by Amy Lane
God.
They were the two tiny bodies that had issued, screaming silently because their lungs had barely developed, out onto the birthing table as Joe had watched.
The first one, Seth, had weighed in at two pounds, four and three-quarters of an ounce, and his twin brother, Levi, had been the bruiser at two pounds, five and a half.
They were born at twenty-five weeks, their little persons racked with the hard edge of addiction, their underdeveloped lungs not even capable of supporting their screams of pain. Joe had worked furiously on Levi until a second peds doctor showed up to help him, while the original doc had worked on Seth until he got a nurse in support as well. The girl had barely been dragged in at all, and the fact that she was carrying twins was a definite surprise.
Finally, finally, the babies were stabilized, their portable NICU Isolettes ready to be transported to the neonatal intensive care unit, and Joe heard Seth’s doctor ask the girl if she wanted to see her babies before they took them away.
“I don’t have no babies,” the girl said, turning her face away. “Them things ain’t a part of me.”
In the end, Joe named them, because after three days the girl had relinquished her parenting rights in one scrawl of the pen and had hauled herself back on the streets, probably to die early somewhere Joe didn’t want to think of. After three days of “Baby Gresham 1” and “Baby Gresham 2,” Joe had quietly changed the placards to “Seth” and “Levi” and asked the social worker for their birth certificate paperwork as well. He’d given them his last name. When they grew up, he just wanted them to believe that someone had welcomed them into the world.
Joe sighed. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard of a woman doing that, not by a long shot, but now that Casey was about to graduate from college and that slightly temporary feeling that all college students carried with them was fading into permanency, the knowledge that he was giving something up, something important, was starting to etch its way into Joe’s heart.
The population of the foothills was growing, and with it the number of strays Joe and Casey (and even Alvin, once) wrangled to social services had seemed to increase. With every child abandoned, or who had run away or been kicked out of the house, a small wail had started up somewhere in his vitals.
That’s not fair. I would have loved that child with all that was in me.
Casey knew. Casey didn’t talk about it because Joe knew he felt guilty, no matter how often Joe told him that everyone made sacrifices for things they really wanted. Casey gave up going to parties for Joe, and Joe gave up this idea, this picture in his head, for Casey.
The one time they had talked about it, Casey had gotten pissed, screaming (and they never screamed, much like they never fought):
“Oh. My. God! I’m not giving up a fucking thing, you asshole! Not a fucking thing! There’s nothing in this life that I want more than being with you. Nothing. Coming home and watching movies with you and sleeping in your bed is everything I’ve ever dreamed about. Don’t compare what you’re missing to what I’m missing. It’s like I missed dessert and you’re fucking starving to death. And don’t think I don’t know the horrible fucking injustice, right? A woman can go out and buy some dude’s jizz, and boom, she’s a parent. I looked adoption up, Joe. I know what you make, and I know what I’ll make, and maybe we’ll be able to afford it in five years, but even if we can, there’s no guarantee anyone will even give us a baby. None. So don’t tell me you’re not sad, and don’t tell me there’s not a little part of you that isn’t just pissed because you see these women who are given this wonderful fucking miracle, and they just throw it away.” Casey gasped out a sob. “I’m pissed,” he muttered. “I’m so pissed. It’s not fair. Because look at you. You’re… God, Josiah, if anyone deserves to have a child to love, man, it’s you.”
And an interesting thing had happened then. Joe had looked at Casey, who had been furious and hurt to the point of being in tears, and Joe had experienced a surge of faith. It was all he could call it—it was the only name he had.
“Our child will come,” he said simply, believing it. “Casey, you want this for me—I can see it—and you want it for us, and that makes me so incredibly proud. I’m going to believe that if you’re not giving up a thing for me, and you feel that in your heart, then our baby will come.”
Casey had stood there for a moment, wiping his hand in front of his eyes, and then he had launched himself into Joe’s arms. “I’ll believe with you,” he said, wiping his face on Joe’s shoulder. “I believe in you, so I’ll believe because you do. How’s that?”
It was all Joe could ask for. It was all he needed to sustain him. He just hoped that Casey had the same faith in Joe’s decision to send him backpacking over Europe, because that was going to be a tough sell.
He did the delicate hand dance around all of Seth’s attached wires and tucked the baby against his chest before placing his own hand on the baby’s chest and expecting the cries, shrill and painful, at any moment. It had been proven that holding babies like this helped them thrive, but it was hard to hear, hard to see the pain that any sort of sensory input caused the little guys, even human touch. It had also been proven that the cry of a drug-addicted infant raised human blood pressure, and Joe knew it took his commute home before his eyelid stopped throbbing with the increase of his heartbeat.
But Seth didn’t cry, not this time. Joe looked at him, talking to him softly. “What’s wrong, little man?” He scanned the monitors quickly, taking in heartbeat, blood-gas levels, temperature—uh-oh.
It was elevated by two-tenths of a degree. Maybe the nurse who had just checked the vitals had missed it. Hell, maybe it had happened in the last ten minutes, because these guys were so little, their metabolism moved just that fast. An alarm would sound in another tenth of a degree, but Joe looked at the little face—sallow, because Seth and Levi’s father had been African-American, and they weren’t quite healthy enough to be light brown yet—and saw the truth, and the peace, and he swallowed.
One of the NICU nurses came in. There was one more baby in the unit, and she needed to be fed.
“Jan?” he said softly, and the woman—a comfortable woman in her fifties who had seen too many changes in her life to have much sympathy for babies like Seth and Levi—turned.
“Yeah?”
“He’s getting a fever,” Joe said softly. “He’s coming down with an infection.”
Jan sighed. “Well, it’s about time. I didn’t think both of them were going to survive.”
She walked away wearily to alert the doctor, and Joe looked down at the unusually still, spider-limbed infant, struggling life in his arms. “You can make it, little man,” Joe said softly. “You gotta fight, okay? I mean, your first couple of days here have sucked, but you’ve got to believe me, it’ll get better.”
He held Seth for another five minutes, and then the temperature alarm went off because he’d increased another tenth of a degree. Joe gave his baby a brief kiss before the doctor came in and took the tiny form out of his arms.
HE GOT home late—about four hours late—and Casey was literally pacing the floor as he walked in. Casey’s computer—truly his computer, since he’d changed his major to computer engineering and Joe had bought him a new one just on general principle—was backlit behind him. Alvin was living in the mother-in-law cottage they’d completed the summer before, and now, in March of ’95, was planning on staying there and paying a comfortable rent until he found a reason to move on. He’d actually graduated midyear, but Casey’s change in concentration had come with extra units—he was set to graduate in May.
“Jesus, Joe,” Casey said as he walked in. “You didn’t even call! I know you think I’m kidding when I talk about putting a car phone on the bike, but those things are getting smaller every day! I was worried shitless!”
Rufus and Hi both paced at Joe’s feet, a little creakier than they had been, but still good dogs.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, patting them on the head and the
n heading for the fridge to get some milk. He hadn’t eaten during his lunch break—he’d been with the babies. He stopped with the milk carton midway to his mouth and put it back, screwing on the lid as he went.
“Joe?”
“I’ve got to shower,” he said, looking sightlessly into the refrigerator. This was stupid. How long had he been on this job? He’d held babies most every day. He’d stopped floating to ER as soon as the miserable supervisor in the NICU who thought all male nurses were gay (and who hated them regardless) had quit, and he’d been allowed to tend his babies unmolested. The babies loved him. They loved his rumbly voice, and the way he didn’t get excited about things, and his big hands that made them feel safe.
And he loved them.
“Joe… Josiah? What’s wrong?”
“Shower,” he said, his vision blurring. He’d been off shift. He’d stood back and watched as the doctor had assessed and done the ultrasound and said, “Necrotizing bowel. We’re not going to be able to fix this, folks. Does the baby have any family?”
“Me,” Joe said, and Doc Walters had turned to him, her round, wrinkled face kind.
“Are you family enough to hold him while he dies, Daniels?”
Joe had shrugged. “I named him.”
She’d nodded and left, and Jan started to disconnect the baby from all of the monitors, from the shunt, even from the respirator, because anything that would make this happen faster would be a kindness. Joe had sat in the same chair he’d occupied when he’d talked to Levi, and told Seth about all the good things his twin would do, all of the beautiful days at the shore, and walking through the woods, or reading a book that made his heart break, and how Seth would always be with him, even if Levi didn’t know.
Seth’s last breath had been so quiet, Joe wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, talking aimlessly to a dead baby, pretending he wasn’t a father.
Casey’s arms crept around his waist, and he tried hard to be in the here and now. He let the refrigerator close, and Casey whispered, “Come on, Joe, let’s go take a shower.”
Casey grabbed his hands and pulled him up the stairs and undressed him, even took his shoes off, and turned on the shower, all in silence.
Joe went docilely and thought, Good. Crying in the shower. Time-honored male tradition when a man can’t keep his objective distance. It’ll be fine. He leaned his hands on the tile, let the water hit his back, and prepared to let go.
Then Casey stepped in behind him. Joe shored himself up again, and Casey started a slow, simple seduction. He started with a washcloth and soap and very matter-of-factly hit all of the pits, creases, and wide spaces. There was a reason Joe hit the shower before and after work—bacteria wasn’t something you wanted to transport either to or from a hospital, and the longer he worked and saw infection gnaw its deadly course when no one was ready for it, the more wary he was of doing his part not to make it worse.
“Tilt your head back,” Casey said softly, and Joe did, an unexpected grunt of pleasure escaping his throat as Casey soaped his hair. His body shuddered, enjoying the attention, and suddenly all of the tension on his inside turned into sensitization on the outside.
Casey finished with his hair and then turned him around. “Lean back,” he said, and Joe looked at him, blinking hard in emotional exhaustion and turmoil.
“What?”
“Just lean back,” Casey said, kissing his neck, kissing his chest, licking his nipple with a flat tongue (which Joe had discovered he actually liked very much), and Joe didn’t have anything in him to resist. He simply leaned back and allowed the water, Casey’s touch, everything, to wash over him. When Casey’s mouth found his semierect cock, his groan, echoing around the shower chamber, surprised him.
Casey was good at this. He liked to use his fist and play with Joe’s foreskin, pulling it over the crown and back. In their first few months, he’d peppered Joe with questions about what it was like to still have a foreskin, and how things felt and what you could do with one that you couldn’t do with a circumcised cock like his own. All those questions had led to an unquestionable expertise, and all their practice hadn’t hurt. Joe grunted as Casey lowered his head until Joe was bottomed out in his throat, and then pulled back, and again and again. His hands cupped and tugged on Joe’s testicles, and just that fast, Joe found himself at orgasm. His vision went dark and he came, confused and heartbroken and grateful to surrender everything for just this one moment of climax in Casey’s skilful mouth.
He stayed back there against the wall, thinking that the water was going to get cold in a minute, when Casey stood up and turned it off. Joe opened his eyes and found that Casey had given him a clean towel—one of the newer, fluffier ones—and Joe stepped out after him dumbly. He hadn’t said a word from the moment Casey had taken his hand.
He still didn’t have any words as Casey brushed his hair quickly, helped him into boxers and then pulled on his own briefs, and the two of them slid into bed.
“Josiah?” Casey said softly, and Joe turned toward him in the dark.
“Yeah?”
“How are your babies?”
“Baby,” Joe said, his voice breaking. “Baby. There’s only one now.”
“Which one died?”
“Seth.”
Casey sniffed once. “The oldest. Maybe we can make a little monument for him out in the woods.”
Joe broke completely. “That’s a real nice idea,” he said, and then he folded Casey into his arms and cried.
CASEY didn’t have school the next day, so he rode on the back of Joe’s motorcycle to the hospital, face tucked into that perfect space between Joe’s shoulder blades, arms wound tightly around his waist, as Joe went to his shift. When they’d woken up that morning, Casey had asked to come in and meet Levi. Alvin was going to drive into town a little later and pick him up, but in the meantime, Joe appreciated Casey’s warmth at his back as he negotiated the curves of Hwy 49 to Auburn. Casey’s clasp tightened considerably when they went over the Foresthill Bridge—Joe didn’t know why, but for some reason the bridge disturbed his boy in ways he would never fully articulate. Joe kept both hands on the grips to reassure him that they weren’t playing around up there, and then kept going.
The babies were allowed only one visitor at a time per room, so Casey put on a sterile gown and a mask before going into the NICU, and Joe looked at him through the Plexiglas. Casey just sat there, holding the tiny tube-riddled body gingerly and talking softly.
“That your man?” Doc Walters asked, and Joe looked at her. He didn’t really socialize with the doctors. A lot of them treated the nurses like hired help, which was funny, because the nurses were often the only ones who actually knew the patients’ names.
“Yeah,” Joe said quietly.
“He want that baby as much as you?”
“Yeah,” Joe said, because he was pretty sure it was true.
“That baby’s got another six months in here, you know.”
Joe nodded. “At the very least.”
“There’s going to be things wrong with him, learning disabilities, emotional disabilities—all sorts of bullshit. You know that, right, Joe?”
“I’m not stupid.”
She sighed, looking at Casey, who apparently had told the baby a joke and was laughing at it himself. He’d cut his hair the year before, and it was crisp on his neck. If he held to form, he’d let it grow for another two months, until it was silky over his collar, and then cut it again. Joe liked the system—it was a good one.
“It’s not easy for two gay men in the world right now. But it’s becoming more common than you think.”
Joe looked at her curiously. She was older—in her late fifties—with no-nonsense gray hair and a reputation for fairness among the nurses that was hard to maintain in the age-old enmity that existed there. “Is it?” he asked.
“I’ll talk to their social worker,” she said decisively, and Joe grimaced. He and social workers were sort of fifty-fifty.
“R
oy Petty, out in Chana?” he asked hopefully, and she looked at him, surprised.
“You know him?”
Joe thought of the bald guy with the curly gray fringe and really large red nose. “More or less. We sort of pick up strays now and then. He’s my contact.”
“He like you?”
Joe thought about their limited exchanges, both when he’d been Casey’s supervisor and with the other kids who had come and gone since then. “Yeah, I think so. He’s not really a demonstrative guy. But he knows Casey pretty well.”
Walters smiled. “I think if he doesn’t have to worry about you, you’re in. Would you like me to make this happen?”
Joe looked at her with sudden hope. “Yeah. Why?”
The woman shook her head. “Because we see them go into social services all the time, and we’re pretty sure they’re doomed. I’d like to see one make it, that’s all.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“I’ll make that call.” She didn’t shake his hand or smile or anything else, just stumped away, a little woman with a purpose. Joe wouldn’t even get to thank her before she retired, without fanfare, to private practice, probably one that wouldn’t break her heart on a regular basis. At least Joe hoped so. Her passing kindness turned out to be one of the most important ones in his and Casey’s life.
But at the moment, taking that baby home with them was just a hope, a hint, a maybe. If Casey hadn’t cried in his arms for Seth, a baby he hadn’t even met, the night before, Joe wouldn’t even burden him with it, but Casey had cried, so Joe would tell him.
And eventually, he’d come clean about the graduation present that he was pretty sure Casey was gonna hate.
The One I Love
~Casey
JOE took him out to dinner and very bluntly rearranged his world.
“I’m going where?”
They were in the middle of Cattleman’s, South Placer’s most well-known and high-priced steakhouse, and Casey was sitting there in his best chinos and sport jacket, looking at Joe, who was dressed the same. Casey was wondering if his lover had lost his fucking mind.
