Kith and Kin

by Kris Ripper

  “Well, think about it. You create this space where someone can open up to you, be vulnerable with you, and you have to hold them in your hands, metaphorically, so they can find this release they’re looking for. Yeah, Lisa. I’d definitely call that intimate.”

  She smiled and closed her eyes, turning toward him, not touching. “Is that what you want to do with me? Hold me in your hand?”

  “Maybe more than metaphorically.”

  “Yeah, all right. You can hold me.” She opened one eye and yawned again. “Clothes on, though. No pictures.”

  “No pictures,” he agreed, and moved in closer. “You want to go up to the loft?”

  “I think I’d fall off if I even tried to climb that ladder right now.” She expected him to come back with something dumb, like, Don’t worry, I’d catch you. He didn’t.

  “Here is good. Let me get a blanket.”

  The blanket was warm, and Emery’s arm pressed against hers. She wanted to thank him for answering his phone. And for picking her up on the side of the road. But really, she just wanted to fall asleep, right there, with someone she liked beside her.

  47

  Singer

  80 days with Miles

  Mother and Dad finally went back to Valencia on the Thursday after Lisa’s overnight in farmland. Their presence in the guesthouse was still obtrusive, but in another sense, Singer was grateful; Jake and Miles were back, but they could hardly work out all of their issues with his parents potentially walking in at any moment.

  He and Jake had reached a sort of temporary truce. They wouldn’t push it while the guesthouse was occupied, but all the things they hadn’t said still hung over their heads, and Singer found his momentary resolve to iron everything out had waned. Maybe if they pretended long enough that everything was fine, it would be. That possibility seemed so real that Singer almost believed it.

  The entire situation reminded him of Kara’s comment about life being on pause; Miles’s next court date was fast approaching, at which point a judge would either terminate parental rights or not. He and Jake had both established an additional two months of half-time work at their offices, so each of them would go in two days a week and work from home a few hours during the rest of the week.

  They’d be apart during the days, but at least they’d have dinner together. At least they’d sleep together.

  True to form, Frankie waited all of fifteen minutes after he texted her to let her know Viv had flown the coop to stage a spontaneous invasion.

  “Oh, hey, where’s the party?” She walked into the living room and brushed him aside. “Jeez, look at that, it turns out I brought it with me. Care and Alice are stopping off for Thai. Miles! What’s up, kid?”

  “And why are you here?” Singer asked, making his tone severe (Jake huffed laughter).

  “Singer, you wound me. Lisa! Get your ass out here! Your boyfriend’s coming over.”

  Lisa’s door opened. Frankie laughed.

  “Is your boyfriend coming over?” Lisa called.

  “I do not have a fucking— Goddamn everything. You two have been spending way too much time with Derries.”

  “When’s Emery going to be here?”

  “I’m not telling you because you’re rotten.” Frankie pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “ROTTEN!”

  Lisa smiled at him. “I’m glad Emery’s coming over. And I’m really, really glad Mother’s gone.”

  “Me too,” Jake said. “Man. I’ve never spent so much time around someone who made me feel like I’d done something wrong when I, you know, didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Here’s what I don’t get: did she never make me feel that way before because I did what she wanted, or is she just getting more critical in her old age?” Lisa asked. “Or was I really that eager to please her? Maybe I was.”

  Singer shook his head. “Mother will never change. But Dad might. At least, he seemed … a little more supportive than he used to be.”

  “He did?” Jake glanced at Lisa, setting Miles down with his toy box.

  “Well. Since the baseline of his parenting before was ‘pays the bills and makes an appearance at dinner most of the time,’ offering a second of … commiseration surpassed my expectations.”

  Lisa whistled lightly. “You had a moment with Dad? I’m jealous. I’m not actually sure we’ve ever been alone in a room together.”

  “He told us that children surprise their parents.”

  She grinned. “I guess he should know. Anyway, I’m gonna go bug Frankie.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Jake said. “Miles, you want to go with Aunt Lisa?”

  “Yeah, c’mon, kid. Let’s go get baby germs on Frankie, okay?” Lisa scooped Miles up like it was nothing, like she was comfortable with him in her arms.

  Singer hesitated, not quite sure he wanted to keep talking about Dad, but curious what Jake’s read was. “You didn’t think my father was trying to be supportive?”

  “Yeah, okay, I do think that. I liked him, even. But seriously, your mom moved up here thinking she could help Lisa, and she obviously wasn’t happy about it—ever—and we didn’t really welcome her, but she stuck with it. I’m definitely not Viv’s biggest fan, but I feel like if one of your parents should get points for being parenty, it should probably be her. Anyway, they’re your folks. I just think that Drew said one nice thing one time and you’re letting him off the hook, when most of the time he’s your model for how not to be a dad.” Jake smiled crookedly. “But for real, next time one of them decides to move in with us, I call Drew. I’m not sure I could take close encounters with Viv again.”

  Singer offered a smile, still trying to decide if he was letting Dad off too lightly. It was possible. It was hard to feel merciful toward Mother, though. He was still considering it when Emery’s car pulled into the driveway, with Carey’s right behind it. “Thus ends our brief moment of peace,” he said dryly.

  Jake stepped forward and kissed him lightly. “It’s Miles’s bedtime. Should we herd them all outside?”

  “If it’s warm enough, that sounds good.”

  “I’ll grab plates.”

  It felt right, having people in the house. It felt like their house again, and he wanted this. He wanted to feel like they had a place, like his family had a home. He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted to play the leading man, more than he’d wanted a cute apartment in the Castro instead of a closet with a hot plate and a toaster oven. If determination counted for something, the situation between him and Jake would be better immediately, without any additional effort.

  But it wasn’t.

  48

  Singer

  84 days with Miles

  Kara called while Singer and Miles were sitting in the backyard—now free of Mother—playing with the hose.

  “That’s so subversive,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid someone’s going to report you to the police for wasting water?”

  “Technically we have a garden we don’t water. So we’re … watering the garden.”

  She laughed. “I literally bought vegetable plants last spring so I could justify letting the kids play in the sprinkler. You think we’ll see an El Niño this year?”

  “I think if we do it’ll be a catastrophe for anyone living on a hillside, and if we don’t it will be a catastrophe for everyone.”

  “Exactly. I’m nominally calling to see when you three would like to come over for a playdate.”

  Singer adjusted the direction of the water so Miles wasn’t spraying it straight up over his head. “Oh, any weekend day works for us. We’re both back at work part-time.”

  “Victor told me. How’s that going?”

  “It’s good. It will be strange when we’re back full-time, but half time feels doable.”

  “Then you’re doing better than Vic did. I went back full-time when he
still wasn’t quite ready to leave the house.”

  “To be honest, it’s been a relief,” Singer admitted. “I never thought my job would be the most relaxing part of my day, but it definitely has been lately.”

  “I’ve always wondered if people with life-saving jobs had the same response, or it’s just those of us in safe little office bubbles.”

  “My mother-in-law is an ER nurse. I think she understands, even if she didn’t exactly feel the same.”

  “My mother stayed home with us. I think we would have been relieved if she had gone to work.”

  “Mine, too. And I know she worked at some point, but not until we were in school.” Strange to think about Mother interviewing for jobs while he was at kindergarten.

  “Do you have childcare for Miles arranged for after you’re both back full-time?”

  He dodged an errant spray of water and adjusted the hose again. “Jake’s sister-in-law is looking forward to taking over during the weekdays.”

  “That’s great.”

  “It is.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. A slightly expectant pause fell between them, and he started brainstorming ways to end the conversation. Propose an actual day for their next family date, maybe?

  “How are you and Jake doing?” she asked. “Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

  Singer swallowed, touching the curls at the back of Miles’s head. “It’s not easy.” He couldn’t confess that they’d lived apart for three weeks, could he? But before he’d assessed the risk, he already was.

  “I felt so lost without them,” he said, at the end of what had to be a barely coherent babbling of the last few months. “But I still can’t reach out to him and it’s breaking us, Kara. It’s the two of us in reverse, like we’re back at the beginning, only this time it’s me who can’t touch him, and neither one of us can bridge the gap. We had this one good night, and I thought—at least I hoped—that maybe it would be enough, but there are so many things I know we have to say to each other. Oh god, I’m so sorry I just poured all of this on you when you were only being polite—”

  “I wasn’t only being polite. I meant it.” She sighed. “I know how it is. Or maybe I’m projecting, but it’s hard, Singer. And no one tells you how hard it’s going to be on your relationship, how you have to change everything about how you communicate, how you relate to each other. Vic’s getting Rache into these terrible video games and sometimes I think about the way you gain points, gain skills, gain weapons. No one tells you you’ll have to level up so much when you become parents.”

  Singer nodded, switching hands so the hose could follow Miles’s scrambling around in the grass. “It was hard in the beginning, when he was afraid to be out. But little by little he did it. He was so brave, and at the time I mostly thought he was making too big a deal out of everything. His family is intensely close. They would never have turned on him for being gay, you know? I didn’t realize how much he risked because I only saw it in terms of how much he had.” He shook his head. “Now I’m part of it, part of them, and I’m absolutely terrified they’ll find out I’m a fraud, that I can’t do this.”

  “You aren’t a fraud. Just because you aren’t living up to your own expectations—even if you never live up to your own expectations—you aren’t a fraud. You’re one of the people Miles can rely on to look him in the eye, to pick him up when he’s hurt, to respond when he talks. Singer, that’s it. That’s all you need.”

  “His grandmother was giving him all that long before we ever came into the picture.”

  “Don’t get me started on how we could be supporting families more than we are now, and maybe keeping some kids out of foster care. You know what pisses me off most? The people who look at my family and tell me how wonderful I am, how heroic, what sacrifices I’ve made to ‘help’ these ‘poor children,’ as if my kids are characters in a morality play. I want to hurt those people, Singer. This is my family, not a Hallmark Channel Christmas special.”

  “I’ve only seen that at a distance, but I’m already braced for it.”

  Miles sprayed himself in the face again, freezing for a split second to decide if he was more frightened or delighted. To Singer’s relief, he settled on delighted and did it again.

  “What makes me more qualified than someone else to be his father, Kara? I used to think we already jumped through enough hoops, but now I feel like everyone should have to jump through more than this. What really makes me a better parent than his grandmother, who misses him so much I can taste it when she looks at him?”

  A pause, then Kara said, “You want me give you the cheerleader answer? Or the real one?”

  “The real one. Please.”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing, Singer. You aren’t more qualified. You’re just the guy with the job.”

  He choked on a laugh. “What was the cheerleader answer going to be?”

  “Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn’t pick that one because I have no idea. The point is you’re just like everyone else. Maybe you thought you were going to be better than everyone else. I thought I was going to get pregnant the first time we tried. Then the second. Then the whole first year. Then with assisted reproduction. Then with one awful cycle of IVF before we turned to adoption, and it still felt like giving up, Singer. Starting down the path that led to my kids felt like defeat for months, maybe years. Every time things got hard I told myself that if only I’d gotten pregnant, things would have been easier.”

  That was a heavy load to bear. Singer couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.

  “But then I realized we’re all the same. All of us. The parents who have no problems conceiving, the parents who use assisted reproduction, the parents who have their kids taken away, the parents who voluntarily surrender, the parents who are grandparents and aunts and uncles, and the parents who adopt. We’re all equally unqualified, and our kids need us anyway. Do the job. There’s no glory in it, most of the time, but I wouldn’t give up this family for any family I could have had in a different way, no matter how hard it was, how many tears I cried, how many times I hated myself, or hated Vic, or god help me, hated my kids.”

  Singer swiped at his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. But I really needed to hear that.”

  “That’s the speech I wish someone had given me, in the black moments, when I felt like we were at a dead end.”

  “I don’t know what to say to Jake. For the first time I actually feel like maybe I can do this, maybe I can be a parent, even if I’m kind of a lousy one, but there’s still all this stuff up in the air with Jake, and I have no idea where to start.”

  “Start with what you said to me. But do it soon. And I can’t believe you got away with living apart for three weeks. How’d you manage that without your worker finding out?”

  “I don’t know. We had a visit in the middle, but I was here with Miles and Jake was at work. I guess it’s all looked normal to her.”

  “Lucky. Well, fix it if you want to fix it. And be honest with yourself if you don’t.”

  “I do. I have to.”

  “Good. Do that. Then call me so we can set up another playdate now that Miles is walking more. The boys are excited to teach him soccer.”

  “I’m not sure he’s up for soccer yet.”

  “They’ll figure it out. Talk to you soon, Singer.”

  “Thanks for calling. And yes, soon.” They said good-bye and hung up, and Singer caught Miles’s attention. “Cheese?”

  Miles said something long, and Singer’s ear couldn’t pick out “cheese” in it, but there might have been an “ee” sound in the middle.

  “Yes, cheese,” he said. “Let’s turn off the water and go inside for cheese and crackers.”

  He shut off the water, making certain it was all the way off (he really didn’t want to add to the drought, but Miles loved watching the sunlight make r
ainbows), then bent down to pick up a very wet, very naked baby.

  Who refused to be picked up.

  “You want to walk?” Singer asked.

  Miles reached up again, and Singer offered his hands, which Miles used to pull himself, unsteadily, to his feet.

  “You know, Nana says she thought you’d be walking by now.” Could Marie walk like this? Holding onto Miles’s hands while he tottered in front of her? Probably not; this might be worse for the back than carrying him was.

  Miles, having made it with the aid of Singer’s fingers all the way to the slider, collapsed onto Singer’s feet. And hiccupped.

  “That was a good workout, little man. Come here.” This time there was no protest at being picked up, and blatant enthusiasm at being deposited in his high chair, pulled up close to the counter.

  It was a good half an hour later before Singer realized he’d just executed an outdoor activity, a transition inside, a snack for both of them, and a reheated cup of coffee for himself, all without screwing up.

  He decided to go for broke.

  “Let’s take a nap, Miles.”

  A nap was accomplished, eventually, and by then he seriously needed another cup of coffee.

  49

  Emery

  82 days since meeting Lisa

  Emery lingered over the paintings in Alice’s studio, slowly circling toward the table where she’d almost definitely be keeping the photograph he wanted to see.

  Maybe not wanted. Needed to see.

  He hadn’t quite made it there when Carey found him, stepping inside the door and to the side, as he always did. Leaving room for escape.

  “It’s a great picture.”

  Emery turned. “How did you know what I was doing back here?”

  “You and Al are a microcosm of my family’s currents and countercurrents. She feels guilty for using a picture of you that you don’t like; it’s not a leap to imagine that’s what you’re in here contemplating. She said she can’t start the painting until you blow up the shot for her, but the sketches are probably here somewhere. It really is a good picture.” Carey’s voice lifted a little, as if asking.