“You guys didn’t have to come all the way here for this.”
“It was just a two hour drive,” Ross said.
“What Ross means,” Flipper said, “is he knew I was coming down here no matter what, and he thought it would look better if he and Jimmy and Macy came too.”
The weather was warmer than it had been, but the stars were out, and the world seemed so different from seven hours ago when Anigel had showed up to get Russell. It was good to be out of the house, to stretch his legs. It was good to have Flipper right here.
“I wasn’t sure if we parted in the right way,” Flipper said. “To be honest.”
Russell shook his head.
“Is there a right way? What’s a right way for us to do anything? I think we’re bound to screw things up.”
“I just feel like I’m older. And I should act older. And wiser.”
“Older and wiser than me?” Russell grinned at him.
Flipper shook his head.
“I have a good feeling about us,” Flipper said. “No matter what happens I got a good feeling about you and me.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Russell said plainly. “When I saw you I… I’m just glad you’re here.”
“Is Anigel gonna freak if I put my arm around you?”
“Because you’re a guy?”
“Because I’m in college.”
Russell looked behind him to where Anigel and Ross were talking. They were well over a half block away, looking up at the stars, and Ross was pointing to something.
Russell said, “They have other shit on their minds.”
“You chaperoned Flipper.”
Ross shrugged. “It was good to get off campus for the night. I’ve never been to a death watch.”
“It’s not something you do everyday,” Anigel wrapped her jacket tighter around her.
“I slept all the way here. I slept most of the day. You know we could take the watch when everyone else goes to bed.”
“I was thinking about that too, cause my ass has been asleep in a chair since about six o’clock.”
“There’re enough beds in this house for that to not be necessary.”
Anigel laughed.
“I have a hard time walking into someone’s house and saying, ‘let me sleep in your bed.’”
“I don’t.”
“No you don’t,” Anigel discovered, laughing and tapping Ross on his chest.
“I can’t believe you have a hard time doing anything,” Ross said. “All these people crowded into a spare bedroom, and you know half that upstairs is empty! What’s open around here?”
“Open around here?”
“Bars?”
“Jewell’s place. The Noble Red. I thought we were going to sleep.”
“Are you ninety? You can’t go out for a drink, and then take a nap? We’ve got plenty of time for a death watch.”
Anigel laughed, “Who the fuck says that? Who the fuck says, ‘We’ve got plenty of time for a death watch?’”
“I say it,” Ross declared.
Anigel laughed and threw an arm over her best friend.
“Well, shit, Ross. I guess you do.”
“You guys are real good to do this,” Thom said. “If you have to go home, I get it.”
“None of us is going anywhere,” Chuck Shrader said.
Jeff Cordino and Jason Dygulski nodded their heads, and Bill Dwyer said, “I might go back home for a pillow, but that’s next door.”
Patti looked at Thom and Chuck sitting together and wondered how much they discussed. Thom was new to friends, and for the first time he had men he trusted who trusted him. She shook her head. Tonight was not about her.
At about nine o clock they heard the squealing of motorcycle wheels. In the living room Kathleen was the first to stir, and she sat straight up. Jaclyn was sleeping on the couch. John had taken the children back home to Fort Atkins. Patti turned to Thom, and a moment later the door opened and Finn came into the house, helmet under his arm.
“Oh, God!” Thom sounded a lot more relieved than anyone expected, and he rushed to his little brother and held him tight.
“Ey, Tommy. It’s alright,” Finn said, looking surprised by his brother’s display of emotion.
When Thom released him, he could see that Finn looked a little afraid.
“Am I too late?”
“No,” Thom shook his head. “No. He’s this way.”
They made a way for Finn, Patti taking his helmet. She would put on more coffee, and then she would take Faye’s advice and get a little rest. The kitchen was surprisingly empty at this time of night, and Patti was touched to see people had resealed and covered the food. Usually people were such philistines. She guessed it took a death to bring out manners and make folks rinse dishes. She placed Finn’s battered helmet on the kitchen table. Where was that Meg Rice?
Patti slipped off her shoes and headed upstairs, and she was halfway up, up enough to see Russell in the hallway with Flipper, the two of them of a height, kissing, while Flipper pressed his hand against her son’s face. The first thought she had was a warmth flowing through her, a desire for that kind of kiss again, someone to love her like, the realization that one time Thom had kissed her like that, in the dark.
So out of all the things Patti Lewis could have done, she turned around and went back to the kitchen. She went back through the dining room, down the hall to the spare room where Thom as with Finn, and she sat down next to him, smelling the sweat of the day on him, the nerves on him, the grey smell of many Marlboros, and the old lingering smell of this morning’s cologne. This little man was her love, her kiss in the dark. She touched his chin.
He looked at her.
“I’m going to lay some clothes out for you, okay? You need a shower. You need to come to bed for a bit.”
“I’m fine.”
There were rings under his eyes.
“Thomas,” Patti said.
He knew what that meant.
“I’ll be up in a minute.”
She hugged him so hard that it hurt, that he thought if she kept this up she might break something in him and then he’d fall apart, and he didn’t want that right now. A few moments later he left the room, head hung like a child’s, led up the stairs by his wife.
Faye nodded to Chuck and they stood up, traveling to the room where RL was so they could take their watch.
Growing up in a crowded apartment with three generations of family and two siblings had taught Patti the importance of locking doors, and on her way up the stairs, this time she’d been especially loud so that teenage boys making out in the hallway would have time to stop. Thom was short for a man. She was not for a woman, but they were mostly of a height. As he stood before her, she treasured the strength in his shoulders, the dark featured face she had gotten so used to, his thick hair. She ran her fingers over all this, caressing him. She undid his tie and kissed his thick lips. She unbuttoned his shirt and took it from him him gently, caressing his shoulders, kissing his furry chest. How she used to make fun of it. How she wouldn’t have it any other way. He was so compact and strong, and so little and so fragile. She loved him so much. She held his hands in her face and his dark eyes were wet. They held each other for a moment. She wouldn’t make him talk. What was he going to say? My dad, who I barely knew, who I was just learning to live with, who I wanted to forgive one day, is dying downstairs?
She knelt before him, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants, taking down his expensive dress trousers. He stepped out of them, and pulled his socks off with his feet. His lips were parted and her fingers moved over his arm. He was only in black Jockeys and Patti had been about to lead him to the shower, but now, he pulled down his underwear and lowered his wife to the bed. He reached under her thin house dress. He pulled away her panties, his fingers entered her. She moaned. She moaned as his hand touched her gently there as she had touched him and then, lifting up her dress, he was in her, and she held onto his neck while they looked at each other, and licking his lower lip, he fucked her. It did not last long, in the last moments they moved quick and hard and Thom’s face changed, and then he shouted when he came. He didn’t care. He wasn’t embarrassed. If anyone passed by, they’d know what the shout was. For moments he lay stunned, the last of the semen leaving his body, his balls sore, his penis stiff in Patti, his back arched. Slowly they separated, and slowly they collapsed together.
“I have to tell you something,” she said.
Thom nodded.
“It’s an awkward time to tell it.”
Thom turned on his side. Patti saw his thighs covered in dark hair, his penis and scrotum, red and full in the black bush, his face, strangely childlike, boyish.
“When we were broken up and I dated Chuck, Chuck and I more than dated.”
“You slept with Chuck Shrader.”
“I did.”
“It’s not like I was living in a monastery myself.”
“It’s different for a woman,” said Patti. “At least they say it is.”
“They’re wrong,” Thom said. “You are my wife. Whatever we were, whatever we did, you are my wife, and I am your husband, and we’re here. That’s all that matters.”
Thom turned over on his back and Patti, on her side, ran a finger over his chest, stopped it at his hip.
“Russell told me he was gay,” Thom said. “It was the same time that RL came into our lives. He just sort of said it. I never said anything because I thought that was for him to say… And then I kind of just put it out of my head. If that makes sense.”
“I think I just realized that,” Patti said. “Not long ago.”
Thom turned to her.
“Mother’s intuition?”
“Something like that.”
When Kristin arrived, Jackie was smoking a cigarette in an easy chair by the door, and she said, “Took you long enough.”
“Screw you, bitch,” Kristin said, and Jackie jumped up to hug her.
“Where’s Reese?” Jackie asked, parting from her sister.
“In the car, getting the baby. We drove like the damned. Where is he?”
“In the back room with Mom and Finn.”
“Finn’s here?”
Jackie nodded and they went through the dining room and down the hall. Denise was coming out of the room and she said, “So the bitch finally came.”
“Takes a bitch to know a bitch.”
“You’re right,” she told Kristin, and then she hugged her and said, “Get in there. Your mom’s been terrified you wouldn’t make it. Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
“You are,” Denise said. “I’ll make you a plate.”
“Aunt Kristin,” Russell stood up.
“You should be in bed,” she told him.
“Leave him alone,” Kathleen said, leaning in and kissing her oldest daughter.
“Cody, how long have you been here?” Kristin asked her new nephew, and Jackie leaned against the wall and looked over her father, hugging herself.
“I don’t even know.”
Kristin stood up long enough to push hair out of RL’s face and she said to Brad and Nehru, “Thank you.”
“These are my friends,” Cody said. “Nehru Alexander and Brad Long. They just got off of work at the Noble Red and wanted to sit with me.”
“I…” Brad cleared his throat, “didn’t want to intrude. I know we’re not family—”
“You are now,” Kristin said.
She put a hand to her face and was surprised by how tears welled in her eyes. She bent down and squeezed her father’s hand in the cover.
“How could you do this you old son of a bitch?” she said, trying to laugh. “We just got you back, and now you leave again. You haven’t changed.”
RL’s throat cleared, and he coughed a little. Slowly his very eyes opened and he said, “Is that my girl?”
Kristin’s face changed, and her voice cracked. There was none of the harshness or even the heartiness that Russell was used to.
“Yeah, Daddy, it’s me.”
“Where’ve you been?” he said, squinting at her and smacking his lips. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I was on my way, Daddy. It took me longer than I wanted.”
She said, “Are you thirsty?”
“Um,” he nodded. “Powerful.”
Her hands were shaking as she moved past her mother, and she poured a glass. Thom had come back into the room, and Reese had come holding the baby. Finn’s face was still, but tears were running down his cheeks. Jackie put the glass to R.L’s lips and he sipped until he sighed and she let his head down.
“That was good. I’m so… I’m so…”
“Are you tired, Papa?”
“Ah, yeah,” he sighed.
“Then, why don’t you go to sleep, alright?”
“Alright,” R.L said.
He closed his eyes.
“I love you, Baby.”
Kristin’s face was hard, but it was wet and she kept snuffling to to keep her nose from running.
“I love you too, Dad,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the head, and she sat down, folding her hands on her lap.
“That’s the only time he’s talked all day,” Jackie said.
Kathleen massaged her older daughter’s hand and caressed RL’s arm.
“I think it’s the only thing he’s ever going to say again.”
Suddenly, almost comically, but none of this was funny, Finn burst into tears, and beside, Cody he began wailing. Russell thought that in his family, which could be counted on to be quarrelsome and crazy, someone would remove Finn or cuff him on the head, but instead Thom went to his baby brother and threw his arms around him, and while Fenn sobbed, his older brother rocked him and Kristin closed her eyes and put her hands over them. Brad looked uncomfortable and Nehru, ever practical, took the damp cloth, wetted it, and wiped RL’s mouth, then dabbed his face.
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