The Road Home

by Michael Thomas Ford

  Burke straightened up. “Some of the most interesting art is accidental,” he remarked. He was still thinking about Donna Lewis. He wondered what she looked like, and pictured a thin, giggly girl with blond hair and huge breasts. He pictured Will kissing her.

  “When will you develop the others?”

  Lucy’s question broke the spell, and the image dissipated. “I did it this morning,” said Burke. “They’re hanging up to dry.”

  Lucy smiled. “You’re certainly getting around well,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Burke agreed. “It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”

  “And here I was hoping you’d be with us all summer,” said Lucy. “It’s selfish of me, I know. But I like having you here, and I know your father does, too.”

  Burke didn’t argue this point. He knew Lucy was just being nice, at least about his father being happy to have him there. He’s probably as anxious to be rid of me as I am to be out of here, he thought.

  “I’m supposed to go to a doctor in Montpelier this week,” Burke told Lucy. “To see how the leg is healing. Dr. Liu set it up. We’ll see what he says.”

  Lucy stood up. “I hope it’s bad news,” she said, patting his cheek. “I’ll go make you some breakfast.”

  “I thought you made Dad do all the cooking,” said Burke.

  Lucy smiled at him. “I make the occasional exception,” she said. “Don’t tell your father. He’s just looking for an excuse to hand over that particular duty.”

  She went into the kitchen, and Burke shut the laptop down. He was thinking of Will again. The young man was supposed to come by to look at the photos later. Burke had been excited about showing them to him. Now the thought just made him sick.

  Don’t be stupid, he chastised himself. It’s not as if the two of you are lovers. Why are you so upset?

  He had no answer for this question. He just knew that he was. He didn’t want Will to have a girlfriend. It’s like Mars all over again, he thought. We’re going to pretend nothing ever happened.

  He went upstairs and checked on the film. It was almost dry enough to scan. But now he didn’t care whether he scanned it or not. The news about Will had sapped a lot of his excitement about the photographs. “Maybe Dad is right,” he said to the empty bathroom as he looked at the strips of film hanging from the curtain rod. “Maybe they’re just pictures of plants.”

  Lucy called him down for breakfast a few minutes later. She’d made eggs and bacon, all of it perfectly cooked. Burke ate, but without enthusiasm. He felt guilty about not enjoying the food more, but his bad mood was getting worse. “This is great,” he told Lucy, his voice overly enthusiastic.

  He was finishing the last of the bacon when Will appeared outside the kitchen’s screen door. “Knock, knock,” he said.

  “Will!” Lucy said. “Come in. Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” Will answered. “I’ve already had three cups this morning. Any more and I’ll get twitchy.” He looked at Burke. “How’d they come out?”

  “They’re wonderful,” Lucy told him.

  “Yeah?” Will said, waiting for Burke’s verdict.

  “Come upstairs,” said Burke. “See for yourself.” He went up the stairs ahead of Will, his irritation growing with each step. As soon as they were in his room, he turned around. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  Will, confused, furrowed his brow. “Coming to look at pictures?” he said.

  “What would Donna think about you kissing me?” Burke said.

  Will shut his eyes and sighed. “Who told you about her?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Burke. “The real question is, why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  Will turned and shut the door to the room. “I was going to,” he told Burke.

  Burke sat down on the bed. Suddenly his leg hurt. He didn’t say anything in response to Will’s words. He just waited for him to continue.

  “Donna’s just a . . . ,” he began.

  “A what?” asked Burke when Will didn’t finish the sentence. “A friend?”

  “No,” Will said. “She’s more than that.”

  “Does she know you kiss other men?”

  Will’s face flushed. “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “I think I do,” Burke countered. “You like banging girls, but you’ve wondered what it might be like with a guy. You thought you’d give it a try. So tell me, was it what you expected?”

  Will ran his hands through his hair. “That’s not it,” he said. He paced back and forth, seemingly trying to find the right words. “I know I like guys, okay? I mean, I haven’t really done much, but I know I like it.”

  “But?” Burke asked.

  “But my dad,” said Will. “This place. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  Burke laughed. “No, I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I only grew up here with your father.” He resisted adding that he and Will’s father had engaged in a little man-on-man action of their own. Like father, like son, he couldn’t help thinking.

  “You got out,” Will continued. “I don’t know if I can. I want to. I just don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Why?” said Burke. “Does your dad lock you in at night? Are you forbidden to leave the county? Come on, Will. You’re a grown man. You can do what you want to.”

  Will shook his head. “They expect me to be a certain way,” he argued. “If my father thought I was . . .”

  “So you’re going to hide your whole life?” said Burke. “You’re going to marry Donna, have a couple of kids, and play country vet forever? Maybe sneak off every now and again for a blow job or a quick fuck in a men’s room, or hook up with some guy online? This isn’t 1956, Will. In case you hadn’t noticed, a lot of people manage to escape the expectations their families have for them.”

  Will sat beside him on the bed. “I know that,” he said.

  “But it’s different for you, right?” said Burke. “You’re different. Things are harder for you.”

  “Why are you being such a dick?” Will asked.

  Because you’re doing the same thing to me that your father did, Burke thought. Because I know what’s going to happen to you if you don’t get out of this place. “I’m not being a dick,” he answered. “I’m reacting the way people do when they find out they’ve been lied to.”

  “I didn’t lie,” Will objected.

  “Right,” said Burke, nodding. “You just didn’t tell me. The sin of omission is still a sin, Will. You let me think that maybe—” He stopped as he realized what he was about to say.

  “Maybe what?” asked Will.

  “Nothing,” Burke said. “You let me think something that isn’t true is all.”

  There was a long silence as neither of them spoke. Outside Old Jack whinnied. The bed shook as Will laughed. “I think he’s feeling better,” he said.

  Burke knew Will was trying to break the tension, but he wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. His irritation at being deceived had grown into a larger disappointment over Will’s apparent inability to claim his life as his own. The young man was allowing himself to be bullied into hiding who he was. No, it’s worse than that, he thought. He’s doing this to himself.

  “What did your parents say when you told them?” Will asked after a moment.

  “Told them what?” asked Burke.

  “That you’re . . . you know.”

  He can’t even say the word, thought Burke. “Gay,” he said. “The word is gay.”

  “I know what it is,” Will said.

  “Then say it,” said Burke. “If you can’t even say it, you’ll never be able to be it. Or maybe that’s what you want. Maybe you think that if you never say the word, you’ll never have to deal with it. Good idea. But it doesn’t work that way.”

  “Gay!” Will said sharply. “Gay. There. Are you happy? I said it.”

  “You forgot the ‘I am’ part,” Burke said. “‘I am gay.’ Say that.”

&
nbsp; “Fuck you,” Will spat. “I don’t owe you anything. And you haven’t answered my question.”

  “What did my parents say?” Burke was suddenly embarrassed. “They didn’t say anything. I never told them.”

  “They don’t know?” said Will. “Your dad doesn’t know?”

  “Of course he knows,” Burke answered. “My mother knew, too. We just never talked about it. I kind of let them figure it out on their own.”

  “And you’re telling me how I should live my life?” said Will.

  “Things were different then!” Burke argued.

  “Oh yeah?” Will countered. “How? It wasn’t 1956.”

  Burke started to snap back but stopped. To his surprise, he laughed. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. I don’t really have an excuse for that. I guess I was just scared.”

  “Then don’t expect more from anyone else,” said Will. “It’s not fair.”

  “Maybe not,” Burke agreed. “But is it fair to Donna to let her think you’re someone else? More important, is it fair to you?”

  Will didn’t answer. He was looking at the floor, his hands folded in his lap as his thumbs tapped against each other anxiously. Seeing this, Burke felt bad for pushing him so hard. What he needs is someone who doesn’t judge him, he thought. What he needs is a friend.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quickly.

  After a moment Will nodded. “Me too,” he said.

  Burke picked up the laptop and opened it. “Let’s look at some pictures,” he said.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Here’s everything,” Lucy said, setting a cardboard box on the kitchen table. “Took me a while to find it. I’d stuck it in with the boxes of china in the cellar. I don’t know why.”

  “When are you just going to move in here?” Burke asked as he opened the box. “You’re here all the time, anyway.”

  “You really do sound like your father,” said Lucy. “‘Why don’t we get married?’ ‘Why don’t you move in?’ You Crenshaw men really are a pushy bunch.”

  “Sorry,” Burke said. “But it does seem like the logical thing to do.”

  “Life isn’t always logical,” said Lucy. “I like having my own house. I like knowing it’s there.”

  “You mean you like having an escape route,” Burke teased.

  “Yes,” Lucy admitted. “I do. I spent most of my life with one man. I may spend the rest of it with one man. But you never know.”

  “Good for you,” Burke said. He lifted a smaller box out of the larger one. “Here we are,” he said, removing the lid and finding a stack of photographs.

  Intrigued by the pictures in Jerry’s book, he’d asked Lucy if she still had the originals. To his delight, she did. Now she’d brought him all of Jerry’s original materials. He flipped through the photos, amazed at how clear most of them were. At the time of the Civil War, photography was still in its infancy, yet some of the images were strikingly vivid.

  “Where did he get these?” Burke asked Lucy.

  “Oh, all kinds of places,” Lucy answered. “The Library of Congress, the Center for Civil War Photography, the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury. Some he got directly from people whose family members were in the army. The source should be written on the back of each photo. Jerry was very good about that kind of thing.”

  Burke flipped over the photograph he was currently looking at, a battlefield scene depicting the aftermath of a confrontation. “The Civil War Photography Project,” he read. “Photograph by Alexander Gardner.”

  “I wanted to use all the photos in the book, but it would have been too expensive,” Lucy said. “I had to choose the ones that would reproduce the best. It’s too bad, because there are some wonderful personal ones in there.”

  Burke looked through some more pictures. Many he’d seen in Jerry’s book, but many more were new to him. Mostly they were battlefield scenes, but there were also photographs of individual soldiers. These were most interesting to him. The expressions on the faces of the men fascinated him. Some looked into the camera with tired eyes, as if submitting to an ordeal, while others faced the lens defiantly, their faces proud and determined.

  Then he came to a photo that was different from anything else he’d seen. It was a picture of two men and a woman. The woman was standing in the middle. Her dress was plain, and her hair was pulled into a bun. The man to her left was dressed in the familiar uniform of a Northern soldier. He had a short beard, strong features, and eyes that looked straight ahead. His arm was around the woman’s waist. On the woman’s right was the other man. Younger than the first, and without a beard, he was dressed in dark pants and a checked shirt, open at the neck. But instead of looking at the camera, his head was turned so that he was looking at the woman beside him.

  No, Burke thought as he examined the photograph more closely. He’s looking at the other man. All three were standing in front of a large tree. In the distance behind them was a small house.

  At first he thought the younger man might be the couple’s son, but he was clearly not much younger than they were. He turned the photo over to see if the subjects were identified. Unlike the other pictures, which were neatly labeled, this one had only a note scrawled in pencil: “A. Hague and T. Beattie.”

  “Amos Hague,” Burke said. “The fellow who wrote the letter.” Lucy turned from the sink, where she was washing strawberries. “Isn’t that a lovely photo?” she said. “It’s a pity I couldn’t use it.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Burke asked.

  “I don’t know where it came from,” Lucy replied. “And I’m not certain the identification is correct.”

  “But it says it’s Amos Hague and Tess Beattie,” said Burke.

  “Look more closely,” Lucy said. “There’s a question mark after their names.”

  “Is this Jerry’s handwriting?”

  “Could be,” said Lucy. “It’s similar, anyway. The other problem is that second fellow. There’s nothing about him.”

  “And you don’t know where the photo came from?”

  Lucy shook her head. “It’s a bit of a mystery,” she said.

  Burke turned the picture over again and looked at the man who might or might not be Amos Hague. He tried to imagine him writing the things in the letter. Then he tried to imagine the young woman—presumably Tess—reading them. Despite the intimacy of their pose, Burke had a difficult time imagining them exchanging such romantic words. Amos Hague the soldier didn’t look like a man who would crush sweet flag between his fingers because the smell reminded him of his woman at home.

  Then again, they all looked like that in photos back then, he reminded himself. The overly formal style was ubiquitous, as though the subjects were all afraid of revealing their true selves. Only the younger man in the photograph seemed to be at ease, and he was looking away from the camera.

  “Do you think he’s going off to or coming back from war?” Lucy asked.

  “Amos?” Burke said. “It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? I’d say going off to. They all look very stoic about the whole thing.”

  “I can’t decide,” said Lucy. “Not that it matters. It’s still a striking image.”

  “In the book it says Tess is from Sandberg,” Burke said. “Do you know if Amos was as well?”

  “I don’t,” Lucy answered. “I meant to find out what became of them, but there were so many other things to do, and I just never did. That letter is the only other thing connected to Amos Hague, so I didn’t have much to go on.”

  “And where did that come from?” asked Burke.

  “The Sheldon Museum, if I remember correctly,” Lucy said. “They have quite a collection of correspondence there. Anyway, the source should be noted in the book.”

  She finished rinsing the berries and wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “Here,” she said, bringing Burke a strawberry. “Right out of our own patch.”

  Burke bit into the fruit. “Sweet,” he said. “Usually the homegrown ones are kind of bitter.”


  “It’s all the manure,” said Lucy. “It makes them tastier.”

  Burke grimaced. “Thanks,” he said. “Now I can never eat another strawberry as long as I live.”

  “Nonsense,” said Lucy. “Manure’s natural. It’s better than all those chemicals they spray on them. Besides, it’s Old Jack’s manure, and he’s family.”

  “You’re something else,” Burke told her. “You know that?”

  Lucy bit into a strawberry. “I’ve been told,” she said.

  “Did Jerry serve in any of the wars?” asked Burke.

  “Korea,” Lucy told him. “He was a communications specialist. We met not long before he joined the army. I was still in high school when he left.”

  “It must have been difficult,” said Burke.

  “Not as difficult as explaining to my parents how I got pregnant,” said Lucy.

  Burke looked up, surprised. “Pregnant?” he said. “But—”

  “I lost the baby,” Lucy interrupted. “There were complications. It was a long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Burke, not knowing what else to say.

  “I remember telling my father that I had to sleep with Jerry because he might be killed over in Korea,” Lucy said. “I think that actually made sense to him, because he wasn’t nearly as upset as I thought he would be. Although he did write to Jerry, telling him we would be getting married the instant he came home. Unfortunately, that was the first Jerry had heard about there being a baby, too. It took a couple of letters back and forth to get it all sorted out. And my mother went out and bought me a wedding ring at Woolworth’s and made me tell everyone that Jerry and I had eloped.”

  “And how old were you?” Burke asked.

  “Sixteen,” said Lucy. “Almost seventeen. I know it sounds awful, but secretly I was terribly pleased about it. I loved Jerry, and I wanted to have his baby.” She laughed. “This was before women started looking at their vaginas in hand mirrors and Gloria Steinem told us we could be more than just mothers,” she said. “When I lost the baby, I was devastated. I thought I’d failed Jerry somehow.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Burke said.

  “I remember my mother telling me that God had a reason for taking my baby,” said Lucy. “Some nonsense about needing more cherubim or something like that. I hated her so much at that moment. She couldn’t just say, ‘This is a horrible thing that’s happened to you, and I wish I could make it better, but I can’t.’ She had to pretend it was all for the best. And, of course, we never talked about it again.”