by M. A. Hinkle
Cathal thought for a moment. “I want to argue with that, but you are right. I concede.”
The timer on the oven went off. Damon nodded at it, trying not to think about the entire conversation. “There’s a roast in the oven, Felix. Would you get it out, please?”
“I could have done that,” said Cathal.
“Don’t be stupid.” Damon finished the dish he was working on and set it on the rack. “I’m not wasting the rest of my evening in the emergency room while they treat you for third-degree burns.”
Cathal huffed as Felix got the roast out and set it on the stove. Damon ignored him, wiping off his hands so he could check the roast’s temperature. As he did so, Cathal said, “That looks almost normal, Damon.” This time he was definitely putting on the innocent act.
Damon glared at the roast, even though the thermometer read 160. “It’s just beef roast. Had some in the freezer that was gonna go off.”
Felix looked at the roast and smacked his lips.
“It has to rest. You know that.” Damon pointed at the table. “Sit like a person while I make the potatoes and gravy.”
Felix whined, but it was only for show. He plopped next to Cathal and let out a theatrical sigh. “You know, I do have other things in my life besides this guy that I like.”
“Oh, really? I never would have dreamed. Do tell.”
Another question: how did Cathal make his voice so dry? He sounded like a mummy.
Felix made an irritated noise. “There’s gonna be a school play, and I’m trying out, okay? Why can’t you ask a question like a normal person?”
Damon laughed, despite himself. “That’s what I’ve been asking for the past sixteen years.” Damon found the masher and started in on the potatoes, holding the bowl in one hand so he could watch Felix again.
Cathal stared at him. “What in God’s name is that torture device?”
Even Felix looked confused at that. “It’s a potato masher, Cathal.” He paused, wrinkling his nose. “But why aren’t you using the electric mixer, Dad? It’s not like you need the workout.”
Damon shrugged. “I used it for the cake.” Actually, he’d used all his whisks and both the stand and hand mixers, but they didn’t need to know that. He’d cleaned up the mess. “What play, Felix?”
“Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Felix drummed his foot against the table leg, avoiding Damon’s eyes. “I thought…I thought it would be good. Because of Mom and stuff.” He glanced at Damon and away, worrying his lower lip.
Damon put a smile on his face, though he wasn’t sure how he felt. He was glad Felix was doing the play, and that it reminded him of his mother. As for the rest of it…well, who knew. Damon put the potatoes on the table so he could pat Felix’s shoulder.
“The only shame is Era will never get to see you prance around in tights.” Cathal sighed like a man in a rom-com seeing his love interest for the first time.
Felix made a face, and Damon relaxed. He still wasn’t sure what he would do if Felix needed help with his grief. “It’s a modern-day production. No weird costumes. And the director said she’s gonna cast people regardless of sex.”
Cathal let out another lovestruck sigh. “It’s good to know my tax money is funding the liberal decline of America.”
Felix looked at him blankly. “I go to a private school, Cathal.”
Damon went back to the stove and drained the meat juice from the pan so he could start the gravy before the potatoes got cold. “What part do you want?”
“I dunno,” said Felix, rocking back and forth in his chair. “I kinda want to try out for a girl’s part to prove how liberated from masculine norms I am.”
Damon’s mouth twitched. “Your mother taught you to say that.”
“Just like that! I wanna make her proud, and that involves leveraging my white male privilege to dismantle the white cisheteropatriarchy, brick by brick.” Felix sighed and set his cheek on his hand. “Now if only I could find something that rhymes with that, I’d have a good song.”
“Well, I for one welcome our drag space future,” said Cathal, smirking. “You’ve got the legs for it, Felix. I know plenty of queens who would kill for them.”
Felix put his hands behind his head and balanced on the back legs of his chair. “I’ve gotta think about it.”
Cathal pointed at him. “One of these days you’re going to kill yourself doing that, and I will do nothing but laugh.”
Damon clunked the gravy boat on the table with more emphasis than necessary. Felix meekly straightened up so all four chair legs sat on the floor. “Thank you,” said Damon. “Don’t skip the vegetables, Cathal. They’re good for you.”
DAMON DIDN’T EAT much. His mouth was dry when he removed the dinner items from the table and put the cake in their place.
Felix bounced in his seat, though he did not tip his chair back for once. “What is ittttt?”
“Chocolate.” Damon set the knife on top of the cake to cut it, but Cathal darted in and stole one of the flowers. Damon glared at him. “The flowers don’t taste like much. It’s sugar and gelatin.”
Cathal shrugged, smiling in that way that made Damon want to smother him, and set the flower on the corner of his plate. Damon rolled his eyes and sliced the cake, giving Felix the largest piece even though he would have at least two. He served himself last and sat down slowly. He’d never made a cake from scratch before, so he’d made a small test cake based on the original recipe and adjusted the amounts because it had a weird texture.
He took a bite. The texture was good, but something was off.
“Why the look, Dad?” Felix’s piece had already disappeared, and he was eyeing the rest of the cake.
“One piece only,” said Damon automatically, tapping his fork against his plate. “And I think I added too much baking soda. There’s a metallic aftertaste.”
“I think you’re wrong, but that’s not news.” To Damon’s surprise, Cathal’d also already finished his piece. “The cake is good. Obviously.”
“The only time you’ve eaten cake that didn’t come out of a box was at my wedding.” Damon took another bite. “It’s all right for a first try.”
“That’s better,” said Cathal. Felix whined. “And I’m overruling the one-piece law, or else it’ll never get eaten.”
“You are the fun uncle!”
FELIX INHALED HIS second piece of cake. To Damon’s surprise, he didn’t even pretend he wanted another. “Hey, Dad, do you know where Mom’s college textbooks are?”
Damon squared his shoulders, but again…it didn’t bother him. “They’re in the attic somewhere. All the boxes are labeled.”
“Thanks!” Felix gave Damon a hug from behind and bounced out of the room.
Cathal was finishing his second piece of cake, wearing a thoughtful expression. Damon did not like it, so he got up and started washing the dishes. The roast pan was disgusting, and he started with that, glad for something he could attack.
“That was normal food,” said Cathal. “That you used to make all the time.”
Damon scrubbed harder at the stain. “Yes.”
“It seems you’ve made some progress, then?” It wasn’t a question. That tone of voice meant he was irritated at having to ask out loud at all.
But Damon wasn’t going to do all his work for him. If Cathal wanted to talk about things instead of ignoring them, then he could start it.
Except…it was a good question. Damon let the pan fall into the soapy water so he could rub his forehead, ignoring the suds on his fingers.
“I don’t know.” He wished the question would end there, but Cathal would keep pressing, and…for once, Damon didn’t think yelling at Cathal would make him feel better. They’d been getting along well, and it was…not nice, but as nice as anything could be right now. The last thing he needed was the reinstatement of hostilities or however the fuck Cathal would put it. “I guess I put so much effort into making the cake that there wasn’t much of me left over to make something fan
cy. Roasts are easy. And there really was one left in the freezer.”
Cathal nodded smugly. “Thank you. Now was that so hard?”
Damon flicked soapy water in his direction. Cathal hissed and left the room, nothing but crumbs on his plate.
DAMON TOLD HIMSELF he didn’t care when Cathal came into the living room later that evening, but he still ended up looking over his shoulder, wondering if he would show up. And he’d watched a different show, because Cathal was invested in the one they’d been watching together, and he’d bitch if he knew Damon watched ahead. Maybe. They’d never done something so normal together.
Cathal flopped on the far end of the couch. “Am I interrupting?” he asked, eyeing the basketball game Damon was half watching.
Damon paused the game. “Like I care about sports. I only watched so I could bet in the March Madness pool at work.”
Cathal squinted. “I’m going to assume for the sake of conversation that that is a real thing people do and not something you’re making up to confuse me. I’m not gullible, you know.”
Damon thought he was joking, but it was impossible to be sure. Instead, he changed to the food competition. Cathal’s expression brightened. “Oh, good, you didn’t skip ahead. That’s almost sweet of you.”
Damon rolled his eyes.
This was a special chocolate competition, so the camera was focused on one of the contestants conching.
Cathal spread his hands, sounding almost despairing. “Why are they pouring chocolate on a table? Is the table hungry?”
“It adds air to the chocolate.” He thought about adding more detail, but he wanted to hear what else Cathal would say.
Cathal’s mouth twisted to the side. “Why does the chocolate need air?” he said after a long pause that suggested he’d tried to figure the answer out himself.
“That way it melts in your mouth.” Damon leaned forward on his knees.
Cathal fell back against the couch. “You know, even string theory makes sense compared to this.”
Damon smirked and passed him a beer, which Cathal took without comment.
Felix came down the stairs. He stopped in the doorway of the living room, looking surprised. Then he took a running leap at the middle cushion of the couch. Damon and Cathal moved apart to make room, and Damon paused the TV since neither of them would be able to see it while Felix twisted around to get comfortable. Felix was holding a leather-bound copy of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Era’s father had given her a whole set, which she had pored over through four years of undergrad and four more years for her doctorate. The whole thing was marked up in her loopy handwriting.
“She hated that play, you know,” said Damon, deliberately putting himself back in those moments—watching her push the hair out of her face as she read, her eyes narrowing when she got to a part she didn’t agree with. She’d rant to him for hours without realizing it went over his head. But he was okay with being a sounding board. He’d never been smart enough to understand her classes, but this way, he got to be a part of it.
It was…almost good. He hadn’t let himself think of anything nice about Era since the moment she got sick. Not that he’d forgotten anything, but…he’d put it away, as she’d packaged up all her things, neatly labeled so they could be found again when needed.
Felix stuck his tongue between his teeth. “I know. But that’s why I wanna do it. She didn’t mark up the ones she liked near as much, so I can take her ideas and do something cool. And then I sound smart and maybe Morgan won’t think I’m a dumbass.”
Cathal coughed to cover a laugh, and Damon glared at him over the top of Felix’s head. But Cathal just grinned at him like he could never do anything wrong, ever. Too bad Felix was there as a buffer, or Damon would have pushed Cathal off the couch. Someday.
Felix held the book close to his face, then farther away. “Ugghhhh. Cathal, what does that say?” He pointed at one of his mother’s notes. Damon had never been able to read her handwriting either. Like everything else about her, it was elegant and tidy, but it did not agree with dyslexia.
At least Cathal had to squint to decipher it, too. “Oh, I see. ‘This is where the tragedy begins,’ and it’s underlined about three thousand times.” His mouth twitched, though his eyes were far away. “She never did meet a word she didn’t like to underline.”
“At least she didn’t highlight everything.” Damon glanced sideways at Cathal.
“Oh, fuck you,” Cathal said, but not in a mean way. Annoying that he could do that, but not high up on the list, all things considered. “Who do you think kept buying me rainbow packs for my birthday, hmm?”
“Shhh.” Felix scrutinized the page. Then he snapped the book shut. “Yeah, I think I wanna be Titania.”
Cathal furrowed his brow. “Why Titania? She spends the entire play getting humiliated.”
“Well, Mom has all these notes about how she should be interpreted as a tragic figure and how this is, like, the most depressing comedy ever written and the fluff is disguising Shakespeare’s complete despair at the way society treats women. Or something like that. I have to read it some more to get it. But I think that would be fun.” Felix lifted his head. “And I’d look good in a dress.”
This was the second time he’d mentioned wearing dresses. Damon was not involved in the queer community, but he did do his best to stay informed since he was raising a son who had run down the rainbow and never looked back. “You know, Felix—”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dad, I promise if I ever have feelings about my gender, I’ll tell you. But I don’t. I just think dresses are pretty. And all the guys are kind of jerks.” He paused and added in a quieter voice, “Anyway, I think Mom would have liked it. She’d laugh.”
None of them spoke. Damon, for his part, was thinking how much Era would have laughed.
Then Cathal said, “You know, Felix, your father has a point,” and Damon was not sure if he was joking.
Felix jumped to his feet. “Oh my God. I have to go learn my lines now.” He stomped out of the room, though it was hard to tell if he was upset. He never walked quietly.
Cathal let out a fond sigh. “It’s almost like this is turning him into a normal teenager.”
Six: Damon Looks at Everyone Like They Are Several Squirrels Hiding Inside a Trench Coat.
EVERYTHING WAS PROGRESSING well except Cathal’s work, so he decided he needed to get away from distractions. After Felix left for school, Cathal peeked in the kitchen. Damon was cracking and separating eggs, his tongue between his teeth. “I’m making macarons,” he said.
“Did I ask?”
Damon ignored that.
Cathal made a face, only because Damon wasn’t looking. “I’m going to the library to work. Try not to kill yourself while I’m gone.”
Damon’s mouth twitched. “If I did that, I’d never figure out how to make these. It’ll be good to spend the day without you muttering up there.”
Cathal stuck his tongue out, only because he did talk while he was working.
He went out to the hallway to grab his coat.
Then he went back to the kitchen. “What are macarons?”
“You’ll find out, won’t you?”
MACARONS, AS IT turned out, were French cookies, and they were tasty, and Cathal ate three—all lovely pastel colors—while waiting for Felix to get home. Dinner was leftover roast, because Damon had spent the whole day making macarons. Piles of them. Enough that Cathal might have been compelled to call the authorities, except that he wanted to eat them.
Damon glanced at the oven clock. “He’s late. You think I ought to call him?”
“It’s only been a half hour. He’s probably chatting with his friends. You know how he is when he starts talking music.”
Fifteen minutes later, Cathal was about to suggest that Damon should call Felix when the boy came in the front door, looking crazed. He fell into the empty chair at the kitchen table, staring at the floor.
“I did something really stupid,�
�� he said, not blinking.
“You didn’t pick a fight or something, did you?” Damon nudged the plate of macarons at Felix.
Felix only glanced at them before returning his eyes to the floor. “No. But I was telling the triplets minus one about my awesome Queen Titania idea, and they thought it was great, and then I was telling them about Morgan, and then I got to study hall and somehow I ended up asking Morgan if he was going to audition for the play, and he said yes, and I told him he should try out for Oberon, and he said he’d take it into consideration.” All of this came out in one breath. Felix gasped and added one final thing: “And then he looked at me and he has the prettiest eyes ever and I am doomed.”
“Sometimes I wonder why you act so silly, but then you make speeches like this and I worry how much oxygen is getting to your brain,” said Cathal.
Damon made an irritated noise. “What Cathal is trying to say, Felix, is that you made a good first step today, and we’re proud of you.”
“I am not.” Cathal took another macaron. When had they turned into we? This was not okay. “He’s ridiculous.”
Felix squinted at the plate as though seeing it for the first time. “What are those?”
“Macarons,” said Damon, at the same time Cathal said, “Don’t change the subject.”
They kept talking at the same time, almost like they were thinking the same things. But that could not be true. Damon made no sense.
Felix picked one up and peered at it, his countenance lifting. “These look good, Dad.”
Damon sighed. “We’re never going to get anywhere in this conversation, are we?”
“It depends on what you mean by ‘getting somewhere,’” said Cathal.
“These are good, Dad!” said Felix around a mouthful of pink meringue.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Damon and Cathal said in unison.
“You guys have got to stop doing that,” said Felix. “It’s creepy.”
“You’re not the one living it.” Damon shook his head.
“That being said,” said Cathal, “Damon was right.” Damon made a noise suspiciously like a muffled laugh, which Cathal did not deign to acknowledge. “You’re closer to being his friend, if nothing else. You went out of your comfort zone, and that is always good.”
