Change of Heart

observed, and you and I are still hours away from seeing him face-to-face."
    "But I thought that's what you wanted?"
    "I do, but I would never dishonor Logan by barging in there before he called me."
    Crane's smile was sly. "Well now, haven't we been whipped into shape?"
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    I flipped him off. "It's not like that. Logan doesn't get to tell me what to do. You of all people know——"
    "I know, I know," Crane groaned. "Sorry."
    I gestured with a soapy hand for him to come back to me.
    "It's just that me disagreeing with Logan, fighting with him...
    only you, his family, people who live in this house... you're the only ones who get to see that. In public, in front of the tribe, they only get to see me observing my place as reah and honoring my semel."
    He nodded, and I noticed the trembling smile, the clenching of his jaw, and how he had to quickly rub his eyes.
    "Jesus. What?" I smiled at him, my friend with the soft heart.
    "Nothin', just you bein' a reah... I knew you'd be a good one. I just never figured you'd get the chance."
    We stood in silence staring at each other.
    "Excuse me."
    Both Crane and I turned to the door where a man I had never seen in my life was standing. I felt my brows furrow.
    "Hi." He smiled, slipping into the room, hand extended forward. "I'm——"
    I cut him off sharply. "You need to go back to the group.
    You're violating a lot of rules of——"
    "Danny?" My father poked his head into the room, apparently looking for the man standing in front of me.
    It was hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I was suddenly seeing my father after so long. The moment was surreal.
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    "Dad," I said before I even thought the word in my head, just his name tumbling naturally out of me.
    "Jinnai," my father said, using my full Japanese first name.
    "Hello, sir."
    "I'm glad you're not dead."
    What was the correct response to that?
    "Thank you, sir," I said, washing off my hands, flipping the water off and then wiping them dry, all of it taking forever to accomplish. I felt like I was moving through caramel as I walked across the room to him. It felt like a dream, like the movement in dreams, how you should be able to run but never can. He put his hands behind his back, his signal to me that we would not shake. I shoved my own down into the pockets of my threadbare jeans.
    He squinted at me. "Does your semel make you wear your hair that long?"
    I took deep breaths. "No."
    "Is he sterile?"
    I immediately knew where this was going. "No."
    "So he's capable of having children then?"
    After eight years, close to nine, of no contact with the man, and these were the first words he was going to speak to me? In front of a stranger, no less? "I assume, so yes."
    "But this man, this supposed semel, he's willing to give up everything for you?"
    "He's not giving up anything."
    "He's giving up his bloodline... his future. I would call that everything."
    I stared at him and he stared back.
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    "Jin."
    With much effort I dragged my eyes from my father back to Crane. He was pointing at the stranger in our midst.
    "Who's the kid?"
    As I returned my eyes to the man who had first entered the kitchen, I reassessed my first impression and had to agree with my friend's observation. He was a boy, not a man, and if we were stretching it, maybe sixteen. "I don't know you," I said flatly.
    He coughed to cover the nervousness I could feel rolling off him. "I'm your cousin, Danny. I've been living with your family for—"
    "Never mind," I said softly, feeling a sharp pain in my heart. Instantly I knew I was looking at my replacement. My father had needed a new me and had one. "Are you learning all the tribal customs and laws?"
    He looked confused. "Uh... yes, I am."
    I nodded, taking a quick breath before I looked back at my father.
    "We need to get back," he announced. "I just came looking for Danny because he wandered off. He doesn't know all the rules of visitation yet."
    But my father would have told him, educated him, made sure that the boy didn't embarrass him. That meant my dad had ulterior motives. "Yes," I agreed quickly, turning and walking away from him, back to the sink. "You better go before you're missed."
    "Good morning," a voice called out as the door that led from the kitchen to the driveway opened and Peter Church 279
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    came through it. "Jin, I—oh." He was surprised to find