The Family We Make

by Dan Wingreen

  “Middle school, actually.”

  “Middle school?”

  “Yep. One of the last eighth-grade dances.” Spencer seemed oddly delighted, and Tim could only guess what his face must look like to get such a reaction. “To be fair though, I probably would have gotten a lot of shit if Becky’s dad hadn’t lost his the second he saw me and dragged me out the door by my arm. I think they thought I was being kidnapped, and I guess finding out I was a teenage dad to be wasn’t so bad after fighting off the weird angry Chinese man who grabbed their son. Me throwing up all over myself when I realized what was going on probably helped too. So did the cop showing up and everything. By the time we were alone again, we were all just exhausted.”

  *

  Kind of like Spencer was now, honestly. He was grimy and unbathed, and he’d been up since eight thirty correcting essays, and he’d gotten through maybe forty minutes of badly needed Spencer Time before his son showed up with a tenderized face, so, yeah, exhausted was definitely a word that described him right now. He chose to blame his exhaustion for why he’d told Tim all this…stuff when he usually liked to avoid even thinking about it. It was just exhaustion, stress, and maybe a little bit about the way Tim’s face kept doing that thing where he looked like an old, scandalized Victorian matron.

  And maybe a lot to do with how it’s so much better to remember that day and the months that followed than thinking about Connor upstairs with a bruised face and a split fucking lip. Because I really just don’t want to deal with that right now.

  Tim frowned. For a moment, Spencer thought it was because he’d somehow read his mind and realized what an awful human being he was. “He grabbed you?”

  Right. Mind reading isn’t real.

  Spencer nodded. “Almost tore my arm right out of the socket.”

  “And your parents didn’t do anything?”

  “They called the cops, remember?”

  Tim scowled and shook his head. “No, I mean…if someone grabbed my son, I’d…I don’t know. I really don’t like the idea of some guy yanking you around like that. Or any child, really.”

  Spencer felt…warm. That’s oddly touching.

  “I think the fact that I’d knocked up his thirteen-year-old daughter is a pretty good mitigating circumstance.”

  “Don’t defend him,” Tim snapped, startling Spencer. He’d meant it mostly as a joke because this conversation had already gotten heavier than he’d like, but Tim seemed legitimately angry. “What he did to you and what you said he was like with his daughter, that’s child abuse. There’s no excuse for that.”

  Spencer stared at Tim. Despite his best efforts, this was far from the first time he’d told this story, and generally people just give him judgmental glares or break up with him—Cass being the notable exception. No one had ever gotten mad on his behalf, though, and Spencer…honestly had no idea what to do with that.

  “Sorry,” Tim said a moment later, sighing softly. “I don’t really react well to kids getting abused, especially when adults try to make excuses for it. It’s sort of an ingrained reaction. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

  Spencer waved his apology away. “You’re not exactly wrong.” He hesitated. He could stop here, change the subject, and let the conversation die, but for the second time in his life, he actually wanted to tell someone the full story. Maybe it was because of Tim’s honest and open face, or his expression when he’d been angry for Spencer. Or maybe he couldn’t force himself to ignore what happened to Connor; what could have happened if he’d fallen down into traffic, or if he’d hit his head too hard on the concrete sidewalk. Or maybe it was because this wasn’t even the closest he’d ever come to losing his son.

  Whatever the reason, he found himself talking almost before he realized he’d decided to open his mouth.

  “He was an abusive father. And you’re right, there’s no excuse for a lot of the things he did. But I can’t hate him because without him I wouldn’t have Connor.”

  Spencer’s eyes were focused somewhere around the vicinity of Tim’s chest, so he saw the way he inhaled sharply. Whether Tim had any idea of what he was about to say, if he thought something different, or if he was just taking a breath to speak, Spencer didn’t know or really care.

  “Becky and her mom both wanted to get rid of the baby,” he said quietly. Even after all these years, the words still sat in his throat like a cancerous mass. “That’s how they said it too, ‘get rid of it.’ Like he was an area rug the dog peed on too many times.”

  It was Spencer’s worst memory, sitting next to Becky in the kitchen of his old house while she glared at him with teary-eyed loathing, saying she hated him, hated the thing inside her, and wanted to get rid of it and pretend this never happened. He remembered hearing her mother’s raised voice coming through the walls saying almost the exact same thing, burning away the numbness that had spread through him when he realized why Becky’s parents were there, leaving behind nothing but desperate longing and ice-cold horror. He’d never thought about having kids, mostly because he was thirteen years old, but at that moment all he wanted was to hold his baby. Spencer had almost thrown up again when he realized he had absolutely no say in whether or not he ever would.

  “Her dad wouldn’t let her though. He said it was evil and wrong and—God, I don’t even know if he was right. Maybe he wasn’t. But I don’t care. I would have strapped her down to a table for nine months and ripped Connor out of her womb myself if that was the only way I could have had him. I will never not be anything but grateful to her dad for what he did, no matter how disgusting he might be as a person.”

  Spencer’s entire body was coiled like a spring, waiting for the judgment and condemnation. He was ready to jump down Tim’s throat, yell at him, throw him out, get that two- or three-second satisfaction of having the permission of the righteous to be as shitty and cruel as he wanted in defending himself. He’d been here once before, with his second and final boyfriend, back in college.

  His first relationship had ended because he’d kept Connor a secret, so he’d decided to start his newest with total honesty. He’d bared himself to someone in the hopes it would bring them closer and ended up being very politely—Mitchell was always calm and collected, part of what had attracted Spencer in the first place—informed he was a terrible person. Becky’s father had no right to demand his daughter keep an unwanted pregnancy, and Spencer had no right to be happy she was forced to give birth to his son. He’d said Spencer was wrong for wanting Connor when Becky didn’t. That it was selfish and cruel to try to raise a child on his own without a mother just because he wanted to. It was an attitude he’d encountered more than once in his life where single fathers are held to a very different set of standards than other nontraditional families. It was something he’d been conditioned to expect.

  Spencer was still braced for castigation when he felt the couch dip as Tim moved closer to him. He jumped when he felt a hand being hesitantly placed on his shoulder. It was only when he glanced over, startled, and saw a vaguely Tim-shaped blur that he realized his eyes had started to tear up.

  “I’m grateful too,” Tim whispered like he was letting Spencer in on some terrible secret. Spencer bristled, ready to lash out, to tell him nothing about being grateful for Connor should be a secret and that it should be shouted from the fucking rooftops, when Tim’s words finally registered in his slightly soggy brain.

  “What?”

  “Connor’s a great kid,” Tim said at a more normal volume. “I know I haven’t known him that long and obviously nothing I feel about him is anything close to what you do…but I like him. He’s my friend. And I think the world would be a little less wonderful if he wasn’t in it.”

  A strangled, almost feline yowl deep inside his throat choked Spencer, and the tears finally started to pour down his cheeks. The hand on his shoulder tensed for a moment and then slowly lifted. Spencer didn’t like that at all and started to protest, but then it came back down on his other shoulder as a
solid, comforting arm wrapped around him, and he’d been on the other side of this kind of thing enough times with Connor to know the proper response.

  He buried his face in Tim’s shirt and cried.

  He cried for himself because Tim understood, but mostly he cried for Connor. Connor, who was joy and light and life and frustration and fear and anger and sarcasm and laughter and a million other indefinable things so many people never bothered to learn. He cried because so many people would rather he never existed because they couldn’t see him as anything other than a moral point to make where Tim just saw Connor.

  He cried because, sometimes, there’s nothing else a person can do.

  Spencer had no idea how much time passed, but eventually he came back to himself the same way Hemingway described Mike Campbell going bankrupt—gradually and then suddenly.

  The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a soaked T-shirt. The first thing he felt was the firm chest underneath it.

  “Shit,” he said, his face burning. He wrenched away, pushing Tim’s arms—that’s a plural, when did he start hugging me?—off and curling up as far as he could get on the end of the couch, wiping at his eyes. He absolutely refused to so much as glance in Tim’s direction.

  Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with me? I ruined his shirt. No, worse than that, I cried all over him like a fucking three-year-old.

  Spencer hadn’t been this embarrassed since high school.

  “I should probably go…”

  He glanced up without meaning to just in time to see Tim’s tight smile and the tail end of something that seemed an awful lot like hurt pass across his face. Does he think I was pushing him away? Something inside Spencer clenched, and before Tim could do more than shift next to him, he grabbed his wrist.

  “I…” He swallowed and stared at where his fingers were wrapped around Tim’s arm. Tim was wearing a jacket, so it wasn’t even like they were touching skin to skin, but part of him still felt…weird. Like he was crossing some kind of line he hadn’t been aware even existed. “Could…you stay?”

  Tim didn’t say anything at first, and Spencer had to fight to keep from squirming.

  Does he want to leave? Was I imagining that reluctance? Is he trying to figure out how to get the hell away from me? Am I—

  “You want me to stay?”

  He sounded surprised. Not in a bad way, though, more of a “I thought you wanted me gone” kind of way. The relief Spencer felt was disproportionate, to say the least. Of course, since Spencer was Spencer and couldn’t actually express himself because feelings, what he ended up saying was “Did I fucking stutter?”

  And maybe God or Odin or the universe decided Spencer was due a break because for some reason, Tim smiled. And this time, Spencer could see nothing tight or pained about it.

  “Okay,” Tim said softly. “I’ll stay.”

  Chapter Eight

  It was an hour later, and Tim still sat next to him. They’d both migrated a bit; Spencer leaning against the couch’s arm facing Tim with his legs tucked under him, Tim’s arm stretched out across the back of the couch, his body angled toward Spencer. They weren’t close enough to touch, which totally wasn’t even a problem because Spencer had an issue with clinginess. Specifically, being clingy. It wasn’t him. And the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about how being wrapped up in Tim’s arms felt was disturbing on levels he didn’t even want to think about. Especially since he really wanted to find out what those arms felt like when he wasn’t having an emotional breakdown.

  So, yes. Distance was good.

  And so was the turn their conversation had just taken.

  “You had to deal with parents?”

  “Yes?”

  “Huh. I didn’t think that was a thing. You seemed really surprised to see me, at least.”

  “It’s not really common,” Tim said. “Which is sad. But sometimes parents would come by, back when I was mostly helping with the younger kids at my old center. Usually, when they wanted to yell at us.”

  “Really?” Spencer asked, delighted. He leaned forward eagerly. “What’s the weirdest thing they ever yelled at you about?”

  Tim cocked his head, a tiny bit of hair sliding off his forehead in a way that should not have been as distracting as it was. “Um…”

  “Come on,” Spencer prodded. “It’s fun. Me and my friend Cass do it all the time.”

  “Do what?”

  “Compare weird parent stuff and like, you know, rank them to see who has to deal with the worst crap.” Spencer made a show of puffing out his chest. “I’ll have you know I’m undefeated in parental weirdness.”

  Tim chuckled. “And that’s something to be proud of?”

  “Hell yes, it is.” Spencer summoned up his best indignant glower, but a smile broke through when Tim laughed again. “Oh, fuck off. Just tell me so I can defend my crown.”

  “Okay,” Tim said. “But normally, I’d say the weirdest thing was that thing we said we weren’t talking about anymore—”

  “That wasn’t weird. That was rude and stupid. Totally doesn’t count,” Spencer said, waving his hand. “It’s gotta be something…”

  Tim cocked an eyebrow. “Weird?”

  “Yeah!”

  Tim shook his head, but Spencer didn’t miss the way he smiled down at the couch.

  “All right, then.” Tim paused thoughtfully. “This one time I got screamed at for letting a little girl color a picture.”

  “Really?”

  Tim nodded. “Yeah, it was a picture of a jack-o’-lantern, which apparently meant I was teaching her to be a Satanist.”

  “No fucking way,” Spencer said, laughing.

  “Oh yes. Her father came in the very next day to tell us off for our unholy ways. He went on for about thirty minutes too, right in front of his daughter and everything. When he was done, I had no idea who was more embarrassed, me, my old director, or the poor little six-year-old girl.” Tim’s lips twitched. “The best part was when the daughter came back the next week and apologized for her father because ‘he was born in a different time.’”

  “That did not happen.”

  Tim placed his hand over his heart, and God, how did Spencer never even suspect this man was gay? “I swear it’s 100 percent true.”

  Spencer finally got himself under control and wiped his eyes. “Oh, my God. Okay. You might actually have me beat.”

  “Yeah?” Tim seemed pleased with himself. “What’s yours then?”

  Spencer thought for a moment. “Okay. So, a few years ago I had this kid in my third-period class named Curtis. He was…probably the worst student I’ve ever had. I mean, really fucking bad. Like, he’d turn in links to Wikipedia as his book reports, bad.”

  Tim raised a very skeptical eyebrow.

  “Oh, fuck you with that look.” Spencer threw a throw pillow at him. Tim caught it, laughing, and hugged it to his chest. “I have every single thing he ever turned in saved on my laptop, I can go get it right now, and then you’ll know. Dealing with this kid is like dealing with knowledge of Cthulhu’s existence. It slowly drives you insane until you’re screaming into the fucking void of your own madness as the Great Old Ones rise to ravage the Earth.”

  Tim rolled his eyes, but Spencer was pretty sure he wasn’t imagining how utterly charmed he seemed to be. His stomach did sort of a funny little flip-squirm thing. What the hell was that? “I think there was supposed to be a story about a parent in here somewhere?”

  Spencer shook himself and wet his suddenly dry lips. “I’m getting to it. The setup is important.”

  “This needs backstory?”

  “Yes. Now shut up.” Spencer cleared his throat as obnoxiously as he could, and Tim grinned. No, seriously, what the hell is that? “Um.”

  Spencer completely drew a blank on what he’d wanted to say. Which, well. Kind of completely understandable. How could anyone be expected to do something like have higher brain function when they were being stared at like they were some kind of
cross between a pile of puppies and a winning lottery ticket?

  “You were talking about Curtis and Lovecraftian horrors?” Tim prompted gently right as the silence began to get uncomfortable.

  “Ah, yeah.” Spencer willed himself not to flush. He was pretty sure it didn’t work. “Right. So, terrible student, Wikipedia links, plans to burn down whatever middle school that keeps producing these people dancing through my head. Anyway, one day he comes into class and actually turns in his homework. After I was done checking that reality hadn’t imploded, I looked down and noticed he’d signed it as Lebron James—don’t interrupt!”

  Tim slowly closed his mouth.

  “Which, okay, kind of weird, but whatever. Except he kept doing it. Every assignment he did had Lebron James written right at the top. But then it gets worse because then he starts refusing to answer anyone who calls him Curtis because he wants to be called Lebron because he claimed he got his name legally changed. I refused, of course, because he’s full of shit and once you start calling one kid Lebron then you need to start calling everyone else Tom Cruise or Sephiroth or Lord Sparklestar, Destroyer of Worlds, and before you know it the very fabric of our republic is unraveling right before your eyes.”

  “That’s all it takes to unravel the…republic?”

  “Hush. But yes. Because we are a republic and not a democracy and republics are fragile. So, I did the only thing I could. I gave him detention and sent him to the principal. As it turns out, the detention was a big mistake because the next day his mother storms into the school demanding to see me, and I get dragged out of class by a flustered office aide and have to listen to this woman wearing more perfume than the entire city of Paris scream at me.”

  “She yelled at you for not calling him Lebron James?”

  “No! Not even that. She yelled at me for not believing that he’d legally changed his name. She went on this huge tirade about how her son wasn’t a liar, and how disrespectful it was that I just assumed he was lying about his name change, and this is why children turn to drugs and gangs, and teachers need to respect their students no matter who they are and on and on and on. So, when I can finally get a word in, I ask, ‘So did he really get his name legally changed?’ Without even the slightest hint of shame, she says, ‘Of course not. Curtis is a family name!’“