The Road Home

by Michael Thomas Ford

  Burke didn’t give up. “Then when did you figure it out? Because I never told you, and I’m assuming that you didn’t hear it for the first time just now.”

  Ed set down the parts he’d just glued together. “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “I’m just curious,” said Burke. “Are you saying you and Mom never discussed it? Not once?”

  “We might have,” Ed replied. “What does it matter? You are what you are, and that’s that. Nothing to be done about it now.”

  “You make it sound like I have a sickness,” said Burke. He couldn’t help but think of Will’s comment from the night before. He sounded like he was telling her you had cancer.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Do you wish there was something I could do about it?”

  “All I said was it’s over and done with,” his father said, an edge to his voice. “There’s no point in discussing it further.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Burke. “I want to know what my parents thought about who I am.”

  “You never told us what you are. Why do it now?”

  “Who I am, Dad. Not what. And you’re right. I should have told you, instead of letting you figure it out. But why pretend you and Mom never talked about it? There had to have been a moment when one of you said, ‘You know, I think Burke might be gay.’ Who said it first, you or Mom?”

  “I don’t remember,” Ed snapped.

  “I think you do,” said Burke. “You just don’t want to talk about it, just like you won’t talk about anything to do with Mom or me or how you feel. Jesus Christ, I don’t know how Lucy puts up with you.”

  “That’s enough!” his father shouted. He stood up. Burke could see that his hands were shaking.

  “Dad, I didn’t mean to—”

  “You want to know when we knew?” his father interrupted. “When you stopped coming home for Christmas. Your mother said the only reason you wouldn’t come home is because you had something to hide. At first she thought maybe you were embarrassed by us, by this place. She thought maybe we weren’t fancy enough for you, now that you were living in the city.”

  “I was never embarrassed,” said Burke.

  His father ignored him. “Then one night she was watching some program on the television. I don’t know what it was. It doesn’t matter. There was some gay fellow in it, and he was talking to his friends about how his sister didn’t want him to bring his boyfriend to her wedding, because it would upset their parents. And your mother turned to me and she said, ‘Do you think that’s why Burke doesn’t come home anymore?’ She was about to call you right then and ask you, but I told her not to. I said even if you were, it was none of our business.”

  He stopped talking. Burke looked at his face, which suddenly looked very old. “You didn’t want to find out it was true,” Burke said. “Did you?”

  Ed cleared his throat. “It was none of our business.”

  “I should have told you,” said Burke. “I shouldn’t have made you guess.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “It wasn’t that long ago,” Burke retorted. “And if I’d said something, maybe we wouldn’t have spent the last twenty years not talking about it.”

  “People do too much talking,” Ed said.

  “But we could have—”

  “It broke her heart,” his father said angrily. He lowered his voice. “It’s what killed her.”

  Burke stared at him, stunned. “You think I killed her?”

  “I think it hurt her more than anything else could. You were her baby, but she didn’t know what you were, and you wouldn’t tell her.” Ed sat down. “You were like one of those changelings left behind by something that stole her real boy.”

  Burke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Did his father really believe what he was saying? Did he really think Burke was somehow responsible for his mother’s death?

  “What would you have had me do?” Burke asked finally, his voice shaking.

  His father shook his head, then looked up at his son. “I’d rather you’d been normal,” he said.

  Burke felt his face flush. He tried to speak, but all the air had been sucked from his lungs, and his mouth refused to work. He felt his heart pounding, and for a moment he thought he might not be able to move. He watched as his father turned back to his model, picking up a piece and applying glue to one end.

  Then the air came rushing back in, and Burke found his voice. “You bastard,” he said. “You fucking bastard.”

  “Don’t speak to me like that!” his father said. “Not in my own house.”

  “You and your house can go to hell!” Burke roared. “How dare you accuse me of killing her? How do you know what she felt? You never fucking talked to her! How do you know she didn’t die just to get away from you?”

  Ed leapt up, pieces of the model scattering on the floor. He looked down helplessly at them, then at Burke. His mouth twitched. Burke turned his back and walked out, leaving his father standing there.

  Sam answered the phone on the second ring. He said he would be there to pick Burke up in half an hour. Burke used the time to pack his bags and put his photography equipment back into the boxes in which they’d been shipped. His father had shut the door to his office.

  Burke was glad that Lucy wasn’t there. She was playing cards with some of her friends. If she’d been at the house, she would undoubtedly have tried to stop Burke from leaving, maybe even attempted to broker a peace deal between him and his father. But Burke wasn’t interested in that. He just wanted to be as far away from his father as possible.

  Sam arrived with five minutes to spare. He carried Burke’s things to his car while Burke sat in the front seat, anxious to be on their way.

  “You’re sure you want to take everything?” Sam asked as he loaded the box of developing chemicals into the trunk.

  “I’m sure,” Burke answered. “I don’t want to have to come back.”

  As they drove back to Sam’s house, Burke looked out into the night. The moon was still close to full, and the countryside was gilded in silver. For a moment he almost thought he might be dreaming everything that had happened in the last hour. Then he remembered his father’s face—how he’d looked at Burke as if he were looking at the face of a murderer. Burke shut his eyes, blocking out the image.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  “No problem,” Sam answered. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” said Burke. “I really don’t. Not now, anyway.”

  “Anytime you’re ready,” Sam said.

  “I won’t be there forever,” said Burke. “I promise. As soon as I can, I’ll go back to Boston. I can get around by myself now, anyway. There’s really no reason to wait until the cast comes off. I’m sure I can bribe Gregg into coming up to get me.”

  “You can stay as long as you want to,” Sam assured him. “The guest room hasn’t seen much use. It will be nice to have company.”

  “I won’t cramp your style, will I?”

  “What style?” asked Sam.

  “You know, with the menfolk,” Burke teased.

  “Oh, right,” said Sam. “Well, if you come home and there’s a sock on the doorknob, just stay away from the room where all the shouting and pounding are coming from.”

  Burke leaned back in his seat, trying to stretch his leg. “What a great couple of days this has been. First Will, now this.”

  “What happened with Will?” Sam asked. “I mean, anything besides the weirdness at the fair the other day?”

  Burke told him about his meeting with Will. “It was like the last temptation of Burke or something,” he said when he was done. “I should have just fucked him. Not fucking him hasn’t worked out so great.”

  “You know that’s not true,” Sam said.

  “No?” said Burke. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe we wouldn’t be hurting anyone. Maybe marrying Donna and letting everyone think he’s normal really is the right thing to do. Maybe I’m t
he one who’s got it all wrong. After all, I killed my mother.”

  “You didn’t kill your mother.”

  “Well, I sure didn’t make her life any easier,” Burke countered.

  “Lying about who you are wouldn’t have made it any easier, either,” Sam reminded him.

  “Easy for you to say,” said Burke. “Your father didn’t accuse you of killing your mother.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Sam agreed. “But that’s probably because he killed her.”

  Burke thought at first that he was joking. Then he saw Sam’s face. Illuminated by the moonlight, it looked like it was carved out of stone. His eyes looked straight ahead, not blinking.

  “I was eight,” Sam said. “My sister was nine. We came home from school one afternoon, and there were four police cars and an ambulance parked in front of our house. My aunt Cilla, my father’s sister, was there. She wouldn’t let us go inside. She said something bad had happened and that we would be spending the night at her house. Of course, we asked her where our parents were. I don’t remember what she said. Something about them needing to help the police, I think.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “The next morning,” said Sam. “I woke up early. It was a Saturday. Everyone else was asleep, so I turned on the television to watch cartoons. Only it was too early and the news was on, and there were pictures of my mother and father. I don’t know how they got them. At first I thought maybe they’d won something. Then I heard the woman on the TV say that they were both dead. Murder-suicide is what she said.”

  “Holy shit,” Burke said.

  “I woke up my sister and told her, and we both woke up my aunt. At first she didn’t want to tell us anything, but since I’d seen it already, she didn’t have much choice.”

  “Why’d he do it?”

  Sam sighed deeply and exhaled loudly. “He thought she was having an affair,” he said. “And maybe she was. We never found out for sure. My father was depressed most of his life. He refused to take medication. He said it was only for weak people, and that all you had to do to stop being depressed was try harder. Only, when that didn’t work, he tried drinking himself out of it. That afternoon he drank himself and my mother out of it for good.”

  “Where did you and your sister go?”

  “We stayed with our aunt and uncle. My mother’s parents were dead, and her brother already had six kids of his own. At first the court didn’t want us living with any of my father’s relatives. The social worker assigned to us thought it would be too traumatic and suggested we be put into foster care. But my aunt Cilla pitched a fit and said they would take us over her dead body. Probably not the best choice of words given the circumstances, but the judge apparently got the message.”

  “Still, that must have been weird, living with them after what your father did.”

  “At first,” Sam agreed. “Kids at school said stupid shit. Some people gave my aunt a hard time. But she and my uncle loved us like we were their own. From the first day we moved in with them, we knew that. And after a while that was all that mattered.”

  “How did you not hate him?” Burke asked.

  “I did hate him,” said Sam. “For a long time. I hated him for being mentally ill. I hated him for drinking. I hated him for killing my mother and destroying our family. But at some point I realized that hating him wasn’t changing anything. It wasn’t making me feel better, and it wasn’t bringing my parents back from the dead. So I stopped.”

  “How do you feel about him now?”

  “I’m sad that he didn’t get the help he needed,” Sam answered. “I’m sorry he thought his mental illness was something to be ashamed of.”

  “And your sister?”

  “Angie? She’s still angry. Can’t let go. She blames what happened for everything that’s gone wrong in her life, when really the only thing wrong is that she inherited some of our father’s faulty wiring and his stubbornness to accept it.”

  “She’s . . .”

  “Bipolar,” said Sam. “We both are. Only, Angie won’t treat hers.”

  “Wow,” Burke said. “And you seem so well adjusted.”

  Sam laughed. “I’ve learned how to live with it,” he said. “Meds help. And mine doesn’t manifest itself in physical mania. It’s all in my head. You know how I can think of twelve different things at one time? That’s how. My mind is always going. I used to think it was weird when people would say they weren’t thinking about anything. I couldn’t imagine not thinking about things every single moment.”

  “Is your sister the same way?”

  “Poor Angie has it tough,” said Sam. “She gets the physical mania and the emotional ups and downs. Still, she could control it if she’d do what the doctors tell her to. She just doesn’t want to.”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to?”

  “It’s like a drug,” Sam said. “The manic episodes are really exciting. The crash afterward is fucking hell, but when you’re caught up in that rush, you don’t think about anything else. A lot of people don’t want to take meds, because they don’t want to lose that.”

  “This is making what my father said seem like nothing,” Burke remarked.

  “We each get our own shit,” said Sam. “And it’s all hard in one way or another. All you can do is deal with your particular shit the best you can.”

  They turned onto the road that led to Sam’s house, pulling into his driveway a few minutes later.

  Turning off the car, Sam turned to Burke. “Do you like Douglas Adams?”

  “Of course,” Burke said. “What sane person doesn’t?”

  “Do you remember in Hitchhiker’s when Ford and Arthur are first picked up by the Heart of Gold, and Zaphod is freaking out about it, and Trillian is doing something to achieve normality?”

  “Vaguely,” Burke told him. “Apparently, I’ve been out-nerded.”

  “Trillian has a great line in that scene,” Sam continued. “She gets everything under control, and then she says, ‘We have normality. I repeat we have normality. Everything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.’ I love that, because it’s true. We all have our own problems. We can help each other out, but ultimately we have to deal with our problems ourselves.”

  “Where are you going with this?” Burke asked, slightly confused.

  “Welcome to your Heart of Gold,” said Sam, gesturing at his house.

  CHAPTER 30

  “These came for you today,” Lucy said. She handed Burke two large, thick envelopes.

  “The pictures,” said Burke. “I forgot all about them. Thanks.”

  He’d been at Sam’s house for two days. He’d made no attempt to contact his father or Lucy, and was surprised that Lucy had known where to find him.

  “I went to the library first,” Lucy said. “I figured Sam would know where you were.”

  “I should have called you. I’m sorry I didn’t. It’s been a little . . . weird.”

  “Your father didn’t tell me everything that was said, but I think I’ve got the gist of it,” said Lucy.

  “I don’t know that you do,” Burke told her. “He basically accused me of killing my mother.”

  “He was angry,” said Lucy. “He didn’t mean it.”

  Burke smiled tightly. “I don’t know much about my father,” he said. “Clearly. But I do know one thing—he never says anything he doesn’t mean.”

  “He was upset,” Lucy said, trying again. “Don’t just walk away.”

  Burke looked at her face. He could tell she was near tears. They pushed at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks.

  “I know you want to make this okay,” he said gently. “I know you’re thinking about your daughter.”

  “Don’t make the mistake I made,” Lucy begged him. “Please don’t make that mistake.”

  “Have you told Dad that?”

  Lucy nodded. “You know how stubborn he is,” she said, sniffing. “That’s why I think it’s up to you.
”

  Burke nodded. “That’s what I thought,” he said. He sighed. “I can’t do it, Lucy. Not right now. Honestly, I don’t know if I ever can. He said some terrible things.”

  “Just think about it, Burke,” she said. “Please?”

  “Sure. And thanks for bringing these over.”

  Lucy opened her arms. Burke allowed her to hug him. He felt her thin frame beneath his hands. She was shaking. Burke wanted to tell her that everything would be all right. But he couldn’t lie to her. He couldn’t make that promise.

  Lucy let go. She didn’t say anything, just reached out and touched his arm. Then she turned and walked back to her car, leaving Burke to shut the door before he started crying.

  When he’d calmed himself, he took the envelopes to the living room and sat down with them. He opened the first one and pulled the photos out. They were some of the shots he’d taken at Destiny. The one on top was of the three bears.

  And it was good. It was very good. Somehow it captured the energy of the trio, the love that existed between them. Burke saw it in the way they stood, the way they looked unflinchingly into the camera. The image radiated happiness, friendship, even lust, in a way that made it more than just a portrait. Burke was amazed.

  He looked at the next picture, and the next. Each was a portrait, and each moved him as much as the one of Ginger, Thadeus, and Jonas did. He opened the second envelope and looked through the rest of the images. As he did, an idea formed in his mind. He didn’t just have a bunch of portraits; he had a potential show. And it wasn’t something he’d set out to do. It had just happened, because he’d allowed the camera to see what he saw.

  He wanted to call Colton and tell him he had something for him. He wanted to call Sam. He wanted to share his excitement with someone. But then he saw his father’s face and heard his words, and the fire of his excitement was extinguished.

  He slumped back against the couch, the stack of photos in his lap. Suddenly they didn’t excite him. They were dull, pedestrian, nothing more than snapshots. He tossed them on the coffee table.

  The photos on top slid aside, revealing one he hadn’t yet seen. It was the photo of him and Sam, the one Ginger had taken. He picked it up and looked at it more closely. He was leaning against Sam. Their hips were touching, and Sam’s hand was tucked around Burke’s waist, one finger hooked through the belt loop of Burke’s pants. The paint on Burke’s chest, caught in black and white, shimmered.