The Preacher's Son

by Lisa Henry

  Nate stepped into his embrace. He didn’t cry—had been doing enough of that lately—but he buried his face in his father’s shoulder, his body shaking with anger and fear. For Isaac, for himself, for Jason—because what if the Word was infallible, what if there was a natural order, and they were outside of it? What if they all burned?

  His father held him close. “I love you,” he said again.

  And that should have been all that mattered; the words should have been comfort. But there was something incomplete about them. Love was too complex a thing to be declared so simply. Love could change, it could fragment. It could be pieced back together awkwardly, with cracks that would always show, faintly—the ghosts of old weaknesses, the promise of future accidents.

  What shape would his love for his father be tomorrow? In five years? Ten?

  What about the shape of whatever was between him and Jason?

  “I love you too,” Nate said, his voice muffled.

  A simple truth, on the surface.

  Deep, wild waters running beneath it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The announcement was made over breakfast. Nate didn’t go. He couldn’t bring himself to hear whatever words his father would say that would attempt to reconcile what Isaac had done with the lessons he had been taught at Moving Forward. And Nate had no doubt that his father would be able to reconcile them. There was nothing, he thought, that could really shake the foundations of a faith as deep and abiding as his father’s. There was a time when Nate had thought that was a strength. Now, he didn’t know anymore.

  He wanted to believe there was no way his father could have seen this coming.

  He wanted to believe it even while he rubbed his thumb over the faint scar on his wrist.

  Maple cabin was empty. There were clothes strewn across the floor, and sleeping bags and bedding lumped onto bunks. There was a shoe sitting up on the windowsill, for some reason.

  Nate sat on the end of Isaac’s bunk, ran his hand over the shiny polyester sleeping bag. It looked new. His parents must have bought it for him specially for camp. It wasn’t worn and dull like Tyler’s, bundled up on the top bunk opposite.

  Nate leaned down and dragged Isaac’s backpack out from under the bunk by the strap. He checked the luggage tag hanging from the strap. Isaac’s name and address, neatly printed in block letters. All campers’ belongings were supposed to be labeled so they didn’t get lost.

  Nate unzipped the backpack, and set it on the bed beside him. He rose to his feet, and picked a shirt off the floor. He checked the label ironed into the back of the neckband and discovered it was Richie’s. He tossed it onto the top bunk, and began to check through the other items strewn over the floor. He didn’t find anything that belonged to Isaac. It was the other boys who were the cause of the mess. Nate wasn’t surprised. He slid Isaac’s small bag of toiletries into the backpack, then zipped it shut again. He slung the backpack over his shoulder and stepped outside onto the small veranda of Maple just as the boys rounded the bend.

  Tyler and Steven and Richie.

  They stopped when they saw him. Nate read a hundred different expressions flashing across their faces: anger, hurt, blame, betrayal. All of them colored by Nate’s guilt.

  Tyler was the first one of the boys to push forward, his chin jutting out. “Is it for real? Did Isaac try to kill himself?”

  “Yes.” It felt like the word was pulled from the darkest place inside him.

  “Come on then,” Tyler said in the sudden silence. His mouth turned up in a sneer. “Come on, Nate, tell us again just how much God loves us.”

  Nate’s fingers tightened around the strap of Isaac’s backpack. “He . . . God does love you. God loves us all.”

  “Just not if we love other boys.” Tyler’s voice was low, bitter.

  Steven reached out and curled his hand around Tyler’s wrist.

  “Hypocrite,” Richie said. His eyes were narrow. “You’re just a fucking hypocrite.”

  Nate had never pretended he was perfect, had he? He’d always known he was deeply flawed. He’d never said he didn’t struggle with his phantoms. His phantoms, who all wore Jason Banning’s face. But he hadn’t pretended he was better than these kids, or that he was free of sin. He’d been honest with everything he’d told them, even when that honesty had hurt. If Nate had lied to these boys, then he’d lied to himself first of all.

  There was pressure on his chest. His ribs in a vise. His eyes stung. “God does love you.” He blinked, and his vision clouded. “Y-you can reject everything else you learned here, but please don’t let anyone take that away from you.”

  Richie rolled his eyes.

  “I . . .” Nate swallowed. “I’ve made mistakes. I know I have. I–”

  “This isn’t about you and your guilt trip!” Tyler’s face was screwed up. “This is about Isaac. You can talk all you want about how much God loves us, and how much He accepts us even though we’re sinners, but you know what? I don’t give a fuck if some magic sky fairy loves me or not, because you know who doesn’t? My parents. Because what I am isn’t good enough for them, because they sent me here, didn’t they? And so did Steven’s parents, and Richie’s, and Isaac’s. We’re not here because of God.”

  “Tyler, if your parents didn’t care about you they wouldn’t have–”

  “Shut up,” Tyler said. “Just shut the hell up.”

  There was a buzzing sound in his skull. A rush of blood like the roar of the tide. It threatened to drown him. “You’re right.”

  Tyler’s brow furrowed, and his head tilted just slightly. “What?”

  “You’re right,” Nate repeated. He thought about what he’d said to his father the night before. Faith isn’t—that. It can’t be that. “Your parents are wrong. My father is wrong. But God isn’t wrong. God is never wrong, and he created you in His own image.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. When he opened them again, the sunlight caught in his tears and threatened to blind him. “God makes no mistakes.”

  The boys exchanged glances.

  “Did you just quote Lady Gaga?” Richie asked, raising his eyebrows.

  Steven wrinkled his nose. “Dude, you are so fucking gay.”

  Nate scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  The boys stared at him, and Nate wondered if this should have been his moment of catharsis. If any second now the weight would lift off his shoulders as the truth set him free. But he was no freer now that he had been last night in his father’s study. This wasn’t a new beginning, suddenly unweighted by his burdens. This wasn’t Nate freeing himself. This was Nate finally admitting that he was and would always be burdened, and not because of who he was, but because of who other people thought he should be. Because being gay would always come with the burden of his father’s relationship with God, with the community’s, and even with Jason’s. Was there a middle ground anywhere, between his father’s brand of faith and Jason’s atheism? They were both zealots in their own way, and the first time Nate had been caught between them–without even knowing it at the time–his life had come crashing down around him.

  And here he was again.

  His burden, he thought, would be to find a way to navigate a path between them.

  “Are you taking Isaac’s stuff to him?” Steven asked.

  Nate nodded.

  “I’ve got some M&Ms in my bag. Maybe you could give them to him?”

  “Sure,” Nate said.

  He stood there, the sun beating down on his back, as the boys hurried inside the cabin.

  Jason hated hospitals. He hated the cold air and the antiseptic stench that clung to his skin. He hated the scuffed linoleum floors and the squeak of rubber soles over them. Hated the rattle of the mop bucket on wheels that the janitor moved back and forth across the floor of the waiting room, and the misspelled closed captions on the muted TV hanging from a bracket in the ceiling.

  His leg ached. He tapped his fingers on his knee. Being in a hosp
ital made that old itch rise up in him too: he wanted opiates, and wondered if there was a doctor here who would prescribe something stronger than he was already on. Probably not. In those first days and weeks after his surgery Jason had been too out of it to realize he was on a good thing with all that morphine. In those early days nobody had talked much about the dangers of addiction. They were probably more concerned with his actual survival at that point. Now though, asking for a new prescription was like asking for the doctor’s first-born child or something.

  Jason closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.

  He was out of weed. Maybe he should hit Rob up for some, see if it took the edges off his pain. Rob had always known where to get the best stuff. Better than what Jason had been picking up at the dispensary. If he was staying in Pinehurst it was probably something to look into.

  If he was staying in Pinehurst...

  He’d come back to do what? To recover? Not going to happen.

  To be with Rose while she recovered? Also not going to happen.

  Jason lifted a hand and rubbed his chest, soothing the ache.

  So why the hell was he still in Pinehurst? And why the hell was he thinking of staying?

  Nate.

  It was all Nate.

  Nate was the reason that Jason was imagining a life in the town he’d been so desperate to escape. And Nate was the reason Jason was currently sitting in the hospital waiting room, because he was too much of a coward to drive out to Moving Forward, and he knew that Nate would come here, sooner or later.

  It was sooner.

  Nate turned up at the hospital less than an hour after Jason had arrived, clutching a stack of comic books and a large bag of M&Ms. He looked as though he hadn’t slept, and Jason couldn’t blame him. He was wearing jeans and a plain forest green t-shirt. No camp logo. No tiny cross or fish. Jason wondered if that was a coincidence, or a statement. He wanted to know where Nate stood now with the camp, with his father, with his old friend Jesus—he needed to know, because all of those things also determined where he stood with Jason. And Jason was selfish. Always had been. He wanted what he wanted.

  And he wanted Nate.

  Not just Nate. He wanted to be able to give Nate something. It might never make up for all that he’d taken. But he wanted to be the sort of man Nate would choose. Not a savior. Not a zealot. A man. A man with more kindness in him than cruelty.

  But what if I can’t be that?

  Nate was pale and pinched. The shadows under his eyes were as dark as bruises. His usually neat hair was mussed, as though he’d been running his fingers through it. His gaze caught on Jason’s, and he stopped in his tracks.

  Jason hauled himself to his feet, wincing at the sharp pain that tore through his leg. “Hey.”

  Nate hugged the comic books to his chest. “Hey.”

  A nurse walked past them, her gaze narrow and speculative.

  They would always have that in Pinehurst, wouldn’t they? A level of scrutiny that came from being who they were. That came from what Jason had done to Nate all those years ago. All of their history wrapped up in sharp ribbons of small town gossip, barbed and ugly as razor wire.

  “Can we talk?” Jason asked.

  Nate’s expression shifted. “Um...I want to, but...” He drew in a breath. “I need to see Isaac first. I don’t know how long I’ll be. But I do want to talk. About what this is, and what we’re doing, and–” He cut himself off suddenly, clamping his mouth shut.

  “Text me when you’re done?” Jason said softly. “And we can meet in town?”

  “No. Today’s gonna be really busy. The kids...” Nate adjusted his hold on the comic books. “Their parents are coming to get them.”

  “The camp’s shutting down?”

  Nate took a step back, and Jason wondered if he’d sounded too interested in that idea, too invested. He wondered if Nate thought this was still his objective, all these years later.

  Maybe it sort of was. Not like something he was planning, but Moving Forward could burn to the ground and Jason would applaud. He couldn’t pretend otherwise.

  “So I’m gonna be busy,” Nate said, not quite meeting Jason’s eyes. “Come out to the camp tonight?” He lifted his gaze at last, and Jason wondered if he imagined the challenge. “We can talk then.”

  “What?”

  “Come to the camp,” Nate repeated.

  “Your dad—”

  “I told him.” Nate gazed levelly at Jason.

  “You told him?”

  A slight nod. “I told him I’m gay, and that won’t—can’t—change. And I told him I’m seeing you.”

  Well. Holy fuck.

  “So come to the camp, please.”

  If Jason was brave enough, or stupid enough to walk right into the lion’s den, then sure. Yeah.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll come by tonight. Eight?”

  “Sure,” Nate said. “Eight is good.”

  He turned and headed for Isaac’s room.

  Jason limped toward the exit, his stomach in a knot.

  Now was definitely a good time to call Rob about that weed.

  Outside, low clouds were drawing in, softening the bright daylight into something more reminiscent of dusk. The lower light made the trees on the verge of the road appear a dark, rich green, like something from a Christmas card. Jason had hated the pines when he’d moved here, just like he’d hated everything about Pinehurst. It was so small-town, so pretty, that he’d thought it couldn’t be real. That it must have been manufactured somehow, and that it had to be rotten below the surface. Reverend Tull had fit so well into Jason’s teenage prejudices. Into his need to find a cage to rattle, a villain to rage against. And Jason hadn’t been wrong...but he hadn’t been right either.

  He climbed into his car and turned the key in the ignition.

  Jason had been older than Nathan Tull. He’d known who the quiet kid was—the whole town had known—but Nathan had never seemed anything more than a little goody-two-shoes with his combed down hair and his starched shirts. Sometimes, when Rose had dragged Jason to church, he’d seen little Nathan Tull, voice squeaky with puberty, handing out the hymnals and the collection basket. And Jason had just rolled his eyes and, later, gone and hung out with Rob and Aubrey in the woods to drink the cans of Pabst they’d stolen from Aubrey’s dad’s beer fridge.

  He’d never really noticed Nathan Tull until that weekend at UW Tacoma. Then he’d noticed him in a rush of recognition—and not just because he vaguely knew him from home. Not just because he could tell, from a shared glance, that Nathan was gay. He’d recognized in Nate a quiet hunger. For experience. For information. Why else was he here at Tacoma and not at Whitworth or some other little Christian college? Why was he so far from home? Because home was a binding that your body pushed against as it grew, until finally you burst from those wrappings like a superhero shredding clothes with the emergence of outlandish muscle. And you stepped out into the world. You saw for yourself.

  He’d seen Nate’s fear and his courage. His stiltedness, and the hint of mischief that never got let out to play. He’s recognized the seeking, the hope. The breath-stealing high of freedom.

  “Is this okay?” Jason had asked when they’d kissed later that night. Guilt caught fleetingly in Nate’s expression, like he’d suddenly remembered the Big Man in the Sky was watching. As were a group of students heading past the Russell T. Joy building toward Starbucks. But then it broke through, like a fly from a web, and sailed off into the dark.

  Nate had gazed at him with flushed cheeks and a determination that looked more suited to scaling Everest than kissing a boy. “I want to be with you. I mean...sleep with you.”

  When had the plan taken root? Jason couldn’t remember exactly. The seed of it was there as he’d kissed Nate again. The shadow of it falling across the bright spots in his mind where Nate had lit him with joy, with need. The edge of it in his voice when he said, “If you decide you’re still interested, we can go for coffee tomorrow.” Because
he had plans tonight, and even though he would have gladly bailed on them to stay with Nate, he needed time to think.

  It was so easy, when you were young, to define yourself with bold, heavy lines. Every day flooded with self-discovery: I am… I think… I believe. Jason remembered the thrill of the first article he ever published—comparing various Western countries’ immigration laws, and taking the U.S. to task for its misguided attitudes. It was like discovering he was Harry fucking Potter—he had this power, this magic ability to use words and images to persuade people, to challenge them. To make them feel. People said the mind narrowed as it aged. That youth was a time of malleability, that children were blank slates—innocent; as though lack of information were a form of purity rather than a hindrance—that teenagers were society’s revolutionaries. There was some truth to that. The rebelliousness and wonder of being young let you shrug off your parent’s prehistoric ideas and replace them with your own progressive values.

  But it wasn’t quite that simple. Age might cement beliefs, but it also put you on more intimate terms with uncertainty. Vulnerability. With everything that came to challenge those hard-won beliefs. The jaws that clamped around all your hopes and wishes and shook them until stuffing popped from the seams. Those beliefs, those dinosaurial certainties, became your toeholds on the crumbling mountain you were forced to climb. Jason felt like he’d aged a hundred fucking years since Tacoma. He could look back on that twenty-two year old who’d “leaked” a video of himself fucking Reverend Tull’s son and not have a clue why. What sort of blinding stupidity, careening arrogance, or dearth of understanding had let him do that?

  But he could also look back, and somewhere, under scars and skin, feel the same blood pulsing through him, feel the same tough threads of righteousness holding together a frayed and faded man. He couldn’t escape what had happened by claiming he was a different person. He had to accept what he’d done into the whole of himself.

  He’d hurt Nate in a bone-deep way that nothing could ever justify.

  Collateral damage, he’d told himself when he couldn’t quite believe the lie that he was doing Nathan Tull a favor. Collateral damage. Well, that was something he and Reverend Tull had in common, wasn’t it?