by Rick R. Reed
We head toward the hallway off the kitchen. At the entryway, I pause and look back at Mom. “I’ll get him settled. You stay there, okay? I want to talk to you.”
“Can it wait until morning, dear? I’m beat.”
I almost say okay, just to avoid conflict, but then I reconsider. “No, Mom. It can’t. I’ll be right back down.” Even though it goes against every grain in my body, I smile at her—more for Henry than for Mom.
I lead Henry back upstairs by the hand, trying to breathe normally, to walk normally to make it appear as though his mother isn’t consumed by rage.
I lead him to his bed and get him tucked in, smoothing down the covers over him. I sit on the edge of the bed. “Honey, if you ever have trouble sleeping, please don’t leave the room without waking me up. I promise I won’t mind. And if you’re havin’ a bad dream? Just come over and crawl into bed with me, and I’ll chase that mean old nightmare away. Okay?”
He nods. I rustle his hair and watch as he turns on his side. Ah, the sweet innocence of youth. I know he’ll be asleep within minutes. He sticks his thumb back in his mouth. I’m about to reach out to stop him, to tell him the same old wives’ tale about his teeth Mom just told him, but I stop myself.
I don’t say or do anything.
If he needs a little comfort right now, who am I to take it away?
I plant a kiss on his cheek. “I’m gonna go back downstairs and talk to Grandma. You go back to sleep, okay? I’ll be back real soon.” I start out and then turn back. “And honey? Your daddy’s a good man. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“Okay, Mom,” he mumbles over the thumb in his mouth.
“Sweet dreams,” I call from the doorway. But he’s already asleep.
I envy him. But as a mom, what I need to do is protect him. Show him right from wrong.
I go back downstairs.
Mom’s in the kitchen, washing up the glass and plate she used with Henry even though she has a dishwasher. I stand in the entryway, waiting for her to notice me. She hums as she washes the dishes. She places them on a dish towel next to the sink to dry and wipes her hands on her quilted bathrobe.
She looks exhausted. And a little crazy, if I’m honest. There’s something Stepford Wives about her and this perfect kitchen, this perfect house where not even a dust mote is allowed to survive. She can’t leave even a glass unwashed, a crumb on the table.
Is she happy? Or does she simply need to be in control?
She looks up when something clues her in to me standing there, watching.
“Oh, you’re back. What did you want to talk about?”
“Can we sit down?” I don’t wait for an answer. It’s not really a question, anyway. I pull out a chair and wait for her to join me at the table. I think about getting up and grabbing a couple of Archway cookies from the pantry, scattering crumbs on the pristine floor and tabletop, but I keep that impulse in check.
“What’s up?” She sits down opposite me.
“You can’t talk to him that way.”
She cocks her head. “What do you mean? What way?”
“You can’t say those things about Randy, his dad. You don’t do me or Henry any favors when you try to turn him against a father who loves him, Mom.”
“Loves him?”
“Yes. Randy adores that boy.”
She blows out a disgusted sigh. “Randy apparently adores boys in general.”
I hold up a hand. “Don’t. It’s beneath you.”
She starts to say something else, but I interrupt before she can even get a single word out. “I’m not going to keep Henry from his father.”
“I thought we discussed this. With your father and the lawyer. We won’t lose. We’ll get full custody, especially when we make it clear to the judge that his dad is a homosexual.”
“We’re not making that clear to the judge. The only person we’re gonna make it clear to is Henry, in terms a child can understand. And we’re gonna do that so Henry can grow up knowing there are different kinds of folks in the world, and all of them—all of them, Mother—are worthy of love.” I shake my head. I want to scream at her. Call her a bigot. But I know if I’m to get through, even the tiniest bit, I have to stay calm.
“Henry needs to see his dad. On a regular basis. I won’t try to keep him from Randy. I can’t. I want my boy to have all the love that’s available to him. Love’s a rare commodity in this world, don’t you think?”
I pause. Mom crosses her arms and stares off into the distance.
I get up. “If the condo and you guys paying for my lawyer is conditional on me dancing to your tune, then forget it. I’ll find a way to take care of us, and I’ll find a way to not turn this into a battle for something I don’t even believe in. If you agree with me, though, and can see that Henry needs his daddy, then we can continue to work together to look for compromises and solutions. But I won’t be the person Henry grows up hating because I kept him away from a perfectly decent and loving father. I don’t think you want him to grow up hating you guys either.
“Because, trust me, you won’t win. Even if we got no visitation, or supervised strictly, it’s a loss. For our boy. And your efforts to turn your grandson against his father will only make him resent you, maybe even hate you.
“I know this much is true.”
I said it. I said everything I wanted to say.
“We’ll have to discuss this with your father, of course.”
“Of course. But it won’t change anything, not on this point anyway.”
Since there’s nothing more to say without belaboring the point, I get up from the table. I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I don’t allow doubt or worry to creep in.
Mom calls out as I enter the dark hallway leading to the stairs. “I’ll go to the church in the morning and light a candle for you.”
I start up the stairs. “You do that, Mom. I need all the help I can get.”
1986, Autumn
Sonnet 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
—William Shakespeare
Chapter Twenty-Three
RANDY
Fall is just about over, at least that’s what the calendar says. But that calendar? Big liar, always has been.
Winter “officially” arrives next week.
The weather outside our front windows, though, tells a different story. That view says fall has been over for a while, claimed by the brutal Chicago winter. Snow comes down hard outside, blanketing the grimy city streets with a layer of pristine white. It’s beautiful…and deceptively inviting.
It’s Saturday morning. John’s in the kitchen, making bacon and eggs and coffee. The smells and the coziness of being inside are a comfort. This little apartment is a sanctuary, a buffer against the cold and the damp. John hums something tuneless, yet cheery, in the kitchen as he fries our bacon and scrambles our eggs.
So much has changed in the past couple of months that, when I think about all the upheaval and shifting, I almost get a little dizzy. I sometimes have to look again just to recognize my own life.
Looking around from my perch here on the couch, I have to admit that, if anyone else saw this mess, they’d think both John and I are crazy. Hoar
ders. For one, there are boxes everywhere—in the kitchen, in the dining room, both bedrooms. Some of them are open with clothes, books, spatulas, sporting equipment, and whatever accouterments make up a life, spilling out. Some are still taped shut.
John just moved in with me officially at the beginning of December, when he could get out of his own lease, although we’ve been spending just about every night together for months now.
It feels like he just came into my life yesterday.
It feels like he’s been with me forever.
I wake in the morning sometimes and watch him as he sleeps, the curly dark hair against the white pillowcase, the easy rise and fall of that broad chest. Even when he snores, I find it a comfort rather than an annoyance. There’s something oddly soothing about the buzz saw noises he makes.
We’ve settled into an easy routine side-by-side. I can’t wait to get home from work to see him. And when he’s gone at the fire station, my heart aches with longing as though a piece of me is missing.
But his unpacked boxes and piles of clothes on the floor of the master bedroom walk-in closet aren’t the only clutter in our little world.
No. Christmas is right around the corner.
And Henry adores Christmas. The carols. The decorations. The TV specials (Charlie Brown!). But most of all, Santa Claus.
We’ve set up a tree in almost every room. In the living room, there’s the big real one, purchased from a lot over on Sheridan. A traditional Douglas fir, we’ve decked it out in white lights, candy canes, and red velvet ribbons. Crowded underneath are dozens of presents—for me, for John, most especially for Henry (although we hold some back because of Santa Claus), and even a sweater and necklace for Violet.
The dining room has one of those retro silver metallic trees, artificial to the max. Decorated only with red balls, it changes color because of a rotating tri-colored projecting light at its base. Henry’s fascinated by it.
The kitchen and other rooms all have small artificial trees that we picked up at K-Mart. These all have their own twinkling multicolored lights and sit in little burlap bag bases.
We do this for Henry, who will be coming over for his Saturday visit in a couple of hours.
I close my eyes, so grateful that Violet stood up for him and for herself and didn’t allow her parents to attempt to hijack my son’s love away from me. I feel like I narrowly averted death. And life without my boy? I shake my head. Even with John’s love and the warmth of him beside me, I don’t think I could manage to have much of a life if Henry was kept away from me.
I don’t know what caused Violet to stick up for me and my rights as a dad. We haven’t ever really talked much about it, partly because I don’t like to, as the saying goes, look a gift horse in the mouth.
I want to believe, simply, that Violet saw it was the right thing to do. Keeping a boy from a father who loves him would have just been cruel. And yet, I had a real fear that would be just what would happen. I had nightmares about it. Anxiety attacks.
But love won. Love always wins.
I know Violet paid dearly for sticking up for my rights as a father. Her parents helping her out with a new home and paying for her lawyer were both swept from the table when she refused to petition for sole custody.
With their so-called help, things would have been ugly and financially draining. No one would have come out of things better off if we’d followed Violet’s parents’ footsteps into hate and discrimination.
In the end, though, I like to believe she’s happier. More her own person. She and Henry have a small apartment in Wilmette, less than a half hour north. She’s training for her stockbroker license and expects to move up in the company she works for next year.
Henry comes over on Wednesdays for dinner. John and I usually pick out a good video from the store down on Clark Street and order pizza from Giordano’s.
He’s here every Saturday, too, back in his old bedroom (the only room in the little apartment uncluttered by John’s boxes) for the night. I have yet to take for granted getting him into his pj’s, having him brush his teeth, and reading him yet another chapter from The Wizard of Oz books that I adored as a boy. I see all the characters and fantastic situations in those books anew through Henry’s eyes.
And I shudder to think how close I came to losing him.
Violet and I used a mediator, and we sat down and talked, much more productively than our first sit-down at my lawyer’s, and worked things out. Like adults. Like co-parents. Like friends.
We’re still working on that last part, but things get better all the time. And Violet loves John! Sometimes, I think she prefers his company to my own. I tell myself that’s only because he doesn’t come with any of the baggage that still sits between us, even though that pile of luggage gets smaller and smaller as more and more time passes.
Violet has been going to PFLAG meetings. She’s trying to understand, trying to be supportive. The man in her life fell away when she told him her husband was gay. I think, although he didn’t say, he was afraid of AIDS.
Who isn’t afraid of AIDS these days?
I’m so glad I found John, and it’s just the two of us in our bed. He’s told me about his friend Dean…
“Breakfast is ready, sir!” John calls from the kitchen.
I smile and get up to join him.
I pad barefoot into the dining room. The sunlight pours in through the three windows on the northern wall, the golden illumination boosted by the snow covering the ground outside. Our windows are level with the tracks, and a train sits outside, waiting to go into the terminus of the line at Howard Street.
I can see people on the train, peering in our windows.
“You should shut those blinds,” John says as he spies the people spying on us.
“Why? Let them look.” I come up behind him and wrap my arms around him. I glance out the window and then plant a kiss on his neck.
He nearly drops the plate he’s holding. “You know that drives me insane.”
He turns and kisses me and then says, a little breathlessly, “I went to all this trouble. Let’s take a few minutes to enjoy it. I mean—bacon. Then—bed.”
Reluctantly, I sit at the table and smile across at him, thinking how this little domestic moment is the answer to all my dreams.
I CLOSE THE Wizard of Oz and smile down at Henry. He’s tucked in tightly, as he likes it, and he regards me with his big hazel eyes. I’ve read the last two chapters of the book to him, and he seems happy, contented. But not enough, just yet, to toddle off to dreamland.
“It’s different,” he says.
“How so?” I ask, even though I know the answer. But I want to see how Henry puts things.
“In the movie, Dorothy realizes her whole trip to Oz was just a dream.”
I nod.
“But in the book, everything really happened.”
“Which way do you like better?”
“I like both of them, but if I have to pick…” Henry’s voice trails off sleepily as he thinks about it. His thumb wanders up to his mouth, seemingly of its own accord. Even though I don’t stop him, he pulls it away just before it goes in his mouth. “I’d pick the book. Because I like that it’s all real. If it was just a dream, she would have never met the Cowardly Lion, or the Tin Man, or even the Scarecrow.” He ponders things for a bit more and then says, “Plus I like that she left home and then found her way back. If it was just a dream, she never left home in the first place.”
“And why does that matter?”
“Because sometimes you need to leave home to appreciate it, to know where you belong.”
What he says brings a lump to my throat. I know he’s talking about his time at his grandparents. Time I feel guilty for having put him through. And I’m reminded to be grateful that he’s here—home—now.
I lean down and kiss him. “Even though Mommy and Daddy live in different places, you always have a home, Henry, you know that.”
“I know.” I can tell by the way
his head sinks more into the pillow that he’s about to surrender over to sleep. It’s been a long battle tonight, what with Dorothy and her pals keeping him excited, but the time has come. I tuck the covers in even more tightly and stand.
I move to the door, and he asks me to leave the hall light on.
“Pancakes in the morning?”
“Please…and thank you.”
I close the door, feeling a rush of gratitude for having my son with me under the same roof.
Home.
IN THE BEDROOM, John’s already asleep. I should be disappointed, but the fact that he’s there is enough.
I undress in the dark, thinking how I’ll pick up my clothes from the floor when morning’s light creeps in through the partially open blinds.
Naked, I shiver and hurry to get under the covers.
The bed is warm. John’s like a furnace, and his body heat has made the comforter and the flannel sheet toasty. I sink down into heaven.
And John turns to me, sleepy, and plants a kiss sloppily on my eyebrow. His body is even warmer, and I melt into it.
Home.
Present Day, Winter
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
—Rumi
Epilogue
RANDY
A little breathless, I reach the top of the rise called Notch Number Four on the trail. The vista before me—the pines, the blue-gray mountain peaks, the dun color of the Coachella Valley spread out before us in all its desert glory—is breathtaking.
The contrast is remarkable. Here we all are, nearly 9,000 feet up, almost at the top of Mount San Jacinto. The air is crisp, clean, and cold enough to require winter coats, boots, gloves, scarves, and woolen caps. It’s probably only in the twenties up here.
Less than an hour ago, we were turning off Palm Canyon to wend our way up the road leading to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. It was sunny and seventy-five degrees. The sun was so intense it felt even warmer.
And now, after a ten-minute, swaying tram ride up the side of a craggy mountain, we are deep into winter. Snow blankets the ground all around us, tamped down in places on the trail to become ice. We have to watch our steps.