It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  Somehow he pieced together my tear-chopped words and half-formed sentences. With tender kisses, he dried my eyes, my cheeks, cooled my fevered brow. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, and although he doesn’t know that for sure, he can’t say with any certainty that he won’t be shipped off to the Middle East, I believed him. At three in the morning, I guess I’ll believe damn near anything. “I’m not leaving you, Mike. Those soldiers on TV, they’re not me.” I know, I thought, pouting like a petulant child. “I’m not front-line material, baby,” he explained, “you know this. I’m supply. We stay back with the tents.”

  “Supply is the first thing they wipe out,” I muttered. I’d seen the movies. Take out the supply line and you cut an army’s legs right out from under it.

  “Listen to you,” he said with affection. His hands smoothed away the creases in my brow. “Mr. Military Expert, hmm?” I sort of smiled at that, and he laughed gently. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told me again. Then he raised my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers. “I promise you.”

  I sighed, unconvinced. “Dan—”

  “Baby, listen,” he replied. Without another word, he placed my hand on his chest. I felt his heart beat against my knuckles, and when I looked into his dark eyes, they glistened like the reflection of the moon in a nighttime lake. Finally, in a voice so soft that I felt the words more than heard them, he whispered, “I love you.”

  As if that can make everything better, but somehow it does. It did then—it eased my troubled mind, calmed my fears, let me fall asleep in his embrace. How could someone like him ever die? How could Evie? I think, the smile freezing on my face as I watch him nod on the phone, a gesture Tavitts can’t see on the other end of the line. “Be right back,” I tell Dan, and he waves at me distractedly with another yes sir into the phone. Tossing one bag over my shoulder, I set a second one aside to open the door, then push it through into the kitchen with my foot and close the door behind me.

  I smell the roasting pumpkin seeds now, a crisp, slightly burnt scent that tickles my nose like a sneeze. Caitlin is gone, Trevor too, but the pumpkin remains on its bed of newspaper in the middle of the table. Firelight flickers in its carved eyes, its wicked mouth, a candle already lit inside the hollowed-out gourd. Not bad, I think. I’ll have to tell my sister she did a good job when I see her next.

  Penny sits at the table now, in the same chair where Ray spilled his milk down the front of his shorts earlier. She has a dazed look in her eyes, one I’ve seen on the faces of people on TV who have survived natural disasters or horrible accidents, a disbelief that they can’t be alive, they couldn’t live through what just happened…could they? What did just happen?

  Also seated, Aunt Billie looks up as I close the door and gives me a weak smile. “Michael,” she says sadly. “Hey.” There’s a cup of coffee in front of her, hands wrapped around it for warmth, but I get the impression that she isn’t drinking from it. “Are you doing okay?”

  “Fine,” I assure her with a bright grin. She must mean with Dan, this morning on the porch. I look from her to Penny, to my mom rooting through a drawer full of aspirin and Band-Aids that we always called the medicine drawer, to Aunt Bobbie at the sink drying dishes that she packs away into a large cardboard box on the counter, and ask, “Did you guys just get in or something?”

  “Or something,” Penny murmurs. Her voice is ethereal, ghostlike. “Did you find my pills?”

  My mom answers her. “I’m looking, sweetie.” As if noticing me for the first time, she flicks her hair back from her face and sighs. “Hi Mike. Don’t pick on Ray.”

  “Hi to you, too,” I say coolly. I’m a little pissed at her, to be honest, for comparing my brother to me. A voice in my mind that sounds suspiciously like Dan’s quips, Not that there’s any comparison there. I busy myself with the trash bags in my hands so she won’t see me grin.

  Moving quick, I take the trash outside, where it’s grown considerably colder—and darker—since my last trip to the shed. A motion sensitive light comes alive as I near the trashcans, which are sitting a little ways from the side of the shed and the bench my father made, the weatherproofing still drying. My bags go into the cans, even though there’s nothing edible in them. Animals will tear them apart regardless. Then I hurry back to the house, where warm light spills from the windows like the heat from the oven that Aunt Bobbie has open as I step into the kitchen. “Where’d they go?” I ask, meaning Penny and Mom. They’re gone.

  “Penny’s a little upset,” Aunt Bobbie explains. She pulls a cookie sheet covered with pumpkin seeds out of the oven. When I reach for one, she slaps my hand away. “Watch it, Mike! They’re hot.”

  “No shit,” I laugh. I manage to snag one anyway, and the tiny kernel just about blisters my fingers—this is more than hot. This is scalding. I blow on it to cool it off, then test it with the tip of my tongue. I feel the skin deaden there instantly, stupid move. Now I won’t be able to taste anything until that heals, I hate that. “Upset why?”

  “We were at Morrison’s all day,” Aunt Billy says. She motions at an empty chair but I squat down beside her instead and drop the pumpkin seed onto the table. My aunt smoothes down my hair like I’m just eight years old again, and she gives me that sad smile of hers that makes my throat close up to see it. “Taking care of a few last minute details. Penny wanted to come but we really shouldn’t have let her.” With a sigh, she adds, “She has Valium but I don’t know how we’re going to get through tomorrow.”

  Me either, I think, but I don’t dare say that out loud. Instead I tell her, “We’ll just have to.” Lowering my voice, I glance over at Bobbie scraping seeds into a bowl and ask, “What about Aunt Jessie?”

  Aunt Billy looks at me sharply, her eyes narrowing behind her wire-frame glasses. “What about her?”

  She doesn’t know her sister’s in town. Either Jessie didn’t go to Morrison’s after all, or the funeral home is better at keeping quiet about who visits the dead. What did Jessie say? This is what they do. Families have these types of issues all the time. With another glance at Bobbie, who either doesn’t hear us whispering or pretends not to, I shrug and say, “I just wondered if she’d…if you thought she might—”

  “She won’t,” Aunt Bobbie says suddenly. So she’s listening after all. Shaking her head, she tells me, “Some things are better left alone, Michael. You’re old enough to know that by now.”

  “I’m just—” I start.

  She scrapes the last of the seeds into the bowl and sets the cookie sheet in the sink, where it sizzles in the sudsy dishwater. “You mean well, I know. Just…” She flounders for something to say, some task to give me to take my mind off my errant aunt, and comes up with nothing. “Are you done with that room yet?”

  I stand and stretch, my muscles achy from cleaning all afternoon. “Almost.” Before she says anything else, I pop the pumpkin seed into my mouth—much cooler now—and say, “I know when someone’s trying to change the subject. I’m not going to mention her again, don’t worry.”

  “At least not around your mom or Penny,” Aunt Billy says. Sure, I can do that.

  Chapter 44: Dan’s Little Talk with Ray

  Dinner is Chinese—a few dozen little take-out containers scattered across the kitchen table like a buffet. A good foot taller than the hungry kids who clamor for the food, Dan stands at the edge of the crowd and simply reaches over the children’s heads—he snags two closed boxes, starts to move back but thinks better of it and grabs a third, smaller container that can be nothing but rice. I stand by the back door with a beer in either hand. No soda for me—I suspect that a beer or two now might help me sleep through the night. The funeral’s tomorrow. I’m going to need all the help I can get.

  When Dan clears the table, I step out onto the porch and hold the screen door open for him, as well. It’s cold out here but the wind has died down and by the house, there’s barely even a breeze to lift the hair from my brow. The door slams shut behind us and Dan steps up to me,
an arm easing around my waist, his chin resting on my shoulder. “Where do you want to sit, cutie?” he asks. His playful mood from earlier has lingered—everything he says to me sounds like a proposition, making me grin like a fool.

  I look around the porch quickly, my hands numb from the icy cans. The heavenly smell of oyster sauce and garlic wafts through the screen door, startling my stomach into a hungry rumble beneath Dan’s hand. I want to eat, I want to get a little buzzed, and I want some loving tonight, in that order. But first, a place to sit…“There?” I ask, nodding at the far end of the porch, where my father and a few of my uncles mill around a stone urn filled with sand. Evie always called them her ashcans, and they got dumped with the trash. My dad doesn’t smoke, and I hate the smell of cigarettes, but after our little understanding this afternoon, I think maybe we should be over there, beer in hand, just one of the guys.

  Dan takes a step in that direction, his fingers hooked around one belt loop on my jeans to lead me along, when I hear the unmistakable sound of a fork dropped to the wood behind me, followed by a soft curse. “Fuck.”

  “Hold up,” I say, stopping Dan with a hand on his arm. Turning, I see Ray bent to retrieve his fork from the porch where it’s fallen. He scrambles for it with one hand, an open take-out container in the other, and I know two seconds before it happens that he’s going to lose some of the food inside. A heartbeat later, presto! Large chunks of broccoli tumble out of the open top to plop wetly by his feet. He mutters something incoherent and spears them with the fork. Without realizing it, I close the distance between us, Dan right behind me. “You’re not going to eat those,” I say when Ray starts to stick the broccoli florets back into his container.

  “I’m not,” he grumbles without looking up. He stands and wipes his fork across the porch railing, knocking the pieces of broccoli to the ground below. “Go away.”

  “Ray—” I start.

  “Just go away, Mike,” my brother says. He throws himself down to the wooden bench that runs along the railing and pouts into the container, poking his food with his fork halfheartedly. “I’m not in the mood for your shit right now, okay?”

  I sit down beside him. “I’m not in the mood to be shitty,” I tell him, setting the beer between us. “Don’t touch those. They’re not for you.”

  “I don’t want any,” Ray mutters, but I can see the way he eyes the cold cans, as if tempted to snatch one when I’m not looking. Then he glances at Dan, who sits down facing me, one leg on the bench pressing into mine. With unmasked interest, Ray watches my lover open one of the take-out containers he carries and hand it to me before opening the other for himself. I have some kind of lo mein, dark noodles clogged with vegetables and what looks like beef. Ignoring Ray, I peer into Dan’s container—he holds it out for me to see the thick, spicy clumps of General Tso’s chicken that he’s ended up with. “What did you get?” my brother wants to know.

  “Food,” I tell him. His pout hardens and I laugh. “Lighten up, Ray. I got lo mein. You want some?”

  With a shake of his head, he practically glares at me as he shovels a forkful of fried rice into his mouth. When it becomes apparent that I’m not leaving any time soon—I pop open both cans of beer, hand one to Dan and take a deep sip from the other, the liquid sliding down my throat like foamy ice—Ray scoots a little ways away from me, like he’s pulling into himself, he doesn’t want to be near me. “You had to sit here,” he mumbles.

  I shrug. “It’s a free country,” I tell him. Another sip of beer, this one curling into my groin like a warm ember, and my laugh sounds slippery to my ears. Patting Dan’s thigh, I point out, “My baby keeps it that way.”

  Ray gives me a sullen look over the top of his food, then his gaze shifts past me to Dan before dropping away. “Cut it with the lovey-dovey crap, will you?” he groans.

  Well, excuse me, I think. A dull anger rises in my chest—I’m trying to be social here, can’t he see that? I’m trying to be nice, despite what he called me this afternoon, and he’s determined to get us fighting again, I just know it. “Jump down my throat already, will you?” I stab at the noodles in my little take-out box to release the tension building inside me. “Damn, Ray. What the hell’s your problem tonight?”

  “Nothing,” comes the reply. Nothing, nothing. Always the same answer, nothing, like he doesn’t trust me with the reasons why he’s so upset. Probably thinks I’m going to bust on him, I tell myself, and yeah, I might, but he doesn’t know that for certain. I could surprise him. I’ve grown now, I’m not the same little boy who laughed when his older brother would trip going up the steps (which he did quite frequently, still does). Hell, give me something, I pray silently, studying him. I’m trying to meet you halfway here, numb nuts. I’m trying to make things right without either of us having to apologize, can’t you see that?

  No, he can’t, because he’s too busy fucking around with his food to look up at me, to see the sincerity in my face, to see that I’m really very sorry for whatever it is he’s going through right now even though I’m not sure what that is, exactly, but I know the symptoms all too well. The restlessness, the dropsies, the feeling that nothing is going your way, I’ve been there, done that. I suspect it has nothing much to do with me or Dan or our relationship—that’s just the surface, a bruise that indicates a deeper wound, but he’s not going to probe for it, he’s not going to prod at the pain, it hurts too much and he doesn’t have anyone like Dan who will force him to face up to it. I watch him helplessly, unable to think of a single thing to say to make him realize that I know, I know.

  Suddenly someone kicks my shoe, and I look up to find my sister there, rummaging through another take-out container with a pair of chopsticks. Without greeting, she bends down and pokes her sticks into my container. “What do you have?”

  I pull away from the inquisitive sticks. “Lo mein,” I tell her. “Cat—”

  “Triple phoenix delight,” she says. Before I can stop her, she scoops out a huge helping of noodles from my container and drops them into hers. How can she be so dexterous with those chopsticks? As I watch, she replaces what she took of my food with some of hers, mixing the two dinners together. I look at her, incredulous, but she’s already chowing down on my lo mein, mine. “You’ve still got plenty,” she tells me, pointing at my container. Next she moves to Ray and does the same thing, rooting through his food before he can stop her. “What do you have?”

  He shoves at her but she shoves back, as quick as a reflex. “You might as well give up,” I say with a laugh. “She’s tenacious.”

  “She’s a pain in the ass,” he mutters. Caitlin kicks his foot for that, and even though he tries to move away, she still gets a good handful of broccoli from him. “Caitlin!”

  “Here, jeez.” As she dumps some of her triple phoenix delight into his take-out container, he tries to move away, and clumps of sesame-seed chicken land on his legs, dark liquid staining his jeans. “Ray, dammit. Look what you’re doing!”

  “Me?” he cries, pushing her back. This time she slaps his arm, as if this is his fault…he mops at the mess on the front of his pants. “Get out of here,” he tells her. When she starts to object, he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to hear it. “Just go.”

  “Fuck you, too,” Caitlin mutters. She kicks him once more for good measure and then stalks away.

  As she passes by, one tiny foot strikes my shoe but I pull my leg in quickly—I don’t want her mad at me. I glance at Dan, who’s watching Ray with guarded eyes, a closed expression on his face, and I wonder what’s on my lover’s mind. Does he feel sorry for my brother? Maybe he wishes we sat with my dad instead? Nudging him with my elbow, I whisper, “Dan?”

  The response is instantaneous. His gaze shifts to me, a smile already pulling at his lips, his eyes lit up like a holiday. Leaning closer, he presses his knee into my hip and raises an eyebrow, and for a moment I think he’s going to say something low and sexy that my brother won’t hear, but instead his gaze flicks past me. “We did
n’t sit here just to bother you, Ray,” he says.

  His voice is low, but Ray hears him just fine—he jumps as if goosed, and soy sauce dribbles through the folds in the bottom of his container to course down his arm, dark and thick as blood. Wiping at the sauce, my brother gathers all the courage he must possess and spits out, “Bullshit.”

  “Despite what you think,” Dan continues in the same even tone, as if Ray didn’t interrupt. There’s an edge to his words, a sharpness that demands to be heard, not quite anger, not yet, but it could turn into anger. That’s the promise in his voice—he could get mad, violent even, quite easily. I don’t want to see that, and I’m quite sure my brother doesn’t dream of it. Locking his steady gaze on Ray, Dan continues, “The past few days have been rough on you, I know. I’ve been there before myself.”

  “Yeah, right.” Ray snorts into his food but won’t look this way, not for long. When he glances over here, it’s at me, not Dan. My lover scares him, I’m sure. I don’t know where Ray’s getting the balls to bite back like he is, unless he thinks I can hold my boy back. How did you put it? I think ruefully. Yeah, right?

  “You’re not making things any better here, Ray,” Dan says. His words sound like a threat, serious. “Not with that attitude. Blaming everyone else for the way you’re feeling inside isn’t going to work, and I guarantee that blaming Michael isn’t going to make you feel any better.” Don’t bring me into it, I pray, but it’s too late. I frown into my food and realize that I’m hearing Dan’s little talk for the first, and hopefully last, time. His voice is that of a god, carved in stone, displeasure held in check with the thinnest of threads. The wrong word, the wrong reaction, and his wrath will rain down, that’s the promise I hear in that voice. Ray hears it, too, I know he does, because he looks at Dan now, flinching like he doesn’t want to meet that terrible gaze but he’s helpless against it. When he has my brother’s full attention, Dan tells him, “I won’t stand by and watch the man I love suffer because of you, Ray, I simply won’t. You’re going to stop harassing him, end of story. No more petty comments, no more bickering, no more crude remarks about our relationship. Do we understand each other?”