Gaither nodded. “It is a bit odd,” he said. He took the ring back from Burke and returned it to the box. “Which is precisely why Calvin’s possession of them was taken as proof of his parentage. Also, he looked exactly like his father.” He looked at the rings a moment before shutting the box. “My mother told me that my grandfather pressed these into her hand and told her to run from the house the night it was on fire. They’re the only things she took with her.”
“You said earlier that Calvin—Cain—ran away after his mother married Peter Woode.”
“I suppose he thought Tess was somehow betraying Amos by remarrying,” Gaither said.
Burke hesitated before continuing. Did he really want to tell Gaither Sam’s theory regarding Peter Woode? Although Gaither seemed like an open-minded person, would he really want to know that Peter Woode might really have been Elizabeth Frances Walsh? Then again, it’s not as if he comes from that side of the family, he argued. Still, finding out your step-great-grandfather was a woman might be a little bit of a stretch. It was a difficult call, and again he wished Sam were there to help.
“Have you ever heard of a Thomas Beattie?” he asked instead.
“Tess’s brother,” Gaither said. “He worked on the farm, I believe. My mother mentioned him several times. It was a bit odd, actually. She said her father spoke about Thomas only when he was drunk, which I gather was not an infrequent occurrence. In fact, the fire that killed my grandparents was eventually blamed on Calvin knocking over an oil lamp in a drunken stupor, although my mother swears he was as sober as a stone that night.”
“Have you been to the farm?” Burke asked.
“No,” said Gaither as he put the box back into the drawer. “Well, once or twice as a child, but only with my father. My mother refused to go back.”
“But you still own it?”
“I do,” Gaither confirmed. “After the fire my mother went to live with her mother’s sister in Maine. She grew up there, and when she was eighteen, she was told that there was a great deal of money coming to her from her father, as well as the land where the farm was located. A year later she married my father, Bertram Lucas, and told him that she wanted to return to Vermont. They bought this house in nineteen thirty-two. As my mother wouldn’t live on the land she owned, my father wanted to sell it, but my mother wouldn’t allow it.” He paused. “It annoyed my father greatly,” he added, chuckling. “He thought he could get a great deal of money for it. I remember standing with him in the grass, looking at the ruins of the farm, and him muttering about what a damn fool my mother was.”
“And yet you haven’t sold it, either,” Burke remarked.
Gaither smiled. “No,” he said. “I haven’t. I suppose I keep it because I know it meant something to her. Silly, I know, but I’ve always been a sentimental sort. Derek used to say I would keep the snow from every Christmas if I could find a way to save it.”
“Derek?” said Burke. “Your brother?”
“No, no,” Gaither said. “I have no brother. Derek was my lover.” He looked at Burke. “I believe they call them domestic partners now,” he said. “Or is it husbands, now that we can marry?”
“I’m sorry,” Burke said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Gaither waved away the apology. “I wouldn’t have told you if I wanted to keep it a secret,” he said. “I’m too old to care what anybody thinks of me. And, anyway, if I’m not mistaken, there’s something between you and that handsome young man who brought you today.”
“Well, yes, there is,” said Burke.
Gaither clapped his hands. “The old gaydar isn’t on the fritz, then, after all,” he said. He looked at Burke with a smile. “I love that word. Gaydar. So clever.”
“I’m afraid mine is broken,” Burke said. “It never occurred to me that you were gay.”
“It’s because I’m teeming with masculinity,” Gaither joked. He walked to the nightstand beside his bed and picked up a framed photo. “Derek said my mother made me a sissy and the army made me a man. Not very enlightened of him, but not entirely untrue.”
Burke looked at the photo, which Gaither had handed him. It showed Gaither standing beside a shorter, heavier man in front of a Nash Rambler. Both had crew cuts and wore dark suits.
“That was taken in 1955,” Gaither said. “I was twenty-two, and Derek was thirty-six. We’d been together about a year.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At a weekend party,” Gaither answered. “In those days we didn’t have so many options for socializing. Very few bars and so on, particularly in this part of the country. Every weekend someone with a house in the country would host a party for ten or twenty of us. Sometimes we would drive for hours to get there.”
“It was all gay men?” asked Burke.
“Some lesbians,” Gaither said. “Half would dress in suits, and the other half would wear girly things. They’d pretend to be married couples for the weekend. The boys were less dramatic, although there were a handful of queens who put on the make-up and camped it up.”
“It actually sounds kind of fun,” said Burke.
Gaither nodded. “It was enormously fun,” he said. “You know, everyone now talks about how dreadful it was for us in those days, as if we were Anne Frank and family hiding in an attic in fear for our lives. But really we had some wonderful times. Some terrible ones, too, some of us, but mostly I have fond memories of those weekends. As I said, I met Derek at one of those parties. It was hosted by an old army buddy of his. The Major, we called him, although I don’t know that he really was one.”
“It sounds like you were all in the army,” Burke commented.
“Most of us were. Derek was in the Second World War, and of course, I was in Korea. It never occurred to us that we couldn’t—or shouldn’t—be there. Not like today.”
“In some ways we seem to be going backward,” said Burke, handing the picture back to Gaither. “Derek is very handsome, by the way.”
“Isn’t he?” said Gaither. “The first time I saw him, I nearly dropped my gin and tonic.” He stroked the glass on the photo. “I miss him every day.”
“How long were you together?”
“Fifty-three years. He died two years ago this December. We went to bed one night, and in the morning he was gone. He hadn’t even stirred.”
“I’m sorry,” said Burke.
“As am I,” Gaither said, setting the photo down. “But fifty-three years is a long time. My parents had barely twenty when my father died of a heart attack, and of course, you know what happened to my grandparents.”
“I can’t even imagine fifty-three years,” said Burke.
Gaither cocked his head. “Why not?” he asked. “In fifty-three years you’ll be ninety-three, and Will won’t be more than seventy or so.”
Burke shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll get that far,” he said. He could feel Gaither waiting for more details, but he didn’t want to discuss his romantic failings. Instead he said, “Now I have something I want to show you.”
They returned to the parlor, where Burke opened his portfolio and brought out several of the photographs he’d taken at the farm. He spread them out on the coffee table for Gaither to look at. “At first I thought there was something wrong with the cameras or the film,” he began to explain.
“Ghosts,” Gaither said, picking up one of the shots and examining it more closely.
“Well, that’s one theory,” Burke said cautiously.
“My mother used to talk about ghosts,” said Gaither. “In the last years of her life she developed Alzheimer’s. She regressed to the point where she couldn’t remember what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning but could describe in minute detail things that had occurred in her youth. The night of the fire, for instance. Many times she would wake up screaming, convinced she was back in that house. She thought I was her father, and while I tried to comfort her, she told me how she’d seen Peter Blackburne running away. It’s why I believe so strongly in his guilt.”
“Yes. She remembered seeing them on the farm when she was a girl. Sometimes in the fields. Sometimes at the pond. Sometimes even in the house. She told her parents about them, but they didn’t believe her. Eventually, she stopped speaking about them. She never mentioned them to me until her mind began to go backward in time.”
“Did she ever say who they were?”
“Amos Hague and Thomas Beattie,” Gaither answered.
“Why would they haunt the farm?”
“Well, Amos drowned there, in the pond. I suppose if you believe in such things, it would make sense that he would want to stay around.”
“I didn’t know he drowned there,” Burke said. “Do you know how Thomas died?”
Gaither shook his head.
“Then I assume you don’t know that they died on the same day a year apart and are buried next to one another.”
“No,” Gaither said. “I didn’t know that. How very odd.”
“There’s more,” Burke told him. “Sam has reason to believe that Peter Woode was a woman.”
Gaither raised an eyebrow. “It would be very difficult for her to be the father of Grace, then, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Tess and Peter married not long after Amos’s death, which has always seemed a little strange to me. It’s possible Tess was pregnant by Amos.”
Gaither thought about this. “If that’s true, then Grace and Cain were fully brother and sister,” he said. “That makes the squabbling over the farm even more tragic, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Burke agreed. “And if Cain knew Peter Woode’s secret, it might explain why he ran, and why the wedding rings were of such importance to him.”
Gaither leaned back. “It’s all terribly gothic,” he remarked. “Like a Faulkner novel. Have we any proof of any of this?”
“Not really,” Burke admitted. “Sam is the one who pieced it together.”
“I look forward to meeting this Sam Guffrey,” said Gaither. “He has an interesting mind.”
“That he does,” Burke said. “And I know he’ll love talking to you.”
“This is a lot to digest,” said Gaither. He looked at the clock on the mantel. “And as it is now a quarter past noon, I believe we are entitled to a drink to aid us in this endeavor. Shall we?”
Burke followed him into the kitchen. Burke sat at the table there, drinking from a glass of excellent merlot Gaither had poured for him, while Gaither prepared a light lunch.
“If Peter Woode really was . . . What did you say her name was?”
“Elizabeth Frances Walsh,” Burke said.
“Elizabeth Frances Walsh. If he were really she, does that mean Tess was a lesbian?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Burke. “It took me a couple of years to get the whole transgender thing straight in my head, and now the kids are saying that we should get rid of labels and be whatever we want to be.”
“It’s a brave new world,” Gaither remarked as he tossed a salad. “I fear it’s leaving me further and further behind. It was so much easier when all we had to know was whether we were tops or bottoms.”
“Believe me, that one is still a problem,” Burke assured him.
Gaither set the salad on the table. “Are tops still scarce?” he asked. “In my day they were all bottoms. Fortunately, both Derek and I were ambidextrous.”
Burke laughed at the openness of the question. “They’re still pretty hard to find,” he said. “But I think that’s changing.” He thought of Will, and how he had been surprised at Burke’s suggestion that a man had to be one thing or the other. He had to admit, too, that being on the bottom hadn’t been all that unpleasant. In fact, thinking about it now caused a familiar stirring in his groin.
And maybe you’re changing, too, he thought. Was it so ridiculous, the idea of him and Will as a couple? Earlier it had seemed so, but now he wasn’t sure. Yes, there was the age difference, and Will was immature in a lot of ways. Also, he seemed afraid of breaking out of Wellston. But perhaps all he needed was some encouragement.
Burke thought back to Gaither’s comment about how he and Will might someday be celebrating fifty years together. He tried to imagine it. Will certainly seemed to enjoy being with him now. At least in bed. But what about when he was fifty and Burke was seventy? What then? Or would it matter? Maybe by then sex wouldn’t be so important.
“Can I ask you something personal?” he heard himself say to Gaither.
“By all means,” Gaither answered. “The more personal the better.”
“Did you and Derek still make love? You know, after all those years.”
Gaither grinned. “If you’re asking me if we were still hot for each other, we were,” he said. “Of course, it wasn’t like it was those first years, but that was also part of the joy of it.”
“And now?” asked Burke.
Gaither looked at him over his glass of wine. “If you’re asking me whether you’ll be sleeping in the guest room or in my room tonight, I should warn you that I snore quite loudly.”
For a moment Burke wasn’t sure how to respond.
Then Gaither grinned. “Relax,” he said. “I’ll be a good boy. Besides, you can always lock the door from the inside if you fear being violated in the night.”
CHAPTER 24
“How’s the cow?”
“What?” said Will. “Oh, she’s good. Calf’s good. Everyone’s
“What?” said Will. “Oh, she’s good. Calf’s good. Everyone’s good.”
Burke refrained from asking him if they were also well. “You look tired. It must have been a long night.”
“Yeah, it was,” Will answered. “I didn’t get much sleep.”
Burke sat back, looking out the window. His evening with Gaither had been a welcome break from staying with his father and Lucy. They’d talked well into the night, about everything from relationships to photography. Gaither reminded Burke a little of Sam. Both had wide-ranging interests and ideas, and conversing with them left him feeling energized rather than exhausted, as he sometimes felt after spending several hours with his friends in Boston.
Will had phoned a little past ten to say he was coming and had arrived in time for lunch. He’d said little during the meal, which Burke attributed to his being so tired. After promising to return soon for another visit, they’d left for the journey home.
“Gaither’s an interesting guy, isn’t he?” Burke said.
Will shrugged. “I guess,” he said.
“He told me some great stories about when he and his lover were our ages. Well, closer to your age than mine. They were fourteen years apart.” Burke watched Will’s face for a reaction but got none. “He asked if we were a couple,” he added.
Will turned and looked at him. “Really? He thought I was gay? Why?”
“I don’t know why,” Burke replied. “Does it matter?”
Will didn’t answer. Instead, he turned on the radio to a country music station, filling the silence between them with Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter singing “Storms Never Last.”
“You weren’t even born when this song was a hit,” Burke remarked. He was immediately sorry for saying it, realizing that in some way he was trying to irritate Will into saying something.
“I like the older stuff,” Will said.
Burke wondered if this was meant to apply to whatever it was that was going on between them. Was he older stuff, too? He could at least say classic, he thought.
“Songs now don’t really say anything,” Will continued. “Most of them don’t even make sense. But these,” he said, nodding at the radio, “they’re about something. You ever listen to George Jones? Tammy Wynette? Their songs are amazing.”
“Where’d you ever hear them?” asked Burke. “As I recall, your father was more into Bruce Springsteen and Metallica than he was country.”
“My grandfather,” said Will.
“Doc Janks?” Burke said,
surprised. “I thought he was only into classical and jazz. Every time I was over there, he was playing Bach or Coltrane or something brainy.”
“Yeah, well, he wanted everyone to think he was all sophisticated. But when he took me with him on his rounds, he always played Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn. He said it was music that told a story.”
“But your father doesn’t like that, does he?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t think he ever knew Granddad liked it. The two of them—they didn’t really talk too much. Kind of like me and my dad.”
“And me and mine,” said Burke. “I wonder what makes it easier to talk to our grandfathers than our fathers.”
“I don’t know,” Will said. “But it is. I don’t think my father knows one thing about me, really.”
“Have you tried talking to him?”
Will laughed. “Tried? Sure. About how to cure hoof rot and bloat. Anything else and he acts like I’ve asked him what position he and my mother like to do it in.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Burke. “I wish I could tell you how to change that. The truth is, I don’t know myself. The older we get, the less I think my father and I know about one another.”
“But if you had a kid, I bet he’d know,” Will remarked. “Then maybe he could explain it to you.”
“Like those diseases that skip a generation,” Burke suggested. “Only every other generation understands each other.”
They rode in silence for a long time. Burke wanted to ask Will several things, chief among them whether he thought of Burke as his father’s friend or as a man with whom he was becoming involved. But although he tried several times, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about coming to Boston,” he said eventually.
“What about it?”
“I think you should,” said Burke. “Maybe you’ll like it enough to stay for a while.” Maybe even with me, he thought.
Will nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “You never know.”
There was a decided lack of enthusiasm in his response, and Burke wondered what had changed since their afternoon in Will’s room, when he’d seemed so excited about the possibility of coming to the city. He almost asked but found that he didn’t want to know.
The Road Home Page 18