by Rachel Kane
“Give me an hour,” said Liam. “I still need to check into the motor lodge and unpack.”
A handshake didn’t seem good enough, not at all. Mason was such a welcome sight, with his crooked grin and untended hair, the t-shirt that was coming untucked. He needed a hug, something tight, the kind that squeezed his chest until his ribs creaked. Having Roo in one arm made that a little complicated, and Liam and Mason both laughed at the awkward one-arm hug they managed before entering the Red Cat.
“It’s good to see you again,” said Liam.
“Yeah…I kind of thought I wouldn’t get to. Kind of thought I’d seen the last of you.”
Then why didn’t you message me, why didn’t you—
No time for that, not with Renee’s siren-of-love from the other side of the diner. “Oh my stars, Liam Cooper, did you bring back your baby? You come here right now and let me visit with that child!”
“Congratulations,” whispered Mason, “you’re now her favorite person.”
“Look at those cheeks!” said Renee. “Have you ever seen anything so special? Oh, hon, I missed this little bundle of love. I was telling Bobby how sad I am that nobody has babies right now! Patricia is still three months off, and Debra looks like she’s going to have her twins at any minute, but it has been ages since anybody brought a real live baby into the Red Cat! Do you like ice cream, baby? Can she have ice cream? Is there anything she can’t have? Any allergies? I can have everything scrubbed down—”
When he could actually get a word in, Liam said, “No allergies! And she loves ice cream…but just a taste, otherwise she’ll get a stomachache and I’ll be hearing about it all night.”
With the care and determination of a lioness taking one of her cubs, Renee removed Roo from Liam’s arm. Roo cackled in delight, reaching for one of the big red earrings dangling from Renee’s lobe.
The two men watched them go. “Well, that should buy us a couple minutes,” said Liam.
“That’s all I need,” said Mason.
“A couple minutes? That’s not very promising,” said Liam, but the sudden worry on Mason’s face made the joke fall flat.
“I ran into Justin,” he said. “He told me his mom has given you an offer on the house, and look, I know I have no right to say anything, it’s not mine, it has nothing to do with me, but I had to ask if you’d rethink things a little, because once she has it—”
“Wait, wait,” Liam said, a little jarred that they were back to talking about the house, instead of catching up and talking about all the other things going on in their lives. Didn’t he have anything else going on in his? He thought back, but those few days back in the city had been a monotonous blur, work and home and work and home. “I haven’t made any decisions at all. And I really resented Violet showing up at my place like that, uninvited. She’s creepy as hell.”
Mason’s smile was as welcome as it was wicked. His shoulders shifted, as though he’d been doing a fireman’s-carry of his concerns, and had just dropped them off, safe and sound. Every movement seemed to emphasize him in physical space, in the reality that existed apart from Liam’s various worries and problems. Notice me, his body seemed to say, and Liam couldn’t help but notice.
As a dad, he’d developed certain reflexes, like always knowing where Roo was at any given moment. Little cues, the way her padding across the room sounded different on carpet (shush, shush of her knees against the fibers) and the kitchen floor (pat, pat, with an added sibilance from sticky hands), or the little hitch in her breath when she saw something that interested her. No matter where she was in the apartment, he knew, and part of his mind was always making sure she was in the right place, where he expected her.
Now, somehow, Mason had come into that radar field, pinging like a little light on Liam’s screen, and Liam was aware of him in a way he just wasn’t aware of anyone else. Every little movement, noted and cataloged and filed away for later perusal. Even during this brief silence, the way Mason reached a hand up to the back of his neck, the way his index finger curled slightly as he touched some spot Liam couldn’t see from here, it was an encyclopedia, a library, and Liam had the urge to study it, to wonder what it meant, this careless little gesture that didn’t mean anything yet captivated his attention.
“I guess I thought that’s why you came back,” Mason said, a sudden bashfulness in his tone. “The way Justin talked—”
Liam shook his head. “Nope. Not the reason.”
“Then why…?”
Oh. Liam looked down at the table, hoping he hadn’t blushed again. Hoping the need he felt wasn’t evident on his face. Because there’s nothing worse, there’s nothing that says needy quite so much as driving several hours in hopes of a hook-up. At least he could truthfully say the other reason he was here, and wouldn’t have to mention how he’d thought of Mason so much, every moment he was away. Because that was ridiculous. You couldn’t say that to someone. You’d run them off.
When he worked up the nerve to look up again, he saw that Mason’s unfinished question still hung between them, a little strand of conversational spider-silk that wasn’t going to go away.
“It’s so complicated,” he said. “My dad…” He gave Mason the briefest explanation he could, so as not to drag him into the dark recesses of the family history, the confusion and the questions that had plagued them since Dad’s death. He mentioned only the refusal of the inheritance, and the search for an explanation of that refusal. No mention of the death itself. No mention of the cause.
An old man in a paper hat and messy white apron approached, his step shuffling but sure. His interruption was a relief. “Renee tol’ me to take your orders, so she could play with that baby some more.”
16
Mason
To feel possessive of Liam and his time was decadent and foolish, and Mason knew how wrong it was. Yet he slipped into it like pulling up clean sheets and blankets in the dead of winter, a little cave of safety and warmth. The simplest equation of all: Liam with all his secrets was for Mason to figure out, not for Justin Fucking Mulgrew.
That date he’d been on not too long ago, with that guy up in Corinth, had been the opposite of this conversation. The guy had wanted to tell him everything. A complete display of his life and opinions, like a merchant putting all his wares out for his customers to see…or like the little clipboard they put up on the cages at the animal shelter, with everything they knew about the poor dogs inside, hoping to be adopted. The words and stories had tumbled out in such volumes that they became obstacles, stones for tripping over, walls instead of roads.
Here, by contrast, was Liam, a man who was careful of everything he said, and the deprivation of chatter made Mason desperate to hear more. These little hints spoke to some larger mystery: What had happened to his father? What had happened to the husband? Why was there a sadness in Liam’s eyes, even when he smiled and laughed? Where did that wariness come from?
Neither had had much appetite, and when Mason suggested a walk, Liam readily agreed. They retrieved Roo from a reluctant Renee (”You bring that baby back to me anytime you like!”), and Mason admired the quick, masterful way Liam maneuvered a washcloth, turning Roo from a sticky mess into a pink-cheeked beauty again. Then she was in her stroller with her book and her animals, and they were going for a walk like… Like the walks couples took, like people who didn’t have to hide what they were. Just two men and a baby, out for a stroll.
They’d pass people, friendly people, folks Mason had known all his life, and there would be smiles all around, and brief introductions, and curious looks as well, as though people couldn’t quite put together what Mason was doing walking with this newcomer.
He could pretend—almost—that his life could be like this. A life where people knew this central fact about him, this thing as basic to him as his shoe size or his hair color, but hidden from the world.
“What’s… Okay, I have a dumb question,” he said. “What’s it like…being you?”
Liam’s
laugh was sharp and startled. “Is this an interview? Are you writing my biography?”
“No, no, I mean… God, how to put this?” He looked around, and they were far enough down the road that nobody was around. “To be open. You’re gay. You don’t try to hide it. What’s that like?”
He wasn’t sure he liked the way Liam stiffened next to him. The distance between them didn’t grow; Liam didn’t suddenly aim the stroller at a different angle, but it felt like there was extra space between them that hadn’t been there before.
“You’re not out?” Liam asked.
“Not completely, no.”
“I mean, you either are or you aren’t.”
“A few people know. Very few. So I guess I’m like, nine-tenths out—”
“No. That’s not the way it works. Coming out isn’t an event. In fact, coming out is really a bad term for it, the way it suggests a one-time thing. It’s an approach. It’s just saying, you refuse to let the world force you into a lie. But why are you still in the closet? You, of all people! You’re so damn confident, getting up on roofs and stuff—”
Mason shook his head. “Nah, it’s not a matter of confidence.”
Did it worry him a little, the way Liam’s voice had become stronger, breathless, as though they’d entered a topic he had to be careful of, a topic that made him expend an enormous amount of effort to keep control? Liam’s knuckles had tightened on the bar of the stroller, his legs moving mechanically forward. This piston-driven escape had separated them, so that man and child were a pace ahead.
“Did I say something wrong?” Mason asked.
For a moment he thought Liam might not answer. Might keep driving the stroller forward, forever, until he’d left town. Seconds later, though, he stopped. He used the toe of his shoe to click down the brakes on the stroller, one quick automatic movement, click-click. When he turned to face Mason, his expression was composed, yet Mason could see the amount of emotion in his eyes, and understood that for some reason—maybe the need to keep calm in front of the baby—he was keeping a close watch on his movements.
“Here’s something you didn’t know about me,” said Liam. “I’m second-generation gay, at least. My dad was gay, and me and my brother are gay.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah. That came as a surprise. We didn’t know until after he died. He was married to my mom for thirty-five years. She never knew a thing about it.”
Clearly there was more to the story than this; Mason studied Liam’s face, as though he could find clues there, clues about why this had bothered him so much. Why would that anger be in his voice? Surely he didn’t hate his dad for being gay?
“You’re mad about it,” he said, hoping to prompt more of an explanation.
With another expert touch of his shoe, Liam took the brake off the stroller, but only to edge it further into the shade of the building next to them. He touched the building, fingers tracing over the dull yellow brick, the roughness smoothed over by layer after layer of paint, the wall taking on a melted look, like the whole storefront might have been carved out of butter and then left in the sun.
Without looking at Mason, he inhaled, and looked up at the sky. “My dad… He got sick. Really sick. Wouldn’t go to the doctor. We worried, but he was a grown man, you couldn’t force him, you know? I thought surely it was cancer, we all did. My mom pleaded with him to get help. What I remember most was how thin he got. He’d always been kind of chubby—it runs in the family—and watching the weight drop off of him was startling. Then terrifying. Because it wasn’t just fat, it was muscle, and the loss of it left him weak.”
“Oh no…was it…?”
Liam acted as though he hadn’t heard him. “Finally he was so sick he couldn’t put up a fight, and Mama got an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Within a few minutes, we had a diagnosis, and suddenly this mystery that had been hanging over us for months was cleared up…or maybe it was just made deeper, much deeper. The doctor came out and told us my dad was infected with HIV.”
“But there are drugs, there are all these medicines—”
“Yes, there are. There certainly are. And if he’d been diagnosed earlier, he could be on those drugs and still with us today. He could’ve been fine. But it didn’t work out that way. By the time we got him into the hospital, he’d already developed lymphoma too. And that could’ve been treated, if he could’ve survived the treatment. If he hadn’t waited. If he’d just told us. If he hadn’t kept everything a fucking secret—”
His voice was loud enough that Roo had picked up on his tone, and Mason saw her looking up at Liam, worry and the beginnings of tears in her eyes, lips quivering, fat little hands reaching up to be comforted.
“Oh, oh, I’m sorry baby,” Liam said, pulling her up into his arms. “No, look, Daddy’s fine, see? Happy, happy, smiling, laughing, everything’s fine.”
The smile he gave that child broke Mason’s heart, because it was so real and so forced at the same time, and when Liam put his cheek against Roo’s, he could see the toll it took on Liam.
Blinking, controlling his breathing, Liam looked over at Mason. “We don’t talk about it. Ever. Please don’t mention it to anyone. Especially not my mom. She’s…”
“No, no. Understandable. I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Sorry, I really didn’t mean to freak out on you.”
“Are you kidding? It sounds like you have a perfectly good reason to react the way you did. That’s rough. I remember when we almost lost my dad, I was a wreck. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he’d died back then. I can’t imagine.”
“You want to hear something awful? He passed away there at the hospital, and there was this…this crushing feeling that came with it, because it felt inevitable, it felt like fate was taking its course, even though it would’ve been so easily preventable, with even a moment’s honesty. And yet we still didn’t know where he’d gotten it. We didn’t know anything, until his funeral. There was a man there. A man who knew him, who knew that side of him that he had never dared to show us. My mom yelled and screamed at him…she said some really horrible things, things she had to walk back from, later, when we were in private.”
“Your dad’s boyfriend?”
“More like a confidant. What’s funny is, I couldn’t be mad at him at all. He was so broken-hearted at the funeral. He told me that he’d been begging my dad to come out of the closet, to admit it to us, but that once my dad had realized he was sick, he stopped talking to everyone, even this guy. My dad didn’t want to face what was happening to him. I don’t get it. Why would someone rather die than be honest? Why would he put his wife and kids through that?”
Mason just shook his head. “I don’t know, man. That’s rough.”
“Would you push the stroller for a while? I don’t think Roo wants to be set down just yet.”
He might not have been anyone’s image of a philosopher or deep thinker, but Mason always found that a job that involved him being mostly alone, squeezed into spaces where people didn’t normally go, attics and crawlspaces, gave him plenty of time to think, so that introspection had become a habit. And now, with this thoughtful silence from Liam, and the soft ticking of the stroller’s plastic wheels against the sidewalk, Mason sunk into his own mind.
There were two ways to take what Liam had told him.
One was that Mason had crossed a line by admitting he was still in the closet. Liam obviously had a thing about that, and rightfully so. Mason wasn’t in the position Liam’s dad was. This wasn’t thirty years ago, and even the dumb hook-ups that Mason went on involved solid discussions of test results and protection. Hell, didn’t he and Liam cut things short due to the lack of condoms? That should show he was sensitive to the matter.
The other way, though, was to recognize how open Liam had been about this part of his past. It wasn’t that he was honest without any hesitation—clearly telling Mason the story had taken something out of him—it was that he was willing to pay that cost,
to be honest. Honesty meant that much to him.
Mason decided to take this revelation as a gift rather than a challenge. Liam might still be full of mysteries, and Mason might still have a million questions about him…but wasn’t this some small sign that Liam liked him enough to open up, to reveal at least one of those mysteries, even though it was such a painful one?
17
Liam
There are things no one has a right to ask of anyone else, and Liam was acutely aware that among those things was asking someone to come out of the closet. He could only assume from Mason’s silence that his story about his dad had stung, had sounded like an attack.
Well, maybe it was. Liam couldn’t do secrets. He was tired of secrets, so many people in his life not saying anything until it was far too late…
He’d had enough of thinking about it, though. Time to turn off that emotion and be practical. Roo was getting hot out here, and he had dressed her for the weather back home rather than the warmer spring of Superbia.
“I guess I need to get back,” he said. “We’re not too far from someone’s nap-time.”
Mason stared at him a moment. “Are you okay?”
How do you figure out what’s in someone else’s head? He felt like he could hear disappointment in Mason’s voice, but was that disappointment that he was cutting their visit short, or was it related to his lecture about his dad?
Or maybe he was just mind-reading, a trait he hated in other people. Richard had always done that, always said he could tell what was on Liam’s mind from the expression on his face, and he’d start reacting to it, arguing with Liam based on nothing more than a wrinkle in his brow or a glance out the window. It had driven Liam mad. Why won’t you just listen to the words I say, instead of the words you imagine I’m thinking? The ultimate irony being that Richard couldn’t be honest, there at the end, any more than Liam’s dad had been.