Back Where He Started

by Jay Quinn

  “You don’t ever have to worry. You’re my big man.”

  “I need your help, Mama. Help me get it right, please.”

  Susan turned and stood between us and the folks who had heard me weeping and wandered in to witness what must have been a maudlin sight. With a look Susan sent them away while Trey and I just held each other and cried. Me from gratitude and joy. Him from the awesome responsibility he was taking on. Our tears, our bond—this is what it meant for two people to intertwine their lives and promise to help each other over the next day, and the next. This was family, this was love.

  The next morning, I got up early and left Steve sleeping so I could make the dawn Mass. No one else planned on going at all on Sunday; the Vigil Mass and Christening had been enough for them the night before. Sometimes, if you believe, there are no words for what compels you out of a warm bed and into the winter’s chill to make your way to worship. It’s just something you do. It’s part of who you are. It was part of who I was that morning.

  The church was nearly empty, so I was surprised when Schooner appeared at my pew, genuflected, and crossed himself quickly before sliding in next to me with a smile. We didn’t talk until after the Mass was over and the priest and his attendants had made their way down the aisle past us. Once they were out the front door, Schooner and I genuflected and followed them out into the cold.

  After shaking the priest’s hand, I waited until we were on the way to the parking lot to give Schooner a quick hug. “Hey baby.

  I’m happy to see you, but what are you doing here?”

  Schooner gave me a half-wattage version of his normal grin. “I wanted to spend some time alone with you before I had to head back down home. I stayed with Andrea and David last night. I didn’t want to interrupt you and Trey—it was something I couldn’t get into, or I’d have started crying too.”

  “Why is that, baby?”

  “It just made me realize how much I need you too right now.”

  “Why? What’s up with my baby?”

  “Aw, man … it’s no big deal. Anyways, when I got to Trey and Susan’s this morning, you were pulling out of the drive so I just followed you here. I guess I came on in for the good of my soul. Sheesh, Mass twice in 24 hours. My drive back should be blessed for sure.”

  I found his hand and squeezed it. “I haven’t seen much of you since we got here. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too. The thing is—I’ve got to take off. I was wondering if I could come home for Thanksgiving?”

  “Of course. What about Frank?”

  “Um … I think Frank will be with his family.”

  “You think? What’s going on, Schooner? Talk to me.”

  “Aw, Mom. It’s cold out here, and I gotta dash.”

  “Get in the car, Schooner.”

  He gave me a disgusted look, but he climbed into the Expedition’s passenger seat. “Look, Mom, I know you’re going to drill me until I give it up, so I’m just going to spit it out. Frank and I are thinking of splitting up.”

  “No hell, you aren’t,” I told him firmly. “What was that piece of paper you got in Massachusetts all about?”

  “That was probably a mistake,” he said, and looked out his window away from me.

  I sighed. “Schooner, if you don’t have much time, you better give me the worst of it. Is one of you running around?”

  “No, I’m not. And I don’t think Frank is either. He’s home all the damn time.”

  “Are you homesick?” I asked.

  Schooner ducked his head and shrugged.

  “Not good enough, Schooner.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m homesick as much as I miss being … being … well, not having so many expectations on me all the time.”

  “What kind of expectations?”

  “It’s all the time like, ‘Schooner, the light bill’s due! Schooner, I’m not your maid. Scho-o-oner, if you drink all the milk, buy more.’ It’s just all that bullshit, all the goddamn time. I’m sick of it.”

  I pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my coat pocket and lit one.

  “Can I have one of yours? I’m kinda broke,” he said.

  I tossed him the pack and then my lighter. I waited until he got one lit before I shook my head and gave him a long look. “Schooner, you’re a spoiled brat.”

  “Oh yeah, I get that all the time too,” he said.

  I laughed—I couldn’t help it. “No, baby. I’m saying it. You are a spoiled brat. That’s my fault. I have spoiled you rotten because I’ve always loved you to damn death. Did you think Frank was going to just pick up where I left off and treat you like his baby? Frank wants a man, not a little boy.”

  Schooner’s eyes got wide and he shook his head. “Damn, Mom. That’s cold.”

  “No it’s not. It’s the truth. Well, you can get mad at me if you want and you can call me a bitch and everything else, but I want you to hear what I’m saying. You made the decision to marry Frank and you’re going to stick with your obligation because that’s how I raised you. If you don’t spend the drive home thinking how Frank might be right sometimes, you’re a fool. Frank’s a great guy and if he’s gotten that frustrated with you, it’s probably because you gave him a good reason to be—”

  “Wait, Mom. Hold up—”

  “No! You hold up and listen to what I’m saying. If you don’t take the next two weeks and spend some time thinking how to make your marriage work, don’t come home. I’m telling you this for your own good and it hurts me to say it. God, you don’t know how it hurts, but you can’t come home to me ever again. We did that already. You’re a grown man, with a grown man’s responsibilities. If you can’t handle it, go sell it to someone else. I ain’t buying.”

  Schooner opened his car door and gave me a hard look back. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “No, Schooner, that’s not how I want it. What I want is to see the man I love most in the world walk into my house with his partner and share my life as an adult. I don’t have any more little boys—”

  “Well, you sure had one in your arms last night, o-o-ohing and a-a-ahing over that baby like he was the last one on earth.”

  “Hey now—” I suddenly realized I’d walked into a minefield.

  “What are you doing singing that kid my song? I went in to talk to you and I hear you growling ‘Sweet Thing’ to that kid. You should really quit smoking. You sounded like Chaka Khan on crack.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you jealous of an infant? Oh for God’s sake, Schooner, please.”

  Schooner tried to grin, but he was having a hard time of it. “I didn’t mean for that to come out that way, I swear. But that is my song.”

  I started laughing.

  “Oh Mom, come on, get over it already.”

  I stopped laughing and wiped my eyes. I took another drag off my cigarette and flicked what was left of it into the church’s parking lot. “I love you best, you know that don’t you?” I said.

  Schooner thumped his cigarette out into the lot with mine. “Yeah, I know. I’m your baby.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s right, and that’s why you’ve always gotten away with murder.”

  “Okay, so what’s your point?”

  “Frank isn’t me, Schooner. Help him out a little bit. Pay attention to what he doesn’t say, just like you should to what he does say.”

  Schooner shifted in his seat and leaned toward me. “Being married is hard, Mom.”

  “Schooner, did you ever think it was going to be easy?”

  “You made it look easy,” he said as he leaned back and looked away.

  “Oh hell no. Don’t you put this on me. I just did the best I could. That’s all I’m asking you … no, that’s all Frank’s asking you to do.”

  “Were you serious that I can’t come home for Thanksgiving without Frank?”

  “Oh hell yeah. Married people spend holidays together. That’s the nice thing about it. You always have plans.”

 
“He wants to spend it with his family,” Schooner said gloomily.

  “Does his family welcome you?”

  “Yeah, they’re great, super, really. But you won’t be there.”

  “Bad answer, Schooner.”

  “You know, you really piss me off sometimes, Mom.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I said with a deadpan look on my face. “I wouldn’t be doing my job right if I didn’t.”

  Schooner got out of my car and stared up at the sky. It looked like snow—I’d noticed that myself. The road had to be on his mind; it was on mine. “Look, Mom. I really got to go. I don’t want to leave all mad. Can I call you if I get really frustrated?”

  “Of course, baby. I never said you couldn’t call me.”

  “Okay. Maybe I will go to Frank’s old house for Thanksgiving. But it looks like Christmas is going to have to be in Charleston. We both have to work the day after.”

  “Maybe you two can come and get my tree up one weekend. We had a good time last year didn’t we?”

  “Would Steve care?”

  “Steve and I have this deal, see. He doesn’t bitch about my family and I don’t bitch about his, and let me tell you: He’s related to half of Carteret County.”

  “Can I take back my share of the ornaments?”

  “Yes. You need them for your and Frank’s first tree. That’s how you do marriage, you keep finding ways to knit yourselves together.”

  “Knitting ourselves together has never been a problem, Mom,” he said with a lewd grin.

  “So I’ve heard for myself,” I replied coolly.

  Schooner snickered. “I gotta go. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Do you need some money for gas and cigarettes?”

  “Well, some cigarette money would really be sweet.”

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out two 20s and handed them to him. “I don’t want you on the road with no money.”

  Schooner grinned and stuffed the 20s in his jeans pocket.

  “Schooner, where’s your coat?” I asked, as I realized he only had on a flannel shirt against the icy breeze.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the truck’s heater, Mom. What am I going to do, get pneumonia crossing the parking lot?”

  I wanted to touch him, to hug him, but instead I just watched him walk across the parking lot and get into his truck. I watched him wave and drive out of sight before I switched on the Expedition, lit a cigarette, and headed back to Susan’s and Trey’s. A few snowflakes tumbled from the sky, and I was ready to get on back home.

  From the bench at the end of the dock, it looked like the old house had never been there at all. Where its squat white frame had been, there was a tidy two-foot-high mound of dirt that stretched 50 feet wide along the sound and a hundred feet inland. By Steve’s calculation, that was enough fill to keep the vehicles above of the high water in a storm the size of Joan. The house would rise on pilings above that. The old deck was where it had always been. For the moment, it ended blindly, waiting for steps that would hook it up to the house that would rise behind it.

  “So, what you want is a great room that is all windows on three sides, like the old back porch was, right?”

  “Right, Steve, just like the sketch plan shows. The only thing that’ll separate the kitchen part from the great room is that long island, which means I can look over the great room and straight out to the sound, no matter where I am in the back of the house.”

  “And the upstairs porch is off our bedroom on the second floor. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, where are the guests going to sit and watch the water?”

  “Either from the great room or the deck. If they’re lucky, we’ll let them come outside and sit on our porch, but it’s not like they don’t have other places to sit.”

  “Well, you’re the boss, but it seems kind of selfish to keep the upstairs porch just for ourselves.”

  “Steve, how many guests do you intend on having here at any given time? There’s two guest rooms behind the kitchen and two upstairs. There’s plenty of room for that many people on the deck.”

  “That ain’t the point. Maybe I should ask you how many bookcases you intend to put on how many walls?”

  “Books don’t need a view, Steve.”

  Steve threw his head back and laughed. “So I guess the only place I get any real say is in my shop and storeroom under the house.”

  “No. You can’t say that. I let you pick out all that British Classics crap from Ethan Allen for the bedroom and put a Jello television in there.”

  “Plasma screen TV, not Jello.”

  “Well, you know what I mean, anyway.”

  “Okay, okay. I surrender. We’re on budget. The contractor says we’ll be in by next fall. I’m happy.”

  “Are you really?”

  “Yeah, I kinda am, actually. I’m not in love with the cedar shake siding, but I’ll get over it.”

  “So we’ll do the shiplap. I like either one.” I flicked my cigarette into the water and tucked my hands into the pouch of my hoodie.

  “I’m getting kinda cold out here, are you ready to head back to your little old house?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go,” I said.

  Steve whistled for the dogs, and they all jumped from the Lina G onto the dock, and we all strolled back toward land.

  “Steve, do you know what I was doing a year ago tonight?”

  “Naw. What were you up to?”

  “I was packing the last of my stuff out of the house in Oakwood to move here. As of about 10:30 tonight, I’ve lived here for a year.”

  “Well, you know what we should do to celebrate your anniversary?”

  “I got a good idea from that look in your eyes.”

  “You’re looking a little too high up.”

  “So, you’re planning on doing a little pile driving early huh?”

  “I’m being serious,” Steve said, trying hard to look serious.

  “So am I,” I said and grinned happily.

  “Look in my hand, Chris, not between my legs. Damn, you got a one-track mind.”

  I looked in his hand and saw a largish black velvet box. Steve grinned and opened it. Inside were two wide gold bands, one larger than the other.

  “Steve?” The man never ceased to surprise me.

  “Well, you’re on all the papers, I thought we should at least have the rings.” He looked out over the water toward the sun, beginning its final blaze of orange in the clear, cold evening as it slipped into the sound. “Take the big one—easy … I don’t want to have you drop it between the boards. It’s too cold for me to have to go diving in to get it.”

  I took out the larger of the two gold bands. Steve took the smaller one, closed the box, and slipped it back into the pouch of his hoodie.

  “Do you think we can manage doing this at the same time?” he asked.

  I nodded and splayed out the fingers of my left hand. Steve stepped closer to me and did the same.

  “Now, on the count of three, okay?” he said.

  “Okay. One … two … three …”

  The rings slid on with a snug certainty that defied any dissent.

  “I love you, Chris Thayer.”

  “I love you, Steve Willis.”

  “Do you promise to keep on loving me like you do?”

  “Yeah, more than that. Do you?”

  “Yeah, more, too. More than you love me.”

  “Do you suppose we can risk a kiss?” I asked.

  “Do you need one to seal the deal, Chris?”

  “No. How about we shake hands for now and leave the kisses for when we can make them last for hours?”

  “Deal.” Steve took my right hand and held it firmly.

  “Deal,” I said and shook on it. Letting go of his hand, I crossed myself quickly over my heart. I was both surprised and very happy to see Steve do the same.

  We started walking down the pier toward where the house would stand with the dogs running ahead of us.
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  “Chris?”

  “Yeah?”

  “About this church deal. I’ve decided I’ll go with you during Advent, but I’m not making any promises after that, understand?”

  “Steve, if you think I’m going to start bitching at you to go to church, I’m not. It means a lot to me, but it has to mean something to you. Otherwise it’s just a waste of your Sunday mornings.”

  “Well, I want to go all during Christmas. After that, we’ll see.”

  “Okay, cool.”

  “Do you feel married, Chris?”

  “I have for a while, Steve. I think since you gave me your mama’s baht chain.”

  “Well, I wanted to do it up right. That’s why the rings. Is that good enough for you?”

  We stepped up onto the solid dirt pad that would raise the house above storm waters. I stopped and looked back over the sound and watched as the sun surrendered the sky and sank below the horizon. Steve gave me a smile. The rings were wonderful, but I knew sharing sunsets like this one was the real stuff of living. I said, “It’s more than enough, Steve. It’s not about the rings—it’s about living it. It’s about getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, next to you, for all the years ahead. The rings are just a reminder of that promise.”

  “Well, all that’s fine, but I’ve not ever been married before. I wanted rings.”

  “The rings are perfect.”

  “Little Bit, does it always feel this good?”

  “Big Man, this is exactly how I intend to make it feel for the rest of your life.”

  CHAPTER NINE,

  EPIPHANY

  The office had been too busy all day for me to do any transcription. Finally, I just gave up. The phones had rung off the hook, and the stream of old and new clients arrived every 10 or 15 minutes. I handed Dr. Tony his last file as Cathy scooted past him on her way in with Carlos in her arms and Sierra skipping along behind her.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting out of here, Chris?” Cathy asked. Sierra ran to me and climbed into my lap.

  “Mommy said you had something for me. Did you know today is the day the wise men found the baby Jesus?”

  I nodded to Sierra and said to Cathy, “I’ll leave as soon as I give Carlos and Sierra their Three Kings Day presents.”