by Rachel Kane
“They don’t think I’m going to make you happy,” he said. “And hell, maybe they’re right. It’s a risk. You know that. They don’t know me—”
“I know you.”
He hugged me from behind, and I closed my eyes. I knew I was being stupid. I knew everyone wanted the best for me, and they were just being overly cautious. But I couldn’t shake this feeling that I had to fight for Jake, that if we were going to have a relationship, I was going to have to risk every other relationship I had.
He stayed the night, but the tension of our conversation lingered. I swore to myself I wouldn’t make a big deal out of his secret meeting with Amanda. It wasn’t Jake’s idea to talk behind my back, I knew that.
I just wished things were simpler.
I think half my fascination with robots is that they make sense. They do what they’re programmed to do. They don’t try to surprise you, they don’t have hidden conversations, everything is right out in the open.
Except of course, none of that was true. I’d talked to some software developers while writing my book, and they’d laughed so hard at the idea that anything to do with robots made sense.
Have you ever tried debugging someone else’s code? One guy had asked me that when I interviewed him. It’s like slogging around inside their head. All tangled up and confusing. For any major project, you’ve got so much complexity that you’ll never stamp out all the bugs.
I remember being so disheartened then. I was halfway through Pieced Together, and this guy had just told me that the entire premise of the book was wrong. That robots weren’t simple. That they didn’t make sense.
When Jake left to go home the next morning, rushing out the door so he could change clothes before work, his goodbye kiss was swift but sweet, with no hint of last night’s tension. It was possible to believe that nothing had happened, that everything was fine, and we were just two boyfriends with busy schedules, zipping past one another on our way to our daily lives.
Yet when he was out of sight, I felt myself slump, like all the energy had gone out of me. I needed to call Amanda. I needed to ask her what the hell she thought she’d been doing. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to hear her explain yet again why this relationship was so harmful to me.
I ended up not calling her yet. Instead, I cleaned my place. I dusted my books, wiped down my action figures, vacuumed under the couch. My laptop was open on my table, a fresh document on the screen. I needed to write another book. My career depended on it.
Maybe later. There was still a lot to clean up. I hadn’t done anything since before my ill-fated plane trip. Clothes to take to the washers downstairs. A couple of bills to pay.
The ordinary tasks of life, which I hoped would distract me from this feeling that something had gone wrong between me and Jake, something that I couldn’t understand. An object between us, just out of focus, so I couldn’t see what it was.
What I really needed was a night with just him. Nobody else. We should go somewhere. Take a little trip, not in a plane this time. But just get away from our families and our friends, have some time to spend together uninterrupted by all the drama other people were foisting on us.
The more I thought about this, the more excited I was. I kept watching the clock. I didn’t want to call him at work. Forklifts don’t seem any safer than planes, and I didn’t want him talking to me while driving one of those things around.
I waited until five, then waited another half hour to give him time to get back to his place, get a shower.
Then I called him.
“Hey, I’ve got a great idea,” I said. “We should take a vacation. Do you have any vacation time at your job? I was thinking—”
“Hey, Eli…can I call you later?”
There was something in his voice that scared me. Something I had never heard before.
“Jake, is everything okay?”
“No. Nothing’s okay. I’ll call you later, all right?”
27
Jacob
It was my own fucking fault. I don’t know what I was thinking, or why I thought it was a good idea. As I watched them load the stretcher onto the ambulance, an oxygen mask on Pop’s face, all I could think is, you’re so fucking selfish, Jake. You’re so busy trying to prove how happy you are, that you don’t see what’s happening in front of your own eyes.
Eli called, but I just couldn’t talk to him. I told him I’d call him later.
“Can I come with you?” I asked one of the paramedics.
“Just meet us at the hospital,” she told me. “Don’t worry, we’re going to do our best for him.”
I ran inside for my keys, and the ambulance was already driving off, sirens blaring, when I got back outside.
My whole life, I’ve never really hidden anything from Pop. There’s been no need to, at least not until Marcia and I broke up, and I was able to skirt around that pretty well.
It’s not like I told him everything about my life. Pop wasn’t the kind of man who wanted to sit around and talk about your feelings. But when things were going on, I’d sit there with him in the kitchen, drink some of his tar-black coffee, and we’d talk.
I knew I was going to have to eventually tell him about this anyway. Marcia was being careful, but Pop knew there were nights recently when I hadn’t been home, as clearly as if I’d still lived here at his house.
How would he react? Pop, I’m gay. Or something. No idea, even though I kept thinking about that time he nearly crashed the plane. Volatile man.
Surely it wouldn’t be any worse than Eli’s family. I almost wanted to meet his dad, just so I could aim a punch at him. He had no right making Eli feel like that. Nobody did.
It felt like we were coming from opposite sides, Eli and I, yet winding up with the same result. Being open was making Eli miserable, being closeted wasn’t doing me any favors.
Still, I practiced all through work. Pop, I need to tell you something. Pop, you remember that guy who crashed in the plane with me? Pop, I think I’m in love.
I tried to guess at his objections, so I could answer them.
What do you mean, gay? I see the way you look at the ladies.
Yeah, that one seemed pretty reasonable. I’d dated a lot of girls. But I’d always felt like something was missing. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe I liked both. I don’t know. What I did know was that guys were definitely in the picture. What I’d suspected from watching videos, had been proved once I met Eli.
But what about Marcia?
I love Marcia, I always will. But like a sister, like a friend. I hope we stay friends forever, and she knows that. But I can’t control what she does, now that she knows.
But it’s nasty and immoral to dip your wick into another man’s ass.
Would Pop go there? I wondered. He’d never been a religious man, never had much time for other people’s morality. He believed in keeping his word, and taking care of family…and that was the extent of his personal ethics.
I’m not sure he’d ever expressed an opinion about gay men before.
Which, now that I thought about it, was weird. I certainly had, making uncomfortable jokes that would probably offend me if someone else made them now. But he’d never said a word about it.
So, by the end of the work day, I really had no idea what I was in for, but I didn’t think the conversation could possibly go as badly as Eli’s with his dad. Except maybe it would, and I was letting myself in for the fight of my life. I drove over to the house and let myself in.
The thing that struck me first was the silence. Pop often had the little kitchen radio on, listening to either the local country station, or the weather one, depending on whether he was going to be flying again soon. The radio sat quietly next to the percolator.
I found him in his bed, propped up on pillows, wheezing. Papers were scattered around the bed. I thought maybe they were from the insurance company, and kicked them out of the way to get closer to him.
“Pop, what the
hell, are you okay?”
His breath sounded like that of a drowning man, wet and clogged. “Jake,” was all he said.
His color was bad. Really bad.
“I think we need to get you to the doctor,” I said.
Fucking selfish. That’s what I am. I knew he was sick, but I spent all this time away from him.
I’d thought he was getting better the other day. I really had. Why didn’t he tell me?
He put his hand on mine. “Wait.”
“Nah, we need to get you some help—”
“Wait.” He reached over to his nightstand and took up his inhaler. I hadn’t seen him use that thing in months. He took a long draw off it, held his breath for a few seconds, then gasped.
I was worried he was going to die right there in front of me. I already had my phone out, ready to dial 911.
With a little more air in him now, he said, “Listen. I know about your friend. The lies. Hiding.”
I nearly dropped my damn phone. “You know?”
Fuck. Had Marcia told him? Had I been too obvious? But wait, was he mad about it? He didn’t seem mad, just sick.
I was twisted up inside. On the one hand, it was such a relief that he already knew. On the other, I had to get help, and I didn’t want to stand around all day talking about my private life when he needed a doctor. The urgency felt like electricity.
“Your pop knows how to keep a secret.” He wheezed again. “Always have known.”
“Look, I’ve got to call a doctor, but Pop…you don’t know how important it is for me to hear you say that. I didn’t know how to tell you. Did… Did Marcia tell you about it?”
He looked confused for a moment, then was wracked by a spasm of coughing.
“Marcia…didn’t have to tell…anything…” he whispered, his breathing suddenly very shallow, but even more noisy than before.
“Okay, okay, enough,” I said. “We can talk more later. I love you, Pop.”
“Goddamn it, Jake, how did you let this happen?”
Marcia was pissed. For the second time in recent history, we were in the waiting room at the ER.
“I didn’t know,” was all I could say. “I thought he was getting better.”
“Fucking pneumonia?” she said. “You couldn’t tell he was getting pneumonia?”
“You don’t have to yell,” I said, bristling. “He’s my damn pop, I feel bad enough. They’re doing all they can for him. He’ll be transferred up to the ICU soon.”
She slumped into the chair next to me. “The ICU. Oh my god.”
“I know. But the doc says Pop is still plenty strong. Says he should have gone to the clinic back when he first had the cough, but I told him Pop hates seeing doctors.”
Her hand slipped into mine and squeezed it. Sympathy overcame anger. “He’s going to hate being here too.”
I nodded. “Maybe it’ll motivate him to get better faster.”
“If I’d known, if I’d had any idea, I would’ve dropped in on him more. But you.” That edge of anger came back into her voice. “You knew he hadn’t been well, Jake. You see him every day.”
I shook my head. “Not lately.”
That surprised her. “Since when? …oh. Since Eli.”
“Just don’t bring Eli into this. It’s not his fault.”
“Trust me, it’s not Eli I’m blaming. It’s you. You can’t spend all your time out of town, sowing your wild gay oats, and not check in on your father.”
Wild gay oats. I would’ve laughed at any other time. Now I just felt bitter that she would throw it in my face like that.
“He knows. Pop. He knows everything.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You told him? In his condition?”
“He figured it out. Unless…you didn’t hint at anything, did you?”
“It’s not my story to tell, Jake.”
“Okay, but are you sure you didn’t say anything?”
“Sure, I told him that you left me when you suddenly discovered you like men, and that nothing has ever hurt so badly in my life. I told him I still don’t believe you when you say you never knew it about yourself, and that some part of me hates you for lying to me the entire time we were together. No, I didn’t tell him anything, Jake, but I sure as hell could have.”
I looked around the waiting room feeling a panicked constriction in my chest, praying no one could hear her.
“It wasn’t like that!” I hissed.
“You are sitting there marveling over your father learning about your secret, Jake, because you didn’t have the balls to tell him yourself.”
“That’s not true, I went there today—”
“You’d rather just lie and lie, and run off to spend time with your new boyfriend.”
I realized two things pretty much simultaneously.
First, there was no way I was going to get on Marcia’s good side by explaining. She had a valid reason for being pissed off. She wasn’t being homophobic or whatever, she was being the spurned lover. It didn’t matter that I was telling the truth; in her mind, I must have been lying to her, stringing her along. She’d kept it to herself, but now that we were under pressure, with the crash, with Pop…she was going to let it out.
Second, though: I had no energy for it. Not a bit. I had been through the fucking wringer these past days. However bad she felt right now, it was my Pop being taken up to the ICU. It was my crash up the mountain. It was my relationship that felt so endangered by everything since the rescue.
Fuck. I was starting to wish we’d never been rescued at all. Staying in one of those cabins, living off the land, it wouldn’t have been easy, but it would’ve been easier than watching everyone in our lives turn against us.
A nurse came out to give me an update, to tell me Pop had been moved, and I could visit him in a little while.
“You can go if you want to,” I told Marcia.
Her lips were pursed, and she looked like she wanted to say something nasty…but then her face softened. She shook her head.
“I’m sorry. This was the wrong damn time to bring all this up. I’m just worried about him,” she said. “I’m staying.”
That simple apology almost brought me to tears. I nodded, and we sat back down to wait.
28
Eli
I was paralyzed.
I knew there had to be a perfectly rational explanation for why Jake didn’t want to talk. Jake was a rational guy. There was an engine or something that needed his attention right now. There was a reason for it.
And the reason is: He has decided he doesn’t love you. Or at least, loving you is so much trouble, it’s better to run.
No. That was insane. He loved me. I knew that. We both felt that deep connection.
But what does a connection matter, if you’re constantly being pulled apart? It’s your family making the trouble, not you.
I pulled my fingers through my hair in worry. I was sitting on my sofa, my apartment still and quiet around me. It was clean. My little museum. My cave. The place I escaped to for comfort.
It offered me no comfort now.
Why wouldn’t he talk to me?
Be rational. The only reason he wouldn’t talk to me is if there were a big emergency. It wasn’t the end of the world.
There were enough drama queens out in the world, without me joining their ranks. I didn’t have to succumb to this worry, feeling my thoughts circle a nasty drain down into the sewer of despair.
Oh, that’s a lovely image. Write that down, writer.
That’s what I ought to do. I ought to get to work on this next book. Or go for a walk. Or get a coffee.
In the old days, before I’d discovered she’d gone behind my back, I would’ve called my sister. Amanda knew how to talk me down from the ledge. She’d done it often enough in her life.
I just didn’t know if I could trust her. After all, things had really changed between me and Jake, once they’d had their little talk.
What was it Jake had said earlier? You c
an’t give up your life for me.
The words of a man who was edging out of the relationship, slowly, carefully, the way you’d back away from danger.
“Why don’t you just call him back?” asked Amanda.
In the end, we return to family, don’t we? No matter what the problem, even when family is the problem, we find ourselves gravitating back to them.
I had shown up at her place looking stricken, and she had sighed and brought me in and poured me a glass of wine.
“I can’t call him,” I said. “That would look needy.”
“You are fucking kidding me.”
“Wouldn’t it? I don’t want to be the whiny little boy of the relationship.”
“I don’t know, Eli. If I’d survived a plane crash with somebody, I think I’d feel like the normal social rules didn’t apply. Call him.”
So I did. I dialed, and I held the phone to my ear, and I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“Hey, you reached Jake, leave your message.”
Beep.
I shook my head. “No luck.”
She sighed and refilled my wine. “Okay, look. If it’ll prevent you from going full-scale paranoia, I have the number of what’s her name, his ex.”
“Marcia? What, were you going behind my back to talk to her, too?”
“No, asshole, she called when we were getting you out of the ER, remember? Do you want the number or not?”
“Hello,” Marcia’s voicemail said, and I hung up.
“They’re together,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
My hands tightened into fists. “Here’s what I know. One of the last things Jake tells me before leaving is, You can’t give up your life for me. Then he won’t pick up the phone.”
Amanda raised her hands in surrender. “Whatever, Eli. Leave me out of it.”
“Leave you out of it? You went behind my back.”
“Yeah, because I don’t think this is good for you! Look at yourself, Eli! You’re practically trembling because he didn’t answer the phone. This is not a healthy relationship between you two.”
