Jude ran a damp hand through his hair, sighing. “Christ, man…”
He picked up his phone and texted Tej: I’m sorry.
Read appeared beneath the text bubble, but Tej didn’t respond. Jude let him be and dialed Mireille’s number.
“Hey, I heard the news,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, God, thank you,” she said. Her voice was a little shrill but she wasn’t crying.
“Can I do anything? Do you need help getting a flight? A ride to the airport?”
“No, my girlfriend came over, she’s arranging all that. I’m just kind of wandering around in a daze.”
“What about Samson?”
“Oh. Um…”
“I can take him.”
“Would you? We can drop him off on the way to the airport.”
“That’s miles out of your way. I’ll come get him.”
“Jude, you are a prince.”
“It’s not a problem.” He reached for a pen and paper. “Tell me, what’s the name of the funeral home?”
He called a flower shop and had a bouquet sent. “No, no card,” he told the florist.
On the way to Mireille’s apartment, he stopped at a chocolatier and bought a quarter pound of dark-dipped apricots. Because they were Mireille’s favorite and because Tej wouldn’t want Jude to show up somewhere empty-handed.
When Mireille opened her cabinets and fridge and put out plates, Jude didn’t protest, knowing hospitality comforted her like prayer. He sat at her table and Samson climbed into his lap.
“Remember no grapes, no chocolate,” Mireille said, pouring mint tea into cups.
“I’ll just have to feed you love,” Jude said, cupping the dog’s handsome face in his palms. He hesitated, then said, “Tej kind of stormed out. He’s not answering texts or calls.”
Mireille sat down, sighing. “I’m not surprised. In any tense situation or crisis, he’ll go extremely silent and extremely solitary. It’s what he does. Ever since he was little. He copes by being quiet.”
“Tej, quiet?” Jude said.
He expected laughter but Mireille’s face was full of sadness as she nodded. “Has he told you about Lebanon?”
“About the war and when you came to the States? I know the general story. I know your brother Raymond was killed, and your little sister.”
“Lulu was killed the day we were supposed to leave Beirut.”
Their father had already left for the States, Mireille told him. Securing sponsorship and passage and paperwork. Salome Khoury would follow with her five remaining children. Tej was seven. Lulu was six.
“They were only eleven months apart,” Mireille said. “Each thought the sun rose and set on the other.”
The morning they were due to leave Beirut, the Khourys’ house in Achrafiyeh took a direct hit from Syrian bombers.
“Lulu was blown apart,” Mireille said. “Literally. Her dismembered body landed in Tej’s lap. They had to pry it out of his arms.”
“Fuck,” Jude said softly. “The dog.”
Mireille’s beautiful eyebrows raised. “You know about that? How he fabricated a false memory of holding a dog?”
Jude nodded, conscious of Samson’s warm, loyal weight in his arms and lap. He imagined it cold, dead and lifeless. Limbless.
“He didn’t speak for two years,” Mireille said. “In any language. Didn’t make friends at school or in the neighborhood. He stuck to my father like a burr and Papa was so gentle with him. He took Tej along everywhere. To work. Errands. Room to room in the house. Always saying, ‘It’s all right, Tim. You don’t have to talk unless you want to. You talk when you’re ready. You’ll feel better about talking someday. You keep me company. It’s nice to be quiet together.’”
Not many people call me Tim these days, Tej had said. I like you being one of them.
I love that you call Tim only when you’re looking for me.
“I didn’t know he and your father were that close at one point,” Jude said.
“After Raymond died, Tej was my father’s only son. All the clichés—his pride and joy, apple of his eye. It took a long time for Tej to find his voice again and when he decided to tell the most important thing about himself, my father threw him out.”
“Now he never stops talking,” Jude said.
“No. No one and nothing will ever silence him again.” She smiled. “He’ll come back around. Filled up with piss and vinegar.”
“He can come back and be quiet, too.”
“Maybe he doesn’t believe that yet.”
“Maybe I need to be better at letting him know.”
Finally Mireille stopped playing with the box of chocolate-dipped apricots and took one out to eat. “You’re both so good for each other. I’d feel a lot worse about leaving Tej in Seattle this week if you weren’t here.”
Tej came back, looking like a crumpled candy wrapper. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” Jude said. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“No, I apologize. I lost my shit.”
“The shit loss was warranted.”
Tej looked down at the dog. “Why is Samson here?”
“I took him for Mireille.”
Tej looked even more lost.
“I called her. To see if I could do anything. I said I’d take him.”
Silence as Tej put that together. He walked to the window and looked out, his back quivering.
Jude slid arms around and rested his head on Tej’s nape. “She told me about Lulu. And your dad. How you stopped talking.”
Tej nodded.
“I’m so sorry.”
They stood quiet and still a long time, Samson leaning against their legs.
“I got a good life,” Tej said thickly. “I have no desire to check out. But man, sometimes I wish I was never born.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be gay. I made a lot of shitty choices in my life but being gay wasn’t my decision.”
Jude rocked them side to side. “I wish I knew where you were. Those years after you were thrown out. I wish I knew you then. I could’ve been your friend. I would’ve been.”
“Thank you.”
Jude held him tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“I talk a big game,” Tej said, fingertips lightly touching Jude’s wrists. “I want what I want and I go after what I want. But I don’t like to…need people.”
“I know.”
“I’ve been walking around. Terrified I couldn’t come back here. That my big mouth wrecked everything.”
“What? No. Come on, man, we know each other better than that.”
“I thought I set it all on fire. I was fucking shitting a brick, coming back here to say I was sorry.”
“Hey, you came back,” Jude said. “Typically this is the point where you throw a grenade before someone else can.”
Tej chuckled through his nose. “I still figured the locks would be changed.”
“I’m not your father.”
He seemed to crumple and shrink in Jude’s arms. Jude turned him roughly and crushed him to his chest. “I’m not him. I’m not them. That door stays open, you say whatever the hell you want, whenever you want. I am so fucking sorry about everything.”
“I’m so tired, man.”
“I know. Come sit down. I’ll make you something to eat.”
Tej stayed moody and distant in the weeks after his mother’s death. His clever sass and snark developed a sharper edge. He became a shiv. Jude gathered all his patience and compassion and benignly ignored the pissy attitude, skirting the blade until he began to realize Tej was deliberately going out of his way to goad him.
“Look, do you want to talk about what’s wrong,” Jude said, “or do you want to bicker abou
t stupid things?”
“Don’t shrink my head.”
“Why are you always picking a fight with me?”
“I’m not picking a fight.”
And round and round it went. Tej was angry all the time. Even angry in bed, topping with an aggression that once made Jude quit in the middle of sex.
“Easy, man,” he cried, his body and feelings hurt.
Tej seemed to snap out of it then, going pale as he put hands on Jude and said, “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Jude said, wincing toward the bathroom. “But God, it’s like I don’t know who you are lately.”
Tej’s mood turned inside-out and he went docile and solicitous. Almost cloyingly so. Still not himself to the point where Jude started stretching out his workday longer to avoid the evenings. Checking on his pre-packed bag and passport and confirming where the nearest border was, because perhaps it was time he was going.
Or, he thought, dot-dot-dot, I be someone else this time. Give this relationship the time, because it’s nice and I like it and I like him, even if he’s being weird right now.
He might even be trying to give me a reason to flee. Before I think of one myself.
One night it occurred to him: He might be wondering if I even notice what he’s doing.
“I see you over there,” he said.
At the other end of the couch, Tej looked up from his laptop. “What?”
“I see you.”
I see what you’re doing.
Tej’s brow dropped, the way it always did when he was on the defense. A muscle in his jaw flickered, and then went soft. All of his face went slow and soft. One side of his mouth smiled, but it was his real smile. Back after a long trip.
He lifted a palm. “Hi.”
“I see you,” Jude said, then went back to his score.
The knotted air between them loosened and let go. They crept back toward each other and Tej finally put some of the pain he hid inside into words.
“I miss my mother,” he said. “I’ve been missing her for a long fucking time.”
He didn’t get to say goodbye.
He’d always hoped for a reconciliation.
To be perfectly frank, he’d hoped his father would kick off first. “Then she’d be free to see me and talk to me.”
“It’s such a waste,” Jude said.
Tej pressed his mouth into a line and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry about the things I said. About you having two families and feeling sorry for yourself. I didn’t mean it. Truth is, I’m jealous.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I know I talk too much about DNA and the research and all that. If it’s hard for you to listen to, I’ll dial it back.”
“No, that’s just it,” Tej said. “I wish you’d let me do more.”
Tej took over Jude’s ancestry account, going through the list of DNA matches, the fourth through eighth cousins and the logjam of messages in Jude’s inbox.
“How do you want me to word these replies?” Tej said.
“I don’t know.”
“Generic reply that you’re still figuring things out and don’t have much to offer but you’ll keep in touch?”
Jude sighed. “I hate to lie, but the truth is so fucking complicated.”
“The truth is all we gots, my friend.” Tej thought a moment, typed something, then turned the screen.
Hi, I’m replying on behalf of my partner whose account this is. He was born during the 1973 military coup in Chile and he has more questions than answers right now. We’ll be in touch if we discover any definitive information about his birth family. In the meantime, if you know of any relatives who immigrated to Chile from Spain or Italy, please let us know.
“That’s good,” Jude said. “Perfect.”
“Gives the problem back to them.”
“I like the we part.” Jude ran fingers through Tej’s hair and tilted his head back. “Thank you for doing this,” he whispered against Tej’s mouth.
“Thank you for letting me.”
Tej got into it, becoming an amateur geneticist and genealogist. One day Jude found a Post-it stuck to the bottom of the computer screen: a list of surnames in Tej’s handwriting.
“What are these?”
“I’m keeping track of the surnames from your DNA matches. At least the ones who had family trees linked.”
Jude put the list down, picked it up again. Put it down. He couldn’t yet put a name on all this. The idea spooked him. Made his feet cold. As Tej’s interest increased, Jude became more uncertain and indecisive about making contact with any of the cousins.
And then they were bickering again.
“Jude, come on. You don’t have to replace your parents. Whatever you find, you can weave it in. Layer it on top. It’s a chapter in the story. And the story is never finished. You’re never done, you should never be done.”
“I know, man. It just feels like so much to lose.”
Day after day, Tej went from platitudes to pronouncements, piling onto Jude’s last nerve.
“You haven’t lost anything, your family just got bigger. Man, I’d fucking kill for a second chance like you’re getting.”
“Don’t start that guilt trip again,” Jude said, tired and snappish tonight.
“Are you going to obscure this or reveal it?”
“Now you’re making literary references? Really?”
“Are you going to take a sad song and make it better?”
Jude slammed the refrigerator door. “Do not bring the fucking Beatles into this.”
“Let it under your skin, then you can begin—”
“Shut up.”
“You were made to go out and get it. Stop hiding already.”
“Knock it off,” Jude cried. “This is my sad song, my skin and my story. I’m fucking sorry about what happened with your family but you can’t hitch a ride on mine.”
It escalated into a heated shouting match and once again, Tej walked out, not even bothering to close the door behind him. Jude slammed it himself, then went upstairs and banged on the piano for an hour.
Tej texted once: I’m staying at my place tonight.
Out of fucks to give, Jude replied: K.
He slept fitfully. Waking up to a silent apartment with no mug of coffee on the bedside table filled him with a shamed sadness.
I’m sorry about last night, he texted. Can we talk?
Ten lonely minutes passed before Tej replied: I’ll call you later.
All that long, rainy day, Jude was painfully conscious of his silent phone. Typically he had six or seven texts from Tej before noon. At least one being a proposition or a dick pic. Nothing today.
He missed it.
He had lunch at his usual table at the Utter Chaos Café. Took a picture of the empty chair across from him and texted it to Tej with the caption, Wish you were her.
Oops.
HERE, he quickly typed and sent. Wish you were HERE. Not her. Jesus. I swear I’m not bi. LOL.
Nothing.
I’m sorry. I miss you.
He’d been out of touch with the guy for less than twenty-four hours, but an uneasy desperation was starting to creep along his limbs.
I feel like shit, he typed. I’m sorry. I want to talk to you so bad. I want to LISTEN to you, I mean. Call me. Or at least take a picture of you giving me the finger. I deserve it.
Nothing.
He sighed, hoping the record reflected he tried.
Tej was late getting to Jude’s place. Really late. Weirdly late. Then alarmingly late. He wasn’t answering his phone. Texts weren’t registering a read status.
Where are you? Jude typed into the ether, his mind composing all kinds of scenarios. On the kitche
n counter, his little TV was turned to the news, showing footage of a horrific car crash in Houghton. A passenger car blew a red light at an intersection by the I-405 overpass and drove into cross traffic at eighty miles an hour. Eleven people were dead. Emergency response and rubbernecking made traffic back up and snarl for miles in all directions.
Maybe Tej was caught in the jam and his phone battery died.
Of course, Tej worked far south of 405 and had three chargers in his car at all times.
Jude knew these things.
Dude, you okay? Where are you?
No answer.
He’s disappeared, Jude thought. Then he went cold all over.
Something’s wrong.
He paced and tried not to panic as he called around their now-combined circle of friends. Nobody had heard from him.
He kept texting. Where are you? I’m starting to freak a little.
He was starting to freak a lot. Something happened. He was sure of it. Something happened to Tej. He was gone. Sick or hurt. Missing.
Disappeared.
The word was like a two-by-four in Jude’s chest and he had to get the fast fuck away from that thought.
He picked up the phone again. Thought for a beat, then typed: Tim. I’m looking for you.
He paced, feeling like the pupil of a tough, karmic history lesson.
Oh man, Papi, I’m sorry. I get it now. This is what it was like for you, every time I didn’t call home or wasn’t where I was supposed to be.
Tej knew those things.
He knew them damn well.
Was he doing this on purpose?
“Jesus,” Jude said, a hand dug hard in his hair. “Man, you better not be fucking with me right now.”
Timothée, he typed, using the full name with accent mark, to show he was serious. I’m looking for you. If you’re trying to sabotage this… If you’re trying to force something to happen, I’m telling you now—I won’t let you. If you don’t come home to talk about it, I’m going out there to find you.
Nothing.
Answer me. Please. Or I’m getting in the car.
A surge of adrenaline in his stomach as read popped up beneath the text.
A Scarcity of Condors Page 29
