“Right,” I said, still mystified.
“Mark didn’t tell you what happened? He rarely comes out here anymore, only for his grandmother’s birthday or a special occasion like last night.”
“He only ever spoke of this place with fondness.”
“He’s turned into a good young man. I was worried there for a while—a great many years, actually. I was afraid I pushed him too hard. You see, I leaned on him through his father... and I was quite rough on my son. I didn’t want to have a gay in the family. But it turns out it’s not uncommon these days and there are others in the church with the same problem.”
Ummm... I just wanted to do my writing. I had thought of you as a kindly old man... why can’t you just stay that way? I don’t want to think of you as racist or sexist or homophobic. Just let it lie. Mark is here with you and he’s trying to be a better family man. Let it lie.
“Do you think you’re ever going to get married, Christopher?” he asked unexpectedly.
“No,” I answered honestly.
“Not in the cards for you, eh?”
“I love Mark very much. More than I’ve loved anyone else. I feel like we’re already married, in a way.” I didn’t know where that came from (it just popped out of my unfiltered mouth), but it was true. Mark was my soulmate, my companion. My lover. My strength.
Being married wouldn’t make our relationship stronger. Marriage meant nothing to me. I didn’t want his wealth. He already took care of me and cared for me emotionally. I didn’t need anything else. If I absolutely needed something, I knew Mark would make sure I got it.
“That’s good to hear,” Grandpa Wolff mused. “You must be very special to him. Mark has never brought a friend to meet us, not even a girl. If he’s ever visited, he’s come alone.”
“I don’t know why he hasn’t visited. This place is beautiful. If you send him invitations in the future, make sure you send them to me. I’ll make sure he comes.”
“Thank you. Annette would appreciate that.” He sipped from his cup—probably cold coffee. “I can’t say that I agree with two men getting married. So if you were to... get married. I’m not sure what I would do. Of course I want the best for Mark, but there is the reputation to think about. I can’t be sanctioning something against God’s will.”
What the Hell! Ah! Get me out of here! “You don’t have to worry about that with me and Mark. I won’t be getting married. I don’t want to have kids—” On most days. And not biological kids. “—And I don’t need his inheritance, or whatever you guys call it. If we get a civil partnership, I think that would be great. I think everyone should have partnerships. Marriage never should have been tied up in the government in the first place. If it’s sanctioned by the government for some people, then it automatically belongs to everyone. It will just take time for the courts to figure it out.”
Shut your fucking mouth, Chris. Quit trying to explain yourself to this man. Quit trying to make him like you... or to make yourself seem more palatable. Just be. Stop freaking out. Just be.
“Sounds like you think we’ll have gay marriage?”
“I don’t see how you can’t. Unless you take government out of marriage completely.”
“I think you’re probably right. What has this country come to?”
After that extremely awkward conversation, we chatted pleasantly for several minutes until Mr. Wolff felt it was time to get breakfast. We talked about boats during the rest of that conversation. I spoke about what it was like to grow up building boats, building houses and (generally) building all kinds of things. Grandpa Wolff, apparently, had always envied those with a skill for building. (I thought it was laughable how a lot of professionals my dad had built for would often describe their dream of being able to work with their hands—even though they would have to cut their pay in half.) Grandpa Wolff had a barn in the country with a shop of woodworking tools. He once made a small cabinet for the living room, but wasn’t experienced enough for more complex furniture.
Grandpa Wolff wandered away and left me to my typing. Obviously, I began my morning by typing about a character with conservative inclinations being forced to live with the changing times. Mark had called his grandparents Democrats, but in my experience, that’s not what Mr. Wolff sounded like at all.
I tried to wrap my head around the kind of person who wouldn’t want basic equality for everyone. If the government sanctioned some relationships and conferred special protections to them... whoever was left out of the loop was being discriminated against. It really couldn’t get much simpler than that.
Mark and I were consenting adults. If we wanted to get recognized by the state as full partners—married—then we should have been allowed that opportunity.
That moment on the pier was the beginning of my awakening. I had been with Mark as a couple for a month (and basically been his companion for three or four months), but he had shielded me from thinking about things like discrimination and homophobia. I knew it existed—that’s part of the reason I was reluctant to introduce Mark to my family.
I knew there was at least one uncle in my family who would probably never talk to me again. My uncle wasn’t Catholic like Mark’s dad and grandfather. He was a fiery Baptist... or something like that. I had been to one of my cousins’ weddings in their church and it was a frightening experience. The pastor talked about the woman’s place in a marriage and how the woman should be subservient to the man... and there was all this crazy language about the woman sacrificing for the man, but nothing about the man sacrificing his happiness in return. (And if you knew my cousin—the one who was getting married—you would laugh because those words did not match his personality at all. If anything, his wife was going to be in control of him completely, but still... words are words. You can’t just say that stuff about newlywed women!) That ceremony (which was also a partial sermon) stressed the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman.
The pastor said man and woman with such stress and so many times that it sounded like he was making a point.
That wedding happened the spring before I met Mark, so the fight for marriage equality was ongoing across the country and multiple states had already recognized marriage as between one consenting, legal person and another.
I didn’t follow the fight for marriage equality as ardently as most LGBT+ people... and I never considered joining rallies or making public declarations of my support. If I had a chance to vote for it, I would have voted in favor of marriage equality, even though I didn’t personally want to ever be married. I believed in equality more than I believed in the institution that was in the crosshairs.
I SAT ON THAT PIER and thought about Mark and his family and his old, unhealed wounds. How much they hurt him—both now and when he was a young man?
I typed on my Bluetooth keyboard until the sun was high in the sky and my eyes were almost burned out from squinting against the reflection of the sun on the water. Then there were footsteps on the pier behind me, breaking my concentration. Mark?
It was Martha. “Good morning, Chris,” she hailed. We shared a moment of small talk. “There is breakfast stuff on the counter and in the refrigerator. Please help yourself.”
“Of course. Mark isn’t awake?”
“No.” She smiled sweetly. “I wanted to say how nice it is to have you two up for the weekend.” She clearly wanted to give me a hug, which I allowed her to do.
“Are you leaving?” I asked, noticing she was dressed rather fancy.
“We’re going to Mass and then there’s a small party for my hubby afterwards with our old friends. We don’t get to see them as often as we’d like.”
“Do you want Mark to go with you?”
“Oh my,” she said with a laugh. “The day Mark goes to Mass... ah, never mind. If you two leave while we’re gone, I just wanted to say how happy I am for you.”
“We’re making it work,” I said while putting my typing equipment in my bag. “I don’t think we’re going to leave before
you do. It’s only 9:30. If I let Mark sleep in, he wouldn’t get up until eleven.”
“Grandma would love to have you stay longer. There’s plenty to do here. The Lake is flatter than yesterday. Maybe Mark will take you out on the jetboat.”
We walked up to the Lakehouse together. The entire family (with the exception of my Sleepy Bear) was awake and ready to leave for church. Grandma Wolff gave me a hug before she left. I told her we were going to be here when she got back.
All these preemptive goodbyes made me wonder how often Mark snuck out without saying a proper goodbye. I had seen him sneak away from parties before, but that was only when he was super horny and wanted to get me home so we could make out or have sex.
Mark always stayed patiently at my side when I made my goodbyes, but was he there because he wanted to be or because he was indulging me?
I broke apart from the family as they made their way to the cars. There would be close to thirty Wolffs heading to church. Incredible. That used to be Mark’s life. I watched them leave from our bedroom window, which faced the driveway.
Mark wasn’t awake. I thought he might have been hiding up here instead of dealing with the pressure to attend church, but I was wrong.
I left him and went back downstairs to make breakfast.
It was eerie. The house was huge and empty. Yesterday, the place was loud and full of people so that Mark and I needed to walk through the halls in order to be by ourselves. Now that everyone was gone, the entire house was ours. Every table was ours. Every room was ours. Everything was ours.
I freaked. My spine tingled. I felt very small, like the house was watching me.
I retreated from the kitchen without eating. Then I raced upstairs, taking each step faster than the last. I was walking swiftly by the time I made it to our small room.
I shut the door softly and studied my lover again. Ten I slid into the sheets next to him and stared at his peaceful countenance.
His face twitched. “Stop doing that,” he moaned.
“What?” I asked softly.
“Stop staring at me.” He wiped his face.
“You do it to me all the time.” I cuddled into his body since he was waking up. “We’re all alone in this big house. I don’t like it.”
“It isn’t haunted,” Mark said sleepily.
“It feels weird. I’m not comfortable here anymore. I wanted to be with you.” He grumbled at me, but I kept cuddling. “Can we go get breakfast?” I asked.
“You go get breakfast. You keep coming in and out of the room trying to wake me up.”
“You heard me?”
“I heard a little mouse walking around. Felt him staring at me.” He sighed and covered me with his beefy arm. Then he finally opened his eyes and looked at me. “Love you, babe.”
“Love you, too. I’m hungry.”
“Me too.”
I sat up and pulled Mark with me. He grumbled. I threw a change of clothes at him. We left the room together. I didn’t let him out of my sight, even when he took a bathroom break—I went in with him. Mark didn’t care. He could pee with a hundred people staring at him. Meanwhile, I could barely do it with Mark in the same apartment.
“You want to fool around?” Mark asked.
“Not in your grandparents’ house,” I hissed.
“I know. Just teasing.”
“No you weren’t. It’s freaky in this empty house. All these big rooms.” I shivered. We went downstairs and made breakfast together. “So your family goes to Mass every Sunday?”
“Yep. Always has.”
“But you don’t.”
“You know why I don’t. We’re not welcome there.” Him saying that was like a slap in the face. We’re not welcome there. We. I’m with a man... I’m not welcome there.
“There have got to be other churches where you’d be welcome.”
“No. End of story.”
We changed subjects.
“I talked with your grandfather this morning. We watched the sunrise together.”
“Sounds fucking gay,” Mark mumbled. “Bet he’s a closet case.”
“Mark!”
“Kidding.”
“You weren’t! That’s a mean thing to say. We had a nice chat out on the pier... staring lovingly over the Lake, holding hands and sharing how much we loved each other.”
“Fuck you.”
“You should have been there. It was very romantic.”
“I don’t want you waking me up before nine.”
I kissed him to prove that I was teasing. He brushed me off.
“Your grandpa also had some... strange things to say.”
“He’s blunt. Comes with age.”
“Was he the one that disowned you?”
“I wasn’t disowned.”
“You know what I mean. Pressured you. Worked against you. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Him and my father were the tag team from Hell. For being such strong Christians, you’d think they’d have a bit more compassion, but no. I messed up their little plans. My mother is from the south... Georgia. Did you know that?”
“You can hear it when she speaks, faintly.”
“She comes from old money. I think she had this dream of setting up all her kids with the best of the best. She did it with Keegan and Kelly. She did it with Kat, too, but they never got married. They lived together for two years before Kat called it off and married a different guy.”
“So you were betrothed?” I asked, thinking that he would have made a very dramatic princess if he were part of a royal family.
“No. But there was this girl. I had to go to all these dances with her. She wasn’t bad or mean, but damn, I hated doing that shit. I never felt anything for her except pity.”
“So you broke it off?”
“I didn’t just break it off with her. I broke it off with her family. You have no idea. Her father was an investor in my grandfather’s business. I think they wanted us to be the next generation of Wolffs to run the thing. I never wanted it. Oh, God, I didn’t want that.”
“So when you broke it off with her, your grandfather was angry?” Strange thing to be angry about.
“I think everything would have been fine... if I wasn’t so dramatic with my whole coming out.”
“You didn’t?” I asked. Mark bowed his head so I pressed on. “Instead of breaking up with her... don’t tell me you humiliated her?”
“I may have. My father was pissed. Grandpa never forgave me. Both of them put so much pressure on me. I had to deal with that shit for two years before I escaped. I was in boarding school for the last two years of high school, which was a relief for everyone. But I still had to be home for the summer.” Mark stared out over the Lake. “I came home eight times over the four years while I was in college. Christmas and my Grandma’s birthday. It was punishment to my mother for going along with my father’s plan to send me to fucking boarding school.”
I held Mark’s hand and offered him my emotional support.
“Jokes on them, though. There was plenty of gay shit happening at that school. For a Christian place, I sure sucked and got sucked plenty.”
“Ew.”
“Ew.” He tickled me. “My parents and I are on a better footing now. They don’t ride me as hard. They aren’t happy with my career choices, but what can they do about it?”
“But why are you taking summer courses? If you took a season off of modeling, you could take a full-sized workload and graduate with your degree.”
“Aw, fuck. Don’t you start riding me now, too. I’m doing it my own way. And I only took that course because my brother...” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. Why do you have to stress me out!”
“Sorry.” I clung to his arm and laid my head on his shoulder. “Sorry. If you didn’t care school, I just wondered why you were putting yourself through that? It was the hardest course you could have taken. If you wanted to fail... you would have. But you didn’t want to. You wanted to pass it, badly.”
“Let’s not analyze me right now,” he said darkly.
“Okay.” I kissed his shoulder. “I love you. You have a lot of gifts, especially the gift of gab. I don’t think you need to work at your family’s company to be successful. You can do it on your own.”
“Thanks, babe. Sometimes...” He swallowed hard. “Sometimes I do wonder what it would be like to run an arm of the business.”
“I think you’d be good at it. You’d be so good at it. But you would have to show a little more compassion. You’re good at inspiring people, but you’d have to work so you don’t make people feel left behind.”
“I don’t leave people behind!”
“You don’t with me. But you jump so quickly from thing to thing.... It’s something I admire about you. I could never leave the past completely in the past. Everything weighs on me and I over-analyze things.”
“No shit. You need to have at least three escape plans or you aren’t comfortable.” He rubbed my back. “Were you okay this morning? Around all those people without me?”
“Yes. It was just when we first met them, and meeting them all at the same time. I couldn’t process it. I can do a handful of people, but a whole family... a house with room after room after room full of people I didn’t expect to meet.”
“But you handle it at the club?”
“Because I have you,” I said, suddenly shy. “I would never go to a place like that without you. And sometimes it does get to be too much and I need to find a corner without a lot of movement.”
“You do like watching.”
“When the noise gets loud, you get louder and come more alive—you take over the party. I’m the opposite. I come alive when it’s quiet and when there aren’t many people around.”
“I know. You’ve got to let some of your thinking barriers down.”
“I do. When I’m with you, I feel safe enough to do that. But I still have to be prepared for what I’m going to meet. And if I need to be an active participant, like yesterday, I need to keep my barriers up. And if there’s more people there than there should be... fried. My brain gets absolutely fried.”
The Lover (It's Just Us Here Book 4) Page 27