It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  Interested in spite of myself, I hunker down beside Theresa and pick up a polyester blazer from the top of the pile of clothes folded into her lap. It’s a light powder blue, maybe bright once upon a time but now faded to an almost colorless shade and definitely several decades out of date. I try to picture the man who wore this back in the day, but I can’t put the image I have of my great-grandfather into this fashionable jacket—the man I see in my mind is old and weathered and thin, a memory gathered from years of looking at old photo albums like the one Ginger’s leafing through now. Handing the jacket back to my cousin, I stand and finger another suit that hangs in the closet, a gray so light that it might be an aged white, dingy with time. Each room up here is probably filled with similar clothing. “They’re getting rid of everything?” I ask, incredulous.

  “Everything we don’t take with us when we leave,” Ginger says. She doesn’t look up from the pictures again and her voice is dreamy, as if trapped in the past when those photos were taken. “You see something you want, Mike, grab it up now. There’s no real will—everything was left to Penny—but Evie wanted us each to have something. I guess she figured it’d mean more if we picked it out ourselves, you know?” With a laugh, she adds, “I’d consider doing that but I think the only thing any of my children or ex-husbands will want after I’m gone is my money. And Lord knows there ain’t enough of that to go around.”

  Ginger’s like Aunt Bobbie, married more times than anyone cares to remember, and I’ve lost count of the boyfriends in between. She’s currently separated, not legally divorced yet, but I think someone mentioned a lover or two in the wings. Penny said Ginger arrived alone, and that surprises me. For as long as I’ve known her, she’s always had someone with her here at Sugar Creek. Secretly, though, I’m glad she doesn’t this time, because it leaves the back room for me and Dan, who still isn’t back yet…

  I help Theresa clean out the closet. There’s nothing I want to save—this is the first time I’ve even seen most of the clothing, and it’s all so old, I’m thinking we could sell it online and probably make a fortune. But Ginger quenches that notion real quick. “Momma’s taking everything to the Goodwill. She’d have a fit if she heard you wanted to put it on the internet. Jeez, Mike, I never pegged you as a gold digger.”

  “I’m not!” I laugh from my spot inside the closet. It’s dark in here, plastic dry cleaner’s bags draped around me like ghosts, boxes hemming me in, clothes on the rod above me blocking out the light. “Is Dan out there yet? I’m sick of being picked on.”

  “We’re not picking on you,” Theresa assures me. She peeks into the closet as she slings a bag of clothes over her shoulder. “Not much, anyway. You’re fun to tease.”

  With another laugh, I pull down a shirt from the hangers above me, ball it up and chuck it at her. She swats it aside easily. “Seriously, is he out there?” I ask. How long has it been now? “What time is it?”

  “Almost noon,” Ginger calls out. Even though I can’t see her from where I am inside the closet, I’m fairly sure she’s still stretched out on the daybed. “Going through the pictures,” she explained when I asked what she was doing to help out. “Someone needs to do it. Why not me?”

  Because it gets you out of honest work, I should’ve said. Ginger’s the type to watch others do something and then claim she helped out all along. “I am helping,” she likes to say. “I’m supervising. Not everyone can be worker bees, Michael, and not everyone can be the queen.”

  But there’s something in the way she says it that makes you want to thank her for just watching, while you do all the work, and just to tease her, I ask, “You still sitting on your lazy ass, Ginger?”

  “You bet I am,” she replies. “And no, your boy’s not here yet. Send Caitlin after him.”

  Caitlin? Out in the room I hear my sister’s voice. “I’m not tracking him down,” she grumbles. “Where’s Mike?”

  “In the closet,” Theresa says with a huff. “Cat, can you get that other bag? I’m just putting them out in the hall.”

  I wonder what Caitlin’s doing here. If it’s noon, maybe it’s time to eat already. Surely someone’s whipping up lunch, one of our aunts or Penny, sandwiches or soup or something to feed all of us. And if I go downstairs, everyone else will be there, Dan included, and I’ll get to steal him back. I’ll give him my sad-eyes look that I know he can’t resist, and I’ll corner him when no one else is watching, and I’ll give him a long, lingering kiss. “I miss you,” I’ll whisper, in that low voice I know does terrible things to him. With one finger I’ll trail down his throat, down his chest, circle around his navel through his shirt and then hook onto his jeans, right behind his belt buckle, and I know he won’t be able to resist that. “Come play with me now, baby,” I’ll say. And I guarantee neither of us will get much more work done today.

  Just thinking of him makes my heart race and my palms sweat. “Is Dan with you?” I ask as I climb out of the closet. Over precariously stacked boxes, overstuffed bags, through the plastic that rustles and clings to me…when I finally break free, I find my sister sitting on the edge of the daybed, peering over Ginger’s shoulder as she flips through the photos. “Caitlin?” I ask, but neither of them look up at me. Brushing dust from my jeans, I want to know, “Have you seen Dan? Cat—”

  “Out back,” comes the terse reply. For a second I think she’s still mad at me from this morning, but then she points at a picture in the album before Ginger can turn the page, and I realize she’s been sucked into the past just as readily as our aunt has. What is it with women and old photographs? They look at a picture and suddenly the memories seem to rush back like a tide, engulfing them, drowning out the present for the past. With a quick laugh, Caitlin cries, “Michael, look! It’s you and Ray and oh my God, is that Kenny? Was he ever really that small?”

  Just what we need, two people not doing any work. When Theresa comes back into the room, I roll my eyes to make her giggle. To my sister, I ask, “Did you want something? Or did you just come here to hang out?”

  “You have a visitor,” she tells me. Tucking her hair behind one ear, she points at another picture and gasps. “That’s not me! Jesus, what the hell am I wearing?”

  “A visitor?” I can’t imagine who—I glance at Theresa but she simply shrugs. “Caitlin, who is it?”

  My sister looks at me with something akin to contempt. “Your one o’clock appointment,” she says, and before I can answer, she adds, “I don’t know, Mike, I didn’t ask. I’m not your secretary.”

  “Smart ass,” I mutter, brushing at my jeans again. Gray dust has settled into long streaks where the black denim was folded as I squatted in the closet, and my shirt’s pulled out of the waistband in the back—I tuck it in self-consciously, wondering what my hair looks like. A visitor? I can’t even begin to imagine who it might be. I don’t know anyone in Sugar Creek anymore—all the kids I played with growing up are gone now, moved to Pittsburgh or York, all except for…

  Stephen Robichaud.

  I comb down my hair quickly. “Is it Stephen?” I ask. My skin tingles but I don’t know why. I haven’t seen him in what, five years? Has it been that long? The last time I was down here, and he stopped by one day, said he saw my mom in Grosso’s and hoped I was here, too. The two of us went for a walk by the creek—I remember telling him about Matthew and how hurt I was at the time because we just broke up and he was the first guy I ever slept with. It was strange how easily we slipped into our friendship again, almost like pulling on a bodysuit that’s been washed a few times—tight at first, a little uncomfortable, but the more you move around, the more the fabric stretches, until it fits you like a second skin. There on the banks of the creek, a few yards upstream so none of my family would see or hear us, he kissed me again and his lips were so familiar to me, he tasted exactly the same as he had the first time we kissed. The grass was lush, a carpet I laid him back on, our bodies rubbing together, our erections aching beneath our shorts, our lips hungry on each other on
ce again. We made out until his glasses fogged up, and I think I promised to call or write or something. I think I said I’d come back the next year, the way I used to visit when I was younger.

  But there were no letters, no calls, and no further visits. I don’t know if he expected that? Or if he waited to hear from me? Is he mad now? I don’t know what he thinks about me, what he’s doing here, what he wants from me now, after all this time…I don’t even know what it is thinking of him has done to me, why it feels as if pins prick my skin and needles course through my veins. My stomach churns nervously—where’s Dan? I don’t want to see Stephen again.

  I have no choice. With one last look at the album, Caitlin jumps up from the bed and steers me out the open door and into the hall. “Come on,” she tells me, leading the way downstairs. “You can introduce me. It’s Cat, remember.”

  He’s in the living room, frowning at a flurry of school portraits framed above the TV. Same mousy hair parted on one side and kept short, comb marks gouged into the thin strands. Same thick glasses—no fashionable wire frames for Stephen Robichaud, his prescription is too strong for anything less than chunky black glasses that Dan calls BCDs, birth control devices, standard issue on post. Same big eyes, same wide mouth, same lanky frame and large Adam’s apple and thin chest—he hasn’t aged a bit. This is the same boy I kissed at fourteen, the same one I fooled around with my teenaged years, the same one I rubbed against five years ago when I needed someone’s hands and lips to convince me that I was still desirable after Matthew left. And when he turns around and sees me, his smile says that he thinks I’m still the same, too. “Hey, Michael.”

  His voice is soft and a little high, just the way I remember it. “Stephen,” I say, and because I hear the awkwardness in my own voice, I laugh to cover my discomfort. Is he thinking of the last time we were together? The way I touched him, how we kissed? Does he remember what I taste like? I don’t want to know. I hold out a hand which he takes before he pulls me into a quick hug. I keep my eyes open, my mind blank, and pretend I don’t feel the warmth of his body next to mine. “How have you been, guy?” I ask, stepping back to get out of his embrace. “Damn, where’s the time go, you know?”

  He laughs because he’s supposed to, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Mike,” he sighs, “believe me, I wish it was anything else to bring you back here—anything other than this.” He means Evie’s passing, but he can’t say the words and I don’t offer them myself, I don’t want to hear them aloud. Holding a hand out to me as if he wants me to take it again, he says gently, “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I whisper. “Me too.” Don’t tell me how much you loved her, I pray. I don’t want to hear someone else’s reminisces, I don’t want to have to share mine. I want to keep them all inside because I’m afraid that the more I talk about it, the sooner I’ll forget. Already I can’t quite recall Aunt Evie’s features, and that scares me. I’ll go upstairs when Stephen leaves, go through the photo albums with Ginger, until Evie’s face is burned behind my eyes. I can’t forget her.

  Not one to be left out, Caitlin nudges the back of my leg with one knee. My own knee buckles but I catch myself and tell Stephen, “You know my sister. Caitlin?”

  Stephen nods but doesn’t offer her a hand to shake, which is good. She’s the type to leave him hanging. “This is Stephen,” I tell her. “You remember him—he was always over here. God, I’ve known him forever.” Lowering my voice, I wink and add, “My first kiss, even.”

  That makes him blush, thin pink color rising in his pale cheeks, and he ducks his head, scuffs his feet on the carpet. “Mike,” he warns, but there’s laughter in his eyes and a hint of something more in his voice, and all of a sudden I’m glad Caitlin’s here with us. I have a funny feeling he didn’t just come over to say he’s sorry that Evie’s gone.

  She looks at him, her face expressionless as she works through who he is in her mind, who he must be to me. No one, I want to assure her, but how awkward would that be? I can’t just out and say it—he’s done nothing to make me think he expects this visit to revive what we used to feel together; he’s said nothing to suggest that he wants me. Years ago, when I was in high school and he already in college, he told me that he didn’t think he could ever love someone he didn’t know his whole life. We were lying together on his bed, both of us naked, me still hard and him already spent, the flavor of him lingering in my mouth, and we didn’t look at each other but at the ceiling. It was safer that way. “I just don’t think I could do it,” he whispered then as we watched late afternoon shadows play across the lazy blades of his ceiling fan. “I mean, stay with one person forever? Promise to love them until I die?”

  “It can’t be that hard,” I replied. I was still a long way from Dan, but I knew there was someone out there for me, there had to be, and I already knew Stephen wasn’t it. “People fall in and out of love all the time.”

  “I don’t,” Stephen told me. His hand drifted across the covers to brush mine, then pulled away quickly, as if the touch were anathema to him. “Maybe if I knew him long enough, though. How long do you think that would have to be?”

  I didn’t know—I still don’t. I wonder if there’s anyone else in his life now, if he’s happy, or if he’s here hoping for…I just don’t know. If Caitlin weren’t here, maybe we could talk freely, he could tell me what he wants or expects and I could tell him how it is, but she keeps this silence between us. “Stephen,” she says, and he nods, I nod, Stephen.

  Hope shines in his eyes as he asks, “I was thinking maybe we could go for a walk?”

  He remembers the last time then, the two of us by the creek. Dread curls in my stomach. But before I can reply, Caitlin gives us a sweet smile. “Oh hey, did you meet Dan yet? Let me go get him.”

  “Dan?” Stephen asks, frowning slightly.

  “Mike’s boyfriend,” Caitlin replies sweetly. She flips her hair back over one shoulder and spins on her heel. “He’s just out back helping Dad. I’ll get him for you.”

  And she’s gone. The look Stephen gives me says that everything he was looking forward to today, everything he hoped to find in me, is gone. “Boyfriend?” he asks, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it before.

  Now it’s my turn to duck my head and stare at my feet as I mumble, “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 23: Stephen Robichaud

  Without Caitlin, there is nothing between us, nothing hindering our speech, nothing keeping us apart. I can’t quite meet Stephen’s steady gaze, though, and when he takes a step closer to me, I shift uncomfortably but don’t move back. We’ve been too much to each other over the years—best friends, summer buddies, daresay lovers? At such young ages, it was more curiosity than love to me, more feeling good and getting off than anything else, and since we used to be so close, I thought nothing of being that open with him. It was only friendship, nothing more, not to me.

  Still, I can see the pain in his face—it hurts too much to see how Caitlin’s careless words have wounded him. My fault. I should’ve known she do something like this, mention Dan just to stir up shit. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word tact. “I’m sorry,” I say again. From the corner of my eye, I see Stephen shrug helplessly. With a forced laugh, I tell him, “You know how sisters are.”

  That makes him smile. His own twin sister, Stephanie, was the terror of Sugar Creek when we were kids. Chasing us around on her bike, beating us up, even that kiss she gave me was brutal. Last time I was here, Stephen told me she was in law school, of all places. I still can’t wrap my mind around that one. I’m about to ask how she’s doing when he wants to know, “What’s he like?”

  He means Dan. “Wonderful,” I say simply. That’s it in a nutshell. But Stephen stares at me and I feel like he’s waiting for more. “He’s good to me,” I tell him. “Funny and thoughtful and sweet. Quiet—he lets me talk.” Stephen grins at that. I’ve always been a rambler, filling the silence with whatever comes to mind until someone interrupts. I’ve never been at a l
oss for words until this weekend. Until now. “Um…” I try to think of something else to say, something to describe everything I feel about Dan, everything he means to me, but I don’t want to hurt Stephen more. After all we’ve been through, all we meant, I don’t want to rub it in. “He’s in the Army,” I offer.

  Stephen nods. “Hence the shirt.”

  “Yeah.” I give a weak laugh and cross my arms in front of my chest, hiding the words written there, Military Wife. Somehow it’s not quite so funny anymore.

  If Stephen notices my not so subtle gesture, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shoves his hands down deep into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. What is there to say? Maybe nothing anymore. I stare at his denim-clad legs and remember dark hair curled over pale skin, soft flesh that used to tremble beneath my touch. His hands fist in his pockets, pushing against the front of his pants like an exaggerated erection. I wonder what he’s trying to hide. I tell myself I don’t want to know. Where is Dan?

  “An Army brat,” Stephen says, his voice quiet. He shakes his head. “I never pegged you as that type.” When I shrug, he asks, “How long has it been for you guys?”

  “Ten months.” It feels like forever, though. I try for a smile, but Stephen just stares at me, his eyes twin facets of pain in his face. Why is this so damn hard? We weren’t ever serious. “How about you?” I ask, hoping to lighten the mood. “Anyone swept you off your feet yet?”

  He studies me for a silent moment. I think I know what he’s going to say. Don’t, I pray. I don’t want to hear it, not now, not ever. I don’t want to know…“Someone already did that a long time ago,” he says quietly.

  I close my eyes, try to swallow past the emotion that rises unbidden in my throat. “Stephen,” I sigh.