by Anna Martin
“No, ma’am,” Evan said quietly.
“Yes, you do,” Scott said hotly. “Tell her their names, Evan.”
“I don’t wanna be a tattletale.”
Ms. Hopkinson sighed deeply. “Come on, boys. Let’s go back inside. You look like you could do with a visit to the nurse to get your knees cleaned up, Evan.”
Evan nodded, dropped his chin, and trudged after his teacher back toward the school building.
That afternoon, when his mom came to pick him up, Ms. Hopkinson called her into the classroom. There were still a few other kids milling around, so Ms. Hopkinson waited for them to leave before shutting the door to the classroom and inviting his mom to sit down.
“Evan, do you want to tell us what happened today?” Ms. Hopkinson asked.
“No,” he mumbled, looking down at his scraped knuckles.
“Evan?” his mom said. She sounded worried.
“Today I was asked to see to Evan after he’d been in a disagreement with some other children,” Ms. Hopkinson said. “By the time I arrived, there were no other children around. Just Evan and Scott.”
Evan sniffed and said nothing.
“Evan, was it Scott who was hitting you?” Ms. Hopkinson asked.
“No!” Evan said, sitting bolt upright. “No, Scott wouldn’t hit. He’s nice.”
“Not Andy either?”
“No. Other kids.”
Ms. Hopkinson sighed softly. “And you’re not going to tell me their names?”
“I dunno who they are,” he mumbled, rounding his shoulders again and looking back down at his hands.
“I’m going to keep a closer eye on Evan at recess,” Ms. Hopkinson said to Evan’s mom. “For the next couple of weeks at least. I think Scott is being a positive influence on Evan at school. He seems to be integrating with the other children a lot better than he used to. He’s also less dependent on Andy, though I’m a little concerned that he might be switching that dependency to another boy instead.”
“They became very close over the summer,” Evan’s mom said.
“And I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Ms. Hopkinson continued. “Scott is a nice boy, and he’s definitely encouraging Evan to come out of his shell. You have a sweet, bright child, Ms. King. We don’t take bullying lightly at Ocean View Elementary, and you have my word that I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of this.”
“Thank you,” Evan’s mom said. She smoothed her hand over the top of Evan’s head. “Come on, Evan. Let’s get you home.”
Evan stood, then remembered he still had things in his drawer. “I have spelling homework tonight,” he said.
“Go on and get it, then,” his mom said.
He nodded and rushed over to his drawer, which was yellow. His favorite color. Inside was the list of spelling words he had to learn, ready for their test on Friday, and a folded piece of construction paper. Evan frowned, not remembering putting that in his drawer. He crouched down and unfolded it.
It was a drawing of two boys, one with a Hulk T-shirt and sunny yellow hair and the other with dark hair and blue eyes. Underneath, someone had written “Evan and Scott.” Evan smiled, and for the first time since recess, he felt something bright and hot and wonderful in his chest.
He quickly folded the drawing and slipped it into his backpack alongside the spelling list. When he got back to his mom, he slipped his hand into hers, sure things would work out okay.
Outside, the sun was shining.
“And sometimes,” Evan said as he walked home, hand in hand with his mom, “sometimes Mr. Sparrow takes Scott and Tom to see a ball game. Tom is Scott’s big brother. Did I tell you that already?”
“You did,” his mom said, smiling.
“Oh. Can we go to a ball game sometime?”
“Maybe we could go catch a game at the high school? How about that?”
“Yeah!”
“Okay. I’ll call the school, see when the next game is.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, Evan?”
“Can Scott sleep over at our house one time? We could get pizza and a movie from Blockbuster and popcorn.”
She squeezed his hand as they waited for a break in the cars to cross the street. “I’m sure he can if his mom says that’s okay. Would you like me to call Mrs. Sparrow?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Lots of phone calls today,” she teased. “Hey, Evan.”
“Yeah?”
“See that?”
Evan squinted. “Is it the ice cream truck?”
“I think so. You want ice cream?”
“Yeah!”
“Come on,” she said and winked at him. “Race you there.”
Evan got an ice cream with sprinkles, and his mom ordered the same thing, with strawberry sauce. Evan liked it when he matched with his mom. They were two peas in a pod, or so she said. If she wasn’t a girl and a grown-up, Evan thought she could have been his best friend.
On Saturday, the day after Evan had gotten ten out of ten on his spelling test, Evan’s mom was working, so Evan was allowed to go over to Scott’s house for the whole afternoon. He couldn’t decide if it was a treat for doing so well on his test (Scott had gotten nine out of ten, so his mom was pretty pleased too) or if his mom was finally taking Evan’s protestations about Mrs. Lipinski seriously.
Evan’s mom had walked him halfway to Scott’s house because it was on the way to where she was working for the afternoon. Evan was allowed to walk the rest of the way on his own. It was a nice afternoon, sunny but not too hot, and the pain and humiliation of being beat up earlier in the week was long since forgotten. The jibe about not having a dad might take a little longer to forget, but Evan was determined not to think about it.
The Sparrows’ house was really super nice. It was on the fancy side of the neighborhood, where there were bigger gaps between the houses and most of them had pools. Evan’s house did not have a pool. They had to go along to the community pool to swim, and Evan’s mom worked most of the nice days, so he didn’t get to go all that often.
The house was white with a black front door and a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. If he stretched on his tiptoes, Evan could just about reach the doorbell.
“Hey, Mrs. Sparrow,” Evan said as she opened the door. Mrs. Sparrow was tall and had her curly hair pulled into a long braid. She was wearing dungarees and had a pink-lipped smile.
“Hey, Evan. How are you today?”
“Good, thank you,” he said, remembering to mind his manners. “Is Scott around?”
“Sure is. He’s in the backyard, waiting for you. Go on through.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Sparrow,” Evan called as he took off into the house.
Evan had been here a lot of times before, so he knew how to get through the house to the kitchen, then into the big backyard. Scott was scrambling around in the dirt, looking like he might be building something.
“Hey!” Scott called, straightening up and brushing his hands off on his knees. “You came.”
“Yep. My mom called your mom this morning, and I can stay until she comes to pick me up after work.”
“Cool. I’m making a fort.”
“Like a real fort?”
“Yeah.”
Evan walked over to the space Scott had cleared under the tree. He had a pile of things to use for the fort: a big cardboard box, a piece of wood that looked like it had come from a broken fence, a bunch of sticks, some string, and a roll of Christmas-patterned parcel tape.
“How are you gonna do it?” Evan asked. He shrugged his backpack off and set it down next to the tree, then planted his hands on his hips.
“See that branch there? I’m gonna use that as the roof. We need to flatten the box out and attach it to the wall with the tape, see? And then the fence is the door.”
Evan nodded, the fort taking shape in his imagination as Scott described it.
“What’s the string for?”
“To tie the box to the branch? I dunno yet. I thought it might come in useful
.”
“We might need another box. To make a wall on that side.” Evan pointed to where the fort would be open to intruders.
“I hadn’t thought of that. We might have another one in the garage. I’ll go check.”
“No! Later. Let’s start it now.”
Scott beamed. “Okay.”
An hour or so later, they were muddy, frustrated, and the proud owners of a slightly haphazard fort. There had been a few moments where Evan had worried they were fighting, especially when Scott got frustrated because he couldn’t get the box to stick to the wall with the stupid Christmas tape. But it was okay—he was annoyed at the stuff, not at Evan.
“Boys!” Scott’s mom yelled from the kitchen door. “I’ve got lemonade and sandwiches here if you’re hungry.”
Scott looked at Evan, shrugged, and they immediately raced back up to the house.
Scott’s backyard was big, so Evan was out of breath by the time they reached the kitchen. His mom didn’t look mad that they were all dirty. She just smiled and shook her head as she picked up Lacey from the floor and bounced her on her hip.
“Can you both wash your hands, please? Scott, show Evan where the washroom is.”
The Sparrows had a washroom downstairs, a tiny space that Evan and Scott crowded into together to scrub the worst of the dirt from their hands and arms. Scott caught sight of himself in the mirror over the sink and started to laugh.
“What?” Evan asked.
“I got dirt on my face.”
“I told ya.”
After their snack, Scott’s mom offered to come out and help them finish the hard bits of the fort. She was clever, finding some hooks from her sewing box and making some kind of rigging to hold the roof in place. She was tall too, meaning she could reach up and make sure the fort was supported from the higher branches of the tree.
“We need a door, Mom,” Scott said as they all looked at the structure, three pairs of hands planted solidly on their own hips.
“Hmm,” she said, tipping her head to the side. “Wait here.”
She went into the garage, the back door that Scott told Evan he and his brother weren’t allowed in, since it contained all of his dad’s tools and hunting stuff. After a few minutes, Scott’s mom came back with a big piece of camo net.
“How about this?” she said. “If we throw it over the whole fort, it’ll be disguised, but you can still see out through the holes.”
“That’s pretty awesome, Mrs. Sparrow,” Evan said.
“Thank you, Evan.”
It took a bit of wrangling to get the net to sit right, and then Mrs. Sparrow held up one corner to allow them space to crawl in.
“I’ll leave you boys to it,” she said with a grin and dropped the net back down.
It was darker inside the fort. It had enough space for Evan and Scott to sit side by side with their legs stretched out and was tall enough that they could stand up if they hunched over. All in all, it was an excellent fort.
“I think we should get married, Evan,” Scott said decisively.
Evan looked up from where he was patting down the mud to make a more solid floor, and frowned. “Huh?”
“Ms. Hopkinson says people get married when they like each other best of all, and I like you best of all, so we should get married.”
It took Evan a moment to think on that. “Don’t boys usually marry girls?”
Scott shrugged. “I dunno. Do you wanna marry me or not?”
“Sure,” Evan said. “Do we hafta live together now?”
“Not until we’re grown-ups,” Scott said, sounding more sure of himself now. “For now we still live with our moms.”
Evan was a little relieved. He did like Scott best of all too, but he didn’t want to not live with his mom anymore.
“Okay. What do we need to do?”
“Well, I say I want to marry you, and you say you want to marry me, then we kiss, and then we eat cake.”
This sounded entirely reasonable to Evan. “Okay. I wanna marry you, Scott.”
“I wanna marry you, Evan.”
Evan blinked twice, and Scott leaned forward and kissed him, smack on the mouth. For a moment, Evan startled. He hadn’t ever kissed anyone on the mouth before, besides his mom. Scott was already pulling away, though, so Evan made quick work of leaning in and bumping his mouth against Scott’s again.
Scott tasted like lemonade and a little like dirt.
“Do we go get cake now?” Evan asked, brightening at the thought.
“Yeah! Chocolate cake,” Scott said as he scrambled to his feet. He held his hand out to Evan, who took it and allowed himself to be pulled up. “Come on,” Scott said.
They raced back up to the house, not letting go of each other’s hands.
The Third Time
Christmas 2004
Evan watched, childishly pleased, as tiny flecks of snow started to fall from a sky that had seemed heady and heavy all afternoon. It had grown dark just after he’d eaten lunch—a warming chicken soup made with big chunks of root vegetables. The perfect thing for a cold winter afternoon.
His mom had the day off work and was spending the rest of the day doing last-minute Christmas shopping with her new boyfriend. Mark was a doctor at the hospital, and their friendship had grown into something more over a number of years. Evan liked Mark. He treated Evan’s mom well, didn’t try to parent Evan, and hadn’t pushed when Evan’s mom had said she wanted to keep living in her own house for now.
The fact that Mark was a doctor, a freaking doctor, didn’t cause any harm.
Evan had driven home from East Carolina University the previous afternoon, the radio playing holiday music all the way. This year he’d stayed in the house he rented with a couple of friends for the few days it took to finish the work he needed to hand in after the holiday. Bringing no work home with him meant he could enjoy the time off, to catch up with people, and spend quality time with the friends he missed.
Each time he made the trip home, Evan marveled at how much could change while it all stayed so perfectly the same. This town was as it had always been, the families he’d grown up with still living in the same homes, the same restaurants serving the same food. It was reassuring, in a way. No matter how much his life changed, there was something here waiting to remind him of where he was from.
Evan had come out to his mom over spring break.
“Mom… I need to tell you something.”
He’d been living away from home for six months now—how could it only be six months? The freedom college had given him was stunning. The ability to reconstruct himself, to be whoever he wanted, to shape a new personality. This one was far closer to the Evan he felt he truly was, the one he kept hidden underneath.
“I’m gay.”
“Oh, Evan.” She sighed, squeezing the hand that was clutched between both of hers, and then she reached up to brush his hair back from his face. “Oh, baby. I know. I love you so much. You know that?”
He’d broken at her words, falling forward to cling to her slim shoulders, weeping into her neck like he was still a child. She’d brushed her fingers through his hair, making soft cooing noises and letting him cry it out. This had always been a safe space, the safest, in his mother’s arms.
Later, over dinner (out, at her insistence), he’d told her about Cael.
Cael was in his second year at ECU, studying environmental science and philosophy. He had cool sandy skin and warm brown eyes and dark, dark hair that he’d inherited from his Puerto Rican mother. He was passionate and intelligent and sweet, thinking nothing of bringing Evan flowers when they went on dates. Evan didn’t know what type of flowers were his favorite, so Cael brought different ones each time. Helping Evan decide.
He showed her pictures he’d taken of the two of them together. Mostly laughing, mostly being sweet and lighthearted and in love.
Evan admitted he was probably falling in love with the first boyfriend he’d ever had. And his mother was happy for him.
&
nbsp; “Did you know?” Evan asked as they split dessert. Cheesecake—her favorite.
“Did I know what, honey?”
“That I’m gay. Did you ever guess?”
She shrugged easily, carefully separating crust from smooth, creamy filling. “I suspected. But I didn’t want to put any pressure on you if you weren’t ready to tell me. This is about you, not me, so it wasn’t my place to pry.”
“But… you’re my mom. I thought you knew.”
“Evan.” She smiled at him. “There was no way anyone could misinterpret the way you used to look at Scott. It went past friendship.”
He dropped his fork to the plate with a clatter. “What do you mean?”
“You loved him, Ev,” she said simply.
“He’s my best friend.”
She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”
That had haunted him, the thought that maybe someone else had looked at his relationship with Scott and seen more. More than friendship, more than the incredible bond they’d cultivated over a decade or more. Not that it mattered anymore. He was safely out of high school, keeping his secret for the last year of his formal education.
Scott had gone to the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a partial academic scholarship. The business and finance degree he was studying for—now that was something Evan had no doubt Scott would excel at. The last time they’d spoken, Scott had been enthusing over a class he was taking about the business of running a charity.
Evan stretched his feet out toward the open fire his mom had lit in the family room. It wasn’t too chilly in here, and the warmth was welcome on his socked feet. Although he’d bought gifts for the important people in his life, his mom had been nagging him for months for a piece of his she could hang in the house. According to Evan’s mom, he was the next big thing in the art world, and she needed examples so she could show off to her friends.
So he was working on a simple charcoal sketch for her. Most of this year his studies had been nudes—male nudes—and although she’d probably appreciate one of those, he decided it wasn’t an appropriate Christmas present. Instead he was working from an old photograph of the two of them. Evan guessed he was around four years old, and one of his mom’s friends had taken the picture at a birthday party. He could remember it in the vaguest terms—laughter and cake and a huge bouncy castle.
