Love Him Steady

by E M Lindsey

‘Wilder.’ She used the old sign name his dad had given him when he was young—and maybe it was to trigger something in him that would take the dead look he knew he had out of his eyes, but it didn’t work. It wouldn’t work.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he told her, and that was the only answer he had. He might get up there in front of family and friends, and he’d let the words flow from his fingers, and hope that none of the bitterness would well up and spill out, because he didn’t want to ruin the pieces of his dad that everyone had left. But he wasn’t sure that he could say any of it without saying all of it. ‘I’m tired.’

  Her shoulders heaved with a sigh, and she glanced at the clock before looking back at him. ‘Today probably isn’t the best day for Deaf time is it?’

  At that, he laughed, because even growing up hearing, those pieces of his community were so deeply ingrained in him. He could play the hearing man for the moment though. He could watch the time, and get ready, and stop conversation, and get them all moving. His aunts and uncles were in the house, and his mother was god only knew where, and he had just enough time for a walk and to feed the chickens before he took this final step.

  It occurred to him that with his dad’s death, he’d lost so much more than the man. He’d lost the remaining link to what was and all that was left was what could be. He could have handled it, knowing it was just Cherry Creek—and his friends and Theo. But knowing that it might also have Lorenzo meant he could more than handle it. It meant he was ready.

  Wilder hadn’t gone to church much as a kid. In spite of their Catholic roots, his mother had never found one with enough Deaf people to satisfy her need to be apart from the hearing, so religion fell by the wayside. It felt strange to gather in the parking lot, and it was even stranger to walk through the chapel doors.

  Even though it was a funeral home and not a place of worship, it still felt sort of heavy and important in ways he’d never entirely understand. His family milled around, and his hearing aids sat heavy in his pocket because it was far easier to shoulder the burden without the weight of ambient noise.

  His mother hadn’t bothered to approach him all morning—in fact, he could count on two hands the times she’d even looked him in the eye since he arrived, and it helped make his decision to throw all of his bags in the rental car before they made their way to the services. It was over. This moment marked it—the end of whatever he had been, and it was on to whatever he would become.

  Scott was gone, only scars left behind, and now the link to his biology had been severed as his father’s body burned to ash and was poured into a little ceramic urn covered in soft blue flowers. The funeral was nothing like him, and everything like her, and it was a reminder that Wilder only had memories left that were untainted by her hate.

  He watched her across the room, watching the way her face moved just like his own, the similarities between them like knife wounds. She dragged her hand over her hair the same way, and bit her top lip like he did, and shuffled her feet when she wanted the conversation to be over. He also watched her face soften into gratitude and kindness when she stopped to talk to the interpreter, and the old familiar ache in him rose.

  Why were strangers good enough to earn her kindness but never him?

  He took his seat in the front row on the far end from where she’d be sitting, and he tried to nod and tried to smile whenever a distant cousin or a family friend’s son walked by to say hello. His sister sat two seats away, and she tried to catch his eye, but he knew if he was going to do this, he couldn’t let her in.

  He couldn’t let his cracks show. There was no room for them anymore.

  His mother requested the services to be short, so there would be a prayer, which got started right away. There was a hymn, led in poor Signed English by the church choir that had some people wiping their eyes but left his mother scowling into her lap, refusing to watch.

  His aunt went up next to talk about what it was like growing up with his dad—all those stories he watched play out on her hands of family get togethers over the years, and he found he could smile at those. He’d always liked his aunts and his cousins. They’d been better people than the ones he lived with at home.

  His sister was next, and he couldn’t let himself watch her. Her signs would be poetic and strong and big. She would recall all the times that their father had guided her and held her and helped her find her Deaf identity so she could live in the world without compromise.

  His dad had loved him—but with conditions. His dad had loved him, but never enough to help him become the person he was. He was left to sink on his own, to recover on his own, to define his own worth.

  He had clawed his way out of that pit with wounds that would never heal.

  Wilder swallowed when Willow was finished, and he felt his mother’s eyes piercing and intense on him as he climbed to the podium and spread his hands on the soft wood. No one had bothered to set up a mic—only the pastor had used a hand-held one, so there was an unobscured view of his face as he took breath and found himself surprised by his own tears.

  ‘My father had a boring name. Ron. Not Ronald—just Ron. He liked telling people that more than he liked sharing his sign name, because they always asked.’

  He saw a few people smile, saw his uncle laugh.

  ‘He used to tell me how much he loved my name, even though he wasn’t the one who gave it to me. My mother picked it out when she was eight months pregnant, and he said he thought he understood the concept of sound the night she shared it with him.’

  He swiped at a tear and looked over at his mother who was watching him with her jaw clenched and her eyes wide and watery.

  ‘He taught me to walk. He taught me to spell by pretending like he forgot ASL and only responded to the alphabet. Because of that I was ahead of my kindergarten class by leaps and bounds and that was after the teachers told both my parents that me and my sister would never catch up to our peers because they put ASL ahead of English.’

  He felt something burn in his chest like fire, and his tears were flowing, but they didn’t hurt. They were a relief.

  ‘He was the one who explained to me that I was different. That I might never fit in. My father told me that I might do great things, but those great things wouldn’t matter as much to everyone else, and if I wanted to feel important and special, it was up to me to make other people see it in me. I felt lost after that, because I didn’t understand what he meant for so long, and I’m sad that he’s gone, because I would love to tell him now that I get it. My life is small, and it’s humble, but I am so very loved. And to people out there in the world, in a very quiet town, I am important.’

  He blinked, trying to clear his eyes, but it was hard. His mother was still watching, looking betrayed and a little bit scared, and a small piece of him was glad for it. She had made him scared all of his life, and now he was showing her how it felt.

  ‘I forged my own way—this family gave me the strength to do that. The Deaf Community did that. Almost all of you sitting in these seats gave me a piece of yourself to help mold the person I am today. And so did my dad—in ways I never expected. He didn’t have a big life either. He was humble, but he has a legacy left behind in me and in my sister. And in my mother. It’s the thing I’ll take with me when I walk through those doors and into my own future. And I think it’s one he would have wanted for me.’

  He stared down at the urn, then curled his middle and ring finger toward his palm, but he kept it low because that I love you wasn’t for anyone else. He didn’t like his dad for leaving him to the wolves, but he loved him for the strength he helped build in Wilder. And he owed him that much, at least.

  He walked away, and he knew people were watching, knew his sister had risen, knew people were waving at him to stop, but he kept going. One foot in front of the other, and then he was in his car, and it was started.

  He found his phone, this time with less fear, and his fingers tapped the screen and opened up Lorenzo’s contact. A lingering message sat
there from him and he smiled the first genuine smile since he’d arrived.

  Lorenzo: I know today will be hard, but you’re not alone.

  Wilder: I’m on my way home.

  Lorenzo: I can’t wait.

  The message came in before he had time to set his phone down, and it was those words that carried him to the airport and kept him on his feet and in his last remaining solid piece as he left the past behind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lorenzo’s stomach swooped when he stepped outside and saw the little car waiting for him at the curb, Raphael peering over the wheel with a faint grin on his face. His fingers spasmed on the handle of his bag, and he felt rooted to the spot for a second like he was almost afraid to believe he was back, that he was home.

  Someone behind him knocked into his side with their case and swore, and it pushed him into action, his feet closing the distance between him and Raphael’s car. He wrenched the door open, shoving his bag into the back before he climbed in and looked over at his friend.

  Raphael’s grin got a little wider, and he shook his head. “You really couldn’t stay away, could you?”

  Lorenzo glanced down at his hands which were holding his phone in an iron grip, and he shook his head. “Is that stupid?”

  “It’s never stupid to come home.” Raphael reached across the console and wrapped his fingers around the back of Lorenzo’s neck, pulling him in for a clumsy half-hug. “I’m glad. Gwen gave me the address to your new place. Your things have been moved over.”

  Lorenzo swallowed thickly. “I don’t deserve…”

  “Bitte hör auf damit!” Raphael muttered sharply and squeezed his fingers hard. “You deserve to have a home, and it’s here. Now, I’m missing work for this, so let’s make it worth my time off. We’re going to go have a nice dinner on the way, and then we’ll get you settled.” He released Lorenzo and gripped the wheel with one hand, using his other for his hand controls, and soon enough, they were on the open road.

  Raphael had a place in mind, it seemed, because he avoided the freeway and ended up at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Boulder tucked in a little strip mall. It looked mostly like wine and starters, which was perfect for Lorenzo since his stomach was twisted in knots, and he enjoyed the outside table the hostess had selected, settling into his chair near the heavy, wrought iron fence.

  “You haven’t said more than five words since you got in the car,” Raphael pointed out after they placed their orders.

  Lorenzo drummed his fingers on the table nervously, then picked up his water glass and drank. “I’m happy to be home, and seeing you made it feel…real, I guess?” He stared at a line of water cascading through the fog of condensation along the ice line as he set his glass down, and he wondered if maybe he was just being pathetic. “Wilder hasn’t texted much. And it’s stupid to be upset about that, you know? I mean, his dad died.”

  “It was poor timing,” Raphael said. The server interrupted for a moment to set down their antipasto plate and refresh their drinks. Raphael pulled some of the cheese and meats and a handful of olives before pushing the board toward Lorenzo. “You can’t take it personally.”

  “No,” Lorenzo agreed. “And I don’t think I am. It just feels unstable. I’m falling so in love with him, but what if he doesn’t come back?”

  “He will,” Raphael said, like it was a simple fact of nature—like how people breathed, and how the sun set and rose each day, and how water was wet. “He has too much here to leave behind—and one of those things is you.”

  The food was good, but it still tasted like ash in Lorenzo’s mouth. He had never put himself out there like this, had never given up his life for anyone or anything, and although he could pick himself back up, the thought of losing it all still terrified him. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Raphael laughed and put an olive in his mouth, chewing for a long while like he was trying to delay his answer. “Twice.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good twice.”

  “One was…impulsive,” he said, shrugging. “She was from Rome, and she was like walking fire. Beautiful and dangerous. She saw the world differently than most people—she saw things she wanted to collect and take with her wherever she went.”

  Lorenzo heard what he wasn’t saying. “Why didn’t it work out?”

  “I was just part of her collection. She knew how to love, but not in the way I needed her to. But I don’t regret it. She was fantastic, and she helped me find a freedom I didn’t know was possible. My mother,” he breathed out a sigh and shook his head, his mouth curved in a slight smile. “She loved me to a fault. She never quite stopped believing those old doctors who told her that I would never be able to live on my own. Her fear as suffocating, and Chiara helped me breathe again.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Lorenzo begged, because part of that sounded like how Wilder made him feel, and he needed to know it could end differently than breaking up.

  Raphael rolled and unrolled some of the prosciutto, then set it aside and folded his hands in his lap. Lorenzo could see a tremor in his body, which probably meant his legs were spasming, but Raphael ignored it. “I wanted to do something with my life, even if I couldn’t have NASA, so we traveled. We stayed with a friend of hers in Oslo, and he let me work for him in his salon doing massages—and he taught me other things about the business. I didn’t love it, but I loved being there. Only, she was getting restless. I woke up one morning, and she was just gone. She left a note, and she promised she’d be back in a few weeks, but I knew better.”

  Lorenzo’s heart twisted in his chest because he could hear the hurt inside Raphael. “Did you ever see her again?”

  At that, he smiled, a soft and sad thing that reached his eyes. “Once, right before I left for America. I was with Cody then—he was an American on vacation when we met. We dated for the weeks he was in Oslo, and he asked me to come back with him when his trip was over. I couldn’t say no. I wanted the adventure.”

  “And you loved him,” Lorenzo pressed.

  Raphael shrugged. “I think so. Not the same sort of love I felt for Chiara, but it was enough. I thought it was enough,” he amended. Raphael had shared the barest bits and pieces about his life before he’d come to Cherry Creek, but not like this, and Lorenzo heard the gift for what it was. “I don’t regret him. Cody and I were together maybe six months before he decided that loving me was too hard. That loving me in a body like this was too much work.”

  “Raphael…”

  He held up a hand and looked Lorenzo directly in the eye. “When it doesn’t work out with love or with friends, it’s not always my body, but sometimes it is. Most of the time I’m just a way for people to prove to themselves that they’re not shallow. Usually, though, they just show the world they were right the first time.”

  “Is that why…?”

  “Yes,” Raphael interrupted. “It’s why I don’t make friends so easy, and it’s why I don’t date. But I’ve become an expert at being able to spot those kinds of people.”

  Lorenzo looked down again, guilt threatening to choke him. “I came to Cherry Creek to prove I was a better person. That I was capable of not being shallow.”

  Raphael reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “But you didn’t use me for it. And your goals didn’t come at anyone else’s expense. And that’s why you’re home now.”

  Lorenzo swallowed thickly, but by the look on Raphael’s face, he realized that his friend was right. “Thank you.”

  Raphael laughed and let him go. “That’s what I’m here for. Now, eat up. We have a long drive ahead, and you have a new apartment to settle into.”

  Settling back into the bakery was a lot easier than sitting around his empty apartment waiting for Wilder to text. He hadn’t let him know he was back yet, mostly because he was consumed with fear over the tiny risk that Wilder might have changed mind. So, he got up at the crack of dawn and met Dmitri at Indulgence, spending most of the morning on the books, then off
ering to help after Levi got in. He wasn’t good at baking, but he was passable at taking directions, and that’s how he spent most of the day.

  Lorenzo flicked his wet hands into the sink, then turned to find the towel that was resting on the bench a foot away. He caught Levi’s disapproving stare and Dmitri’s smirk, and he sighed. “Look, at least I didn’t wipe them on my ass again.”

  Levi rolled his eyes and moved to the baking table, gesturing at the spinning cake stand. “I’m going to finish up these fillings, because if I try to teach you this anymore, I may actually strangle you.”

  Lorenzo pursed his lips and hip-checked Levi gently as he moved to the table. “I am not that bad.”

  “You are. This is not your forte, and I think you’d be better off putting your ass back in the desk chair and finishing the books,” Levi said with a sniff.

  Lorenzo couldn’t help the smallest sigh as he grabbed the cake stand, a cupcake he was sure to mutilate, and the bag of icing. “I just want to help.”

  Dmitri touched his arm. “You are helping.”

  Lorenzo glanced over at the small pile of ruined cupcakes and knew that he should probably give up, but he wanted to be able to do something tangible to show Wilder that he was worth keeping around—that he could hold down the fort and keep the place running if shit went sideways. He’d been back in town for three days, and he’d only shared a handful of texts with him, but the fact that Wilder responded at all made him feel like it wasn’t over.

  “Listen,” Levi told him, “James can’t cook for shit. He eats warm bread and calls it toast. He can’t tell the difference between sugar and salt without tasting it first, and he’s fucked up more orders than he’s gotten right.” Levi’s whisk moved expertly in the small silver bowl he had cradled in his arm with all the tenderness one might use to hold an infant. “I want him in my kitchen, not because he’s good at anything, but because he helps keep me sane. What you’re doing is enough.”