by TJ Baer
There was a moment when it seemed like the words had penetrated, like they’d made a difference, but then she shook her head, and her voice was like steel when she spoke. “It is different. And I can’t approve of it.”
Pulling her hand from her husband’s grasp, she got up and left the room. We heard her feet shuffling up the stairs, then a door slammed somewhere overhead.
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Keagan said into the silence, “she’ll come around. She just needs a little time. She always gets angriest right before she changes her mind.”
“Dad,” David said, sounding uncertain again, “You’re seriously okay with this? You’re not shocked?”
“You know, David, you’ve been talking quite a lot about Jess over the past few months. Every time you come over for dinner, you mention something about him—something he said, something the two of you did together. I may be getting older, but I’m not stupid. So, really, I’ve had some time to prepare for this moment, whereas your mother has remained determinedly in the dark. Did it surprise me at first? A bit, yes. But in the end, I don’t see that it really makes that much of a difference. If you’re happy, that’s enough for me.”
“Holy crap,” I couldn’t help saying. “You may be the most amazing dad ever.”
Mr. Keagan grinned. “Flattery will get you everywhere. But I don’t think it’s that amazing. Parents want what’s best for their children. We sometimes get the wrong idea about what is best, but at least our intentions are good.” He turned to David. “Your mother wants you to be happy, and she’s convinced herself that this will doom you to a life of misery, which is why she’s fighting so hard against it. Your best defense is to be as happy as you can possibly be, to show her how wrong she is.”
We left soon after that. I thought about my own dad, cold and stoic behind the closed door of his study, and was somewhat relieved to discover that a father like Mr. Keagan could actually exist. To further cement his general awesomeness, he gave both David and me hugs before we left, and waved us off with a friendly, “Drive safely!” as we headed out into the night.
Once we were safely in the car, doors closed and seat belts buckled, David let out a long, weary breath and leaned his head back against the headrest. After a moment, he glanced at his watch and gave a shaky little laugh.
“We were only in there for fifteen minutes,” he said. “It felt more like fifteen years.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “But you got through it. How do you feel?”
“Pretty great, actually. Exhausted, but great. And I feel like I owe you an apology.”
“An apology? For what?”
“For thinking this would be easy. I was so confident. I thought it would be simple, telling my family about us, that they’d just automatically accept it. You tried to warn me, but I didn’t believe you. Maybe I just didn’t want to.”
My heart gave a little twinge. “David, you have nothing to apologize for. You had no way of knowing.”
“It’s just…strange, to think that people can react so strongly to something like this. I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life that my mom didn’t approve of, but she always encouraged me to do what I thought was best, make my own choices. And yet this is the thing that bothers her? Me falling in love with someone? It’s insane. What does it matter if the person I’m with is a man or a woman? Isn’t the important thing the fact that I’m happy?”
“I know,” I said. “But the good news is, your dad seems to actually get that, and I really do think your mom will come around.”
He smiled and turned to face me, and we spent a moment just staring into each other’s eyes.
“Come on,” I said, brushing a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “Let’s go home.”
*
An hour or so later, we were curled up in bed together, our arms warm and tight around each other, our foreheads gently touching. David’s eyelids were already drooping, so I kissed him quickly and then pulled the covers up around us, enclosing us in a warm cocoon.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his eyes fluttering open, then slowly slipping closed again. “Not sure why I’m so tired.”
I kissed him on the forehead. “Coming out to your parents can really take it out of you, I guess. Don’t worry about it.”
David drifted off soon afterward, but I stayed awake, watching his sleeping face and thinking about all that had happened and, mostly, about what David’s dad had said.
Parents want what’s best for their children. We sometimes get the wrong idea about what is best, but at least our intentions are good.
For the first time, I wondered if maybe my parents were the same, if their reactions to my I’m gay revelation were less about homophobia and more about wanting me to live an easy, “normal” life. It didn’t make their lack of support any easier to stomach, but maybe it made it a little easier to understand.
And maybe, just maybe, they’d come around someday, too.
Your best defense is to be as happy as you can possibly be, to show her how wrong she is.
I snuggled closer to David and closed my eyes, and was as happy as I could possibly be until I fell asleep.
Chapter Nine
The next day was a field trip day for the elementary schoolers, and as I’d somehow managed to escape being enlisted into the ranks of supervising teachers, I conveniently didn’t have to go into work at all. David, sadly, had not been so lucky, and would be spending his day accompanying a mob of sugar-infused children to the Field Museum downtown.
I saw him off at the front door of my apartment, giving him a long, slow kiss as a sort of apology for my absence that day. “Good luck with the little monsters,” I said.
He smiled. “Thanks. Good luck with your dad.”
“I’ll need it. If I don’t make it out alive, I want to be buried with my Doctor Who DVDs.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Once he’d left for the school, I sat around the house for a while, watched some bad daytime TV, and thought more about possible arguments to make to my father. He’d sent me an e-mail the night before, actually, to inform me that I wouldn’t need to drive Thomas to school this morning—Dad would be doing the honor himself. I didn’t envy Thomas the lecture that was sure to ensue during that car ride, but I knew at the same time that he could handle it. I’d never really thought about it before, but the truth was that Thomas had always been good at standing up for himself, and standing strong in what he believed in. Of course, it probably helped that he got his way most of the time—I’d probably be pretty confident, too, if the people around me were constantly bowing to my will.
Resolving to make Plan B have Thomas use his mind control on Dad, I got off the couch and headed into my room to get dressed for battle.
I was supposed to pick AJ up from the construction site around two, and I actually managed to get out the door and into the car on time. It was a cool day, but sunny, and as I slid on my sunglasses, I had the weird feeling that something had changed in me over the past twenty-four hours—something was different, something was stronger. I was still nervous about talking to my dad, but I wasn’t scared anymore, and somehow that made all the difference.
*
About twenty minutes later, AJ was climbing into my car, a duffel bag tucked under one arm and his construction fatigues traded in for a faded pair of blue jeans, a gray T-shirt, and the brown leather jacket he’d been known to wear in ninety degree heat and minus twenty degree cold. His boots settled onto the floor of my car with a healthy caking of mud, and I watched several bits of it abandon ship onto the otherwise clean surface of my floor mats.
“Thanks for that,” I said dryly, getting the car started as AJ tugged the passenger side door shut.
“Just be glad mud is all I stepped in. Charlie’s dogs were down here yesterday, and they’re pretty small, but you wouldn’t believe how much they can—”
“All right, all right, I get it.”
AJ got his seat belt fastened, then assumed his c
ustomary riding-in-a-car position, arms folded over his chest and legs stretched out as far as they would go in front of him.
“So,” he said as we got underway, “what’s the plan?”
“Well,” I said slowly, “we go there...”
“Yeah...”
“And we find Dad...”
“Yeah...”
“And we talk him into letting Grandma come home.”
There was silence for a few beats.
“That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“That’s the plan.”
“You got a better one?”
“Nah, that one sounds great. Just...you do know Dad, right?”
“We’re mildly acquainted, yes.”
“He’s never changed his mind in his life. What makes you think this time’ll be any different?”
I thought about it for a second, then said, “Because it’s Grandma.”
AJ didn’t say anything to that, but I could feel his eyes on me for a long moment. Finally, he let out a breath and returned his gaze to the windshield and the road stretching out in front of us.
“I just hope that’s enough,” he said quietly.
My fingers tightened around the wheel, just a little.
“Me, too.”
We rode in silence for a time after that, familiar boxy buildings and browning lawns drifting by, joined by the occasional leafless tree or overly bundled woman walking a pack of small dogs.
After a while, AJ switched on the radio, flooding the car with a Celine Dion power ballad for a few terrifying seconds before a flick of the knob drowned her in static.
We both let out a relieved breath, then AJ took us on a lightning tour of several decades of music before finally settling on a station playing the Eagles’ “Take It Easy.”
His fingers hovered over the radio knob for a few seconds, then he nodded in a satisfied, this will do kind of way and settled back into his seat.
And it was strange, but as the familiar guitar strains strummed from the speakers, I found myself relaxing, the tension draining from my muscles and melting away into a twangy world of Arizona and pickup trucks and takin’ it easy.
And suddenly, I wasn’t in my little blue car with AJ anymore—I was squished into the front seat of Grandpa Jess’s truck, my bare legs stuck to the black vinyl upholstery, my small fingers digging with inexhaustible curiosity into the yellow stuffing found in the torn bits of the seat. On my right was a six-year-old AJ, his face glued to the passenger side window, and on my left was Grandpa Jess himself, sitting in a comfortable driving slouch and smelling faintly of motor oil and aftershave.
The truck, born in a world before proper mufflers, rumbled and sputtered around us, but was somehow never loud enough to drown out Grandpa’s well-worn cassette tapes: The Eagles, Don McLean, Lynyrd Skynyrd, a vast reservoir of songs that made you think of long, dusty roads and a row of sweaty men drinking ice-cold beers on the porch.
As we drove, Grandpa would sing along to whatever song was playing in a husky, under-the-breath baritone, his oil-stained fingers drumming out the rhythm on the steering wheel. I stared up at him with open admiration, this impressive man with a head full of messy gray hair, arms that my young brain could easily envision lifting whole stacks of cars, and the gentlest voice and touch of anyone in our family.
Every now and then he’d catch me staring and would glance over at me with a slow, lopsided grin, maybe reach over and ruffle my hair. It didn’t matter where we were going or even if we were going anywhere at all—we could’ve been sitting in the driveway for all I cared. It was enough just to be sitting there next to him, feeling tall and grown-up as I looked down at the world from the front seat of Grandpa Jess’s truck.
The song ended and was replaced by something by ABBA, jerking me back to the present like only a rousing chorus of Dancing Queen can. The world came back into focus around me—the smooth gray interior of the car, the quiet suburban street—and I noted with a guilty sort of pride that I’d somehow managed to avoid slamming us into a tree while immersed in memories.
I sat up straighter in my seat, returning my hands dutifully to the ten and two positions on the wheel, and vowed to pay more attention when driving (despite my apparent ability to remain safely on the road even when my mind was a million miles away). I was staring out at the street with intense concentration when AJ cleared his throat a few seconds later.
“So,” he said in a casual, drawling kind of preamble, “did Thomas tell you about that girl he likes at school?”
Despite my vow to keep my eyes on the road, I risked a quick glance at him. There was something a little too casual about his expression, so I said cautiously, “He might’ve mentioned her, yeah.”
AJ grunted at this and gave a little nod that I could see out of the corner of my eye. “What do you think?”
“About?”
“Thomas. You know. Having a girlfriend.”
“Ah.” I thought about it for a few seconds, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t go for that sort of thing myself, but if it works for him, then...”
“He’s gonna get hurt.” The words came out in a rush, and a very un-AJ-like flood of words followed. “Sure, she likes him now, but what’s gonna happen when she finds out the truth about him, huh? She’ll break his heart and then probably tell all her friends about him, and you know what little shits teenagers are. They’ll make life miserable for him, and what the hell will happen to him then?”
I sat there in stunned silence for a few seconds, then flicked on my turn signal and pulled the car to a stop on the side of the street, just in front of a little blue house with a swing set and a yard scattered with toys.
I switched off the car and turned to face AJ, who was staring doggedly out the window with his jaw clenched and his arms tightly folded.
“AJ, that might not happen.”
“But it might.”
“Even if it does, what do you suggest we do? Tell Thomas he can’t fall in love? Lock him in his room so no one will ever hurt him?”
“I don’t know. But there’s got to be something we can do. We can’t just let him get hurt.”
I let out a long breath, thinking about the new, stronger Thomas I’d seen the day before, walking into school with his head held high and that casual assurance in his step. “Even if there was something we could do, it wouldn’t be fair to Thomas to do it.”
AJ gave me a flat, you must be kidding look, but I shook my head.
“No, think about it. How many relationships have you had?”
AJ opened his mouth, closed it again, then frowned in deep, mathematical thought.
“A lot,” I answered for him, to save time. “And how many of those relationships ended badly? How many of them hurt you?”
He shifted in his seat. “Enough.”
“Right. And you’re still here. You’re okay, you have Sarah, you got to the happily ever after part of the story just fine. And maybe if you hadn’t had all those other relationships, you wouldn’t have learned enough to know that Sarah was the one for you when she came along.” I shrugged. “Life sucks sometimes. A lot of the time, maybe. Things end badly, or just end, and that sucks. But I mean, if you give it enough time, everything ends, doesn’t it?”
I thought of Grandpa Jess, sitting beside me in the front seat of his truck, smiling and singing softly to the Eagles while sunlight streamed in through the windshield.
It hurt when he died. It hurt a hell of a lot. But did that mean we would’ve been better off if he’d never lived, if he’d never been there in our lives, strong and gentle and smiling?
No. Of course not.
“Everything ends,” I said again, and the words were meant for myself as much as AJ. “But that doesn’t mean the experiences weren’t worth having. It doesn’t make them any less good for having ended.”
“Thomas is going to get hurt sometimes,” I said finally, softly. “But that’s okay.”
AJ and I sat in silen
ce for a long moment after that, both of us staring out the windshield at the world beyond the glass. A few cars passed by, a dog barked, a mailman cycled down the sidewalk, and life went on all around us.
Finally, AJ let out a breath and settled back into his seat, eyes fixed as far away from me as possible. “Maybe you’re right.”
I felt a slow grin creeping onto my face, and put a hand to my ear in classic pantomime fashion. “What was that? Couldn’t quite hear you there.”
He cast me a quick glare. “I’m not gonna say it again.”
I started the car. “Fine, fine. Doesn’t change the fact that you said it the first time.”
I glanced behind us, checking for oncoming cars, and winced reflexively as AJ’s fist thudded into my shoulder. It took me a second to realize that it hadn’t actually hurt, and in fact had been the kind of light, brotherly punch that was as close to a hug as he got these days.
When I glanced at him, he was looking at me with a weird little smile on his face, meeting my eyes for the first time since we’d begun this odd, existential conversation.
“You know,” he said in a thoughtful voice, “there’s a reason Mom and Dad called you Jess.”
“Something to do with Grandma threatening to disown Dad if they didn’t, I thought.”
“Mom said it was because they were hoping you’d grow up to be like him.”
“Like Grandpa Jess?” I laughed. “Guess that blew up in their faces, huh?”
“I don’t think it did.” He looked away from me again, taking refuge in the safety of passing scenery. “I mean, yeah, you don’t look anything like him. You’re all scrawny and girly and way too freakin’ pretty...”
“Why, thanks.”
“But,” AJ went on pointedly, “in every other way, you’re just like him. You...” It seemed like an effort for him to get the next words out, probably a lifetime of making fun of me working against him. “You take care of people. You make people feel good, like everything’s gonna be okay. I mean, I come to you, Thomas comes to you, even Mom comes to you when she needs to talk about something. Dad—”
