It was a little past midnight when Isaac Weaver lay in his bed, clenching and unclenching his fists, balling up his toes and blinking at the ceiling. After debating what to do with his persistent boner, he climbed out of bed, got dressed and left the house through the back way behind the store. Isaac headed up the three blocks to Bernard Street and climbed up the side of the house, past Professor O’Muil’s library. The light was on and Isaac smirked a little bit to think that the man had no idea his soon to be son-in-law was sneaking into his house.
Topping the roof, Isaac nearly shrieked, but Anne caught his hand and shook her head with a Buddha calm.
“If you ask me what I’m doing out here,” Anne said, on the spine of the house, “then once again I’ll remind you that your presence is even more our of place than mine.”
Isaac sat beside Anne and she said, “Look at that moon.”
“Do you do this all the time?” he said. “Look at the world?”
“I’m seventeen,” Anne said. “I’ve got to.”.
Anne wrapped her arm around Isaac before kissing him on the cheek.
“Welcome to the family, Brother.”
Isaac looked shocked.
“Did she tell you?”
“She told me,” Anne said. “But I already knew. She hasn’t told the rest of the family though.”
“Good,” Isaac said, “I said we should announce it together.”
“Have you told your dad?”
“He was asleep when I got in. We’ll tell him tomorrow.”
“And then the patter of Weaver feet,” Anne murmured.
“I think we’ll put that off for a while.”
Isaac pushed himself up. Anne helped him not to fall. To their left was Anne’s open window, to the right, on the house’s back end, was Jinny’s.
“Please,” Anne said, “try not to keep me awake all night.”
“Stop it,” Isaac said. “You make stuff up.”
“I don’t make up the moans coming from the other side of my wall whenever you stay here. I hope you lock the door because if Mom or Dad comes in and finds you sewing your oats, it’ll be a funeral before there’s a marriage.”
“Here here,” muttered Isaac. “Goodnight Anne.” Isaac tapped on Jinny’s window. In her room the light came on and she blinked at him.
Then, as Jinny opened her window, Anne disappeared into hers.
“Isaac, what are you doing here?” Jinny said.
He kissed her on the mouth and hopped into her room.
“I’m here to fuck my wife of the future.”
He wakes early in the morning and kisses her goodbye. There are things he hasn’t done. He hasn’t been home for one thing, and for another, he never told Ef. Ef is his best friend in the whole world, and because that is the case he waits for morning rather than waking him last night.
He has no ring to show his friend. He drives down the mile or so to the Melbourne neighborhood, parking on the street and going up the side yard, unhooking the gate and going up the trellis that is, Ef says, the only sturdy thing CJ Walker ever made before Efrem’s father blew his own head off. The trellis leads to the long low balcony that goes about the back of the house where the second storey is not as long as the first. This is the window through which he has always come to Ef’s room, and it’s open a little, and the curtains are open a little.
Isaac Weaver puts his hand to the latch, and his mind does not catch up with his eyes, and his eyes do not catch up with something else he cannot name. It is simply something he never expected to see.
He never imagined Sean Givney would be so beautiful. He has only seen Efrem’s friend, who is as bookish as he, half black with his black curls and ivory skin in jeans and plaid, not like this, not lovely honey colored limbs, arms and legs. He has not seen Sean twisted with Efrem who is beautiful, thick limbed, red brown. He knows… No, he doesn’t know anything. Isaac is nothing but an eye. He kneels by the window and watches the two of them, naked on the bed, tangled and kissing, hands roving over each other’s bodies.
Now he knows his throat is dry. Now he knows the air is cold. Now he knows, as Sean turns on his back, as Efrem, with the roundest, loveliest ass, places himself between Sean’s legs, that he is more than an eye, that he is watching what he should not, that he is hard, his dick harder and thicker than it’s ever been. The world spins around him and he turns away. Slowly, at the same time he hears a grunt of satisfaction, a sigh of release, Isaac crawls back the way he came.
Efrem
Me and Isaac went to the mall that afternoon. What I usually like to do in the mall is point out how bad everybody looks, but Isaac was far off and vacant, the way he’s been since he showed up to my door.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”I said, but there was no harshness in it. I don’t think.
We had dinner at his house and he said, “I’ve been reading these letters. My mom’s. I won’t make you read them—”
“I’d like to,” I said. “If you want me to.”
Without waiting he says, “I want you too.”
“Of course,” I say.
“It’s almost…” Isaac begins. Then he says, “I can barely do it by myself.”
My Dearest Christine,
I wonder if you’ve forgiven me now. You know Isaac’s eight? Who knew? I mean, I suppose we all knew that nine years could pass but back then I was just pregnant. He was just the inconvenience. He was the reason things changed, the balance that tipped. And for a long time it was alright. It was more than alright. Having a child was enough, enough for me not to mind, not to mind if you minded. It mattered if you could forgive me, but not as much as it matters now. Not when I don’t feel anything for Aaron, not when I wish I could love Isaac more, when I wonder if I really love him at all. When I wonder if this love can save me.
When I was growing up, I was taught love could save me, and love had saved me. But I don’t know about that anymore, and I’m afraid. I feel like I’m drowning, like I’m about to do something very dreadful. Before I do I, before I’m on the news, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, and that I will never stop loving you.
Yours,
Elizabeth.
I was quiet for a long time and then I said, “Isaac, I’m lost. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”
Suddenly he said, “Why didn’t you tell me you had sex with Sean?”
*********
Efrem was quiet for a long time and then he said, “Isaac, I’m lost. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”
Suddenly Isaac said, “Why didn’t you tell me you had sex with Sean?”
“What?” Efrem said, looking the closest to surprised Isaac ever saw him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you slept with Sean?”
“If you knew,” Efrem said, “then why didn’t you ask?”
“Oh, no!” Isaac stood up. “Fuck you for that! That’s evasion.”
“Yes,” Efrem said. “You’re probably right.”
“Probably—” Isaac started. Then he said, “Were you… afraid I would judge you?”
Efrem frowned at him.
“It’s not yours to judge, Isaac Weaver.”
“I know—”
“I’m not afraid of you or anyone else.”
Isaac came down from the high horse he wanted to be on so badly.
“I… just wanted you to know… I accepted you.”
“You don’t get to accept me,” Efrem said.
Isaac said nothing.
“You don’t get to accept or reject,” Efrem said. “I do as I please. Just like you do.”
Isaac was silent a little longer, and then he said, “Why didn’t you say anything, then?”
“Because I thought you’d be jealous.”
Isaac didn’t even protest, but this time Efrem elaborated.
“We’ve always been closer than brothers, closer than friends. We’ve always been so close… Part of me felt almost like I was cheating on you. If that makes sense.”
But it did make sense, Isaac realized. It was the ache he could not name until now that he had felt when he had seen Ef with Sean, what he could not name, or didn’t dare examine.
“That isn’t fair, though,” Isaac said.
“What?”
“I was with Jinny all these years, but you thought that… No, it’s not fair if you feel like you can’t tell me about who you’re with.”
“You’re right,” Efrem said, and there was no tone to his comment. “It isn’t.”
