“Why did you do this? Why did you think it was a good idea?” Dylan demanded.
“And this is supposed to be the happiest day of the year! Well,” Dylan thought about it, “one of them.”
“I’ve been doing some reading,” Thackeray said, sitting down on the bed. “And you’re supposed to get up and take a bath before sunrise tomorrow, and then that day celebrates when Krishna defeated a demon who ruined the whole world. And I also think that after that, you make an image—and effigy—which is not to be confused with an apogee, that’s something else altogether—and then you burn it.”
“Thack, what’s your point?”
“My point is it’s time to let the demons go.”
Dylan looked at his brother.
“I didn’t even know I felt this way,” he said. “I didn’t know I was this angry. And now I’ve embarrassed myself in front of my whole family.”
“You have not,” Thackeray said. “Honestly, they probably wonder why you didn’t get angry at her a long time ago.”
“Look,” Dylan said. “I’m so confused. I LOVE our dads. I love our family. And we’re brothers. We have the same mom. She’s part of us, I mean.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Thackeray said, “we actually have the same natural father. He’s part of us too.”
“All of those years,” Dylan began, “when you didn’t have any parents at all. All of that time, and you still… forgive her.”
“I honestly don’t think of her,” Thackeray said.
“I’m not like you,” he continued. “I was brought up with people who didn’t have parents, and she never existed for me, so I didn’t really think about her. Why would I? She wasn’t around. When she turned up she was my way out, and I knew she wasn’t going to be around for long. I knew she was sick. I knew in her head she’d never been quite right. By the time she had me she told me about you. She was proud of you. She always knew what you were doing. So, I thought about you. And she said you had parents who would be my parents. So… that’s where my mind is. And really, now I just think of this sad woman who couldn’t get anything together. She could have just decided not to have either one of us. We’d be frozen embryos somewhere. Or—and this is he worst thing—she could have kept us!”
Dylan, whose eyes had been tearing for a while now, suddenly burst out laughing.
“Oh, God,” Thackeray shook his head. “Can you imagine? And all we would have known for family is Aunt Meg, and she’s okay, but I like the way things turned out.”
Dylan hugged his brother.
“What’s that for?” Thackeray whispered, having a very hard time breathing in Dylan’s embrace.
Dylan rocked him back and forth, unconscious of his physical strength or Thackeray’s inability to breathe.
“Where have you been my whole life?”
“Well,” Thackeray said, reasonably, “For the first six years I was frozen in a butter dish and then the last fifteen were spent in foster care.”
Dylan ignored this, and still crying, he just kept hugging his brother.
Dhan Teras night as many lights as could be safely left burning, burned. Tea lights and jar candles burned before Lakshmi. Little lamps, hung from the ceiling, gave their tiny sparks. In the kitchen and all through the house, candles were set up. Elias had changed the sheets in his room and aired the place out. He gave it to Fenn and Thackeray for the night. Midway through, Dylan climbed out of his large bed where Lance and Elias were and went to his father and Thackeray.
“It’s really beautiful in here,” Laurel said, her knees curled to her chest on the let out bed.
“I know,” Moshe said beside her. “We always go on about Christmas, but… This is something else.”
Then he said, “I have something for you.”
“Okay.”
Moshe leaned over and pulled something out of a bag. He presented a box to Laurel and opened it.
“There’s no better way to say this,” he began. “Would you marry me?”
“I don’t know,” Laurel said, simply.
“That was not what I was expecting.”
“I don’t think I want to be Jewish,” Laurel said. “That’s that.”
Moshe said nothing, and Laurel continued.
“Maia said even if I was Jewish I would never be a Jew. Or something like that. Even if I was white—”
“Oh, my God, are you serious?” Moshe said. “My family loves you. You know that.”
“Even if I was white,” Laurel continued, “I would have to pretend I was… you know, Ashkenazi. I would have to pretend to a culture that isn’t mine.”
“Of course you don’t have to. You’re just what you are—”
“But what I am,” Laurel said, “is not a Jew.”
“How do you know? You’re not a Christian. You don’t go to church.”
“God, that is the way you all think! It’s so tedious. For two thousand years you’ve been the people who aren’t Christians. The people who don’t believe in Jesus. Every time I show up to a synagogue or to a gathering Jesus is the three hundred pound Jew in the middle of the room no one talks about. I don’t want that either. I want to put up a Christmas tree. I… I don’t want to borrow your hang ups.”
“I have hang ups?”
“You wanted to wear a kipa while we were having sex. You have to rip the condoms open before sundown every Sabbath. We can’t touch light switches.”
Moshe frowned at her.
“I am so, so very sorry that my ways are such a burden for you.”
“It’s not even about that,” Laurel hissed. “And be quiet before you wake the house.
“It’s about your ways not being my ways. And about me needing to find my ways.”
Laurel hunkered back down in the covers.
“I’ve decided, Moshe. You’ll have to have me Gentile. Or not at all.”
“Are we supposed to pretend to not have heard that?” Dylan’s whispered.
“What are you all doing up?” Laurel shot up out of bed.
“It’s the second day of Divali,” Fenn replied coming into the living room. “Kali Chaudas. And we are about to bathe. Dylan first. Go in my boy.”
“I’ll be short.”
“Be short or long. Wake me when you’re done, and don’t forget to clean out the tub.”
Dylan nodded and departed while Fenn came to sit on the edge of the sofa bed.
“What is Kali Chaudas?” Moshe said.
“Satyabhama, the wife of Krishna, knew that a horrible demon wanted to kill him and destroy the world. Krishna was on his way to slay him, but she did the slaying herself and saved the universe. So on this day we remember the destruction of evil demons, the slaying of wickedness. We take a bath in oil water and are oiled afterward.”
“And you believe that?” Moshe said.
“You believe that a crabby old God who lived on the top of a mountain slew all the first born of Egypt and led your ancestors across the Red Sea?”
“I don’t really think about it. Being Jewish is just something we do.”
“And you wonder why it’s something my niece doesn’t?”
Laurel said, “It’s not about being Jewish. It’s about being anything. I don’t want to… just do something.”
“What else happens on Kali Chaudas?” Moshe said.
“People put on nice clothes and go and eat a lot, to celebrate that the demons have been overcome.”
“The demons are… bad things. Personified bad things?”
“The demons are demons.”
Moshe looked frustrated and said, “But… I mean, all the bad stuff in your life, all of the hard stuff. Is that demons?”
“If you already know then why are you asking?”
Moshe opened his mouth, but Fenn said, “If I say, yes the demons are personifications of misfortune and sorrow, depression and every bad thing, then that is to not take demons or gods or the holiday seriously. But if I say the demons are demons, the devil’s running around pulling our strings, well then that doesn’t take it seriously either. You see? You’re looking for A and B and the truth is C. I don’t know how to explain C.”
“But no matter what,” Moshe said, “bad things will come again. I mean, there’s no conquering the demons once and for all.”
“No,” Fenn agreed. “When one goes, more return. That’s the way of life.”
I WANT SOMEBODY to hold my hand
somebody to love me
and understand
i want a woman
i want a lover
i want a friend
a woman, a lover, a friend
Fenn was barefoot in a platter of flour while Jackie Wilson sang. He had begun to walk across the carpet and stopped to say, “Me and your Aunt sang this song all the time.”
He said it to Dylan, and then turned to Laurel and said, “Your aunt too.”
He began padding across the carpet, leaving the powdered footprints of Lakshmi all over the house. As poetry it made sense to walk all the way up to the altar, and he put his hands together, rang the bell, and then nodded.
“I thought you were a Sam Cooke man,” Dylan said.
“Most of the time,” Fenn acknowledged. “But this is one hell of a song.”
There was a tap on the door and Lance answered it.
“Hey, Bren.”
“Happy Devali,” Brendan said, bearing Raphael by the hand.
“Where’s your partner?” Dylan asked.
“Sheridan went down to Kenny’s art show, and I’m headed down there myself.”
“We should go,” Thackeray said to his father.
“It’s not in Rossford,” Brendan told him. “It’s out south of Wheaton. Jonathan knows someone who knows someone and—”
“He got Kenny a show?” Dylan concluded.
“He did not GET Kenny a show,” Brendan said, still a little defensive of his old lover after all of these years. “Someone saw what Kenny did and liked it. Jonathan didn’t say much of anything to encourage it because he knows Kenny’s proud. But he got him exposure, and that’s what he needs if anyone outside of Rossford is ever going to see him.
“Raphael, tell Dylan what I taught you.”
The brown little boy threw his hands up in the air and cried:
“Happy Dwali!”
“Close enough,” Dylan clapped his hands. “If you’re here to see Dad, him and Thackeray are headed back in a few minutes.”
“Ouch,” Bren said.
He headed to Elias’s room, where he released Raphael’s hand and opened his suitcase to pull out a thick binder.
“Fenn, this is for you.”
“Eh?”
“It’s the book,” Bren said. “The way I think it’s going to be.”
“Now Bren, you know that you could have emailed this.”
Brendan shook his head.
“I don’t believe in that.”
“Well, in that case I’ll read this on the train. The ride is forever. What happened to Merell?”
“You’ll find out when you finish reading.” Brendan smiled.
“He and Jackson remind me of you and Ken. Or Me and Tom for that matter.”
“I was thinking about that,” Brendan said. “About how one thing ends, but the love stays. And I’ll just say right now, Jackson ends up happy.”
“Ends up happy or ends up not single?”
“I think in my mind the two were the same,” Brendan admitted.
“Maybe I’m just telling too much. Exposing that I don’t know how to be alone. All I know is Kenny loves Jonathan. It’s amazing. I never thought I’d be okay with him loving someone the way he loved me. Now I see it when they’re together. It makes me happy.”
“I believe that’s called a full circle,” Thackeray pronounced, his hands behind his back.
“Are you eavesdropping?” Fenn asked him.
“Not at all, Sir,” he and Fenn were the same height. “I was just here, and you just kept talking.”
While Fenn coughed on a laugh, Thackeray told Brendan, “Tonight, we’re going to Dr. Bryant’s concert. He’s directing the Regional Symphony in Bach’s Passion of Saint Matthew.”
“Yes, I forgot about that,” Fenn murmured. “I suppose I should catch a nap and then ask Todd to find me something nice to wear.”
They headed back into the living room.
“Is Dad as good a musician as Bryant?” Thackeray said.
“Sure he is,” Dylan insisted, but Fenn said, “You have a great musical gift, and so does your brother. It comes from Tom. You’ve played with him. You think of him as a very sweet, very dear man, and he is. But when your father was only a little older than Dylan, he played concerts in Europe. Your father would never tell you this, but he is a very great musician. He once composed an entire score in his head on a train ride. That’s the thing about geniuses, they never know they are.”
Fenn had said this whole speech so calmly, with such matter of factness that suddenly Dylan knew why Tom had asked him to adopt both of his children.
On their way out the door, Dylan asked his father, “Have you ever told Dad all that? What you just said?”
“If Elias said the same thing about you would you believe it?”
“Elias never lies.”
“But would you believe it?”
“He wouldn’t say it. He might think it. But he wouldn’t say it.”
“Because it wouldn’t sound right. But if someone told you he said it… That would be different. That’s the relationship I have always had with your father. To him I was always the brilliant one. Tom has always had a hard time believing in his own brilliance. He never believed it when I told him how great he was. But… if he wasn’t what I said he was, then why would I have loved him?”
No matter how often he heard it, Tom always held his breath through the crescendo until the explosive:
Wir setzen uns mit Tränen
nieder Und rufen dir im Grabe zu
Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh, Ruhe sanfte,
sanfte ruh!
Under the sonic boom of the orchestra, Tom heard the tinny sound of it playing in Bryant’s room when he came to Rossford and the two of them began their affair, making love in his bed on that hot summer afternoon.
Sanfte, sanfte ruht! Slatt, der Seelen
Ruhstatt sein Höchst vergnügt,
höchst vergnügt Schlummern da
die Augen ein
There was Bryant, aged fifty three, still tall, still handsome, his arms spread like wings. Beside Tom sat Fenn. Fenn had brought the sheaf of papers that was Brendan’s novel and, Fenn like, had been reading it for the last hour. But right now he put it down to listen to the singing, the strong music that fell into sadness. How sad, Tom thought, like the time when he had invited Bryant over and this very music began to play. Their cheeks went red, their secret music made public, and then Fenn had said, “I always loved this piece.” And Tom remembered it had been his long before it had been theirs.
We lay ourselves with weeping, prostrate
And cry to thee within the tomb:
Rest thou gently, gently rest!
Rest, O ye exhausted members!
This your tomb and this tombstone
Shall for ev’ry anguished conscience
Be a pillow of soft comfort
And the spirit’s place of rest.
Most content, slumber here the eyes in rest.
“Dad,” Dylan had spoken to him that afternoon. “You should have heard what Dad said about you before he and Thackeray left.”
That Fenn really believed that… but he did. But… Tom could never accept it. He never believed that Fenn understood him, let alone revered him. How different would things have been if he had been able to believe in how much Fenn loved him? Ah, but it wasn’t worth wondering about now.
When the music ended, when Bryant’s hands fell, there was a hush. Beside Tom, Chad sat still, not blinking through his spectacles, with the terrible concentration of a lover.
Then the applause began, and when they began to stand Tom waited a while before leaning next to Fenn and saying:
“Are you crying?”
“Yes,” Fenn said. “A little. I can’t tell where this song ends and this book begins. Or where our lives are in it.”
Chad clapped louder, signaling that they should too and everyone did. But Tom said, “What do you mean?”
“When I was young I thought this piece was about Jesus. When I was not as young, I thought it was about Catholic guilt. Now I know it is about life. The happiness. The passion is all here. Here in this music, here in Brendan’s book. Because it was here in us. It always was.”
WHEN WE RETURN, THE FINAL PART OF OUT FINAL CHAPTER, TO BE FOLLOWED BY THE EPILOGUE
