by Eve Morton
“Merry Christmas, yes,” Dana said. She walked into the kitchen with another mug of coffee. Even though it was already well past their dinner and dessert time, and nearly eight in the evening, she was still caffeinating. “What are you all mopey about?”
Eric sighed. He’d told his family about his strange call from a lawyer, but they seemed to brush it off. Just another one of Eric’s weird friends pulling his leg; another internet scam they were worried about him falling prey to; or something that didn’t amount to anything at all. Aunt Berta asked him to forward any legal documents so she could look at them, but it was clear she was interested in preventing him from being cat-fished. No one thought this was real, and everyone had quickly moved on to other important matters, like Adrian’s need for braces.
But now he had the real deal in front of him. Christopher Ren had left a house in Cobourg that Eric could easily sell and possibly turn a profit on—even if the place was a dump—and he’d also left him some cash, too. Eric read and reread the email and the attached documents before he slid his laptop to his sister.
“I have no glasses on right now.” Dana squinted as she looked at the computer. “How many zeros is that?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Eric turned the laptop to himself and read out the lawyer’s email for his sister. When he reached the end, he sighed.
“Okay, so this isn’t a trick. Your friends are sometimes shitty, but they’re not this shitty, right? And there’s no mention of a Nigerian prince.”
“This is not a trick. Even Cameron’s not sophisticated enough to think of this.”
“So why are you acting as if someone has pissed in your cereal?” she asked. “All your problems have just been solved. And FYI, I want some of those cigars now.”
“Please. Take them.”
“Eric, that was a joke. Keep your damn present. Have fun with cheek cancer.”
When he still didn’t laugh at her humour, Dana pulled up a stool and sat across from him at the kitchen breakfast nook. Her blue eyes narrowed. Her curly hair pulled back into a bun took on a severe edge. She was suddenly not Dana his oldest sister, but Dana the psychologist. He wanted to imitate Frasier Crane like they used to as kids, but he couldn’t. It just made him think of Cosmin.
So he told her. After keeping it inside for so long, and with absolutely zero confirmation aside from the bruise on his back from the ice—then Cosmin’s hands—it was starting to feel like a fantasy. A surreal dream that he’d woken up from, and would never return to no matter how hard he tried.
To his surprise, his sister listened right to the end of the story before she made a face. “Cosmin though? Really? I’m glad you got laid but my God.”
“What’s wrong with Cosmin? He’s hot.”
“Sure, whatever, if you’re into bears. And old men.”
“He’s in his early forties. Not old. You’re forty-three!”
“That’s precisely my point. I went to high school with him. And university for a while.”
“And?”
“And he’s a bit of an asshole. A pretentious dick. He’s just so...” She made a sour face, and then only scaled it back when she realized how much her disregard was upsetting Eric. She tried to be cool and collected as she explained her next point, but her obvious derision snuck in during odd words. “When we were in class together, he would correct people all the time. Not just big things that we’d need to know for the discussion, but little things. Tiny things! Shit that doesn’t actually matter at the end of the day, you know? How people pronounce words—who cares if it’s wreak or wreck havoc, you know what I mean—and he’d be so utterly anal about what page we were on. He doesn’t watch TV, either, so while we had study groups and would reward ourselves with the latest trash shows, he’d keep going. It made us all feel...”
“Dumb?”
“Yeah. He do the same with you?”
Eric shrugged. Being around Cosmin made him feel really dumb sometimes, but it wasn’t the same as someone making him feel dumb. Cameron did that. Sometimes even Trina did that, oftentimes acting as if common knowledge from her field wasn’t actually very specific and only available to her discipline. But Cosmin explained things to him—like Michael, Trina’s husband, had explained things. Eric might not have known who Proust was, but Cosmin had told him. Eric just had to ask.
“Anyway,” Dana went on when Eric didn’t answer. “He and I went into virtually the same field, so maybe that’s why he bugs me. Maybe I was envious of what he accomplished, but I don’t think I am. I have my own job and shit to worry about. He seemed to take everything so seriously—even the little things that some people should just let go.”
Eric let out a small chuckle. “You’re not wrong about the little things, but I also think that sounds more like his father than him.”
“That’s precisely it, though. He and his father are spitting images of one another.”
“He’s adopted.”
“I know, I know. I remember when Cosmin came.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, he and I were the same age, thereabouts. Some of my earliest memories are playing in the front yard and seeing him. He stuck out, too, when I was in school. He was adopted—literally a kid dropped off on a doorstep, it seemed, and so his existence made me believe in the stork that much longer, let me tell you.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Ask Mom about it sometime. I was convinced the stork was real until you came along and they took me to the hospital. No thank you. But Cosmin, man, as a kid he was so innocent. You know? Just a really, really quiet kid. I felt bad for him. Alone in a house full of adults, treated like an adult from the word go. Suzanne changed things. But then she was gone too.”
“I know,” Eric said. “Cosmin said it pretty much killed his relationship with his father.”
“Really?” Dana’s eyes betrayed her surprise. “I find that hard to believe, actually.”
“How so?”
“Well, I only know what Mom and Dad have told me.” When Eric motioned for her to continue, she took a large sip of coffee before going on. “George used to come by their place all the time, you know. Ask to borrow stuff but then he’d come in for coffee. He always had to hide his needs under objects. He could never come out and say things. But he’d talk about Cosmin all the time. All the time. Half the reason Mom and Dad have Cosmin’s books is because George brought them for us. He’d often have discussion questions too! At least, that’s what Mom called them.”
“They have his books? I didn’t see them.”
“They gave most of them to me. They’re all about psychology, since there seems to be nothing else that matters to him. I have them downstairs in a box.”
Eric shifted on the stool. Dana held out her hand. “Yeah, yeah, you can have them. I would have given them to you ages ago if I’d known you had your eyes set on him for so long. Anyway, George would talk about Cosmin all the time. And not in the bitter way some parents talk about their kids leaving home. He seemed genuinely proud of him. He even talked about his then boyfriend.”
“Maurice?”
“No, not that name. Someone called Jules?”
“Julian.”
“You got it. Yeah, they said he was really upset about it. At the time, I thought it was homophobia. Especially since he said Julian wasn’t good for Cosmin. A nice man, a surgeon or something, but not good for Cosmin.”
“And who was good for Cosmin?” When Dana took longer than two seconds to answer, Eric shifted again.
“Calm down, squirmy. He just wanted Cosmin to marry someone he could teach. Who would knock him down a peg or two by making him speak in plain terms. You know, like a young lady would have needed. Pfft.” Dana took another drink, and then she nudged his side. “Or you, I suppose.”
“Shut up.”
“No, no, it’s a compliment. I’m just im
agining Cosmin watching the robot show. He’d lose his goddamn mind. It was always so strange.”
“That was the editing department. It actually made a lot of sense in the script itself.”
“Apparently.” She gestured to the computer screen and the numbers that still haunted Eric with their responsibility and potential. “So what are you going to do with your winnings? Other than, you know, buying Dad some more cigars.”
Eric laughed. That was definitely on the top of his list, along with getting everyone better Christmas presents. Moving out of Waterloo was another big thing on his mind, though he was still hesitant to make that kind of a commitment to going back to Toronto. He imagined the new version of the city he’d found, with Valerie and Dillon. He thought of the Little Jamaica neighbourhood that his sister Margo called home, just north of the downtown core. He’d be close enough to see her if he lived in Toronto. Even if he moved into the house he’d just inherited in Cobourg, it would be a different place. It would be a different life. A new start. He was getting good at doing that now.
All thoughts, though, turned to Cosmin. He thought of what his sister had said. She knew Cosmin as well as anyone in his family, having grown up alongside him. And yeah, Cosmin would probably spontaneously combust if he ever watched Crime Bot and he’d probably give Eric elocution lectures afterwards. But he was sure that Cosmin wasn’t trying to correct him because he was the superior man or whatever; he was correcting because that was all he’d learned to do. That was, in a way, how his father had shown love. So Cosmin did that to the people around him and was shocked when it pushed them all away.
Like his father had pushed him away.
Cosmin didn’t need someone to teach, not even close. He needed someone who would sit with him and listen, and then someone who would bear the silences. He needed someone to witness his pain without having to retell it over and over again. And he needed someone who would look him in the eye through all of it. Communicate with him directly, not around him, not like his father had done.
Someone like me? Eric wondered. Dana thought so. In her own way, she was approving of this union. Even if it was for the wrong reasons—knocking Cosmin down a peg—it still amounted to the same answer. She thought they looked good together. She thought they would work.
And her approval meant the world to Eric. If only it was the only approval he needed.
“I told him to get rid of the journals,” Eric said.
She nodded, along, understanding and remembering the significance from the story. “And?”
“And he didn’t. That’s a bad sign, right? That he’s still holding on to his past and refusing to let go?”
“He does know their significance, both good and bad, though,” she pointed out. “That’s a plus.”
“Is it, though? If he still hangs on to them?”
“You do realize how hard it is for people to change, right? I’ve seen people for decades who still make the same bad choices over and over again. They still repeat their parents’ mistakes while also knowing they are mistakes. They think the world is fated. They don’t think they have a choice.”
“And Cosmin?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve met with him. But there’s a story that goes around in therapy circles, and it’s probably recycled from the same damn book he was making you read at his Dad’s place. But it’s about a therapy retreat where they got people to pick up rocks which represented their pain. They took them with them on a hike. Then they were told to throw the rocks away. But there’s always one person who keeps the rock, even if they know it weighs them down, even if they know it hurts. No matter how hard you work as a therapist sometimes, there’s always that one person who keeps holding on to the negative shit, defying all logic.”
“And you think Cosmin holds the rock?”
“Again, I don’t know. But that story has gone around every single therapy group—so Cosmin knows it. He knows you’re right, he knows the right answer precisely because he knows the story. And he’s smart enough that he’ll most likely throw the journals away.” Dana sighed and took a drink. “But maybe this is the one time where his human side wins out, and it takes far longer than you’re willing to wait.”
Eric nodded. When one of the kids came into the kitchen and held their arms up to Dana, the conversation faded out. Eric forwarded the legal documents to his aunt’s email and waited for her to come into the kitchen and interrogate him further. When he noticed her sleeping in the other room, her brandy half finished, he figured he’d have some time to himself. There was still no way he could contact Cosmin. And even then, he knew that Dana was right. He would simply have to wait.
When he found himself dialing Trina’s number, he really shouldn’t have been surprised. Other than his sisters, she was the only person who would have any kind of insight on this situation. Even more than before.
“Merry Christmas,” Eric said as she answered. “I’m sorry I took your charge cable.”
“That’s where it went? Oh thank God! I thought I was going nuts.” She let out a low laugh and clearly whispered something to Michael on the other end. “So what’s up, Eric? I doubt you’re calling me to tell me the state of my charge cable. Are you frozen in someplace and repeating your mistakes before your eyes?”
“Sort of. I’m. I just. Tell me I’m not a fuckup, okay? Even if it’s not true.”
“You’re not a fuckup.”
“You’re a liar.”
She sighed. “How about I get a drink and you tell me what’s going on?”
When he told Trina about Cosmin, he skipped most of the salacious details. She was already adept at filling in the blanks, having seen him respond similarly in many other situations. When he reached the end, which he still didn’t want to believe was the end, he sighed. “So I suppose now I’m just...confused.”
“About what? Sounds like your attraction is pretty clear.”
“I’m confused if this is a good idea. If—”
“If you’re a fuckup in relationships?” she prompted, then added, “Or that was just me? Just us?”
Eric nodded. When he realized Trina couldn’t see that, he let out a low yes. She sighed again. “Eric, tell me in your own words why you think we divorced.”
“Because I committed infidelity. I broke our agreement.”
“Mmm-hmm. No other reason?”
“Was there?”
“Yes. There was so much more than infidelity, though that did hurt a hell of a lot.” When Trina spoke next, her guard was down. Her syllables were softer, and her voice lower. “We got married far too young. We didn’t know how to be adults.”
“You did.”
“Not really. I knew how to achieve. Not how to be an adult with you. Being married is a partnership. You have to work together. You can’t just have one member shoot ahead and leave the other in the dust. I left you in the dust.”
“I failed. That was all me. I couldn’t get any more roles after the robot show.”
“That’s the marketplace. That’s not you.” She sighed again, clearly on the verge of explaining economic theory to him. “We should have worked together to solve your issue. Instead we focused on what was good—sex—and then had that get out of proportion.”
“So Billy had nothing to do with it?”
“He had everything to do with it. It broke my heart when you told me about him, not just because it sucks to be cheated on, but because it felt like you used my fantasy against me. I was into men fucking, and so, of course, you go off and fuck men. Karma’s a bitch.”
“That wasn’t karma. That was me and—”
“It was what it was, Eric. A lot of things got in our way as a partnership. My working late was another issue. So were how we were dividing housework. A lot of other stuff, you know? My point is not to list all the things we hurt one another with, but to state that we didn’t brea
k up just because of you. We didn’t break up because of your sexuality, especially, and I’m really hurt that you thought that. If even for a second.”
Eric swallowed hard. He felt chastened. When he was still silent, she went on. “I married Michael not just because we got along in bed or on dates, but because we’re a partnership. We spend time together. When something happens to one of us, it happens to both of us, and we figure out how to do that together. We’re adults, together.”
“So we really weren’t going to work out, then?” Eric asked, stiff baffled. “Even if I’d gotten a real job? A better acting gig? We were doomed regardless?”
“I wouldn’t say doomed. I love you still. You’re fun. But you’re just Eric now. And I’m just Trina. I like being friends, honestly.”
“Me too.”
“Well, good. Then as your friend, the real question I want to ask you about Cosmin, then,” Trina added quickly, “is do you want to be with him as an adult, or still live out this boyhood fantasy?”
“Yes. I do. As an adult.”
“Not even an adult fantasy?”
“No. I got that. I don’t care if all we do is lick envelopes or file tax returns. I’m still thinking about him.”
“Okay. Then go for him.”
“And if I fail? If he’s not ready?”
“Then you’re still not a fuckup. I promise you that.”
“Oh. Oh. Thank you.” Eric let out a breath. He believed her now. He really did. And he was about to wish her a Merry Christmas when he remembered the email from the lawyer. His aunt still had to sign off that everything sounded good, but he already knew that the papers were legit. The money was his. It was only a matter of the small details—like where to sign on the dotted line and what to do with the stuff in the house itself—that he needed to figure out. The first big idea, though, he had. And he wanted to explore it.
“Is there something else?” Trina asked.
“Yes,” Eric said. “Can I talk to Michael?”
