by Kris Ripper
He made a small decision. And opened a bottle of wine.
Jake came out from the bedroom a few minutes later. Bare feet, old jeans, maroon T-shirt just slightly crooked on his shoulders. God, when was the last time Singer had looked at Jake and seen him?
“We’ve been had, Jacob. It’s a conspiracy.” Singer handed him a glass of wine.
He frowned. “You mean my folks taking Miles?”
“Your parents have taken Miles, Frankie, Lisa, and my parents. And I’m sure Carey, Alice, and Emery as well. They’re having a dinner party without us.”
Jake’s expression went from defensive to concerned to—amused. “Wait, what? And where are we supposed to be?”
“Either hanging out with nice Christian straight people or trading sex partners for the evening. Frankie indicated she and Lisa had left the details to Mother and Dad’s imaginations.”
“Oh god. Singer.”
“Yes. I keep vacillating between feeling very annoyed with all of them and, well, it’s how Derries show their love. So there’s that.”
“And what are we actually supposed to be doing? Assuming my parents didn’t engineer this whole thing so we could have sex.”
Singer adopted the most dry tone he had. “I think it’s safe to assume that was not their intention. Or, actually, maybe it was. Which is—”
“Ew. So much worse.” Jake shuddered. “Anyway, so?”
For a moment Singer faltered, nearly losing his nerve. “There are some things we need to talk about. I propose we do so in the hot tub. With wine.”
“You don’t think we might be distracted?”
Singer couldn’t quite meet the gleam in Jake’s eyes. “No. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to … get here. To this point. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Jake swallowed and lifted his glass. “Drink to not giving up on each other.”
“I think toasts are supposed to be more … hopeful. Than that.”
“We’ve been setting a pretty low bar lately.”
Singer tipped his glass toward Jake’s. “To not giving up.”
They drank.
“The hot tub?” Jake asked, raising an eyebrow.
He was willing to be playful. Willing to forgive. It was more than Singer deserved, and he was suddenly seized with a sharp, desperate fear that he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t start any conversation that risked Jake not looking at him just like that. “Did your parents fight in front of you? When you were kids?”
“Fight in front of us? Well, uh, I mean, they didn’t always agree on stuff. Is that what you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” But it wasn’t. “My parents never fought in front of us. Maybe the skin around Dad’s eyes would go tight, or Mother would press her lips together, but Jake, they never said anything in front of us that indicated they held different opinions about anything. I … don’t even know what that’s supposed to look like. Frankie said, a few weeks ago, that this is how we are, that we get mad and we fight and we get drunk and make up, and I didn’t know we did that. I can’t remember what we’d even have been fighting about.”
“Are we going to fight right now?” Jake asked after a second.
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to fight with you.”
Jake shrugged. “Sometimes it makes things easier. I mean, I feel like I have so much to say to you, and it might be easier if I was pissed instead of this thing where sometimes I look over and you have this expression on your face like your heart is broken and you just keep taping it back together. And I want to go to you, but I’m so afraid if I do you’ll turn away from me.”
It was exactly what Singer had wanted, over and over again. “I wouldn’t. I would never turn away from you.”
“But … you have. A lot. Which is a thing we gotta talk about.” Jake caught up the bottle of wine. “The hot tub was a good idea.”
Then they were in their bedroom, pulling on their suits, and it was like any other day, except more quiet, and Singer was far more nervous.
“Have you ever hot tubbed with Emery?” he asked, holding his towel in front of himself. (Jake always draped his over his shoulders.)
“Uh, probably?” Jake shot him an incredulous look. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Only that being so close to naked with someone that good looking was slightly surreal.”
“You trying to say Emery’s better looking than I am?”
Oh, hell. “No, I—” But Jake was rolling his eyes. “Shut up. No. But I wished you were there, too.”
“So we could ogle Emery together?”
“Really. Shut up.”
*
Singer topped up both of their wine glasses and settled into the water, trying to remember all the things he needed to say, trying to put them in some kind of order in his head.
Maybe he didn’t have to say everything. Some of it was so humiliating. Now that he could be with Miles and not constantly obsess over how he was screwing it up, maybe he could skip some of that.
Except then he looked at Jake, who was watching him across the water.
“I’m so sorry.” That was a good start. Or at least a start.
“For … what?”
Singer frowned, picking at a chip in the side of the spa. “Do you want a detailed list? I’ve been terrible lately. I’m ashamed of myself.”
“Okay. And not a detailed list, but some idea what we’re talking about would be nice.”
Jake had the right to ask, of course, but Singer still felt a defensive flare of anger. “We’re talking about me, and you, and whatever it is that’s going on between us.”
“So…” Jake shifted in the water, sitting up straighter. “So it’s not about Miles? I mean, you … you’re okay with Miles?”
“Okay with him? What do you mean? Of course it’s not about Miles. I mean, I guess some of it is incidentally about Miles, but not really—” Singer broke off. “Did you think I didn’t want to … to keep him?”
“Oh my god, Singer, you weren’t talking to me, I thought everything. All the thoughts anyone could have, I had them, lying on the pullout at Carey’s house. Did you want to break up with me? Did you want to give Miles back? I had this conversation with your mom where she was like ‘Oh, Singer never wanted kids’ and I brushed it off, but then I was lying there, and you were here, and I started thinking, you know, did I talk you into it? Maybe you didn’t want kids, maybe I only thought you did, and now you realized you really didn’t, and you couldn’t tell me about it.”
Singer gaped at him. “You had a conversation with Mother?”
“Right? It was this totally normal, innocent conversation, or at least I thought it was. But talking to her’s like being bit by a snake with really slow-acting venom. It just kept working deeper and deeper into me all the time, thinking you didn’t want kids and you’d be happier alone—”
“Happier alone? I would not be happier alone. And of course I wanted children. We talked about that a long time ago, remember? Not about us having them, but about children in general.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know, the way she talked I started thinking maybe I sort of pressured you into it or something, like you were reluctant and I made assumptions.”
“Jake, I filled out all the paperwork. I coordinated all the appointments. How could you think I was somehow ambivalent?”
“Jeez, I don’t know, could be because you looked freaked out every time you had to be alone with Miles for five minutes, and you were always looking over your shoulder at me like you were afraid I’d catch you doing something wrong. Everything your mom said—or actually didn’t say, more implied—started making a lot of sense.”
Mother. How could she try so deliberately to undermine Singer’s relationship with Jake, with Miles? With people
he’d chosen to be his family? Except … of course that was exactly why. He’d chosen people who weren’t her, who were nothing like her, and she wanted them gone.
“I’m sorry about Mother. She was wrong about everything.”
“The problem wasn’t Viv, Singer. The problem was that when I was all twisted in my head because of her I couldn’t ask you what the hell was going on because you weren’t talking to me. But I wouldn’t mind some kind of explanation now.”
It was only fair, even if it felt ugly and nauseating. Singer sank deeper into the water. “I want Miles. It’s so much harder than I thought it would be, but when you two were gone, it was excruciating. I don’t know how many times a night I’d listen for him over the monitor when he wasn’t there. I tried so hard not to feel so I could wall myself off from the pain of losing him, but I felt it anyway. It’s not Miles. I always, always wanted children. Mother didn’t know because I wouldn’t have ever told her, or maybe she didn’t care, but you didn’t talk me into it.”
Relief was etched in the shadows on Jake’s face. “Oh thank god.”
Singer wished he felt relieved, instead of more and more impaired. “But wanting to be a parent isn’t the same as being one, don’t you get it? I’m not … good, at this. I feel like we went into it and I committed to being better than I am. I feel like maybe I deceived you, or deceived us both, into thinking I’d be a good father, when the past few months have pretty convincingly demonstrated that I’m not.”
“Seriously?” Jake stared at him for a long moment, only the jets breaking up the silence. “This whole fucking thing has been about you being insecure as a parent? Jesus, Singer, we read books about this. It was in every stupid class we took. You may not bond right away, you won’t feel confident right away. They told us that over and over again, who’d you think they were talking to?”
“You. You, I thought they were talking to you.” Oh god, Jake’s face. Singer couldn’t stop now, not with that look on Jake’s face. “You were so nervous the whole time and I wasn’t, I thought everything would work out, I thought it was going to be fine, but the second he got here you were great, you were amazing and I— I could wash his bottles. I could do that for him. But he goes to you when he’s upset, when he needs comfort, and I’ve watched him, Jake, he’s not as screwed up as I expected, either. He attached to you, he’s attached to Marie—”
“You’re such a fucking idiot sometimes.”
Singer ran out of breath.
“God, I love you, but you are so fucking stupid sometimes it kills me.” Jake drained his glass, set it aside, then splashed Singer so hard he inhaled spa water and coughed painfully until his lungs were clear again. And whatever was left in his glass was no longer drinkable.
“Yeah. Uh. Sorry. That may have been a little … much.”
Cobbling together what was left of his dignity, and pushing stringy wet hair out of his eyes, Singer politely inquired, “You were saying?”
“You! God, you’re such a jerk. So basically, in your vision, you thought Miles would be a wreck of a kid, and I’d be a wreck of a husband, and you’d hold us all together with your dishwashing skills and your excellent diction?”
“Did you say ‘husband’?”
“What? Was that wrong?” Jake glanced away, maybe blushing, hard to tell in bad lighting. “I mean, in my vision of the future, that’s true. Not, like, tomorrow or anything.”
Singer ran it all through his head again. “No, I think you just proposed to me. Making this the strangest fight, by far, that we have ever had.”
“You want me to splash you again?”
“Do you have rings? A date in mind? A wedding planner?”
“Shut up, Singer! Can we get back to the part where me not sucking as much as you expected was apparently such a glaring disappointment that I spent three fucking weeks on Carey’s lumpy sofa bed? Jesus!”
“I didn’t tell you to leave, you did that all by yourself. You can’t run to Carey’s whenever you’re mad at me, Jake.”
“Don’t act like that’s all it was! Every time I tried to talk to you, you changed the subject, you did everything you could to avoid ever talking to me about anything. And then your mother was there, constantly, making me feel like you were just biding your time until we broke up. How long did you want me to hang out while she said this wasn’t my home?”
“I told you this was about my mother—”
“No, Singer, no, it’s not. It’s about you. And me. And Miles. And if we’re actually a family, even if we’re slightly less completely screwed up than we were in all your hopes and dreams.”
“Hey!”
But Jake couldn’t be stopped.
“Because if we’re a family, and I feel like we are, then we need to make that real. That’s why I went to Carey’s. Because if you and me and Miles were living in the spare room at Carey and Alice’s, they’d still make us feel at home, Singer. They’d still make us feel like a family. And that’s— We haven’t had that. Maybe for the first few days, but not after that, and maybe not even then.” Jake swallowed, shaking his head, wiping his eyes with wet hands. “So yeah, I’d do that again. Because fuck this, okay? I’m not doing—this.”
“We’re already moving. We’ve already decided.” Singer topped up both of their wine glasses (because three might almost be enough for this conversation). “I don’t know what we’re fighting about. What did you want me to do? Run after you?”
“Yeah, maybe I did. Or call me. Or ask me what we should do, we, us, together. Singer, you didn’t do anything. I mean—” Jake downed half his glass and set it aside again. “What were you doing, for three weeks, while I was trying to figure out the difference between despair and rage, ’cause I was really mad at you, but I was so fucking sad I was almost out of my mind. If Miles hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed. Care would have put me on a fucking suicide watch.”
“I understand exactly.” Smelling Jake’s pillow. Over and over again. Like he was dead, not just a few blocks away.
“So why didn’t you talk to me?”
“I thought you wanted me to stay away.”
“That’s a fucking cop-out. You not talking to me started way before I took Miles to Carey’s.”
Singer winced. “I’m sorry.”
“I thought you’d come with us, Singer. I thought it was clear that’s what I wanted when I told you that in the car. Why didn’t you talk to me, way back in the beginning, if you’ve felt like this the whole time?”
“I’m sorry. I was so ashamed, and so useless. I’m not used to feeling that way. And then when you were gone I missed you so much. I had no idea I could miss Miles like that, viscerally, that I’d think about him all the time. I’d see his toys and cry.” He cleared his throat. “I had no idea that I could feel so empty, when I thought you were gone, when I thought the rest of my life I might wake up without you.”
“We should definitely never do that again.” Jake held his hand out to be grasped.
That weight, under water, was so welcome, so vital.
“You can’t hide everything like this again. Because then I start making stuff up, and it’s bad. I was so convinced you hated me, that you resented Miles, that I was going to have to try to get you to lie to Brandi so I could keep him, but then I’d be a single father, and you’d hate me even more.” He shook his head. “And like, what would my parents say? Frankie would lose her shit, Carey would give me that look, like the entire universe fell on his head again—”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Jake squeezed. “But why didn’t you just talk to me? I don’t understand. I talk to you when I get messed up, and you make me feel better. You didn’t think I could help? You didn’t think it mattered what I thought?”
“No. No, it was— I thought if I told you how hard it all was you’d realize I’d been a fraud the whole time. I’
m not used to not being able to do something, or I guess, I’m used to pretending being good enough. It always has been before.”
“You pretend with me?”
It would be so easy to say no. The bone-deep desire to lie was nearly impossible to ignore.
Jake squeezed his hand. “I can take it. You’re the first person I never had to pretend with. I get how it is, Singer. And probably I needed you to be the guy who was totally certain all the time, but that was years ago. You don’t need to do that anymore.”
“I pretend sometimes. I’m sorry. I know it’s dishonest, but it just feels … necessary. To get through the day. I pretended with Miles all the time, at first. I didn’t feel anything for him.”
“I still don’t get that. I mean, we read all those books. Don’t you remember what they said? Sometimes it takes time. Alice says that’s true, even if you give birth to a kid, even if you’re pregnant for ten months, you don’t necessarily bond right away. You could have told me.”
“No, I couldn’t. Because I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to say it to myself. You were so good with him, immediately, like you’d never done anything else, and I couldn’t.”
“Yeah, well, I was going into kindergarten when the twins were little. A lot of that shit comes back. And anyway, you said ‘at first.’ What about now?”
Singer let the hand Jake wasn’t holding play over bubbles. “It’s better. I still don’t feel—competent. But I’m not as terrified as I used to be. And I used to think, you know, maybe he could sense my ambivalence, that I had no idea what I was doing, that I didn’t know how to connect with him. I thought he must know how much better you were because he always chose you, you were the one he wanted to pick him up, you were the one who could get him to stop crying.”
“Jesus.” Jake shifted closer in the water and touched his jaw.
“It was really hard to pretend all the time.” Singer’s voice had dropped so low he could barely hear it himself. “It’s better now. I’m not constantly wondering if I should smile now, or touch him, or if this is when I’m supposed to tickle him.”