“But he didn’t notify you of your mother’s death.” Jean was shocked, and the strain of it sounded in her voice. “This obituary… well, even assuming that someone would have seen it and notified you, it was already too late for you to have gone to the funeral.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.” It was possible that he’d tried. That there was a letter or a message waiting for me at the apartment in San Francisco. A week before, I’d been in the hospital. Maybe he found out and decided it was better not to tell me. Oh, who was I kidding? “That was probably intentional.”
“Well,” Charles said, picking up his section of the paper, “you can hardly blame him for that.”
John opened his mouth, but Jean beat him to the punch, her voice glittering with frost. “And what, precisely, do you mean by that?”
Charles looked up over the paper, eyebrows curving into arcs of surprise. “Well, my dear.” He unfolded the newsprint with a little flick of his hands so it stood up in front of him. “Given the rupture between Parker and his mother, it would have been awkward if Parker had shown up to the funeral, now wouldn’t it? Much better for everyone concerned if he didn’t find out in time. I’m sure you’ll take no offense at my stating the obvious. Right, Parker?”
“I’m willing to take whatever I am offered,” I said smoothly and took a sip from my cooling coffee. I didn’t grimace at the taste. I welcomed the rush of sugar to my brain.
The sly glance John shot in my direction suggested he recognized the quote. So John was a Lord Peter Wimsey fan, eh? He really was a man after my own heart.
Jean was having none of it. “You seriously believe that Lee’s brother had a right to shut him out of his own mother’s funeral?”
“I didn’t even know you had a brother.” Something about the rumble in John’s voice made me glance up. Uh-oh. He was pissed for some reason. I had no idea why, though. It pissed me off in return. Not two seconds before, he appreciated the zinger I’d served Charles. Now he was pissed? What right did he have to be mad with me? Just because I never mentioned having a brother? As far as I was concerned, I didn’t.
“A right? No. Was it understandable? Yes. By his own admission, Parker hadn’t spoken with his family in years. Under the circumstances, I think his brother’s reaction is perfectly reasonable.” Charles spoke without looking at Jean. He was busy scanning the week’s stock reports, no doubt.
“Under the circumstances.” Jean’s nostrils flared. Uh-oh. Now a second member of the Family Flynn was pissed. Looked like Charles’s stock was plummeting. If I were him, I would have been backpedaling about now. “And just what exactly would those circumstances be?”
“Well, I imagine,” Charles said, not looking at me, “that the reason Parker’s mother threw him out might have something to do with his… er… ah… lifestyle choices.” The paper rattled as he ducked slightly behind it.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s okay, Mrs. F. He’s right, you know. My showing up at the funeral would have been like a scene from a cheesy soap opera. High drama had by all and watched with glee by the neighbors. Provided the hospital would have even released me, which is doubtful.”
“You weren’t given a choice in the matter.” She stood up and put her fists on her narrow hips. Her ire wasn’t directed at me, however. She took a forefinger and pulled down the paper in Charles’s hands. “Are you saying that Lee’s brother did the right thing by excluding Lee from his own mother’s funeral?”
Charles laid down his paper with a sigh. I could have told him the sigh was a bad move, but I was suddenly conscious of John leaning into the back of my chair, like a Rottweiler straining at the length of his chain. “To keep the peace during a dignified family gathering? To maintain the appearance of propriety? I’m sure this young man acted in the manner he thought best, and incidentally, in accordance with his mother’s wishes.”
The thing was, I knew Charles was right. Didn’t make it hurt any less, though.
“In accordance with his mother’s wishes.” Jean’s voice took on a kind of quiet intensity that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. It must have affected John too, because he stopped leaning across me and went very still, as though bathed in liquid nitrogen. “Lee’s brother couldn’t have known that. Couldn’t have known that his mother wouldn’t have changed her mind at the last second, that she wouldn’t have wanted to see her son one last time, or have wanted him to come home to say good-bye.” She took a deep breath, as though about to throw herself off a chasm. “Speaking as someone who has lost a child, I cannot fathom how any mother could willingly throw away a child, no matter the circumstances.”
The silence was oppressive, smothering, like air on a humid summer’s day before a storm breaks. I could feel John’s fingers tighten on the back of my seat, and I eased forward so we wouldn’t be in contact in front of his mother.
“Do you mean to say,” Charles said slowly, “that there’s nothing a child of yours could do that might make you cut ties with them?”
Jean spoke with equal determination. “My son could walk in the door and tell me that he’d murdered someone, and my first response would be, ‘Do you need help burying the body?’ I almost lost him once, due to my own selfishness and blindness. I won’t let that happen again, for any reason.”
Go, Jean! She might have been speaking directly to Charles, but her words were aimed at John as well.
“So you’re saying your son could commit murder, treason, pedophilia… you name it… and you would support him no matter what?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Jean wasn’t done, not by a long shot. “Don’t be a jerk, Charles. He would still be my son no matter what. That’s what I’m saying, and you know what I mean.”
“I see.” Charles rose with great dignity. “I think perhaps it would be best if I were going now.”
“I’ll see you out.” Jean raised her hand, palm up, to indicate the door.
When they left the room, I twisted around to look up at John. His cheeks flamed as though someone had taken a paint brush full of rose madder red and streaked it across his face. Even the tips of his ears were red.
“I think your mother has her suspicions about us.”
“You think?” John was decidedly sour.
I waited a beat. “You okay with that?”
The hand on the back of my chair came to rest on my shoulder. He rubbed his thumb across the tight muscles of my neck. “Oddly, yes.” His words came out on a sigh.
“So… are we going to talk about it when she comes back?”
“Hell, no.” He was emphatic. He withdrew his hand.
“Right, then. I should get on with dinner.” I pushed the chair back, forcing him to move away to let me up.
He smoothed his hand up and down between my shoulders, as I began cubing the chicken. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
I nodded without looking at him. It was better that way. “I lost her a long time ago.”
I concentrated on slicing the meat without including my fingers. My vision seemed a little blurry. You’d think I’d been chopping onions or something. Thank God, John seemed to realize that I needed to do something ordinary. He was a good guy. A keeper. I smiled when he bumped into my good shoulder on his way to set the table for three.
Chapter Ten
I EXPECTED dinner to be a somber affair, what with me discovering that my mother had died while I was in the hospital, and Jean breaking up with Charles. It certainly had every right to be, only when Jean came back from seeing Charles out, she looked around at the place settings and said, “Well, good riddance to bad rubbish. Charles won’t be back. Lee, may I help with dinner?”
“No, no. I have everything under control.”
I may have been a little hasty in declining her aid.
John added quietly, “Lee enjoys cooking. It helps him unwind.”
I snorted as I prepped the chicken. I had a lot of unwinding to do.
“Well, if yo
u’re absolutely sure, Lee. I hope you don’t mind me watching. You make it look so easy.”
“My mother,” John said in a mock-serious tone, “is the sort of person who watches survival shows, certain in the knowledge that she’d curl up and die if asked to cross a desert without water.”
“There is a certain amount of horrid fascination in watching that Bear fellow eat bugs and sleep inside the carcass of a dead sheep,” Jean agreed without rancor.
I glanced at her over my shoulder. “Especially from the comfort of your own couch?”
“Exactly.” Jean seemed cheerful enough, but instead of drinking her coffee, she stared pensively into her mug.
Once I got the food into the oven, John joined Jean at the table, while I cleaned the counters and put the dirty bowls in the dishwasher. I took my time wiping up, scrubbing at a sticky spot of pie filling on the stove top and wishing I could think of something else to bake.
“I’m so sorry about your mother,” Jean said, when the silence had dragged on a little too long.
I wrung out the sponge I’d been using, set it to dry, and rinsed my hands. “I’m sorry Charles was such an asshole.”
“Lee.” John flashed me a reproving frown, but it faded away when Jean laughed.
“He is, isn’t he?” she agreed. “I’m sorry it took me so long to recognize that.”
“So why did it? Take you that long, I mean?” I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and sat down with them.
She shrugged, an elegant lifting of her shoulders that reminded me so much of her son. “I thought we had a lot in common. He made me laugh. I liked his company, or at least, I did when no one else was around. In the presence of others, he had a way of saying things that I knew I should object to. But somehow, I didn’t.”
“So then, the sex was good.”
“Lee.” John grimaced and lifted his hands partway to his ears, as though he was about to stuff his fingers in them and sing “La-la-la.”
Jean turned red. It was a good look on her. “Now, Lee, there’s no need to be coarse.”
I felt my cheeks flush at her gentle chastisement. When would I learn to keep my mouth shut?
She met my glance over the brim of her mug, which she lifted to hide her smile. “Not that you’re wrong, mind you.” She took a sip of coffee, her eyes bright with embarrassed amusement.
I found it hard to believe that anyone who was such a jerk could possibly be an attentive lover, but then hey, maybe Jean had low expectations.
I jumped when John’s boot made contact with my shin. “Hey. What did I do to deserve that?” I glared at him as I reached under the table to rub my leg.
John tipped his head at me with a rolled eye and a lifted brow, which clearly said I knew what that was for. I had to hide a smile. If he’d known what I was thinking, as opposed to saying out loud, he would have kicked me harder.
Jean reached across the table and patted me on the cast. “What I don’t understand, Lee, is how anyone could think you deserved to be turned out of your own home. What did you do? Where did you go?”
It was my turn to take refuge behind my cup of coffee. “I moved in with my grandmother. She didn’t approve of my being gay, but she approved of my mother’s actions even less.”
“Didn’t your father have anything to say about that?” Jean frowned. I confess, I loved how willing she was to take up for my teenaged self. John, I noted, was drawing intricate patterns on the tablecloth with a fingernail. Listening but not participating. I wondered what he was thinking. No doubt, about his own father leaving after Rachel’s murder. Did he blame himself for that too? Probably. Or maybe he was remembering how Jean had checked out after Rachel’s death, not only losing herself in cheap wine, but losing the rest of her family too. No wonder most days John was closed up tighter than security at the White House.
“My father was never in the picture. From my earliest memory, he was gone, somewhere else. I never saw him. Not even when my little brother was born. The story was, he was in the military, and then later, that he’d been killed in action. My mother became a ‘widow.’” I made finger quotes with my good hand. The funny thing was, no one questioned the absence of my father, or the fact that Billy looked nothing like me. At least, not to my mother’s face. She wore her religion like a chastity belt, and I suppose no one dared to confront her. It occurred to me that I probably had no right to the last name “Parker.” For all I know, my mother picked it out of a comic book.
“But how did you manage?” Jean looked horrified, bless her. I knew what she meant. How did I get an education? How did I break out of the mill town existence and become the person I am?
“I graduated from high school early, with a 4.0 average. I was offered scholarships to just about any school you could name. I thought about going to MIT.” I paused, remembering how my granny had insisted I take one of the offered scholarships and leave Halifax behind forever. She wouldn’t hear of my staying and attending the nearest community college. She said my life was outside of that insular, backward Southern town, and she was right.
I hated leaving her behind, though. She died when I was in the Academy. My mother never forgave her for leaving me her little house and all its antiques—or me for selling them. The proceeds gave me a good start in life, and I invested wisely, which was why I could afford to indulge myself the way I’d done that past weekend. Not to mention, the stock market is pretty easy if you have a head for facts. “That’s pretty much been the case wherever I’ve gone. My ability to remember things has opened doors for me that would have stayed shut otherwise.”
“But it couldn’t have been easy, just the same. Did you ever… I mean, did anyone… you know, cause you the kind of trouble that Paul… oh dear.” She broke off, unable to continue.
I weighed my words carefully. “It wasn’t easy. My granny was right in that I needed to start over in another town. I came in for a lot of teasing in high school.” I didn’t mention that teasing was a euphemism for bullying, and being bullied was why I learned how to fight. I’d been shoved into a metal locker and shut inside during gym glass. Thrown down a flight of stairs. Hit in the face with a pair of cleated track shoes. When I responded with a roundhouse kick to the knee and a sidekick to the face of an attacker, my tormentors gave me a wide berth. I was always on alert for a possible ambush. “The FBI isn’t exactly gay-friendly either, despite their stated policies. But no, I’ve never been assaulted. At least….” Memories shifted beneath me like the boggy surface of a swamp. I wasn’t sure where solid ground lay.
“I don’t mean to sound like Charles.” Jean’s smile had a wry twist. “But what made you chose the FBI? With your skills, you could have gone into any field you wanted.”
I picked at the end of my cast and tugged on a bit of fluff snagged in the fiberglass. “I wanted something more challenging, I guess.” It was hard to explain. Every academic achievement had been so easy for me, my entire life. I wanted to be more than the guy with the freaky memory.
“You mean you wanted a crappy-paying job with lousy hours and no respect,” John drawled.
“Apparently, so do you.”
“Somebody’s got to do it. The FBI’s lucky to have you.”
Jean watched us with a bemused expression. I think she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of us. John and I were acting a little too much like a married couple. If she didn’t have her suspicions before…. I looked at John, to see him staring at me with an unreadable expression on his face. It was like looking at Michelangelo’s David. Very pretty, but as expressive as stone. Which I couldn’t help resenting. A little sympathy would be nice. We’d all experienced some shocks in the last twenty-four hours. As I was building a head of growling indignation, John suddenly smiled. Bastard. He knew I couldn’t resist that.
“The truth is,” I said with a little shrug, “I figured it would be harder to be forced against my will to commit large scale crimes if I was working for the FBI.” I’d also gotten smarter as I’d gotten older.
“I don’t tell just anyone about my memory anymore. Not since a former boyfriend talked me into playing in some extremely illegal high-stakes poker matches.”
“Huh.” John narrowed his eyes and looked at me as though he’d never seen me before. Trying to picture me as a card counter in a casino? Those days were long past. “Good point.” He became boneless in his chair, one elbow resting the back of his seat as he slouched down, his smile tantalizingly relaxed. Did he have any idea how hot he looked when he lounged like that? He had to. No one oozed into their chair like that unless they wanted you to look at them. Infuriatingly, he turned away from me to speak to Jean. “You should have seen Jerry—I mean Lee—when we first met, Mom. I thought the only sentence he knew was, ‘Look it up yourself.’”
Jean’s face lit up at John’s use of the word “Mom” instead of his usual “Mother,” but I didn’t point it out. I wanted to play along with John’s attempt at Happy Memories, but I couldn’t. “Sounds about right to me. I’ll have to take your word for it, though.”
The skin between her eyes puckered in a concerned frown. “You don’t remember meeting John?”
“Meeting him? Yes.” How could I forget that? It was like something out of a movie. The light, which loved John like a long-lost son, bathed him in an amber glow, turning his hazel eyes gold. I could see him clearly as he sat in the passenger seat of my car. The makings of a five o’clock shadow gave him a rugged air that offset the metrosexual haircut and crumpled suit. After living in San Francisco for so long, it was like seeing a panther pretending to be one of the tabbies. I knew the real thing when I saw it, though. And was instantly smitten. “The rest of the last six months… not so much.”
“It seems so unfair.” Jean’s words echoed my thoughts. “That you can remember so much, except when it comes to your own life.”
I snorted as a memory from high school suddenly came back to me.
“What’s so funny?” John’s voice was as warm and comforting as a blanket just out of the dryer. His lazy smile suggested he was amused because I was amused. I had the weirdest feeling he didn’t really need to know what I found humorous. He was asking me for the benefit of his mother—putting on a show—but I was okay with that. I would play any part he needed me to play.
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