lives. He only saw them in passing, but Richie would quickly leave whatever public space they were in when he noticed Wayne was there, too. And even if he had a phone number, he doubted Richie would take his calls. He didn’t want to say that he was afraid of what he’d find when he got there, but he wasn’t expecting anything good.

“I got a call from the chief about my brother,” Wayne said as he walked up to the officer sitting behind the front desk. “I’m supposed to be picking up my nephew.”

“Wayne Munson, right?” the officer asked. “I’ll take you back to see your nephew shortly. Just gotta go over some official business first. You know how it is. Now, your brother will be staying here overnight because we won’t be able to get him arraigned until morning.”

“What is he facing in the way of charges?”

“Well, for starters, he was already wanted for multiple counts of grand theft auto and the possession and selling of stolen merchandise. Tonight, he was picked up on a DUI with multiple traffic violations, expired plates, and child endangerment to sweeten the deal. There was also a startling amount of liquor in the car with him. When he was pulled over, he attempted to assault an officer, and he resisted arrest. We don’t expect you to stay here until he’s arraigned, so we can call you and let you know what his bail is set at after the hearing occurs.”

“Don’t bother,” Wayne replied. “I won’t be posting his bail. All I care about is my nephew. Is he okay?”

“As far as we can tell, the boy is fine. A little shaken up, but okay. He was asleep in the backseat when the car was pulled over, and he only woke up when your brother started to get belligerent. We have reason to believe they were living out of the car from the sheer amount of stuff loaded into the trunk and backseat. Because the car was one of the ones he’s accused of stealing, everything inside it was admitted into evidence. However, we’re hoping someone will be able to sort through it after the weekend, so we can set aside anything that belongs to the boy and get it to you then.”

“Can I see him now? I just want to take him home.”

Finally, the officer led him back to the station’s break room where he found Eddie sitting on the sofa with his knees hugged to his chest.

“Alright, Eddie,” the officer said. “Your uncle is here to take you home.”

Eddie got up from the sofa and headed over towards where they were standing without saying a word. It was the quietest that Wayne had ever seen the boy other than when he was sleeping, and he hated it more than he could say.

Eddie stayed quiet the entire way back to the trailer despite Wayne asking him how he was doing, telling him he missed him, and just trying to get even the smallest bit of a conversation going. He tried not to read too much into it. It had most likely been an overwhelming night for him so far, and he was probably worn out.

It was only once they were back at the trailer that Wayne realized he didn’t have any pajamas or extra clothes for Eddie. He still had most of the clothes that had been left behind when his brother had taken the boy back, but he’d grown in the three years since he’d worn any of that stuff, so Wayne doubted he’d be comfortable in any of them. He grabbed one of his own t-shirts out of the basket of clean laundry he’d neglected to put away and offered it to Eddie.

“I know it’s not pajamas, but you might be more comfortable sleeping in this.”

“I’m fine,” Eddie replied, not bothering to take the shirt. “I sleep like this most of the time.”

The boy moved to sit on the edge of the couch, and Wayne set the shirt down on the coffee table just in case Eddie ended up changing his mind.

“How long do I get to stay here?” Eddie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Am I gonna have to go stay somewhere else?”

“No, Eds. You’re here with me for good.” Even if Richie didn’t end up in jail for any of the charges he was facing, Wayne was never letting Eddie out of his sight again. Even if that meant spending what little money he had on a custody battle for his nephew’s wellbeing.

Wayne noted the confused look on Eddie’s face at his response, but he didn’t press the issue further. It had already been a long night for the both of them, and he was surprised that Eddie wasn’t already passed out.

“I’ve still got all of your stuff here from before, so I figure we can go through it tomorrow. See if any of your clothes might still fit or if there are any toys you might still want, and then we can go to the Goodwill and maybe get you some new things to replace what doesn’t work anymore.”

“You kept my stuff?”

“Of course, I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said as he looked down at his shoes. “Figured you wouldn’t want my stuff here either.”

It was the either that struck him. How Eddie was so quiet when he said it as if he didn’t want to voice his fears out loud. Wayne moved to sit next to Eddie on the couch.

“What do you mean?” he asked gently.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Eds. You’re upset, and I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Eddie refused to look at his uncle, continuing to stare at the ground instead.

“Dad said you didn’t want me here anymore. That there wasn’t space for me, so I had to go back with him.”

Wayne thought that being punched in the chest would have been less painful than hearing that. As much as he wanted to sit there and call his brother a liar along with a slew of much harsher names, he couldn’t let himself do that. Eddie had already been through so much that night, and he wasn’t going to be responsible for worsening the boy’s opinion of his own dad. Instead, he placed a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. There was not a day that went by that I didn’t wish you were here with me. Your dad and I had just had a fight, and it made more sense for you to be with him than it did for you to stay here. That’s all it was.”

Wayne got up from the sofa and moved over to where the old foldout bed was pushed into the corner. Behind it was a small, wooden chest. He picked up the chest and set it back down in front of Eddie. He encouraged Eddie to open it, and when the boy did, the first thing he saw was his old stuffed lion. He pulled the plushie out and hugged it to his chest before looking back to find many more of his childhood play things. Toy cars, dinosaurs, and little army men mixed in with crayon stumps, notebooks filled with his drawings, and his mother’s well-loved copies of Tolkien’s epic fantasy. The boy looked up at his uncle with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry if my mistakes ever made you feel unwanted,” Wayne started, “because the truth is that I would still want you here and have the space for you even if this trailer was the size of my bathroom and nothing bigger.”

“You swear?” Eddie asked. He held out his pinky, and his uncle immediately gripped it with his own.

“I swear.”

Wayne moved to set up the fold out bed.

“You don’t have to go through any of that tonight. It’s late enough as it is. Let me get your bed set up, and we can deal with all of that tomorrow.”

“I’m fine on the couch.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not gonna let you sleep on the couch when I’ve got a perfectly good bed for you.”

“It’s really okay. When we weren’t sleeping in the car, I slept on a lot of couches at other people’s places. The floor sometimes, too. But I always liked the couches best."

The boy seemed eager to please as if he'd been told not to be difficult about where he slept in the past. To accept what he was offered without complaint. Wayne didn't want to fight him on this, but he also didn't want Eddie to think that this was any trouble for him. He'd give him the choice and let the boy do whatever he was most comfortable with.

"Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and set up the bed anyway. You don't have to sleep on it if you don't want to, but I want you to have it as an option."

Wayne barely slept that night. Eddie had looked at the fold out bed as if it was a trap before curling up into a ball on the sofa. It was then that it occurred to him that his nephew hadn't had his own room or any space to really call his own since the first time he'd come to live at the trailer. He'd always shared his uncle's room or the living room or whatever space his dad was able to provide.

Wayne had never needed much space. He didn't have a lot of stuff, and he figured he could fit most of his things in the tiny closet outside the bathroom if he did a little rearranging. Most of his drawers had been taken up by Eddie’s clothes when he lived there the first time anyway. He could take the fold out bed in the living room and give up his bedroom for his nephew. And if Eddie had his own space, maybe that would silence whatever was telling him that he was unwanted and allow him to relax.

So, instead of sleeping, he went through his closet. The boxes filled with Eddie’s old clothes were emptied onto the bed so he could load them up with his things. Moving it all into the hall closet and drawers could wait until morning since he didn’t want to accidentally wake his nephew, but he could get the room mostly ready for the boy to move into it.

By the time it was a reasonable enough hour for him to go and make his morning coffee, he had all of his stuff piled in boxes in the corner and another box of things he was planning on donating to Goodwill. He figured he could wash the sheets and put a fresh set on the bed later, but everything else was ready.

Eddie was still curled up asleep on the couch when Wayne exited the bedroom, so he tried to be as quiet as possible as he started the coffee. He woke up before the coffee was done though, and soon enough, he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he stood next to his uncle in the kitchen.

“You sleep okay, kiddo?” Wayne asked as he pulled out a couple cereal bowls.

Eddie nodded before moving to take his normal spot at the small table. Wayne didn’t want to pry too much, but he was clueless about what Eddie’s life had been like over the last few years, so he tried to get the boy to talk to him without it seeming like he was interrogating him.

Over bowls of Cheerios, Eddie shared that most of the time, his dad had him hang out at the comic book shop after school and on the weekends. He wasn’t supposed to get in the way while Richie was working, so every week, his dad gave him two dollars, and he could spend that on whatever comics he wanted even if the only ones he really cared about were the X-Men ones. The guy who ran the shop was really nice and let Eddie sit there for as long as he needed to even on the days that he wasn’t buying anything. He never missed school, and his dad always made sure he was fed, so at least he hadn’t been lacking in those departments. Richie was neglectful in a lot of ways, but he had managed to do the bare minimum. He could be thankful for that at least.

After breakfast, Wayne had Eddie help him sort through the boy’s old clothes. None of the pants were going to fit him anymore, but he had a handful of shirts that had been a little big before that he could still fit into. Wayne just hoped that they’d be able to find a few pairs of jeans in decent shape while they were at Goodwill because he definitely didn’t have the money to drop on new pants.

Eddie wanted to keep his dinosaurs and the one little car that had been his favorite, and of course he was keeping Mister Lion, but the rest of his old toys joined the Goodwill boxes. He just wasn’t interested in those things anymore. Wayne made a mental note to pick up a new box of crayons the next time he was at the grocery store since Eddie was very adamant about keeping all of his old drawings, and his old crayons were barely usable anymore.

Their trip to Goodwill was a successful one. Wayne had to use up a good portion of his cigarette budget for the month on a new wardrobe for Eddie, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He’d been meaning to cut back anyway.

“Why don’t you go and put your clothes away in your room?” Wayne told Eddie when they returned to the trailer.

“My room?”

“The bedroom is yours, Eds. I just have to move a few things into the other closet and change the sheets, and then it’ll be ready.”

“You don’t have to give up your room for me.”

“I know. But I want to. Figured you should have a space of your own if you’re gonna be staying here permanently.”

Eddie dropped the bags he was holding and went to give his uncle a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“No need to thank me. You deserve this.” As Wayne was moving the rest of his stuff out of the room, Eddie was drawn to one item in particular.

“You play guitar?” he asked, eyeing the old acoustic in his uncle’s hands.

“I used to. I don’t think I’ve actually played it since before you were born. I was about your age when I learned though.”

“Could you teach me?”

“Sure can. I was just gonna stick it in the closet, but you can keep it in your room if you want and you promise to be real careful with it.”

Eddie nodded enthusiastically before taking the guitar from his uncle and carrying it back into his bedroom.

The rest of Eddie’s first day back at the trailer passed by without any incident. Eddie was slowly warming up to being there again even if he still seemed cautious about what he was and wasn’t allowed to do. It wasn’t until bedtime that Wayne was certain things would be okay between them.

By then, he was exhausted from having stayed up all night and all the work he did to get the bedroom ready for him. He’d just tucked Eddie in and was getting ready to set up his own bed in the living room when he heard the bedroom door open.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he asked. “Thought you were going to sleep?”

“I was,” Eddie said as he looked down at the ground. “But I was just thinking maybe you could set up your bed in my room like we used to? Just for tonight?”

“I think that can be arranged.”

Wayne squeezed the fold out bed into the cramped bedroom. Without saying a word, Eddie handed his uncle the copy of The Hobbit that was sitting on the nightstand, and even though he was ready to crash, Wayne settled in and read until his nephew was softly snoring beside him just as he had so many times before.

December 1976

Wayne was not spoiling Eddie for Christmas this year. If anyone asked, he insisted he wasn’t. He was staying well within his budget for the holidays, but he was buying pretty much everything secondhand, so his money went a little further. He’d picked up a few board games and an assortment of mismatched legos from the Goodwill, and he’d managed to get a good deal on a new set of strings for the guitar. He’d even picked up the 64 pack of Crayola crayons that had a sharpener built into the box and some plain, unlined paper for him to draw on. Eddie's Christmases with his dad hadn't exactly been great ones, and he wanted to do what he could to make up for that. There was just one last thing he wanted to get.

It had all started when Eddie had spent an entire day drawing at the kitchen table. Wayne hadn't been paying much attention to him because anything that kept Eddie occupied and quiet for more than five minutes meant he could get some cleaning done around the trailer without his nephew getting underfoot or making more work for him. He loved the kid as if he were his own, but he could be a handful at times. When he went to put another load of dirty clothes in the washer and figure out what he was making for dinner, he got a good look at what Eddie had been drawing.

Wayne gathered up the papers and shuffled through them, and he was amazed by Eddie's work. They were good drawings. Not just good for a kid drawings where you could tell what they were supposed to be but they still looked clumsy. These were actually good, and they were all dragons. Different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some breathing fire, some flying, and some sleeping, but all recognizable as dragons.

"Did you draw all of these?" he asked.

Eddie nodded without looking up from his current drawing.

"And you didn't trace 'em or copy them from something or anything?"

"Nope. I just drew what I pictured."

“These are really great, Eds. Best drawings I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Don’t know where you got all this talent from. No one in our family can draw more than a stick figure.”

Eddie was absolutely beaming from all of the praise.

“Which one is your favorite?” the boy asked.

Wayne flipped through the stack of drawings in his hand before pulling out one of a purple dragon asleep on a pile of gold coins and jewels.

“If I had to pick, it’s this one,” he said as he held up the picture. “Would you mind if I hung it on the fridge?”

“You wanna hang up my picture?”

“Of course, I do. Gotta display it like the masterpiece it is.”

After the first drawing was in its place on the fridge, Eddie wanted to hang the rest of his dragons up in his room, so Wayne carefully taped up each and every one of them exactly where Eddie told him to. The entire time, Eddie was sitting cross-legged on his bed monologuing about how cool dragons were and why they were his most favorite fantasy creature. It was then that Wayne knew he had to find a way to get his boy something dragon-related for Christmas.

The problem he was facing was that there seemed to be absolutely nothing dragon-related in all of Hawkins, and he was running out of time. He didn’t know what he was going to do until he spotted something on one of the shelves in the comic book shop.

Wayne couldn’t give Eddie as much money as his dad had been giving him to spend on comics, but every Saturday, they took a trip there after lunch and before they did their grocery shopping for the next week. Eddie was allowed to choose one comic to take home, and Wayne would let him take as long as he needed to make that decision. Usually, he’d just stand and wait with Eddie, but a box with a large red dragon on the front had piqued his interest, so he went to examine it. It didn’t take long for him to realize that it was the perfect gift for his nephew.

When Eddie ran up to him with the comic he’d chosen, Wayne told him to go wait in the truck while he paid. As soon as his nephew was out of his sight, he grabbed the box and bought it along with the comic. It was a little more than he wanted to spend, but he knew it would be worth it to see Eddie’s face when he opened it on Christmas morning.

Wayne had barely opened his eyes before Eddie was shoving a gift into his hands on Christmas morning. He’d insisted that he didn’t need anything like he had for every single Christmas of his adult life, and he had been ignored as usual. When he opened the gift bag, he was presented with four different coffee mugs.

“There’s one for this year, and one for every Christmas I missed,” Eddie said, looking very proud of himself.

“How’d you get the money to pay for these?”

“A group of kids on the playground bet me their milk money that I wouldn’t eat a worm.”

“You ate a worm?”

Eddie shrugged. “It didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.”

Wayne snorted and moved to ruffle a hand through the boy’s curls. “We’ve gotta work on your impulse control, kid.”

“Do you like them?” Eddie asked.

“I love ‘em. In fact, I’m gonna have my morning coffee in one of them, and I’ll make you a special Christmas hot cocoa in one, too.”

After the drinks had been passed out, Wayne pushed his bed to the side so he and Eddie could sit on the floor together with the tiny fake tree that Wayne had found at a garage sale. It wasn’t much, and it looked even tinier when the small pile of gifts for Eddie was almost the same height, but Eddie had just been excited to have a tree which was good enough for Wayne.

As Eddie opened his gifts, Wayne made sure that the one he was the most excited to give him was the last one he opened.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Eddie read off the front of the box.

“It’s a fantasy roleplaying game,” Wayne told him. “I don’t know much about it, but the guy down at the comic book shop said it’s pretty fun, and I know how much you like dragons and fantasy stuff, so I thought this could be fun. I figured you could read the manual and maybe teach me how to play? If that’s okay with you, of course.”

It was more than okay with Eddie. Wayne watched as Eddie did nothing but read the manuals and plan out a small campaign for them to play for pretty much his entire winter break. On New Year’s Eve, he sat his uncle down at their kitchen table and walked him through creating a character before diving into their fantasy adventure. Wayne tried his best to understand what was going on, and Eddie often had to remind him which die to roll and when, but the boy’s excitement and enthusiasm for the game was apparent the entire time. He never got frustrated with him for forgetting what he was supposed to be doing, and he put every bit of his dramatic, over the top personality into painting a picture of this fantasy world.

There were plenty of days where Wayne was convinced that he was doing everything wrong when it came to raising Eddie, but as he watched his nephew fall in love with his new game, he knew that he’d done at least one thing right.

May 1980

When Eddie started middle school, Wayne had decided he was old enough to take the bus home from school and be alone at the trailer until he got home from work. For the most part, this hadn’t been a bad idea, and Eddie had only almost flooded the trailer once. But, towards the end of eighth grade, there was one big hiccup.

“I messed up,” Eddie called from the bathroom the second Wayne had walked in the door.

"Messed up how?"

"Can you just come here?"

Wayne made his way back to the bathroom where he found Eddie leaning over the sink. Sitting on the edge of the sink was a pair of scissors, and there was a very obvious chunk of hair missing from the left side of his head. Considering the fact that Eddie had just told him a week before that he was planning on growing out his hair in an attempt to emulate his favorite musicians, Wayne was more than a little bit confused.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" he asked.

"I was just minding my own business and talking to my friend Jeff about how awesome Corroded Coffin was gonna be at the talent show next week when the kid in the seat behind me smashed his gum in my hair."

"Is this the same kid who called you a freak and ripped up your notebook last month?"

"Yeah . . . I've been ignoring him like you said, but he just won't leave me alone."

Wayne had never considered beating a child before, but there was a first time for everything.

"And I'm guessing the scissors are out because you were trying to get the gum out by yourself?"

"I tried everything. But I couldn't get it out with my hands, and trying to pick it out with my comb only made it worse. And I didn't know what to do, so I figured I could just cut it out, and no one would notice. But I ended up cutting off too much, and now I look like this."

"Why didn't you wait for me to get home? I could've helped you."

"I was embarrassed," Eddie said. The boy looked like he was about ready to cry. "I don't like talking about this stuff, so I thought maybe I could do it alone, and then I wouldn't have to tell you."

Wayne sighed before squeezing past Eddie to pull his clippers out of the bathroom cabinet.

"I can fix this," he said. "It's not going to be what you want, and it's going to take awhile for your hair to grow back, but I can at least even it out and make it look like you wanted your hair to be shorter, okay?"

Eddie nodded.

"Good. Now take a seat and let me take care of you."

Eddie sat down on the edge of the toilet, and Wayne got to work. To make it easier for the clippers to do their job, Wayne started out by using the scissors to cut off Eddie's curls in chunks that he tossed aside in the sink. Once his hair was a more manageable length, Wayne turned on the clippers and started evening out the cut. It definitely wasn't what Eddie wanted, but soon enough, the boy was sporting a fresh buzz cut.

“I’m going to clean up in here, and then you can take a shower if you want. After that, meet me in the kitchen. I think you and I might need to have a talk.”

After sweeping up Eddie’s hair, Wayne headed into the kitchen and put on the water for hot chocolate. That was their routine. Whenever they had to talk about something even remotely upsetting, they did it over cups of hot cocoa in the hopes that the sweetness of the drink would soften the blow.

Eddie came out of the bathroom and took his usual seat at the kitchen table just as Wayne was finished making their drinks. He set Eddie’s mug down in front of him before taking his own seat. It was obvious to him that the boy had been crying while he was in the bathroom from his red-rimmed eyes, but he didn’t comment on it. He didn’t want to make Eddie feel worse than he clearly already did.

Wayne couldn’t get a word out before Eddie started talking.

“I don’t think I wanna do the talent show anymore,” he said as he stared into his mug.

“Why not? It’s all you’ve talked about for weeks.”

“They haven’t even heard me play yet, and I’m already getting picked on for it. What if I suck, and it gets worse?”

“So what?”

“What do you mean so what?” Eddie asked. “You just had to shave my head. I don’t want anything like this to happen ever again.”

Wayne sighed and took a sip from his mug.

“I know we don’t talk about your mama very often, but after you, music was her favorite thing in this world. When you all lived with me, there wasn’t a moment of the day that she wasn’t singing along with whatever was playing on the radio, and she might have been just about the worst singer I’ve heard in my entire life. Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if her life depended on it, and we all teased her about it constantly. But that didn’t stop her from singing her heart out whenever she heard her favorite songs.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“People around here are small-minded, and they’re raising their children to be a bunch of small-minded idiots. No matter what you do, there’s always going to be someone who’s gonna try to make you feel small. That’s just the way life is. And if you stop yourself from doing the things you love just because someone else is making fun of you for it, you’re only letting the bullies win. You’ve gotta be a bigger and louder version of yourself and not let them affect you.

“You are so much like your mama in a lot of ways. Practically a little clone of her at times. Especially when you smile. But the biggest difference that I can see is that you have talent. I may not understand the kind of music you like, but I can tell when something sounds good. I hear you practicing, and you’ve got a gift. I won’t lie to you and pretend that everyone is going to love your performance or that the bullies will magically disappear, but what I can tell you is that it would be a damn shame if you didn’t share your gift with the world just because some little shit stain on your bus clearly wasn’t raised right.”

Wayne got up from the table to put his mug in the sink, but he’d barely taken a step before Eddie had jumped up and wrapped his arms around his uncle in a bone-crushing hug.

“Thank you,” Eddie whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Wayne replied as he hugged him back. “I probably don’t say this enough, but I hope you know that I love you, and I’m always going to be in your corner.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“Good. And if you have any more trouble on that bus of yours, you let me know, and I’ll kick that little punk’s butt. No one is gonna get away with treating my boy like crap.”

Eddie snorted as he pulled away from his uncle.

“I’m sure he’ll be terrified. You’re basically the least intimidating person I know.”

“Okay, smart ass. I’m plenty intimidating.”

“You’re about as scary as a teddy bear.”

It was Wayne’s turn to laugh.

A few weeks later, when Father’s Day rolled around, Wayne woke up to a gift and a homemade card waiting for him next to the coffee maker. He opened the card first, and printed in Eddie’s messy scrawl, it read:

I feel like this is probably long overdue, and I should have been honoring you today for at least a few years now. You’ve been more of a dad to me than I ever remember mine being, and I feel like I don’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me enough. So thanks for always being there. Happy Father’s Day from your boy.

Feeling a little choked up, Wayne pulled the gift towards himself next. It was wrapped up in the comics from the day before’s newspaper with way too much tape. He knew what it would be before he'd even unwrapped it, but he was always happy to see whatever mug Eddie had picked out for him. This one was dark green and patterned with sunflowers, and he knew that it was going to become one of his new favorites immediately if only because of the circumstances in which he received it.

March 1986

Wayne Munson was tired. Tired of people judging Eddie without really knowing him, tired of people not listening to him, and tired of people defacing his missing posters instead of actually helping him look. He was tired of having to keep his guard up when anyone tried to talk to him because he didn’t want to lose his temper and attack someone for spouting vile nonsense at him, and he was tired of spending every waking moment - and most of his sleeping ones - worrying about Eddie. Tired of sleeping in the high school surrounded by people who had actively been hunting down his boy to do who knows what to him. He was just tired.

So, when Dustin Henderson came up to him and gave him the news that Eddie was gone, he could feel himself crumbling from the inside out. At first, he didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true. His boy was out there somewhere and hiding until someone could find concrete evidence that cleared his name. He had to be. But the guitar pick necklace that Dustin held out to him and the apparent pain plastered across the kid’s face had sealed it. His boy was dead, and he was never going to see him again.

Wayne had never been one to outwardly express his emotions. He tended to keep things tucked away until he could have a moment in private, and he certainly never cried in public. But hearing the way that Dustin spoke so fondly about Eddie broke him. Because Dustin was saying everything that he already knew to be true. If Hawkins had really taken the time to get to know his boy, they all would have been able to look past his outer appearance, and they would have loved him just as much as Wayne did. He was certain of it. He just never thought he’d hear someone else say it.

Shortly after he spoke to Dustin, Wayne and the other trailer park residents were given the all clear to go back to their trailers and gather their things. The relief workers had marked it as safe for them to enter briefly, but no one was going to be allowed to stay there for very long. They were instructed to gather up anything important and head back to their temporary housing at the school as soon as possible. Eventually, they’d be able to come back and grab the rest of their things when more permanent housing was found for them, but for now, they were limited in how much they could take.

Wayne didn’t know how much of his stuff was going to be worth saving. Frankly, he was surprised that his trailer had even been left standing when he saw the fault line that ran through what had once been his living room. Out of an abundance of caution, he had entered through the door down near the bedroom instead of the main entrance. He moved quickly, shoving as many of his clothes in his bag as he could. He’d much rather wear his own stuff than the donations that people brought into the school.

After that, he grabbed the sentimental things. For once, he was thankful that he didn’t keep things in conventional places because that meant that all of his photo albums were safe. The notebooks full of Eddie’s childhood drawings and his favorite dragon picture were safe. Eddie’s beloved stuffed lion was safe. All of these were carefully added to his bag. But the one thing he couldn’t take was what hurt the most to leave behind.

He’d known the second that he saw the fault line running through his home that his mugs wouldn’t have made it. What was left of his living room display was now smashed on the floor, and he could tell just from the look of it that there was nothing he could save. He knew it was stupid for him to be so upset about them. They were just a bunch of mugs and nobody else would find them important. Anybody else wouldn’t give them a second thought because they could be replaced.

But they were important to Wayne. Those mugs tied him to better times with people he would never be able to see again. He could buy a new mug, but he couldn’t buy the mugs that Linda had stolen from her parents for him, he couldn’t buy the mugs that Eddie had eaten a worm to pay for, and he couldn’t buy the mug that Eddie gave him the first time he recognized him on Father’s Day. He couldn’t buy back the happiness that looking at those mugs and remembering their stories gave him. That was gone forever.

He didn’t want to set himself up for even more disappointment, but a part of him needed to know if the mugs that he stored in the cabinet had made it through the earthquake. Those were the ones that he used the most often. His favorites. He would be heartbroken if they were all destroyed, but he needed that closure.

When he opened the cabinet above the coffee maker, he was met with a shelf covered with the broken pieces of his mugs that had smashed against each other in the enclosed space. He knew not to get his hopes up, but it was still a painful sight to see.

But, pushed into the very back corner of the cabinet, there was one mug that appeared to still be intact. He carefully pulled it out of the debris to inspect it. Sporting a new chip on the handle, the mug featured the phrase “World’s Best Uncle” hand-painted on the side along with a bright blue baby handprint. The mug from Eddie’s first Christmas.

As he carefully wrapped the mug in a sheet of newspaper that was sitting on the floor underneath the kitchen table, Wayne felt himself choking back tears for the second time that day. It wasn’t his whole collection, but at least it was something. After all, he was only one man. He always said he didn’t need more than one mug.

#thorn|recommends #shaking crying throwing up #sobbing my eyes out #i can't

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