Fenn and Tom were officially together by that winter. “Not too long a time at all,” Adele said. Her pregnancy was growing rounder and rounder alongside Nell’s. Kevin was rarely at home. He was always taking Todd and Todd’s friends on trips, and Adele commented that this was strange for winter.
“I don’t understand how the Boy Scouts work,” Mrs. Meradan said. “All I know is, isn’t it good to have Todd finally out and doing some things with friends?”
“He was always sort of lonely,” Fenn remarked.
“But he always liked you,” Mrs. Meradan laughed, pointing her fork at Fenn and then using it to cut her meat.
“Well, I like Todd too,” Fenn said. “But boys need someone their age.”
Nell shrugged. “And now he’s got a whole Scout troop.
“But look,” she continued, “it’s not the whole middle of the winter thing that’s odd to me. It’s Todd getting up to do anything in the middle of the winter. I mean, he is the most un-Boy Scoutly Boy Scout I’ve ever known.”
Fenn chuckled and told Tom: “You haven’t met him yet, but when he gets back you probably will. Then you can see how un-Scoutly or not Todd is.”
“My grandfather taught us all to hunt and fish,” Tom said. “He used to put his hand in the water and pull fish out. I was never able to do that.”
“Mr. Mesda,” Tara said, sitting next to a friend she’d brought for dinner, “you are a study in contrasts.”
“Well, now I didn’t say that I could pull a fish out of the water with my hands.”
“Well, then how do you like to fish?” Mrs. Meradan asked him.
Tom grinned and put his fork down.
“At the grocery store, Ma’am.”
Adele joined them in the old study of the Meradan house while Nell helped her mother wash dishes.
“You are beautiful,” Adele told the Mexican girl who’d come with Tara.
“Thank you,” she extended her hand. “I am Amelia.”
“Does Nell’s mother know we’re lesbians?” Tara asked, taking out her cigarettes, remembering Adele’s belly, and then putting them back.
“She doesn’t even know Fenn is gay.
“Heck, I didn’t even really know I was gay till a few months ago.” Tom said.
“But you know now?” Adele said, half mocking. “Otherwise you and my brother are going to have a very difficult relationship.”
Amelia chuckled right next to Tara and placed her head on the other woman’s shoulder.
“No,” Tom said with a smile, “I am definitely, definitely not straight, and you know what?” he said to Fenn. “We’ve definitely, definitely got to get a real place at the end of the school year.”
Fenn blinked at him.
“Or was that too soon?” Tom said.
“Hell, yeah it was too soon!” Tara said. Next to her, Amelia said, “We’re dykes and even we know it’s too soon.”
“I just hadn’t really thought about it,” was what Fenn said. “It does make a lot more sense than you coming to my tiny dorm room every night.”
“Well part of it is how much I want us to be together,” Tom admitted. “The other part is how much I don’t want to live in a dormitory anymore.”
“I guess I always thought I would go home for the summer and figure out something in the fall,” Fenn admitted. “But… if you’ve already thought about it, then there’s no need.”
He looked at Tom. “You’re right. At the end of the year let’s get a place.”
“Don’t you want to come and see the apartment with me?”
Tom asked this question a few days before graduation when he was helping Fenn pack, and he had asked this question a few times earlier.
“Since you’re going to be paying for it,” Fenn said, “and since I’m not going to have a job for a while, doesn’t it make more sense if you find what you like?”
“I don’t care about that,” Tom declared. “In the end it’s going to be both of us.”
Fenn didn’t feel right about helping to pick out an apartment he wasn’t paying rent on, and what was more, he didn’t feel right about paying rent because he had planned to stay with his family for some time. This was Tom’s idea, let Tom’s wallet take care of it.
He stopped in the middle of taping a box, though, and said, “When do you want me to come with you?”
“Tomorrow afternoon? When I get off work?”
There was so much hope in Tom’s face that Fenn could not say no.
“I really like it,” Tom said, walking around the place. Hardwood floors, large windows. The apartment was in an old brick building off of Edison in view of Saint Agatha’s, the rival church to Fenn’s: Saint Barbara’s. The walls were beautifully white, and the kitchen was large.
“I can do wonders in here,” Fenn said, walking in and touching the black counter top. He opened the refrigerator. It worked.
“We’ll take it,” Tom said to the lady, wrapping a possessive arm around Fenn’s waist. It shocked him. Tom never hid the nature of his relationship with Fenn, and he could tell by Tom’s command, by the way he wrapped his arm about Fenn’s waist, that Tom was the husband in this relationship, which made Fenn the wife. His whole family was made of wives. He didn’t mind that. The idea of taking Tom’s shoes off and rubbing his feet, of taking care of a man, thrilled Fenn more than he wished to admit.
Graduation led to a huge party. Maisy was there with Barb and Bob Affren, and Trisha came to the house before leaving town.
“Are you still trying out for that play in Chicago?” he asked her.
“Oh, hell yes.”
“You’re going to let me know when try outs are?”
“I told you I would.”
“Tom,” Fenn called his boyfriend over. “This is my cousin, Lee.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Tom offered his hand. While Lee took it, Tom looked from one cousin to the other.
“You all sort of look a like. But not really.”
“I’m the writer. Fenn’s the actor,” Lee said.
“We divided it up,” Fenn said with a smile. “Just like that. Lee is starting to write plays.”
Tom laughed and said, “I love plays. Maybe you’ll come and visit more often.”
Fenn made a face.
“Lee never comes here,” Fenn explained. “He hardly ever stays anywhere. It’s incredibly doubtful you’ll ever see him again.”
“Well, it’s that damn Lemonade.”
“Lemonade?” Tom said.
“His boyfriend,” Fenn said.
“You say it like you’d be above it, but I know you’d fuck him if you could.”
Tom’s eyes went wide at that bit of frankness but Fenn said, “Fuck and live with are two very different things.”
“Damn!”
Tom turned around to see Adele waddling. She wrapped an arm around Tom and said, “It’s great you could make it, Tommy. You get some food? He’s so thin,” she commented.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Tom said, and Adele continued, “This is a great party for my baby brother. Only thing is I wish I could driiiiiiiink—”
And then her voice wound into a sort of siren scream, and she clutched Tom’s shoulder painfully while Fenn and Lee looked at each other in panic.
“Oh, my goodness! Oh, my God!” Anne started, coming to fan her daughter. “What’s happening?”
Adele clutched Fenn now, ass sticking out, panting. But it was Todd who put his drink down, picked up the phone and said, dispassionately, “She’s in labor.”
“Oh, I hope she’s alright!” Tom paced up and down the hall.
Fenn looked up at him with a bemused smile and said, “She’s not dying, she’s having a baby.”
“You were a big help,” Tom said to Todd.
The skinny kid shrugged and said, “Everyone was really stressing out.” He added, “Black people are supposed to be so cool about everything.”
“You need to watch less TV,” Lee said.
“I don’t watch TV. I was reading James Baldwin.”
Lee had nothing to say to this, but only folded his arms over his chest and walked to the other side of the room. Tom sat down beside Fenn, still excited.
“I’ve never been to an actual birth.”
“I never thought an actual birth would occur on my graduation.”
“Maybe we should go back and get some cake?” Todd suggested.
Tom looked at him like he was insane.
“Half the family’s in the next room,” Todd said, “And it’s not like us sitting here is going to make the baby come any faster.”
Tom still looked shocked by the boy’s insensitivity, but Fenn seemed to be considering this, and then he reached into his pocket and handed Todd his keys.
“I cannot walk out on my sister’s labor, but you can go back to the house and get cake.”
“No, he can’t,” Tom pointed out. “He can’t drive.”
“I can too drive!”
“Not legally,” Tom and Lee pointed out together, then looked at each other.
“Oh, that’s right,” Fenn remembered and took away the promised keys while Todd’s green eyes went wide with the unfairness of it all.
“Lee, would you drive this boy back to get some cake?” Fenn said.
“It’s not really important,” Todd sat down beside Fenn. So skinny, all arms and hairy legs, even at fourteen Todd was taller than Fenn. “I just wanted to make some noise.”
“You are a worrisome ass kid,” Lee muttered, but Fenn shrugged. He’d always had a special place in his heart for the boy.
“I just want to point out,” Todd said, “that I am fifteen, not fourteen anymore, and soon I’ll be sixteen.”
“Well, today you’re fiftee—” Lee began, but just then the doors flew open and Hoot Lawden, head sweating, came out and announced, “It’s a girl!”
Todd smiled and said, “Well, then it’s a Layla.”
“Oh, and you should have seen how Hoot was,” Adele said while she held the sleeping baby in her arms. “He was so wonderful.”
“Which is a surprise,” Lula added, “seeing as he’s hardly ever around.”
“Grandma, not now,” Adele said. “He works so hard.”
Lula dismissed this. “For all we know, as much as we see that man he could have a secret life. A whole other family on the other side of town.”
Adele laughed at this, but then she called Fenn over.
“Little Brother, this is your niece. Come over and say hi to Layla Renee. Hold her.”
“I don’t know how to hold babies.”
His mother scooped up the child and said, “You do it like this. Get your hand here. Right. And do your arms like this. See? See.”
A smile broke out across his face.
“Hello,” he said to her. “You smell good.”
She was the color of a chocolate bar and above her small and serious face was a mat of curling black hair just plastered to her head. She was Buddha like in her sleep, and her fat hands were folded into little fist.
“Oh, I feel like we’re going to be very good friends,” he rocked her. “You know, I never had much to do with babies, but I think we’ll be birds of a feather.”
He kissed her on the top of her head and on her nose.
“Oh, that’s my baby,” he whispered to her. “That’s my graduation present.”
What Anne made of Fenn living with Tom, her son could not say. Anne Houghton was not insightful, and Fenn was not one to explain. Fenn had gotten permission from the school to leave the bulk of his things in his room until he moved in with Tom, seeing as the apartment was close to the school and it made little sense to lug them from his dorm to the Houghton house and then back to Tom’s apartment.
The day that Tom arrived with his younger brother, Ryan, to pick Fenn up for the move, it was hardly eight in the morning and he had not shaven. Adele was at the house that morning with Layla, having just fed her daughter, in fact, and Lula commented to Tom, “It’s just like I said, Hoot is never around.” But she did it out of Adele’s earshot. She knew better.
Tom and Ryan got sausage and Danish to take with them, and Fenn got a kiss on the cheek, and then they were off to campus. After Fenn packed his room into Tom’s car and then his mother’s, he handed his key back to Marcus, the head of housing, and then the two cars pulled down the driveway and Fenn looked back at the brick buildings and the water fountain roaring in front of the church.
“You almost ran me over with your bicycle there,” Tom said.
“It’s hard to believe it’s all over,” Fenn said, wistfully.
“Speak for yourself,” Tom told him. “I gotta go to work Monday morning.”
