Jordan was uncharacteristically quiet. He had been most of his break, but as January began to age and it was time for him to pack up and head back to Orono, he was almost sullen—and that was not a mood his youngest son normally expressed. Theo got the sense, too, that Jordan was avoiding him, which was hard to do in a house of this size.
In the middle of the last week of break, a few days before both Theo and Jordan were set to return to their respective campuses, Theo sat in his office, creating PowerPoint slides for his first day of classes. He didn’t really like PowerPoint, but he’d found that students paid better attention if he gave them something interesting to look at while he talked—something more interesting than him. So he found images of the authors they would be reading and matched them with quotes that were funny or relevant in some way.
He was wasting time online, actually, when Jordan knocked on his door and then opened it a few inches. “Dad, do you have some time to talk?”
“Sure, kiddo. Come on in.” Theo noticed that Jordan looked a little pale—not sick, but not happy. “I hope this is you wanting to talk about why you’ve been down lately.”
Jordan sat on the old, floral sofa that had been cast off to Theo’s office years before. “Yes. Yes, I do. I’m not sure exactly how to say it, though.”
“Just say it, Jordan. The way you usually do. Bold.”
He sat up straight and primly and took a big breath. On the exhale he said, “I’m not going back to school.”
Theo closed his laptop at that. Before he could turn fully around again, Jordan added, “Wait—were you looking at cribs? Is there news?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“No—if there’s news about Carmen, that’s more important.”
“There’s no news. I haven’t spoken to her since Christmas.”
Jordan sighed theatrically. “You’re both stupid, just so you know.”
“Jordan, no. You came in here and dropped a bomb. You don’t get to change the subject. What do you mean you’re not going back to school?”
“I’m not. There’s no point. Why am I getting a degree in theater? Why am I doing stupid campus productions of Peer Gynt or whatever? Why am I not in New York, auditioning and getting roles that pay? They don’t care in New York if I have a degree! They only care if I can act and sing and dance—and I’m fantastic at all those things!”
“You thought all this out when you decided to go to college in the first place, Jordan. You decided the education would round out your experience and make you a better actor. You wanted the meaty roles and the variety from campus productions on your résumé. Aren’t you getting that?”
Jordan sighed and threw himself back to slouch on the sofa. “Yes, but…”
“Look. This is a choice you have to make for yourself. You’re twenty-one. You live your own consequences. You have a good head on your shoulders, so I trust you to use it. If this is the choice you want to make, then we’ll go up on the weekend and clear out your dorm room. But I’m surprised. You’ve loved college until now. Is there something else going on?”
Jordan looked down at his lap, and Theo knew there was something. “What is it, son?”
“I’m so tired of it, Dad. I’m just so tired of being The Fag. I’m tired of pretending like it doesn’t bother me. I want to live in Chelsea and be someplace where I’m normal. A state school in Maine is not a place where I’m normal.”
Both Eli and Jordan could have gone to Colson College, where Theo taught, for free, but they had both wanted to spread their wings and live away from home. Eli had done well in school and had played varsity football well enough to garner some regional news attention. He’d gotten a scholarship to a different private college with a fair football program. Jordan had spent his school years being fabulous and hanging out with the arts crowd, not studying. His academic success had been middling. With no scholarships forthcoming for him, his choices were his father’s college or the state university. He chose the big school, thinking that it would be easier to fit in or blend in with a larger student body. But he had never fit or blended well.
Still, this was the first Theo had heard of any major trouble Jordan was having at college because of who he was. “Has it been going on the whole time, or did something happen this fall?”
“Dad! It’s been going on my whole life! I don’t fit here. Maybe being in Europe for a few weeks made it more clear—maybe that’s why it sucks more now. But I’m so over it. Maine is too small for me. In more ways than one. I literally just cannot anymore.”
“Okay. But Chelsea isn’t exactly a cut-rate neighborhood. How are you going to afford it?”
“Chelsea is the dream. In the meantime, Eli and Rosa said I could stay with them in Brooklyn until I find a day job and maybe a sublet or a share or something.” He smirked. “Or a sugar daddy.”
Ignoring that last remark with a wry eyeroll, Theo asked, “You talked to Eli and Rosa, but not to me? Why not?”
He shrugged. “I thought you’d make your disappointed face. I hate your disappointed face.”
“If I’m disappointed, it’s not in you, Jordan. Never in you. I’m disappointed that the world is a hard place. People in general disappoint me.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” He scooted over to one side of the sofa. “Now that that’s settled, sit over here with me and let’s build a dream nursery for my baby sister. She can have Eli’s room. Do you know Pinterest? We should start a board.”
~oOo~
They moved Jordan out of the dorm that weekend, and after a few days in which he lingered in nervous indolence, using a new, light snowfall as his excuse to stay in his pajamas and watch television, Jordan packed up the RAV4 that had been his mother’s and drove to Brooklyn.
Theo was alone again.
He was quickly back in the campus swing, though, and his job was a demanding one. On a normal week, he easily put in sixty hours of teaching, meetings, service, advising, preparation, grading. The first week of any semester tended to be chaotic, full of students begging for seats in an already-full course, or needing last-minute schedule changes, or just generally being confused about life. Every single committee wanted to meet in the first couple of weeks, too. His schedule was packed, and that was a good thing. It kept his mind occupied.
Colleagues stopped by Theo’s office with some regularity, inviting him for lunch or coffee, or, more complicated, drinks at the end of the day. The Department of Literatures and Languages at Colson College was, by the strained standards of academe, a collegial group. They went to each other’s houses for cocktail parties, they played poker together, they met for drinks. They bowled and played softball. Sure, there were some gasbags, malcontents, and shit-disturbers in the mix, but for the most part, people got along and even enjoyed each other. That kind of amity among faculty was rare, and it was another reason Theo could not consider changing jobs to move to Quiet Cove. You simply did not walk away from the job of your dreams.
Even if it meant going home to a completely empty house, knowing that the woman you loved and the child she was carrying would not come to you and make it full.
Carmen was wrong. She was wrong. She was using his reluctance—fine, his unwillingness—to leave his life as an excuse not to see that his life was the right one for them both. She was unhappy in her life. Why would she cleave to it so hard when she had no joy in it?
Because she was afraid. Even as she admitted her fear, she seemed unable to fight against it.
He knew that he’d been stupid and impulsive in their last fight, drawing the line too starkly and serving up an excuse for her to give into her fear. Perhaps if he apologized…but it was too late for that. Now she would see any attempt to convince her that Maine was where they belonged as a refusal to see her perspective. And that was wrong. He saw her perspective, and he saw that it was skewed and incomplete.
They were blocked from each other by mutual stubbornness.
She had sent him papers from a lawyer. A proposal for a
visitation arrangement. Offering him one fucking Saturday a month in Quiet Cove with his own daughter.
So, no. He would not apologize. No, he would not concede. And no, he would not sign those blasted papers. He’d contacted his own lawyer.
And this was what they had become.
When she’d called on Christmas Eve, saying that she’d missed his voice, he’d felt a heart-racing surge of love and hope. And then ire had suffused and overwhelmed the love. Fucking bitch. To send him that terrible document from her lawyer? And two days later to call to tell him she wanted to hear his voice?
No. He didn’t play games like that.
But he wanted her. He wanted his daughter. He wanted his family, and he knew he wouldn’t be complete again without them.
So he filled his days on campus, and saw as many friends and colleagues as he could. If they noticed he wasn’t drinking, they didn’t remark on it—at least not to him. And then he came home and prepared the next classes and graded papers. In the free time he had left, he worked on turning Eli’s room into Teresa’s room.
Maybe someday he’d be able to bring her here, and she’d sleep in the crib he’d bought her.
~oOo~
Near the end of January, in Lewiston after a gloomy meeting with his lawyer during which the specifics and complications of interstate custody and visitation law were shared in demoralizing detail, Theo sat behind the wheel of his old Cherokee, staring at a strip mall across the street. It was one of those bare, industrial-looking buildings, thrown up quickly, with no thought of aesthetics. All about the bottom line. The resident businesses were no more inspired than the building in which they were housed. A nail salon. An national tax-preparation franchise. A Chinese takeout joint. Two empty storefronts, their windows swirled to opacity with soap. On one far end, Lewis Liquor, its sign glowing orange neon. And on the other end, a perfect bookend, The Dugout. A bar.
He really needed a fucking drink.
He drove across the street and parked in front of The Dugout. The bar was better—at least then the drinks would be coming one at a time, and maybe he’d be okay with just one. Or two.
He went in.
It was a typical local-hole kind of place, a little dreary, a lot beer-soaked. The walls were covered with photographs of Little League teams and fishing tournament catches, bowling leagues, softball leagues, memorabilia from the Boston teams. Behind the bar, between the shelves of liquor, were three shelves jam-packed with trophies. Two televisions were installed high in corners opposite each other, currently showing a Bruins game and the local news, respectively. Aside from the stools at the long bar, the only other seating was a row of four wood-grain Formica tables, each with four red, cafeteria-style chairs. This was a place you went for a drink, not a meal.
It was early yet, and this wasn’t the kind of place that would draw a lot of suited businessmen stopping off for a quick cold one before commuting home to the ‘burbs. There were a couple of older men sitting on stools at the bar, and a tired-looking waitress leaning on the service rail, talking to the men and the bartender, an older guy an iron grey crew cut and the deeply wrinkled face and neck of a man who’d spent his life in the sun. Retired military or commercial fisherman was Theo’s guess.
Theo sat at the bar, a few stools from the others. The old-salt bartender came down and swiped at the bar in front of Theo, then tossed the bar rag back over his shoulder. “What’ll ya have?”
For too many seconds, Theo just stared at him, at war with himself. He was forty-two days sober—he hadn’t had a drink since the night Carmen had left. Until today, it had finally been getting easier, even alone.
But sitting with his lawyer—listening to his dirty-play ideas, knocking away strategies to impugn Carmen, hearing what his chances were to build a relationship with his newborn child from a distance if he didn’t fight dirty—all of it made him sick and sad and desperate to empty his head. He didn’t want that fight. He didn’t want a fight at all. He wanted his family.
He really needed a drink.
“Mister? Ya here for a drink or not?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Bourbon.” He glanced at the bottles behind the bar. “Jim Beam’s fine. Neat.”
“Ayuh.” The bartender nodded, poured, and slid the glass over. “Eight.”
He took the ten Theo handed him, brought back two, and went back to his conversation.
Theo sat and stared at the drink in front of him. He bent forward and smelled it. God. His mouth watered. Hell, his brain watered. He practically got hard.
He needed the fucking drink.
He stared into the open mouth of the glass, down into the dark amber liquid. A beautiful color.
He needed this.
A shadow fell over the glass, and he looked up to see the bartender. The older man put a thin stack of bills on top of the two dollars in change he’d left earlier. A five and three ones. Theo looked at the ten dollars on the bar and then back at the bartender. The sour-faced man stared back.
“Lost my brother to the drink. Took his wife and boy with him, over the Garry Road bridge and onto the rocks below. There’s AA over to the Methodist Church, ‘bout half a mile down the road. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Meet at half past.” He filled a glass with water and set it on the bar. “This’ll do ya if you’re thirsty.” Then he took the glass of bourbon, dumped it in the sink, and went back to the group at the end of the bar.
Recognizing a saving for what it was, Theo drank the water and got up. Before he left the bar, he waited and made eye contact with the bartender. He nodded, and the tough old Good Samaritan nodded back.
That AA meeting was the one Theo had attended sporadically in the past several weeks. He turned onto the road and headed to the church, where he should have pointed his Jeep in the first place.
~oOo~
Perhaps because he was still reeling a little from the lawyer and then the close call right after, Theo spoke at this meeting for the first time. He didn’t talk about Maggie at all. He talked about Carmen, about the daughter she was carrying, about what it was like to feel everything he wanted fluttering just beyond the reach of his outstretched fingers.
Afterward, though in the past he had simply left, this time he stayed for the traditional watery coffee and stale cookies.
But the coffee was good, and the cookies were—not cookies. Fresh, flaky, delicious pastries, some sweet, some savory. Wow. Impressive.
As he went for a second tapenade puff, one of the women who’d spoken at the meeting, and who seemed to speak at every meeting—he remembered her name as Joanne—stepped in next to him. “Good, huh?”
Theo smiled. “They are. You hear stories about the crappy snacks at AA. I figured it was in a rule book somewhere.”
She laughed. She was a pretty, rosy-cheeked brunette, her build sturdy but not overly stout. “It might be. But Curt is a chef, so we get spoiled.”
Curt was the meeting leader. Theo nodded appreciatively. When he stepped away from the table, Joanne followed him. “Can I ask you something? Call me nosy if I am.”
Theo’s guard went up, but he smiled. “Shoot.”
“Do you have a sponsor?”
“What?”
“I ask because I’ve seen you here before, but you don’t come anything like regular, and today was the first time I saw you talk. You had a rough night. Nobody to call, I guess?”
“Nosy.” It probably wasn’t an overly nosy question. They were at an AA meeting, for fuck’s sake. Having a sponsor was part of the deal. But he didn’t have any likely candidates for sponsor. Theo felt intruded upon and defensive. And lonely.
Joanne smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll say this and then leave you to it. You should have somebody to call. Somebody who won’t judge but’ll get you through it. Somebody who knows. I’ve been sober five years, and I never would have made it to five weeks without my sponsor.” She patted his arm. “Nice talking to you, Theo. Hope I’ll see you here again.” And then she wandered off to mingle elsewhere.
>
Theo dumped his second tapenade puff in the trash on his way out the door.
~ 21 ~
“How about this one?”
Carmen gave the item in question a skeptical examination. “It only has three sides.”
“It’s for co-sleeping.” Andi pointed to a sign next to the display. “Look. You put the crib up against the side of your bed, so baby’s right there with you. When she’s hungry, you just drag her over and pop a boob in.”
“I don’t want her up in the loft. Carrying her up and down that staircase probably isn’t a good idea.”
Rooted (The Pagano Family Book 3) Page 26
