Big Love

by Rick R. Reed

  Dane stood and put his arms around Clarissa, even though she didn’t return the embrace, even though she, in fact, stood rigidly with her arms at her sides. Dane whispered in her ear, “I do. I care, honey. I’ll always care.”

  She disengaged from him, just on the edge of pushing him away. “You have a funny way of showing it!” she shouted, and he could see the unshed tears standing in her eyes. “Abandoning us in the middle of the night. Shame on you.”

  Dane collapsed onto the couch once more. Clarissa might be on the brink of womanhood, but right now she was nothing more than a scared little girl, his little girl, in sore need of comfort. “Honey, won’t you please sit down?”

  Maybe because it was tiring to maintain such an air of righteous indignation, she did finally collapse on the opposite end of the couch. She stared straight ahead, rapidly twirling a lock of her hair and breathing faster.

  “I did go out.”

  “Booty call,” Clarissa whispered.

  “Oh, come on, Clarissa. Grow up.”

  “I’m not the one sneaking out of the house like a thief. Don’t tell me to grow up.”

  “I’ll tell you what I want. I’m your father.”

  “Who was it?” She twirled her hair faster.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  She paused for a second, maybe considering. “No. It makes me sick.” And then all at once she crumpled. She doubled over, and sobs racked her shoulders. Through her tears, she asked, “What would Mommy say? What would Mommy say?”

  Dane scooted down the couch and put his arm around her shoulders, tentative at first, and when she didn’t resist, he squeezed her to him. He realized, all at once, that Clarissa’s confused feelings about him being gay were present, but the real root of her pain was the fear he’d replace her mother.

  “Mom would say it’s okay. Mom would want us to be happy. I know that.”

  She peered at him hatefully out of the corner of her eye. “How dare you.”

  Dane contemplated how to tell her what he was about to say and in the end, decided there was no other way than simply. “Clarissa, Mom has come to me.”

  Her tears ebbed a bit, and she looked at him again, curiosity usurping outrage. “What are you talking about?”

  “In dreams. At first she wasn’t accessible. She was turned away. But more and more, she began to show her face, and she told me that I’d be all right. We’d be okay.” He sighed, closed his eyes at the memory, the memory of her. He felt his lips curl up in a smile and felt a warm rush of gratitude for those dreams and the opportunity—however ephemeral or brief—to be with Katy again. “I really think she’s with us. She knows and understands,” Dane said simply.

  “Do you really believe that?” Clarissa asked with the sudden guilelessness of a child.

  There’s hope for you yet, baby girl.

  “I do. I can feel her, all around us.”

  Clarissa returned her face to her palms and wept some more. Dane simply patted her shoulder, wondering if she’d cried like this since Katy’s passing. Certainly not in his presence….

  “Love doesn’t go away because someone dies. What your mother felt for you, for Joey, and yes, even for me, is too powerful to just vanish. It’s with us. It’s always with us. You have to believe that, sweetheart.”

  Dane reached over, ever so gently, and removed Clarissa’s hands from her face. He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. He prayed his expression was open and kind.

  “You have to believe that, because I see her now. In your face.” Dane shook his head. “In you, I see the young girl I met way back when. You look so much like her, not just physically—” He grinned. “But buried beneath all that teenage angst is her light—her kind heart.”

  “I don’t know how kind it would be if she knew about you. About your lies.”

  Dane closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. Patience. But Clarissa’s words would have been no less painful had they been accompanied by a jab to the belly with a knife. “That’s not fair, honey. The one person I lied to most was myself. But you know what wasn’t a lie?”

  Clarissa shook her head.

  “This might surprise you, but what wasn’t a lie was the love I felt, and still feel, for your mom. When it comes to love, real, pure love, we’re not gay, we’re not straight, hell, we’re not even male or female. We’re human. And I love that woman with all my heart. I always will.

  “Sure, there are some things I’ve come to accept about myself since she passed away that change things. But it doesn’t change my love for her, doesn’t change the family we made—together.

  “I don’t know if your mother knew about me, my feelings, or not, but I do know that if she did, she would have taken it hard. But in the end, I truly believe she would have tried to understand and would have stood by me, because that’s the kind of selfless person she was, and that’s the kind of pure love we had.

  “If she hadn’t died that awful day last fall, you and I may have never had this conversation. I don’t honestly know if I ever would have come out. Part of me was so scared to face who I really was. And the real terror was how much it would hurt the people I love.

  “But things happen in life. And I saw, after the funeral, that there was no reason to keep who I was a secret anymore. I could be who I was, who I always was.”

  Was it possible? Did he see a softening in Clarissa’s features? She licked her lips and stared at him with eyes that were mournful but not disdainful.

  “Dad, oh Daddy,” she whispered.

  He touched her cheek gently with his fingertip. “Every time I look at you, Clarissa, I see her. In your grace, in your smile, in the way you relentlessly twirl your hair.” He chuckled. “She lives on in you. She would be heartbroken if she knew we weren’t living on as family. Because one thing I know for sure—family was the most important thing to her.

  “And it is to me too.”

  Clarissa said, “So if I don’t want you to be gay and I want you just to stay at home and be our daddy, you will be?”

  Dane was taken aback by the question. “Honey?”

  She smiled, and there was a hint of wickedness in it. “I’m kidding. I know you’re a guy,” she sighed. “And gay or not, guys have their needs.”

  Dane, a father, did not want to wonder from where such wisdom came, not when it emerged from the lips of his sixteen-year-old daughter. “I guess so, sweetheart. We all will have to make adjustments as we grow.” Like, for example, I will have to adjust to how you know about guys and their needs. Do we need to have another talk? Do I need to take you down to Planned Parenthood?

  “You okay?” Dane asked, because it seemed like there was little more left to say, at least in this moment. But for now it felt as though the door had swung open.

  “I don’t know.” She smiled and reached for a lock of her hair and then jerked her hand away. “I guess so.”

  “You must be tired, sitting up all night. Worried sick.”

  She pushed him. “I was!”

  “That makes me, in a perverse way, feel good. It shows you care.”

  “Daddy! I never stopped caring. I just didn’t understand.”

  “I know. I know. And I know that we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  “So who’s this guy?” Clarissa asked.

  “All in good time. All in good time. You’ll meet him.” Dane prevented himself from adding “You already have.” Saying that would only open a Pandora’s box, and he didn’t know if he was ready.

  “Will I ever be ready for that?”

  “Will I ever be ready to meet the man you love?” Dane wondered back.

  “That’s a long way off,” Clarissa said.

  “You never know, Clarissa. You never know. Love can sneak up on you when you least expect it.”

  There were other words they could say, more banter waiting in the wings, but for now they were quiet. And quiet was good.

  At last, as a shaft of golden sunlight suddenly warmed the fa
mily room, Clarissa leaned over and hugged her dad. “I love you,” she whispered. “Don’t ever doubt it.”

  “I didn’t—not really. And I love you too. With all my heart.” He held her in his arms until they heard Joey stirring upstairs, the flush of the toilet, the tromp of his footfall at the top of the stairs.

  They broke apart, but their smiles were warm.

  May

  Chapter 17

  IT WAS one of those days with the promise of summer that always showed up in May. It gave people the false hope that summer had finally arrived.

  Truman wasn’t fooled. But it didn’t change the fact he was going to take Odd Thomas out for a walk by the Ohio River and enjoy the dusk and the temperature hovering near eighty degrees.

  He hadn’t been down there in a long time, not since he’d told Patsy about the boy he used to meet there, along the pebbled shore. It was too painful of a reminder. But now that Truman was more confident in himself, he could let go of the pain and see that denying himself this small pleasure was only giving the boy power over him he didn’t deserve. The boy hadn’t earned it—or Truman’s heart.

  He and Odd wound their way down the bank overlooking the river, Odd leading the way through the barely there trail through the trees. They’d traveled this course many times together before, so much so that Truman often wondered if he and his dog had made this path.

  He let Odd off his leash, and the dog forged ahead, racing down to the rocky river shoreline before Truman was even halfway there. The dog had an odd shape, befitting his name, but that sucker could move.

  Truman hurried after him and, once at the bottom, with the clean yet slightly fishy tang of the river rising up to greet him, stood for a while just watching his four-legged buddy frolic at the river’s edge. Odd tore back and forth, ears back, kicking up pebbles, then halting abruptly to sniff at some detritus that had washed up on shore—a piece of driftwood, a cardboard milk carton, cans, and even an old tire. On the last he lifted his leg, as if in contempt for littering.

  But the garbage that managed to invade the shore couldn’t take away from the river’s beauty, and this spot—a special “secret garden” that belonged to him and Odd Thomas alone.

  Truman made his way to the big log he liked to sit on, reminded by the ashes from a recent fire that he was not the only one to visit this particular part of the shoreline. But he knew he was one of the few, because he seldom encountered anyone else there.

  Except for that one boy….

  Truman wasn’t so sure he wanted to think about him now, though. Not when a warm breeze, moving across the water, buffeted his body in a most delightful way, with its promise of summer. Not when he could look out at the brown-green flow of the river as it rushed by, in a hurry perhaps to make its date with the Mississippi. Not when Blue Point Island, just across from him, excited his imagination, tempting him, as it always did, to brave the current and swim to its shore. The island was small, tree covered, and completely uninhabited. It seemed to withhold secrets in its dark shadows and thick woods.

  But Truman didn’t dare get in the water. Those currents, in actuality, really weren’t so lazy. They were fierce and had claimed more than one kid his age and younger. No, the river was like that boy—there he went again, thoughts drifting back to last fall, when they used to meet there—beautiful to admire from afar but deadly if you dared to attempt an embrace.

  Truman leaned over and picked up a stick, tossed it for Odd to fetch. The dog gave out a single bark and tore after it. Tail wagging, he brought it back to Truman and dropped it at his feet.

  “Ah, not enough of a challenge for you?” Truman stood, turned, and flung the stick toward the woods behind him. He didn’t expect it to go too far, because he didn’t have much faith in his ability to throw—he’d been told more times than he could count that he threw like a girl—but the stick, end over end, disappeared into the woods.

  Odd rushed after it, kicking up sand behind him, with a high-pitched bark that was more like a scream. He disappeared into the woods, and Truman continued standing, waiting for him to come out.

  It seemed to take longer than it should have. The light faded behind him, the setting sun staining the sky with golden light, interspersed with patches of electric blue and strands of cloud. The darkness and the shadows cast by the trees in the woods made him lose sight of Odd Thomas.

  He began to worry, just a little. He’d heard tales of river rats the size of small dogs living around there. Maybe a horde had gotten hold of Odd.

  Don’t be ridiculous, Truman scoffed at himself. He’ll be back any second.

  And he was. But he wasn’t alone.

  Holding the stick in his hand, with Odd trotting beside him, looking up at him with damned adoring eyes, was the boy.

  A smile, involuntarily, came to Truman’s face, and he quickly shut it off. He tried to look as though he didn’t care, but he felt like any second now he would begin shaking. He wanted to believe he didn’t care but knew it for a lie.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. No one, Truman knew, would believe that the boy, his first sexual and love experience, was Kirk Samson, high school senior and quarterback of the football team. The same boy who’d tortured him countless times at school, verbally and physically.

  Who would have thought this monster could sneak into Truman’s life, stealing not only his body but also his heart?

  “Nice greeting,” Kirk said.

  He threw the stick down the riverbank for Odd, and Truman sucked in a breath at the graceful power in Kirk’s form. He was only seventeen but already had all the markings of a man—the broad shoulders, the muscles, the strong jawline and Roman nose. The wind lifted strands of his wheat-colored hair. Truman thought if he were directing a film of Kirk Samson in this moment, it would be in slow motion, with soft focus, while strains of violin music swelled.

  The audience would be totally taken, totally charmed.

  As was he? Truman didn’t know. He’d spent the whole winter and most of the spring convincing himself he didn’t care. He wanted to believe that his association with Kirk was toxic and that no good could come of it. Yet seeing him here tonight, in this place Truman once thought of as their own—their trysting spot—brought back the complicated and potent brew of desire, puppy love, and hopelessness he had felt when they were meeting up on a regular basis.

  Kirk turned and smiled at him, which caused Truman, just like the books said, to feel a little weak in the knees. He strode toward Truman, and Truman couldn’t help but notice how the faded and ripped jeans hugged his strong thighs, the way the Cleveland Browns T-shirt gripped his upper body, revealing its form and definition. But what caught Truman most were the boy’s pale green eyes, like emeralds.

  Truman gulped and wondered if he could manage an intelligible word.

  “I hadn’t seen you in such a long time,” Kirk said. “And it was so warm out, I thought I might catch you down here.”

  Kirk’s smile widened, and Truman could almost make himself believe it was sincere. Because the weak-in-the-knees feeling showed no signs of going away anytime soon, Truman plopped back down on the log.

  “Isn’t our timing excellent?” Kirk padded through the pebbles and river sand in his flip-flops and sat down next to Truman. The scent Kirk gave off was heady, a mix of grass clippings, soap, and something Truman couldn’t quite identify but that was undeniably male.

  Truman didn’t, couldn’t, say anything for a long time. But at last he found the answer to Kirk’s question. “Our timing has always sucked.”

  “Oh, come on now, buddy. I was hoping we could let bygones be bygones. It’s been a few months since we were alone together like this. Can’t you just let it be….” Kirk shrugged and pointed to the span south of them, the bridge that connected Summitville to the northern panhandle of West Virginia. “Be water under the bridge?”

  Truman had to laugh. “Water under the bridge, huh? Do you know what I went through because of you?”

&nb
sp; Kirk scoffed. “Everybody at school knew. You were such a drama queen last winter.”

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe you.” Truman shook his head, slowly but surely coming to the life lesson that very ugly things could be wrapped in gorgeous packages.

  “What?” Kirk asked innocently, smiling his megawatt grin again.

  But this time the smile did not melt Truman’s heart. It just looked desperate.

  “What?” Truman repeated. “Yeah, everyone at school knew because of my drama queen antics, as you call them. And let me tell you, buddy, that this bitch is proud to wear that label.”

  Kirk leaned back and away from Truman just a bit.

  “But you know what everyone didn’t know?”

  Kirk shook his head, but Truman could see the light of realization dawning in those incredible green eyes.

  “Everyone didn’t know that I attempted to kill myself because of you. Because you hurt me and made me feel worthless.” Truman shook his head. “You used me and tossed me aside, like a piece of that garbage there.” Truman pointed to a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke that had washed ashore, half filled with dirty water and river silt.

  Kirk started to open his mouth to speak, but Truman halted him with an outstretched hand.

  “Let me finish.” He lowered his voice a notch, but not the intensity with which he spoke. “You know how many people I told about you? Not one. Not even my mother, and we’re like this.” Truman crossed two of his fingers to illustrate his point.

  “Don’t ask me why I protected you and your precious reputation. You certainly didn’t deserve it.”

  Kirk leaned back even farther. In a voice that was a tad anxious and just a little breathless, he asked, “You’re not thinking of telling anyone now, are you?” He peered into Truman’s eyes. “Because you know, don’t you, that not a fuckin’ soul would believe you.”

  “Maybe not.” Truman’s face lit up, and he grinned. “But I wonder how many people know about that port-wine birthmark on your hip bone?”

  Kirk gnawed his fingernails and spat something onto the ground. In a low voice, he said, “Anyone who’s been in a locker room. It wouldn’t prove a thing.”