They walked for so long Dan and Fenn approached the long strip of Banding Park that went down Dorr Road until it reached Saint Barbara’s. It ended a block or so after the cul de sac that shot down to Fenn and Todd’s house. The park was deep enough that after a while you didn’t even see the traffic anymore. You hardly heard it. There was just the deep green of the grass in its last hurrah, before heat relinquished its hold on the world and autumn moved in.
“We never had to talk that much,” Dan said, at last. “Maybe that’s why I don’t call like I should.”
Fenn sat down on the grass. When it looked as if Dan was about to do the same, Fenn said, “I’m warning you now, it’s not easy to get up. And if you’re on the ground, who’s going to help me.”
“It can’t be that hard,” Dan said, while he settled down on the grass beside Fenn with a small grunt.
“I feel wet,” Dan said.
“So do I. But I don’t mind. You should sit on your jacket.”
Dan did not do that. He did not want to sit on a good pea coat. He just resituated himself.
“You were never really a nature person,” Fenn commented.
“Of course I… No,” Dan realized. “I never was. It isn’t too late to change is it?”
“If it’s not too late for me to adopt a fifteen year old, then it isn’t too late for you to change.”
“I feel naturely. Naturelike,” Dan said, “up in the house in Michigan. It’s the closest to a natural person I’ve ever been. It’s so quiet.”
“You’ve always been quiet.”
“My mouth has been quiet. My mind never was.”
“My mind still isn’t,” Fenn smiled a little.
“I miss being here.”
“You can always come back.”
“And you can always come up,” Dan said.
Fenn looked at him. Dan spoke had not spoken in anger, but in a tone of discovery.
“I never came to this place ‘cause it was so great. I came because you were here. You could always come up to visit me, you know?”
Before Fenn could open his mouth, Dan continued, “I know you’re busy. I know you have two children now. Though one of them is pretty grown and pretty capable. But you can come and see me.”
“I will go back with you,” Fenn said, simply.
“What?”
“I will go back with you and Keith for a few days. I will bring Thackeray with me. Part of me thinks it’s very silly to have adopted a child who stays with Tom half the time. But, if I’m going to be his father, then I had better be his father. I will bring him with me.”
“Will Tom like it?”
“I don’t care. I never did. That’s probably one reason we didn’t work out. Yes. We’ll go up. And… Be natural.”
Ahead of them the trees marched crown after green crown, and through them Fenn and Dan could see the little houses. The sky was very blue. Everything was so perfect, and things were rarely perfect.
“I have never known how to describe you,” Fenn said.
Dan touched his hand. “Do you have much cause to describe me?”
“To myself,” Fenn explained. “In my journal. In the journal in my head. Todd I can describe. Tom, yes. You…. I have never gotten a hold of you.”
“I’m the Holy Ghost.”
“What?”
“In your trinity, I’m the Holy Ghost.”
“You are so strange.”
“Todd’s the Son. I guess Tom would be the Father—literally—and if you can’t get a hold around me I’m the Holy Spirit. I’ve said that three times, so I should probably confess or something.”
Dan began laughing to himself. He was still sweet faced and sparkly eyed. Well, he wasn’t very old. He was the same age as Fenn. Fenn realized:
Dan is the only man I ever let go.
He hadn’t let Tom go. He had stopped living with Tom years ago, but Tom was still a part of his life. He had raised his children. And Todd was the one who had come to him. Maybe one very dark and inconceivable day he would have to let Todd go too, but Dan was the only person who, when he was full of love for him, he had given up.
“What’s wrong?” Dan asked. “You’ve got that look in your eyes.”
Fenn turned from him.
“It’s only that I’m very stupid. This whole… I don’t know who you are to me. Of course I know.”
Instead of denying it, Dan said, “Still?”
“It was never meant to be permanent. Something always came to interrupt it. We always belonged to something else, or someone else. Adultery is such a simple thing. I’ve seen it. I don’t want to be with you, I want to be with you instead. Or, I want both of you because I am selfish. Guilt is simple too. But to belong to someone, or something, the way a foot belongs to the leg… To belong one place and love another, to love one thing and also love another, two kinds of loves, two very true loves. That was always how it was with us.
“My friendship with you is my love for you, and that love has been a testing ground. With Todd my test was coming to him, picking the love up he offered. With you the test was letting go.”
Dan smiled at Fenn a little painfully, and Fenn said, “You let me ramble and you say nothing.”
Dan shook his head.
“It wasn’t rambling. It was everything.”
Maia Meradan, now properly called Maia Anderson, barged into her father’s office and said, “Dad, we have to talk.”
Todd was sitting in his easy chair, smoking a cigarette and not even pretending to edit when he put the cigarette down and looked up at his daughter.
“Now, we have to talk?” he said. “We have to talk now? After you walk into my house with Bennett Anderson and tell the whole family you all ran off and got married.”
Maia frowned and said, “Well, when you put it that way…”
“There isn’t another way to put it. Your mother and I are—surely you knew when you did this—you—” Todd kept starting and stumbling as he stood up. Her father wore old jeans with holes in them and a ragged sweater that smelled of cigarette ash.
“You knew we wouldn’t support it.”
Maia took a very deep breath and then she said, “Of course I knew.”
Todd had not expected such a bald admission, and now he asked her, “What was it that I or your mother did that caused this?”
Maia looked at Todd strangely.
“You didn’t do anything. This doesn’t have anything to do with you. Or Mom.”
Todd looked at her now.
“That’s why I didn’t call and I didn’t ask. Why? So I can have my overly protective father and my two lesbian mothers tell me marrying Bennett’s not a good idea, and he can have his family say the same thing. And then, in the end, I’d either make you see it my way—which probably wouldn’t have happened—or just do what I wanted, which is marry Bennett.”
While Todd stood before his daughter, his brows furrowed in a frown not so much of disapproval as the attempt to understand. Maia continued, “I did not ask you because even though I love you, it was not your decision to make. It was mine.”
Todd opened his mouth, but Maia put her hand up gently.
“And if it was the wrong decision, if it was a mistake, then again, it was mine, Dad. Not Mom’s, not yours. If it shocked you, I am sorry. If it offended you, then I’m sorry too. But I don’t see that it could have been done any other way.”
Todd was about to say that he did, but he also knew that this would have sent the conversation into one of those spirals his mother used to put him through. As much as he loved her, long after the matter was settled, she’d have to have the last word, or the last thousands words, spiraling around and around on a subject that was already past. Maia was married. This subject was past.
Maia did not smoke, and in her head she knew the smell of cigarette smoke was unpleasant. But to her, the smell of cigarettes on her father was Todd at rest, in his house, deep in carcinogenic thoughts. This sweater, heavy with acrid tobacco, he only wore in the house, and hardly washed. It was, in a way she thought would have looked silly in print, the smell of love.
She hugged her father, and the tall man put his chin on the top of her head, wrapping his arms around her.
“You do need to talk to your mother, though,” he said.
“I know,” Maia admitted. “I’m sort of dreading it.”
Todd nodded and squeezed her reassuringly, but what he said was:
“You should.”
Layla was on her back reading the pages Brendan had written so far.
“Don’t hover,” she murmured.
“How can you even tell I’m here?”
“I have eyes. I have five senses. Stop hovering.”
She took the page she was reading and put it behind the others.
“Before you go to bed, get me a glass of juice too. I’m going to be up a while.”
Brendan thought Layla looked like a literary possum. As she perched upside down on her sofa, he went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of juice, setting it on the coffee table.
“You know I never drink coffee at that table,” Layla mused, not changing positions. “We should call it a juice table.
“Now,” Layla continued, “I really like this story. Not that it matters.”
“Of course it does.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Layla insisted.
“The thing about this boy is he’s really brave of you. I’m not saying it is you, but when you write something it reveals you in a way. And you revealed a lot.
“When you started with him, he was boring. I didn’t say it, but he was boring. And he was frustrating too.”
Now Layla turned over, her hair sticking out at angles, but her voice maintained its stately timbre.
“You weren’t doing your best with him. You weren’t revealing.”
Layla yawned.
“I’m actually not going to bed. I’m going to sit up and keep reading. But you should go. Sheridan and Raphael have been waiting. I hope you like the room. We haven’t had guests in a long time.”
“It’s a great room. You’re a great friend,” Brendan added.
“Yes,” Layla agreed.
He stooped and kissed her, and then headed to bed.
After Brendan was gone, Will came out from their bedroom and Layla looked up at him.
“Yes?”
“You coming to bed?”
“Eventually.”
Will looked very thoughtful. He nodded, and then he sat down beside his wife, pushing his hair out of his face.
“I feel I should talk to Brendan.”
“You’ve talked to him all night.”
“I think I should talk to him again.”
Layla gave Will a very patient gaze.
“You’re getting strange.”
“We should talk about sex.”
“Really?”
“Just trust me,” Will said, standing up and then going down the hall.
Layla looked down the hall for a moment, but in the end decided she wasn’t interested enough in whatever Will was about to do, and so she went back to reading.
Will tapped lightly on the guestroom door and, a moment later, Brendan and Sheridan, both in tee shirts and pajama pants, answered.
“What’s up?” Sheridan asked him.
Will took them both in a bear hug, whispering, “I love you guys.”
“Alright?” Brendan muffled, his mouth pressed to Will’s shoulder.
“It’s just… It’s only…” Will began, “I know that when you first got together it was awkward for me. My best friend in the whole world, my little brother,” he touched Sheridan’s cheek.
Sheridan and Brendan looked at each other warily while Will continued.
“And I am not stupid. I’m not. And I don’t think the whole world should revolve around me, and the two of you are the kindest, most caring men in the world, you really are meant for each other—”
“Will, what the hell are you getting at?” Sheridan demanded.
“Only… Well, Sheridan, I’m getting at sex.”
“Oh, my God,” Brendan’s eyes darted to his sleeping son, and he moved out of the room with Sheridan, who shut the door behind them.
“I mean,” Will continued, “I don’t ever want the two of you to hold back. I’ve been thinking about it. I love you guys so much, and I remember the way you were with Kenny—and you with Chay. And Logan. Very spirited. And I want you all to be free to express yourselves in this house. That’s what I’m saying.”
Will looked very earnest. Sheridan and Brendan frowned.
“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Sheridan murmured.
“I think,” Brendan said, “that I want to pretend this conversation never took place.”
“I’m just saying,” Will said, quickly, “don’t be afraid to have loud sex in the house. It’s totally cool!”
“We have a three year old,” Brendan said. “Sleeping between us.”
“Well, then quiet sex,” Will amended. He hugged them quickly.
“Cause I love you guys, and I love that you guys love each other.”
And then Will turned around, leaving the two men to stare after him, their arms crossed over their chests.
“That was…” Brendan began.
“My brother’s a fucking freak show,” Sheridan said, taking Brendan’s hand, “Let’s go to bed.”
In the bedroom, Raphael opened his eyes and said, “Dads?”
“Yes?” Sheridan jumped onto the bed beside his son.
“Quitesex!” Raphael clapped his hands.
“Quit what?” Sheridan began.
Raphael demanded: “What’s Quitesex?”
“Oh, you mean quiet sex?” Brendan said absently, then put his hand to his mouth.
“Quitesex,” Sheridan said, “Is what won’t be happening until we get back to Chicago.”
“Hey!” Raphael laughed, tapping their heads under the covers. “Whatchu guys doin’?”
Brendan and Sheridan stopped, wide eyed, in the midst of what they were doing, which was discreetly fooling around with each other while their child slept.
“Waking your dad up,” Brendan lied merrily. “Get up sleepy head.” He thumped Sheridan on the head.
Raphael climbed up closer and echoed this, thumping Sheridan gently and whispering, “Wake up sleepy head.”
When the boy was done with this, businesslike, he planted his head on the pillow and told Sheridan, “I have to pee.”
Sheridan climbed out of the bed, reaching for his boxers, pulled them on, and took the little boy up in his arms.
“Daddy has to whiz too. Let’s make that happen.”
When they’d first adopted Raphael, Sheridan had told Brendan, “I have a big brother and a father. Trust me. He learns to pee by watching you.”
“I’m not doing that,” Brendan said, flatly.
So in the mini bathroom Sheridan peed while he sat the little boy on his potty and told Raphael, “When you get big enough to do this, remember aim straight even at seven in the morning. And if you don’t—”
“Clean it up!”
“Right. Because?”
“The ladies don’t like it.”
“And by ladies,” Sheridan said, “I mean your father.”
When he was with Logan, Logan pissed loudly, with the door open after sex. Or early in the morning. Brendan didn’t believe in that at all. Of course neither had Chay.
“Bren,” Sheridan said, returning to the bedroom and straddling Brendan while Raphael toddled back in. “Remember what Will said last night?”
“I remember what he said last night, and I remember how I feel this morning. But I really, really, can’t do that in this house.”
