Back Where He Started

by Jay Quinn

  These days, I saw myself as a man who lived his life well in all aspects: mentally, physically, intellectually, and spiritually. I saw myself as who I’d been working to become, for years, even before Zack left me. I didn’t know how that fit in with me running back to belonging to another man, becoming a wife again. There was no other way to say it. I would be Steve’s wife. I’d be Little Bit, just a piece of someone else’s life. That’s not how I wanted to live after Zack and I split up. I’d finally learned to see myself as an individual—a me, not part of a we.

  “Are you getting about ready to go to bed? I’m beat,” Steve said.

  “Why don’t you go on inside, Big Man. I need a minute or two more out here. All of a sudden you’ve given me a lot to think about, you know?”

  “Chris, I didn’t mean to upset you like I did. We can just forget about it for now. Come on in and let’s go to bed.”

  “I’m okay, Steve. It’s all good, I swear. I just need a few more minutes to calm down and then I’ll bring the dogs in and come to bed.”

  “Okay, Little Bit, but don’t make it too long. Sometimes you can think something to death. Plus, you know I won’t be able to get to sleep as long as you’re out here by yourself.” With that, he stood and stretched. Unexpectedly, he bent down to kiss me. Steve wasn’t ever demonstrative in any place he determined to be “all out in public.”

  Mama-dog and Nuala followed him into the house. Petey came and nudged my hand, urging me to get up and go inside with the rest of the pack. I took his big head between my hands and gave him a good rubbing under his ears. He shook his head happily when I was done, and sat next to me, watchful as a Marine Lance Corporal at attention and on guard.

  Even the male dog sensed my place in the pack and behaved accordingly. The Willis clan had reacted to me in much the same way. The most convenient role to assign me was as a wife, a helpmeet, or a homemaker. If there was no precedent for someone like me, a wife’s portion would suffice for them all. That was how they saw me, not ungenerously.

  The question remained: Was that how I saw myself now? I didn’t have the answer at hand. I thought I had grown into something new, someone that belonged more to myself.

  In Steve’s house, in Steve’s world, I’d belong to Steve. There was no other paradigm for the community that had embraced me so willingly at the reunion. I’d be an extension of him. In the comings and goings of my day in Salter Path, I’d be observed and judged against the community’s perceptions of marriage and a life well lived. I had to ask myself if that was what I wanted.

  Could I stand on my own two feet and still honor what was truest to my nature: nurture and fidelity? I wasn’t sure if I could have it both ways.

  I stood, and Petey stood along with me. He waited, watching the world in the darkness, while I got my tired self across the deck and into the doorway. Once I was safely inside, he followed me in and waited for me to lock the door and turn out the lights. Together we walked down the hall and into the bedroom.

  Steve was propped up on pillows, on top of the covers with his arms crossed behind his head, watching television. I paused in the doorway and took in the sight of him on my bed. I loved looking at his generous body. I inventoried the width of his shoulders, the brown nipples on his broad chest, and the tiny navel centered in the slight swell of his belly. Inside his shorts lay a generous, full dick on a pillow of heavy balls. His thighs were well muscled, and his legs, not as long as his stretch of torso, ended in broad feet built to hold and carry much.

  He bore my admiring scrutiny without arrogance. His eyes betrayed no inclination toward the power he knew he could assert over my slighter body. There was simply no cruelty in him—there was only an open and easy generosity with everything he had to give. He patted the bed beside him and smiled.

  I stripped down for sleep and climbed in, which satisfied the dogs who settled into the spots they’d claimed for the night. Their pack was all accounted for. Their long night’s rhythm of dozing and dreaming and watching was ready to begin.

  As I lay on the bed, Steve pulled me to him with one arm and turned off the lamp by the bed with the other. As I moved closer to his side, he sighed and shifted slightly to give me better access to the whole long length of him.

  “Did you get it all worked out up there?” he asked.

  “Yes, Big Man,” I lied. There were still arguments in my own head that had to be fought and won. In my mind the debate was far from over, but as my body sought the solid comfort of the man next to me, I knew Steve had already won.

  CHAPTER EIGHT,

  CHRISTENING

  The sheer logistics of it were a bitch. Steve needed something as nearly resembling dress clothes as he could tolerate for the baby’s christening that followed Saturday’s Vigil Mass. And, to further complicate matters, Zack had politely insisted on meeting me somewhere alone so we could “talk.” After a four-hour drive into Raleigh the Friday before the christening, I agreed to meet Zack at the School of Design at North Carolina State while Steve went shopping at Cameron Village a few blocks away.

  I had Steve drive the maze of small streets between the campus and Cameron Village Shopping Center before he dropped me off on the steps of the School of Design’s main building. He promised to be back to pick me up there in an hour and a half. Like everyone else in my family, Steve was unsettled by just the thought of Zack and me being anywhere near each other. But when I explained Zack wanted to bury the hatchet before our first grandchild’s christening the following day, Steve had grumpily agreed to let me go.

  Against all likelihood in my imagining, Zack had been invited to teach a graduate-level seminar in business management for creatives in the school’s graphic arts program. His hourlong class ended promptly at 2, and he said we could use his classroom to meet and “clear the air.”

  In my view, there was nothing but empty sky between Zack and me, but he felt the need to talk, so I agreed.

  Steve dropped me off with a vow to buy something “churchy,” but he withheld any promise not to kick Zack’s ass if he got me all upset. In turn, I promised to be waiting for him alone on the steps at the front of the building in exactly an hour and a half. With all that negotiated, I crossed the street and walked through the school’s main doors to find Zack’s classroom on the second floor in the original building’s newer addition. I got there in time to hear him finish up with his students as I waited in the hall outside.

  Zack sounded affable and seemingly well liked by his students as they said their good-byes. They spilled out into the hall in a rush of pierced, tattooed, and black-clad fashion attitude. Zack followed the last of them out and smiled when he found me waiting. Surprisingly, he opened his arms for a hug. I stepped into his embrace and inhaled his familiar scent. Pressed into the close, warm quarters of his chest, it was like returning to a long-unvisited room.

  His embrace was fond, not perfunctory. He let me go and stepped back to look me over and nod approvingly. Zack liked all his accessories to complement him, his status, and his sense of self. I was oddly pleased to be found to be worthy, still. My pleasure faded quickly as I recalled how superficial Zack’s standards were.

  “Beautiful as ever, Chris,” he said. “I suppose I should say ‘handsome,’ but I’ve always thought you were beautiful, rather than handsome.”

  Yeah, right, I thought. If you had to think of me as handsome, you’d also have to think of me as an equal. I only gave him a sincere smile and looked at him. He had lost most of his liquor bloat as well as the harried look he’d had when I’d last seen him. He certainly appeared handsome, and somewhat distinguished and professorial as well. I hoped his healthier appearance meant he had resolved some of his anger. I hadn’t spoken to Andrea or the boys to get a read on his current matrimonial state, and they had given nothing away in that regard.

  “Thanks Zack,” I said. “You’re looking pretty spiffy yourself. The academic sideline suits you. You look like you did 10 years ago.”

  Zack nodded to a
cknowledge the compliment and stepped away from the door. “I appreciate your agreeing to see me. Come on in.”

  I stepped inside. There were three tables arranged in a generous U-shaped configuration. From the location of his neatly organized notes, I guessed Zack sat at the end of one of the arms of the U rather than at its center. I walked past his spot to look out the window. It was a lovely afternoon. Across the street, Pullen Park was awash in fallen leaves from the old oaks. The chilly breeze blew them prettily in eddies of golden-brown. “What a lovely place this is,” I said. “Since I’ve lived on the beach, I’ve forgotten how nice all the leaves from the big trees can be in the fall.”

  Zack closed the door, walked past his things, and took a seat near where I was standing. “I take it all for granted, I’m afraid.”

  With one last look out the window, I turned and sat a few chairs from Zack, but close enough for easy conversation. I looked at him expectantly.

  “Did you and Steve have a nice drive in?” he asked.

  “Yes. We stopped for lunch at Wilbur’s Barbeque outside Goldsboro, then drove the rest of the way on up. It was good to be out in the middle of the day.”

  “And where is Steve?”

  “I sent him over to Cameron Village to find something presentable to wear to the church tomorrow. No one really dresses up at the beach. Not even for Mass.”

  Zack nodded.

  “Zack, I’m not quite sure why you wanted to see me.”

  “Ah, to the point of it then. Before we meet tomorrow at church, I believe I have some mea culpas to get out of the way. We haven’t really talked since Easter, and that was not pleasant. I’m sorry about that. We haven’t really spoken except in anger in nearly two years, and that’s pretty much my fault. I wanted to apologize.”

  I looked at him to gauge whether he was softening me up for any bombshells. He’d been pleasant enough at Easter before he started in on me about Andrea and Schooner. Warily I said, “Well, I have to take credit for some of that too. Two people who’ve known each other as long as you and I have certainly know what words will wound the quickest and punch the hardest. I have to admit to playing quick-draw with your feelings as well.”

  Zack lifted his eyebrows and looked over my shoulder through the window and into the bare oak limbs beyond. “The whole business about Schooner …”

  “Yes,” I said cautiously.

  Zack looked me in the eye. “What you said about my resenting him his entire life was dead on the money, Chris. Sometimes I have acted regrettably toward my own son, and that’s one of the things I’ve tried to come to terms with since that day.”

  “Have you told Schooner that?”

  Zack shook his head and sighed. “Twenty-three years of habit is difficult to break, Chris. But please believe me when I tell you, it’s a problem I recognize and I’m resolved to work on it? I love Schooner. But—”

  “Zack, don’t beat yourself up about it. Schooner is spoiled in many ways and you were right to lay that at my feet. If it’s any help for you, believe me when I tell you I don’t think I was a perfect mo … ma … parent.”

  Zack smiled. “It’s okay. You can say ‘mother.’ That’s something else I have to own up to. I forced that role on you and reinforced it every way I knew how.” Zack placed an elbow on the table and rubbed his forehead for a moment before finding my eyes again. “Unfair of me … I admit that now. But Chris, I was so scared back then. I felt so lucky to have you to count on for my children’s sake.”

  “Oh God, Zack,” I sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if we fucked it all up really badly, or if we did something so right it astounds me. I have to think God played a hand in it, bringing us together. It’s molded my entire life, and it’s something that I’m still dealing with on a day-to-day basis.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well. It has nothing to do with you or the kids—it’s just me figuring out who I am, walking out the other side of the forest.”

  Zack was quiet for a moment and looked down at his hands. Then he said, “You’re a fine, generous, and loving man, Chris. I don’t think you have to define yourself beyond that. At this point of your life … my life … I think recognizing we did the best we could—with what we had—that’s the only thing we can do, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, Zack. There really isn’t any other way to look at it that isn’t either a pity party or World War III.”

  “Well, we’ve had a taste of both, haven’t we?”

  We shared a smile and a nod. It felt good. “You know something, Zack? We’re both pretty lucky to have our second chances—that’s how I’ve come to see it. I’ll admit you damn near killed me, walking out on me. But two years down the road, I think it was the right thing for both of us. That is …” I hesitated.

  “That is, what?”

  “That is, if you’re happy,” I said. “I know you probably won’t believe me when I say this, but I worry about you sometimes. I swear Zack, I never once thought of you being unhappy with any sense of pleasure.”

  Zack smiled—not a happy smile but the smile of an adult familiar with the long road that had brought him to the place he found himself. “Chris, I believe what you’re telling me. I wish I could set your mind at ease and tell you that I’m happy and satisfied with my life. Oh, it’s not bad—don’t get me wrong, Alicia and I are doing okay. My new boy fills me with a lot of optimism—just watching him learn all about the world around him is a joy. With the first bunch I was just too busy becoming a success to pay much attention to what I see now with this one. Like you said, he’s my second chance to do it right. But do I regret the cost to you and my kids? Oh hell yes, Chris. Hell yes.”

  I returned his smile; I’d taken part of that road with him. “We came out just fine, Zack,” I said. “I’ve long since stopped blaming you. I think the kids have made some peace with it too. They’re caught up in the drama of their own lives now—you and I are just subplots at this point.”

  Zack nodded in agreement. All of this had been perfectly pleasant so far. I took a deep breath. “Zack, I need your opinion about something. You’re the only person who can answer this question, but I’m scared to ask you.”

  “Why are you scared?”

  “I’m scared because you know how to hurt me like no one else can, and this is a deeply personal matter.”

  Zack gently leaned toward me, reached across the table, and touched my hand. “I wish I could say you could trust me, but I’m the last person who should plead my credibility to you.”

  “Hearing you say that somehow makes me feel better, Zack.”

  We shared a laugh. It felt comfortable. It felt good.

  “Steve has asked me to marry him,” I said. “I don’t mean flying off to God knows where to find a judge or justice of the peace or whoever is hooking gay people together these days. But you know what I’m talking about. Steve wants me to marry him.”

  Zack leaned back in his chair and looked at me with something akin to remorse in his eyes. For that unmasked expression of genuine regret alone I was grateful. “Steve would be a lucky man to have you, Chris. I know how lucky.”

  “I guess that’s my question, Zack. Why would he be lucky? Is there something about me that just cries out, Take me, make me your wife, your bitch …”

  “Chris, what would make you think that? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not trying to be an asshole, Zack, but one time you told me I was worthless without you and your kids to raise. I’ve thought a lot about that since.”

  “Chris, I was angry. You can’t take that to heart.”

  “Well, in a way, I have. Tell me, Zack. Am I just half of a person? Do I need a man to make me whole? Or am I just a piece of ass that needs plugging to operate like a housekeeper and a mother? What am I, just a cunt of a man?”

  I stood up and turned my back to him to stare out the window into the afternoon. I felt naked of my pretensions. I felt all of my hard-won assumptions of who I was laying like so many falle
n leaves, caught and scattered around by a chill wind on a November afternoon. “That’s what I’m thinking about before I tell Steve yes, Zack. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  Zack’s chair scraped backward from the table. It was a sound I’d heard thousands of times as he pushed himself away from the table in our home after breakfast and lunch, after a dinner I’d made like a dutiful Donna Reed housewife. Was that me now?

  Zack gently took my shoulders in his hands and rested his chin on top of my head. “Oh Jesus, Chris! I hate myself for putting you through 22 years of life that would ever make you even think those hateful things about yourself.”

  “Is that what I am, Zack?” I persisted. “Be honest with me—don’t just pity me and lie. I couldn’t take that, not now.”

  Zack turned me around to face him. “Do you know what I see when I look at you, Chris?” he asked. I looked up at him wondering what kind of pretty lie he could come up with on such short notice. “I see the best friend I ever had in my life. And I’m sorry I lost you through my selfishness, arrogance, and sheer stupidity.”

  I looked away from him and shook my head. “That’s something pretty to say Zack, and I do appreciate you saying it. But it doesn’t answer my question. You could say the same thing about a dog you forgot and left in the car on a hot day.” I shrugged out of his grasp and sat back down. I gave him a small smile, just to show him I wasn’t mad. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  Zack looked at me with what I recognized as longing. It was part sexual, and it was also a desire for something only I could give: a sense of home, of comfort, and pure acceptance. Those were the things you encountered in one person only once or twice in your life, if you were lucky. I had my answer—I knew who I was.

  He resumed his seat and looked at me earnestly. It took him a full minute to gather his thoughts, then he spoke. “There were a thousand times in my life that you’ve done things no one else could do. You’re perceptive in ways that other people just aren’t. You know exactly what to do and say to make the best out of the worst. And, to put it bluntly, you’re the best fuck I ever had because you made me feel, every time, that I was the best you ever had.”