by J. M. Snyder
At the house, of course. Evie always said there was room enough for family.
Then there’s Aunt Jessie. But she won’t be there.
As Dan finishes his cereal, I rest my head on his shoulder and sigh. The mere thought of all those people crammed into Evie’s house makes my head hurt—maybe I should get a hotel when I get up there. I don’t know if Dan’s ready for that much of my family yet; I’m not even sure if I’m up for it. “You know,” I say softly, stroking the hairs on his arm, “Mom’s probably going to want to head on up to Sugar Creek today. I can drop you off at the house if you want—”
Dan looks at me sharply. “Why?” he asks.
I shrug, which settles my body closer to his. “Somehow I don’t think hanging out with my wacky relatives is how you want to spend your leave.”
“I want to spend it with you.” He sets his empty cereal bowl in the sink and eases an arm around my waist. I don’t like the way he’s frowning at me, like he’s suddenly not sure who I am anymore. “Don’t you want me there?”
“I do,” I assure him. I don’t know how I would get through the next few days without him. “It’ll be crowded, though. There’s a lot of us.”
“A lot of them, maybe,” Dan says, kissing my forehead. His hand traces up the curve of my spine to rub at the back of my neck. “Only one you.”
I laugh—he’s so sweet sometimes, when we’re alone and he doesn’t have to hide himself behind his soldier’s mask. I can just imagine what my aunts will say, they’ll love him, how could they not? The only one I’m really worried about is Aunt Sarah, who’s a little bit ultra-Christian, but last I heard, she simmered down some after her oldest son knocked up his girlfriend a few years ago. God, I can’t even imagine these kids, my nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, people my age who I spent my summers with horsing around at Sugar Creek, I can’t imagine them grown now with children of their own. It almost makes me think I should be in their shoes, I should have a family underway.
But I knew long ago that I wouldn’t be able to have that. I love men, I love Dan. I won’t have children. My mom will have to learn to accept that the same way I have. Unless she’s going to let it come between us…
I think of my Aunt Jessie. That’s one relative I’m quite sure won’t be at Sugar Creek this week. I’ve only met her once, and I was just a little boy at the time, I don’t remember much about her beyond long black hair and thick eyeliner that made her look like a raccoon. In my memory she wears all black, but I think I’m confusing her with Caitlin. As I recall, Jessie had a smoky, sultry voice and a lazy way of looking around the room as she talked, and there was something so overtly sexual about her that even as a child, I was drawn to her the way a moth is to a flame.
Something happened though—I don’t know what, I’m not privy to the details. Despite the fact that I’m an adult myself, the fallout between Aunt Evie and Aunt Jessie is still something no one will tell me about, and I’m too afraid to ask. My mom won’t even discuss it. Something happened, something so horrible that it wedged itself between Evie and Jessie and kept them apart the rest of their lives…or the rest of Evie’s life, at least. I don’t know whatever happened to Aunt Jessie. I don’t know if she married or died or what. Family rumor has her running away to join a cult, marrying into the mob, joining the Witness Protection program, being abducted by aliens—when we gathered at Sugar Creek, the youngest of us would swap horror stories, each one worse than the last, trying to one-up each other with what really happened to Aunt Jessie. Truth is none of us know, and if our parents even suspected what we giggled over when the lights went out, we would’ve been spanked and sent to bed.
When I tell Dan what I know of my Aunt Jessie, he just raises an eyebrow and smirks. “Aliens?” he asks, amused.
I have to admit, the stories do sound far-fetched. “We were just kids,” I tell him, but I’m almost embarrassed to admit that part of me still wants to believe something exotic happened to the dark, gypsy-esque woman in my memory. I think my lover realizes this, though, because when I duck my head, he tucks his thumb under my chin and raises my face until I look at him again. “For all I know she’s not even alive anymore,” I say. “And if she is, she won’t be anywhere near the house, I’m sure of it. I don’t know what happened between her and Evie but my mom once said Jessie wasn’t welcome in any house in this family ever again.”
With that smirk still in place, Dan says, “I think your mom’s the type to say a lot of things when she’s mad.”
Silently, I agree with him. The comment had been made when I was about to graduate from high school, and I sat at the dining room table with my mom’s address book and a pile of invitations in front of me. Pen in hand, I flipped through the book, looking for anyone I might even remotely know, just to send them an invite in the hopes of soliciting money from them. I started at the back of the book, because my mom’s maiden name is Yates and all of the aunts are back there, married names in parentheses. That’s the way Mom’s mind works—put everyone under the name she knows them as, which is good because Aunt Bobbie was married four times before she finally settled on her current husband, and I’m not sure if Mom could keep up with all those name changes if she tried. Both of Bobbie’s sons have a different last name, from each other and from her, but when I was still in high school she was only on husband number two. I filled out cards for her and her sons Douglas and Craig, who were both in their late 20s at the time. Then Aunt Sarah because she came next in the book, then her children, Ruth and Judith and Thomas and John, all Biblical names. Aunt Sarah scares me, to be honest. If anyone has something to say about Dan, it’ll be her. I almost see my mom teaming up with her once we get to Sugar Creek, the two of them ganging up on me in an attempt to cure me from sinful living. But Tommy’s girlfriend had a baby at sixteen, and I think my mom said she had a second child later on, and I know they never married, so Aunt Sarah can’t say too much about my living in sin. I remember she sent me a Bible as a graduation gift. At the time I wondered if I could possibly return it to the local Christian bookstore, even without a receipt. My mom wouldn’t let me.
If I had known I’d get the Bible instead of money, I might not have bothered to send her an invitation at all. But I did, and I sent Aunt Billy one, too, and her three daughters, as well, Ginger and Lenore and Sylvia. I always thought Aunt Billy should’ve held back on the kids and just had cats instead, naming her daughters the way she did. Aunt Marge was already gone by then, and I never met my Aunt Clara, but I had a few extra invitations left. “Can I send Aunt Jessie one?” I asked, glancing through the address book. I couldn’t find her listed.
But my mom snatched the book from me and snapped it shut. “She won’t be needing one,” she told me. When I started to argue, she asked, “You don’t really think she’d come, do you? She barely knows you’re alive.”
I wasn’t vain enough to think that everyone I was sending an invitation to would show up to see me get a diploma. This was all about getting gifts, getting money. Somehow I thought my mom was missing the point. “She might send me something—”
“She won’t,” Mom said with a finality that scared me. “You send her something, she’ll think she’s welcome here and she’s not. If you want to get rid of the extra cards, mail them to random names in the phone book. You’ll get about the same response as you would if you sent Jessie one. Don’t argue with me.”
I’ve learned better than to do that. Even when it comes to Dan, I’m not going to argue with her. When she comes downstairs fully dressed, make-up already on and every hair in place, she glares at the two of us cuddling by the sink. Dan eases me away because he sees her first, and when I turn, she’s already frowning. “Michael, really,” she starts. “In front of the window where the neighbors—”
From the dining room, Caitlin calls out, “Did she mention the neighbors?” I laugh at the look of consternation that crosses my mother’s face. “Did I call that one or what? I told them you’d bitch about the neighbors.”
“Caitlin!” My mom’s voice lashes out like a whip, and I cover my mouth with one hand to hide the smile I can’t stifle. The look Mom gives me suggests that she thinks my kid sister has learned such language from me.
Then she busies herself with the coffeepot, and I blow Dan a kiss. He grins and starts to wash his cereal bowl—how can she not love him? But she’s not watching us anymore, thank goodness, she’s scooping sugar into her coffee with nervous fingers, I can hear the clatter of her spoon against the side of her mug. “I guess you’ll want to bring him with you,” she says.
She talks of Dan as if he’s a pet and acts like he’s not even in the same room with us. I touch his arm and can almost feel the anger that hums through his body at that slight. I’m not going to bother to answer her.
The side door opens by the basement and Ray comes into the kitchen, scratching the back of his head. His hair stands up in a punkish hairstyle, and he still wears the boxers and t-shirt he slept in, even though he had to walk across the driveway to get here. And Mom thinks I’m going to embarrass her in front of the neighbors? Has she looked at him lately?
He sees me, sees Dan, and with a mighty yawn, he asks, “So dude, did you guys do it last night?”
Beneath my hand, Dan’s fingers curl into a fist. “Raymond,” my mom warns, before I can answer him. “I’ve told you kids before, no sex in this house.”
My clueless brother nudges me with his elbow. “You should stay in my room,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “It’s not in the house.”
Caitlin can’t let that one slide by. I don’t know how she hears us, but from the dining room, she calls out, “Oh yeah, Ray. Like you have a harem up there, or something. You’ve never even been laid.”
“Caitlin!” My mom’s on edge, it’s in her voice.
My sister hears it, too, and can’t resist. Coming back into the kitchen, she pushes right in between Dan and me to drop her bowl in the sink, and in a childish voice, asks, “Mommy?”
Mom glances over at the three of us, distrustful. “What?”
With a sweet smile, Caitlin says, “Since Michael gets to bring his boyfriend to Sugar Creek, I was thinking maybe I could take—”
“No,” Mom replies. When Caitlin tries to finish her sentence, Mom shakes her head. “I’m not listening, Caitlin. I don’t condone this…this…”
She’s searching for the right word, and I know just where she’s headed. “Go ahead and say it,” I mutter, growing angry myself. “This phase, isn’t that the word you want? Well, I have news for you, Mom. This isn’t a phase. This isn’t something I’m going to grow out of.” Dan places a hand on my shoulder to quiet me, but I shake him off. “I’m with Dan,” I tell my mother. “I love him. So you better get used to it, because I’m not going to exclude him from my life just because you don’t condone this. I love him.”
Before she can respond, I storm past her, past Ray, out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I don’t have to turn to know that Dan is right behind me. He catches up to me at the door to my room, and just the touch of his hand on my arm is enough to stop me. I turn and find myself in a sudden embrace, and I cling to him desperately. “If you’d rather I not go,” he begins, his voice low in the darkened hall.
“You’re going,” I say, clenching my fists in his shirt. “I need you with me, Dan, you know that. Don’t make me face them all alone.”
He rubs my back in a soothing, caring gesture. “I won’t,” he assures me.
Chapter 6: Road Trip
My dad was up before any of us, getting the car serviced. “You should get yours looked at, Michael!” Mom hollers up the stairs. “You don’t want it to break down between here and Sugar Creek. They don’t have a Jiffy Lube, you know.”
“Close the door,” I tell Dan. We’re in my room, repacking everything I diligently unpacked yesterday, when I thought we would be staying for the next few days.
“Michael?” My mom comes up a few steps. “Did you hear me?”
As Dan eases the door shut, I call out, “Yeah! We’re busy here, Mom. I’ll be down in a minute.” I toss clothes from my closet onto the bed and sigh heavily. Can I just skip to the end of the week? “God.”
Dan takes the hangers from me and says, “Sit down, babe. Don’t let her get to you like this.”
“It’s not just her,” I tell him, “it’s everything.” But I let him guide me to the bed, where I flop back on top of the clothes and stare at the ceiling. Tonight I’ll be in Sugar Creek—my stomach churns in anticipation, the way it used to when I was a little boy. I would be packed for weeks ahead of time, and the night before we left for vacation, I was nothing but a bundle of nerves, as if it were Christmas already and I just knew I was getting something good. Sugar Creek always made me feel that same breathless excitement—finally I’d see cousins I hadn’t seen since the previous year, I’d go swimming in the creek again and ride bikes with Stephen Robichaud down to Grosso’s. There was so much to look forward to, homemade ice cream and large cookouts and late nights spent camping out by the woods or sneaking between bedrooms to tell ghost stories. Shaved ice from the cart in front of the tackle shop, fishing and building forts and waging battles against the girls. There were so many of us at Aunt Evie’s at any one time, it was like an instant play group—someone always wanted to do something. And in the evenings the kids would goof off in the backyard while the adults sat around, sipping cool drinks that made them giggly and pinked their cheeks, margaritas and piña coladas and shots of Schnapp’s. When I took a break from my cousins, Aunt Evie would pull me into her massive lap and let me stick my fingers in her drink. I can still remember the icy, slightly acidic taste of the alcohol. I knew I wasn’t supposed to have any, and that made me want it all the more. No drink has ever tasted quite as wonderful since.
My mom used to frown at me when I’d sip at the drinks. “Michael, no,” she’d say, slapping my hand away from the salt and lime. “Run along and play. You have a drink.” I had slushed Kool-Aid, which didn’t tingle through my stomach and coil in my groin the way Aunt Evie’s drink did.
But at Evie’s house my mom was just another child, we were all the same in her eyes. “Laura, hush,” she’d murmur, one large hand smoothing down my hair. “It’s just a little bit. Won’t harm him none.” That’s another reason I love Sugar Creek so much. There Evie ruled over us all, a matriarch who had the final say in anything. Punishments were lenient, rewards frequent, and if my mom rose her voice in anger, Evie was just behind her, hands on her hips and shaking her head. “Don’t carry on so.” Brushing past Mom, Evie would gather me up in her arms and tell us both, “Vases mend, Laura. Chairs can be fixed, water sopped up, the carpet vacuumed. Don’t yell at the child. He didn’t mean to do it.”
My throat closes tight in sudden emotion. I’m going to miss that woman.
She would’ve loved Dan, I know that without a doubt. This past summer I even thought about taking him for a drive up there, just to show him off. But I wanted to tell my parents about us first—Mom would’ve been livid if Evie and Penny knew before she did that her son was gay. So when Dan had a week’s leave, we went to Ocean City instead, took in the beach, the boardwalk, the nightlife. There was always next year, I reasoned. I could always visit Aunt Evie then.
Tears well up in my eyes and I blink them back. Dan looks at me as I turn away, I don’t want him seeing me cry again. I don’t want to cry, I hate this. Thrilled at the impending trip one minute, heart-wrenched the next.
Dan stretches out beside me on the bed and runs a hand up my arm, across my chest, over my shoulder until he’s hugging me close. With a sad sigh, I tell him, “I think I’m over it, you know? I think I’m okay, I can handle this, I’ll move on. Then out of nowhere it hits me again, the littlest things.” My voice breaks. He kisses me as one tear slides down my cheek. “I can’t imagine it without her there,” I whisper, burying my face into his neck, where he smells like Tommy cologne. “Evie was Sugar Creek to me.”
In his low voice, Dan says softly, “I understand.” When he was a boy, his parents would visit his father’s mother in West New York, New Jersey, a long, nauseating car ride from his hometown in central Ohio. He gets carsick in the back seat, and he tells me that he learned early on how to distinguish the rest area road signs from the others. Every one they passed, he would complain about having to pee, just to get out of the car. The minute his feet hit the tarmac, he was fine, but he dawdled at the rest areas, splashing in the sinks and hiding out in the stalls just to keep from getting back into the car. “It made me sick for days,” he says, talking about the road trip. “The first night at Ma’s, I couldn’t eat a thing. I had to take a handful of children’s aspirin and lay down in the back bedroom, the a/c on high and all the lights out while everyone talked quietly in the other room.”
Ma and her second husband, whom Dan called Uncle Ernie, lived in a condo building a stone’s throw from the Hudson River—from her balcony, they could look out across the stretch of water to the New York city skyline. “World Trade Center right there,” he says, his voice hushed. I fist a hand in his shirt and think about all the pictures I’ve seen of Manhattan Island—I’ve never been there myself. “We ate lunch on the top of one of the towers once. Ma kept saying the whole building was shaking, she could feel it every time the wind blew. I don’t even want to imagine what the view from her condo is like now that they’re gone. If you leaned out just right, on clear days you could almost see the Statue of Liberty. When we went up there the week of the fourth, we would sit on the balcony to watch the fireworks. Best seat in the house.”