by P. A. Brown
“Don’t ever say that.” David grabbed Chris’s shoulders and pulled him around, staring down into his upturned face. “I could never be ashamed of you. I love you.”
He brushed his lips over Chris’s. “This is all just temporary.
Remember, it’s only a holiday. We won’t be here forever.”
The phone rang. David broke away and headed inside. Chris sat down and opened his laptop. He quickly downloaded his email and began scanning the headers. There were a couple from Becky, detailing what she had done to date. He emailed her back telling her what they had experienced so far. He even told her about the table, though he didn’t say how much he paid for it.
Like David, she thought he was too profligate.
Chris heard David greet the caller.
“Joel. No, I wasn’t sleeping. What’s up?”
Chris finished with his email and shut down the laptop. He took his wine and laptop and passed David on the way to the bedroom. Fifteen minutes later David entered the room. But instead of getting ready for bed he leaned over and kissed Chris.
“I have to go out for a bit. I’ll be back soon.”
“Where are you going?”
David shrugged. “Joel wants to meet with me.”
ChAPteR eLeven
Monday, 10:20pm, Aunt Nea’s, Nea’s Alley, St. George’s Parish, Bermuda
David slipped out of the cottage after seeing Chris to bed.
He had been tempted to put Joel off and tell him he’d meet him tomorrow, but in the end he decided to acquiesce and do it tonight. There were still too many questions he had that only Joel could answer. He felt entitled to a few answers. He had the feeling Joel felt the same, but he wouldn’t know until he could talk to him face to face, without the rest of his family and Chris around.
He made his way up the path to King’s Square. Lights from all around the square and Ordnance Island danced on the undulating surface of the harbor. He found Joel standing in front of the historical stocks used to beguile tourists with morbid thoughts of past punishments.
All around him the voices of reveling tourists rose and fell.
He could even hear the clink of glassware from the patios of the nearby restaurants and pubs.
“Let’s walk,” Joel said, and led them away from the square and out of town. David could tell Joel was still upset by his sons’
outbursts and was ignoring David’s reassurances. David was having his own problems with assimilating everything that had happened in the last week. He wasn’t up to handling someone else’s issues.
They strolled off the main road onto what Joel said was called Convict Bay Lane. At least a dozen fishing boats were docked at a small wharf. David went out to stand on the edge of the wooden pier. The hiss of moving water whispered along the pylons below his feet. He heard a bike, the lightweight sewing-machine engine sound, coming down nearby Cut Road, fading away as it passed.
104 P.A. Brown
Somewhere a night bird called and tree frogs sang. Across the bay the lights of another town glowed softly. Blinking red lights in the water marked a path of buoys.
He glanced at the glowing dial of his watch. Almost ten-thirty.
“Thank you for meeting me,” Joel said.
David nodded. Under the nearby lights Joel looked pale and haggard. He turned to face Convict Bay.
“I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” he said. “Perhaps I should have left well enough alone. If you had gone on thinking me dead, you would never have wondered what might have been.”
It was too much like an echo of what Chris had said earlier.
He hadn’t like it then, and he didn’t like it now. “Don’t, Joel—”
Joel ignored him. “I was unfair to your mother, and I’ve been unfair to you. That is something I will never forgive myself for.”
“I don’t regret any of it,” David said, hoping he could convince the man. “I used to fantasize that you were alive—what adopted kid doesn’t, right? That it was all an accident that I was left alone.”
David leaned on the dock railing and watched the restless water lap at the base of the wharf. Several of the docked boats rocked in the gentle waves. Light from the nearby King’s Square danced on the restless water. Joel came to stand beside him.
“I wanted you to be somewhere,” David said. “That it wasn’t true I was fatherless. I know you still love my mother, and I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why, but I think I know you’re a good man. I’m not sorry you found me. You have to believe me.”
“Does Christopher know you’re here?”
“Sure, I don’t keep secrets from him.”
“He’s a fine man and I know he loves you very much. I know it’s hard for both of you, with the way other people look on you as breaking God’s laws, but I’ve seen you together and no God I know would condemn love like that.”
David was at a loss as to what to say to that, so he kept silent.
BeRMudA heAt 105
Joel wasn’t done.
“I know Imani is very upset by all this. For her sake I hope you won’t refuse our offer of hospitality. Please don’t hurt her over the actions of her brothers.”
“Neither Chris nor I want to be the cause of dissension in your family. It’s pretty clear Jay, at least, isn’t open to any kind of dialogue…”
“Yes, well, my sons aren’t very worldly,” Joel said. “I’ve tried to encourage them to broaden their horizons, but they’ve always resisted, saying they’re happy to be Bermudians and don’t see why they need to involve themselves in a chaotic world. That was Jay’s excuse for not pursuing school offshore. Sadly, I think his decision is based on fear as much as anything. It’s moments like this that I dearly wish my wife was still alive. Dorothy would never have been satisfied with anything but the best effort from any of our children.”
But what would she have thought of a bastard child showing up after forty plus years? David left the thought unspoken, knowing Joel probably carried his own guilt over that. Then he realized that he had to know.
“Did you ever tell your wife about, ah, Barbara, or me?”
“No.” Joel’s voice held a wealth of pain. “God forgive me, I never did. I never told any of my children that, either. Not until I thought you might be alive. I knew their mother would understand, she was a good-hearted woman, but I didn’t want to weight her down with the knowledge. I figured I carried enough of a burden for both of us.”
“What did Jay mean about being here to help him? Does it have something to do with my being a police officer?”
“He should not have spoken to you…”
“Did you bring me here because I’m a cop? Tonight? Is that what this is about?”
Joel averted his eyes. “I had hoped he might allow himself to be influenced by you. That he could see there was strength there, 106 P.A. Brown
and goodness.”
“And why did you want that?”
“Besides you, Jay is my oldest. He was always a good boy when he was younger, he attended church with all of us, he did well in school…”
“When did he change?” It was an old story. A lot of cops David knew had the same problems with their own kids. One day they were angels, the next they took a train to the dark side.
It made him glad it would never be a problem for him and Chris.
Bad enough to see the children of cops he knew spiral into drugs or crime.
“In high school. He—”
“Got in with a bad crowd?”
Joel sighed. “You’ve heard this before, haven’t you? But that’s right, you’re a police officer. You probably see this sort of thing all the time. It must be hard for you, always seeing the worst side of people.”
David shrugged. It was the negative side to policing. The dangerous tendency some cops adopted of thinking the people on the lower rungs of society were NHI, no humans involved. It was a soul eating attitude he never wanted to take up.
“What did you think I could do?” he
asked gently. “If Jay doesn’t want my help, there’s not much I can accomplish.”
“I know that. But…” Joel swung around to face David. His face was creased with worry. “He used to respect people. He used to respect me. Now…”
“I’m sorry,” David said gently. “I don’t think I can do anything for him. I can’t pull an intervention on a total stranger.
You must know that.”
“Yes, I do. I guess I just hoped you could talk to him.”
David knew he should have just said no, but instead said,
“Listen, give Chris and I a couple of days to let things settle down. Then I promise you, we’ll visit again. Maybe we can have lunch again someplace, the five of us. Six, if Baker wants to come BeRMudA heAt 107
along. And at that time I’ll talk to Jay, if he’ll listen.” Maybe if the “talk” happened in a neutral place, devoid of the markings of territory and all the baggage that entailed, Jay might listen to his older brother.
“I’d like that,” Joel said. “In fact, the Thursday after this one is Emancipation Day. It’s a big island holiday when St. George’s and Somerset compete in an annual cup match. Cricket. Very competitive, but mostly good-natured, sort of like your Super Bowl. Or the World Cup. The first match game is here in St.
George’s. Jay never misses them. Neither does Imani or Baker, for that matter.”
“Chris would like it, too.” A lie, since Chris hated sports, though he pretended to be excited for David’s sake. “We’re here for two weeks, so we can do that.”
“Then it’s a date.” They shook hands. “You look tired, David.
Go home to Chris. We will sort this out.” Joel put his arm around David’s broad shoulder and they walked back to the square.
If anything, the revelry had grown more raucous. “Take care, David. And know this, that no matter what comes of this, I am very glad I met you. And Chris.”
David left him then and made his way back to Aunt Nea’s.
He let himself into the Jasmine room and found Chris dozing in the canopy bed, the gossip magazine he had purchased at the airport in his lap, open to a picture of some anorexic star and her peripatetic boy toy. He woke when David shut the bedroom door and began stripping off his shirt.
He blinked up at David. “You’re back.” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “How did it go?”
David wanted to tell him to go back to sleep, but he knew Chris would ignore the request. Instead he took the magazine off Chris’s lap and set it on the bedside table. He perched on the side of the bed and took off his shoes.
“He’s upset by the whole thing,” David said, folding his socks and yanking his shirt over his head. “He doesn’t want us to leave without saying goodbye. I told him we wouldn’t. I suggested 108 P.A. Brown
we could go out for lunch, rather than go back to the house.
That way if Jay and his brother don’t feel like showing up they don’t have to. He suggested some big cricket match a week from Thursday, here in St. George’s. I said we’d think about it.” He took a breath and let it out slowly. “He wants me to talk to Jay, seems to think I can straighten the guy out.”
“Straighten him out how?”
“Wrong crowd kind of thing. Joel thinks having a cop as a big brother might make an impression.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
“No, the kid’s not going to listen. What do you think? Should I try?”
“We came all this way,” Chris said. “It hardly seems fair to anyone to hightail it home at the first spat.”
David scooped up Chris’s hand from on top of the comforter.
“Hardly a spat.”
“Maybe not, but it’s hardly an earth-shattering row either.”
Chris tugged David down so their faces were inches apart. He ran his hands over David’s broad back, stopping at the base of his spine where his pants started. He slid his fingers under the belted material. “I know something we could make earth-shattering.”
“And what might that be?” David’s voice was husky.
Chris fumbled with the belt buckle. “Just come here, and I’ll show you.”
ChAPteR tweLve
Tuesday, 6:25am Aunt Nea’s, Nea’s Alley, St. George’s Parish, Bermuda
Chris woke to find the bed beside him empty. He threw aside the covers and padded into the other room. He found David in the kitchen, nursing a cup of black coffee.
“What time did you get up?”
“Bit before six.” David smiled. “You were totally out of it.”
“When does Joel want to do this cricket match?”
“We didn’t work out the details. Next Thursday. Though he did say the first game was here in town someplace. Said it was like the Super Bowl.”
“Cricket?”
David shrugged, bemused. “I gather it’s big here.”
Chris grabbed himself a coffee and straddled a chair. “At least we can see Imani again.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“You don’t?”
“Of course I do. She’s a sweet kid.”
“Baby sister, remember. That makes you her older brother.”
Chris laughed. “Really older, older brother.”
“Ha-ha.” David sipped his coffee. “I think I proved I’m not so old last night.”
Chris’s smile was smug. They took their coffee out to the veranda. Chris slid into a deck chair and put his feet up on the railing. An odd looking bird with a long white tail drifted overhead. The cruise ship, or perhaps another one, was still in the harbor, a white behemoth among the jeweled buildings lining the shore. The sun was just high enough in the sky to bring 110 P.A. Brown
everything alive with rich color. It looked like a manufactured postcard of paradise.
“Assuming you don’t want to call Joel just yet, what do you want to do today?”
“I’d rather leave that for a day or two.” David finished his coffee and set the mug down on the terracotta tile table. “I was looking over the brochures you picked up. We can take a couple of sea kayaks out to one of the reefs to go snorkeling. Or we could check out the Crystal Caves. Mostly, I think I’d just like to get out of here.”
“I can go for that. Let’s go swimming first. We should check with the manager about where the closest beach is—”
The morning was interrupted by the ululating wail of sirens.
Close sirens. It sounded like it went right by the guest house, though Chris couldn’t see anything. David and Chris exchanged alarmed looks.
The sirens abruptly cut off. Chris stood.
“It’s close. Maybe we should go see what it is.”
David pulled him back. “The last thing any emergency responders needs is a couple of rubbernecking tourists interfering.”
“But what is it?”
“I don’t know. Could be fire, ambulance or even the police.
I don’t recognize the siren. I’m sure we’ll hear about it soon enough.”
As though on cue, the manager appeared at the foot of the stairs. She saw them on the veranda and waved.
Chris and David met her at the front door.
“It’s the police,” she whispered, as though afraid she’d be overheard. “They’re down by Convict Bay.”
“Do you know why?” David asked.
“No, I don’t. But it can’t be good.”
Chris reminded himself that this wasn’t L.A. People here BeRMudA heAt 111
weren’t used to hearing sirens day and night. Back home you got used to the constant wail. As long as it wasn’t for you, most Angelenos ignored them.
Looking toward King’s Square, where he assumed Convict Bay was, judging by the sirens, Chris couldn’t see anything. The urge to find out what was going on intensified. David must have sensed his uneasiness, because he waved Chris back toward their room.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go into town, there’s nothing we can do here.”
Chris almost refused, b
ut made no protest when David pushed him inside.
“Get changed. We’ll find something to do in Hamilton.” Chris changed into a pair of jeans and an Izod shirt. David dressed much the same way.
On their way down Duke of York Street they altered their course and strolled through King’s Square instead, but even though they looked, they couldn’t see any sign of the police anywhere. Chris had David pose in front of the life-size replica of Deliverance that had been used by shipwrecked mariners to return to Virginia, after their original ship had been wrecked on the treacherous reefs as they were trying to get from England to the new colony in Virginia. He marveled at the idea of spending weeks at sea on such a tiny, fragile ship.
Suddenly Chris laughed. “Things must have been very cozy for those sailors.”
“Somehow I doubt you’d find any mention of that in their Captain’s log.”
“Old salty dogs.”
“You have a one track mind,” David said, but Chris could hear the laughter in his voice.
“Like you’re complaining.”
They stopped for coffee at Cafe Gio, where they sat at glass tables in the courtyard watching the same gulls and sparrows vie 112 P.A. Brown
for thrown scraps of food. Afterward, back in King’s Square, they mingled with the other tourists, watching people put their heads in the stocks, and staring at the dunking stool where hapless scolders would get dunked and encouraged to mend their ways.
Chris had no luck getting David to pose with his head in the stocks, but he cajoled him into taking a picture of Chris in one, head and hands dangling out of the wooden enclosure. Several amused tourists looked on. Chris was grinning when he took the camera back. “That could be an interesting addition to our place, don’t you think?”
David pursed his lips and squinted while he considered Chris’s words, then his face cleared and he laughed. “Oh, you are wicked.”
After lunch at St. George & The Dragon, overlooking the Square, they decided to change again before they headed into Hamilton for a day of playing tourist.
“I don’t want to get turned away because I’m not wearing the right thing,” Chris sniffed. “Like they could fault me for my fashion sense.”
