Manuel looked up from his cards and spoke harshly to Cisco in Spanish, ordering him to leave his uncle alone. Cisco only wedged closer to Michael, his face rebellious.
“I can stay if I want to. It’s my birthday.” It was an open defiance, unthinkable in Michael’s day and age.
Manuel flushed and stood up in an angry rush, rocking the table and spilling the cards. Cisco ducked his head and Michael wrapped an arm protectively around the boy. Looking at his small, thin arms, he noticed several raised welts.
“It’s okay with me,” he replied in a calm voice, trying to douse the flame of fury in his heart. He abhorred any violence against a child. He’d felt the lash too many times in his childhood to bear its presence as an adult. He knew Manuel had a hot temper and a hard hand.
“Is that boy shooting his mouth again?” Rosa called from the kitchen.
“Let him be,” Michael called back. Then to Manuel, “I’ll read him a story while you finish your game of cards. I’ll talk to Papa later.”
“If it’s okay with you…” Manuel gave his son a warning look. “You must respect grown-ups,” he added to Cisco.
“Enough,” Luis shouted, waving his hand in the air to indicate to Manuel that he should sit down. “Stop bothering us, eh? We’re playing cards here. Marta, hurry with the dinner. I am hungry. And after, we will have a big cake, no? I love the sweets, and I’ll bring out cigars for your son’s birthday. Come, Manuel, let’s finish our game of cards and leave the children to the women.”
“Rosa,” Manuel called out to his wife, in imitation of his father-in-law. “Be a good woman for a change and throw some more chestnuts on the grate for the children. And some music, no?”
Rosa cast darts with her eyes at her husband, but out of respect for her father, did as she was told.
Michael felt Cisco’s arms loosen, but in the boy’s eyes he saw triumph. “Cisco, you little devil,” he whispered in his ear. There would be a few strikes from the belt at the very least for this infraction. But he knew Cisco wouldn’t feel the pain. How often had he and his father played out this scene? And later tonight, they would play the same roles again. The rigid father and the defiant son.
“Feliz Cumpleaños!” Bobby swung wide the door and entered carrying a huge box in his arms. “Where is the birthday boy?”
Cisco leaped from Michael’s arms to check out the gift. Kids were as fickle as dogs when it came to handouts. “A stereo! Wow, thank you, Tío Roberto!”
Latin music began blaring from the speakers, Marta clapped her hands in joy and the children were dancing. The moment of tension passed. Bobby made a successful entrance back into the family, and dinner was about to be served. For a while, all was right with the world. This skirmish was only a four on the Richter scale, Michael thought. A minor quake.
After dinner Michael followed Manuel outside, closing the door tightly behind him.
“A word, Manuel,” he called out, catching up with him by Manuel’s red Mercury.
Manuel, bent over the door key, looked over his shoulder, surprised. He stood up immediately, showing respect. Michael supposed it was because he was his boss.
“I’d like to talk to you about Cisco.”
“Aiiee.” He made a show of moaning in distress, but he was smiling. “That boy, he is a handful. A child of eleven and already he knows so much. He has too many opinions!”
Michael studied Manuel’s face. It appeared he was proud of his son. He cleared his throat and began cautiously. “I think he has too many bruises.”
Manuel’s face clouded immediately, but he made no reply.
“Listen to me, Manuel. I know you may think it is none of my business, but I’m making it my business. I don’t want to see any more bruises on that boy’s body. Or on little Maria Elena’s. If I do, you’ll have to answer to me.”
Manuel’s porcine features turned red and puffed with restrained fury.
“Look,” Michael said, putting his hands on his hips and steadying his breath. “I know these kids need discipline. If you must, spank them on their rears. But nowhere else. Belts and cords, those are the tools of cowards. Not to be used on children. They are your flesh and blood, not donkeys!”
Manuel only nodded once, sharply, then swung open the door of the car and closed it. Michael stepped back from the spraying gravel and dirt, then stood and watched the red brake lights disappear down the drive.
Bobby approached him, his steps crunching in the gravel behind him. “What was that all about?”
“Oh, just trying to break a pattern.”
“Speaking of which…Rosa told me what you said earlier. To Papa.” He looked out across the land, as black in the dark night as the sea. He cleared his throat. “Thanks, hermano.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Ah, Michael,” Bobby said in exasperation. “Listen to us. So formal. You—I can understand. But see what’s become of me? I’m becoming as stoic as you!”
They both knew that to be formal in the Mexican culture was to be steady. Serious. Women could be spirited and chatty. Men, though they could tell stories and laugh, were never gossipy. Men who were formal were careful of their words.
“No, you’ve got it all wrong,” Michael replied with humor. “I simply can’t speak so easily in Spanish, like the rest of you.”
Bobby chuckled, but they both knew that wasn’t true. Michael’s Spanish had improved greatly in the past two and a half years, because he allowed himself to speak it.
“So, it seems they taught you something in that Ivy League college you went to, after all. I heard you quoted Blake tonight.”
“Rosa told you that, too?”
Bobby’s eyes sparkled with merriment. “Papa. He drew me aside and privately asked me what you meant by that ‘windows’ line. I almost burst out laughing in his face, but held back and told him I didn’t know nothing. That, I’m sorry to say, he found easy to believe.”
When Michael stopped laughing, Bobby spread out his arms in a theatrical gesture. His tone, however, was no longer teasing, but heartfelt.
“This life’s five windows of the soul, Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole. And leads you to believe a lie, When you see with, not through, the eye.” Bobby paused, then said seriously, “I always thought of Papa when I read that.”
“Bobby, I’m sorry.”
“Why? Because Papa and I are estranged?”
“No. Because we are. I’m sorry for the distance.”
“Hey, man, it’s not your fault.”
“If not mine, then whose?” He shrugged. “I claim the fault. And apologize for it. I should have apologized long ago. It went on far too long, though you must admit you didn’t make it any easier for me.” Michael lowered his head and kicked the dirt. “I didn’t know what to say. What to do. I felt—forgive me, but I felt like I failed you somehow. Crazy things like I should’ve hung out with you more.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Set you up on dates.”
“Michael,” Bobby said, throwing back his head. He took a deep breath. “Miguel, when we were little, while you were dreaming of little girls, I was dreaming of little boys.”
Michael looked at the drifting clouds as they covered a quarter moon. “Mama said tonight that you were as you’d always been,” he said. “It rang true. I don’t know why it was so hard for me to accept that you’re gay. But I want you to know that I do. And it changes nothing. You’re my brother. I love you.”
He looked up then and saw the emotion in Bobby’s eyes. They reached out to grab hold of each other, neither flinching, each hanging on to the history they shared, the name they shared.
“You better be dreaming of Charlotte these days,” Bobby said when they separated, happy in the easy laughter after a long summer’s tension.
Michael’s smile faded as he recalled Charlotte’s last strained goodbye at the airport. “Dreams are all I’ve got. She’s gone again. This is her second film, a period piece called One Day in Autumn. The last part was a supporting role,
but this one is a co-starring role and will showcase her talent. She’s really excited about it—and they’re pretty excited about her. She’s getting big money, and her third film is already being planned.” He paused. “That one’s even bigger.”
“Wow,” Bobby said on an exhale. “Things are moving fast for her. How long will she be gone this time?”
“I’m not sure. She’s been gone a couple of months already. Maybe another.”
“You know, I hate to ask you this, but is everything okay with you two? I mean, I’ve been seeing her picture a lot in the tabloids with these movie hunks. He’s got his arms all over her. Are you two still together, or what?”
Michael nodded brusquely. “That’s all publicity, Bobby. Her agent is setting her up with all these bankable stars so she’ll be noticed by the press. Sort of create a buzz about her.” He made a hissing sound, more of a curse. “It’s working, too. Even when she’s home, she’s often out to a party or dinner at some studio boss’s place. This new film she’s in stars this heartthrob Brad Sommers. Charlotte told me Walen arranged for her to be seen dating this guy now, too. It’s all harmless, but…”
He shook his head and stomped his boot on the floor. “I don’t like it,” he said in a dangerously low voice. “I believe her when she says it’s just business. She might feel that way, but let’s face it. We’re talking about Charlotte Godfrey. I don’t trust those men not to want her. I want to kill the guy who touches her.”
“Easy, boy. Your jealousy will only get you in trouble.” Bobby leaned against the porch railing and considered. “I should be enjoying this. After all the girls who cried on my shoulder over you in high school.”
“They meant nothing to me.”
“And she does?”
“What do you think?”
“Why don’t you go with her to some of these parties, then? I’ve heard about those bashes. Caviar by the pound, champagne. Hey, I’d be there in a Hollywood minute.”
“That Freddy Walen is doing his damnedest to turn Charlotte against me. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s simply jealous or he’s prejudiced. Either way, I’m not on his list of suitable suitors.”
“He doesn’t want his pretty star dating a Latino, is that it?” He saw Michael’s color rise and knew him well enough to let that sensitive subject drop. “It only matters what Charlotte thinks, and she doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who is easily swayed.”
“By this guy she is. He’s got some kind of control over her. It’s infuriating. She listens to him and does what he wants her to do. She says they have some kind of agreement.”
“A pact with the devil, eh? Classic stuff there, brother. If I were you, I’d hold on to her tight.”
“I intend to. But it’s not entirely up to me, is it?”
“Sure it is. Fight for her. You have this crazy notion that you’ve got to prove yourself worthy of those blond, Protestant, upper class girls you’re so fond of.”
He smirked. “She’s Catholic.”
“Score one for our side. But the point remains the same.”
Michael scowled and clenched his teeth like a man splitting hairs. “How does one compete against fame, fortune and millions of adoring fans?”
“Love, my dear brother. Simply love.”
“We’ll see.”
“Where is she now?”
“On location in Maine. Somewhere on the coast.”
“Go to her, man. Sweep her off her feet. Do the horizontal mambo and remind her of what you have together. Just give me five minutes, little brother, and I can come up with a thousand romantic schemes for you. Romance is what every woman wants—what she needs.”
Michael’s expression revealed he was far away in his thoughts. “I don’t think so, Bobby. It’s not my style.”
Bobby coughed in frustration. “Right. Your style, as you put it, is to sit around and wait. And wait and wait. You are so boring with your stubborn patience.”
Michael only smiled, knowing that to say anything to Bobby now would only get him going. He’d made up his mind to stay put and let Charlotte come home to him. He had other things on his mind to settle now, anyway.
“I talked to my firm in Chicago last week and they’re not going to hold my position open beyond the end of the year. I can’t blame them. Business is business. They have a schedule to maintain. If Charlotte and I are meant to be together, we’ll find a way to meet between California and Chicago.”
Bobby turned his head. “You’re leaving? For Chicago? When did you reach this decision? I thought, well, we all assumed that you were staying on.”
Michael straightened and met his brother’s gaze. “Staying on? Here? I don’t know why. I was clear when I came that I’d stay for two years. In a few more weeks the third season will be over. I’ve more than fulfilled my promise.” He squinted his eyes and thought of the phone call he’d recently had with a colleague in Chicago. Todd had made him heady with descriptions of a major new project.
“My architectural firm has a contract to design a new loft condo building in the River North area. It’s a very big deal and they want me on it. It’s a tall one,” he said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “Couldn’t turn it down. I thought I’d stay here through Christmas. Less, depending on Papa’s reaction.”
There was no response from Bobby.
Michael wondered at Bobby’s troubled face. “What’s the matter? You can’t be so sorry to see me go? You’re not here much in the winter, anyway. And Rosa…Ha. She’s counting the days.”
Bobby let his beer dangle between his fingertips. “I was hoping you’d stay on. I like having you as my boss. I—I wanted to ask if you’d hire me for the winter season.”
Michael’s brows rose. “Winter? You can’t stand to be around here during the summer much less the winter. Never have. You only work at the nursery in the summer for the extra money. What’s the matter? No mural jobs?”
Bobby smiled ruefully. “Are you able to handle more secrets?”
Michael felt a coiling in his gut. “Do I have a choice?”
“Yes.” Bobby’s face was set. “You do.”
Michael saw the wariness in his brother’s dark, deep set eyes. He saw the tilted head, the straight, tense shoulders. He bore the look of someone poised to dodge another blow. Michael moved closer down the railing toward Bobby, his heart pounding heavily. He could feel the tension reach out to grab him.
“Dígame, Roberto,” he said in the language of their childhood.
Bobby raised his chin a notch. “I’m HIV positive.”
Michael absorbed the words. It was more a numbness. He imagined that this was what it must feel like to be hit by a bullet. A soft hiss. Burn. Then shock.
“AIDS,” he replied. “Frankly, I’m not sure I know what that means anymore.”
“Hey, let’s not pretend that it’s the flu. What I got I didn’t get from a cough or a sneeze. When was the last time you saw the flu reduce a healthy man to a skeleton with the gait of a sixty-year-old?”
“You have AIDS,” Michael repeated, ignoring Bobby’s flippancy. He needed to get this straight. “But it’s not active?”
“Oh, it’s active.”
Michael exhaled slowly, feeling a part of his soul was slipping out with the stale air. “I knew at some level,” Michael confessed, sadness overwhelming him. “Of course, I’d hoped I was wrong.”
He’d seen Bobby declining over the past few months, seen his hair thin, heard his breath shorten, heard his mother’s pleas for her son to “Eat more!” Over the summer, Bobby had aged in years, not months.
“It’s a plague out there, man. My partner died last spring. And friends. So many friends. People I used to know, see at parties, have simply disappeared. I pretend, you know, that they’ve moved. But I know. I know they’re really gone.”
“But I’ve heard about new therapies. Research.”
“Yeah, well…There are experimental treatments. Whispers of miracle cures.”
“
Then we’ll do them. We’ll try anything. I don’t care what it costs.”
Bobby smiled weakly, gratefully accepting the “we.” “It took me a while to accept that AIDS wasn’t necessarily a death sentence. I have friends who are taking different medications, handfuls of pills a day, and it’s just not working for them. They get sicker and sicker. They’re terrified that they won’t survive. For me it’s been different. I’m terrified that I will.”
Michael exhaled slowly, unsure of what to say next. He had no personal reference for this kind of pain. No wars endured, no gay friends. Nothing to help him shrink the distance between his own straight experiences and the horrors that his brother was experiencing as a gay man with AIDS. In fact, he suddenly realized how little he knew of his brother, his friends, his life.
“What was his name?” Michael asked. “Your partner?”
“Scott,” he replied softly. “Thanks for asking.” He cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse with emotion. “He was sick for a long time. By the time he died, he’d shrunk to a hundred-and-thirty pound shell, scaly and weak. You should have seen him when he was well, though. Man, he was beautiful. A bodybuilder who ate health foods and could dance all night.”
Michael reached out to place his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. Bobby’s head ducked to his chest. “I did the best I could to nurse him,” he said, his voice choked.
After a moment he straightened, unwilling to share this private history. Michael’s hand slipped back to his side while Bobby quickly wiped his eyes. When he spoke his voice was low.
“Do you want to know what his last words were? ‘Tell my father I hate him.”’
Michael stared at Bobby’s uncompromising stance, then slowly shook his head. There was no way Bobby was going to ask their father for help.
“What can I do?”
“Nothing.” The answer came quickly. “You’re going back to Chicago.”
“Come with me. I can get you jobs painting murals there.”
“Ah, Miguel,” he sighed. He seemed suddenly very old and tired. His bony shoulders slumped, his large, coffee-colored eyes were rimmed with red, his once luxurious hair was now coarse and thin and sticking out at awkward angles from his visible scalp. “I can’t paint anymore. I’m too weak. You don’t realize how much strength it takes to do murals.” He looked at his long fingers, thin and skeletal, with short, peeling nails. Michael remembered how vain Bobby was of his hands. He suddenly felt very frightened for him.
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