Spenser and Duon spent a lot of time in the Jimenez apartment, helping out with cooking, cleaning, laundry, and childcare. Tomás was back to his frenetic working schedule, and while Duon and Tomás were at the studio, Spenser hurried home to help Renata as best he could. The language barrier was often a challenge, but they powered through, laughing when their inability to communicate led them to stick-figure drawings and pantomime. But he loved helping her, loved especially cooking with her. Loved learning that she believed her secret to the perfect tortillas was to pray over them. Spenser wasn’t religious at all, but he prayed alongside her and with José over his Saint John of God card. Spenser didn’t need to know Spanish to fall in love with his future in-laws. The thought that the hearing at the end of June might take them from his life made him ill.
His principal stopped dogging him to attend rallies, since marriage equality was now a settled issue, but it was clear Harvey had his eye on Spenser, looking for an excuse to fire him. Meanwhile, Spenser ached every time a parent told him they’d requested him for their child in the fall, or a child hugged his legs and said they’d miss him all summer. He kept putting off turning in his resignation letter, still dreaming of a way to have his family and his job too.
His adoption of Duon, at least, was smoother sailing. During the hearing, Spenser squeezed Tomás’s hand so tight he left fingerprint bruises as the lawyers and social workers presented their cases to the judge. Duon’s aunt and grandmother sat on the other side of the courtroom, never making so much as eye contact with Spenser or Tomás. When their lawyer spoke for them, describing how hard Duon’s grandmother worked, how she defied the odds to provide a good home for her grandchildren with almost no support, Spenser had a pang of doubt, and it cut deep.
Dorothy. Somehow in all this he had missed that Duon’s grandmother’s name was Dorothy.
Her name was an anchor, and as her lawyers argued her case, Spenser felt uneasy. Oh, he still wanted Duon to stay with him, but for the first time since the day Duon had appeared on his doorstep, Spenser understood that taking Duon in meant taking him away. As Dorothy’s representatives wound down and Duon’s social workers, guardian ad litem, and the lawyer Oliver Thompson had procured for Spenser produced an endless line of witnesses and experts to testify, Spenser couldn’t deny that even if Dorothy changed her mind and surrendered Duon voluntarily one more time, this action was removing Duon from the very family connection Spenser couldn’t stop pining for.
So many people spoke up for Duon, for Spenser, for Tomás. Duon’s teachers, previous social workers, Vicky, Ed, Laurie, Oliver himself—everyone appeared to give their testimony. There were psychologists who had nothing to do with Duon’s case who confirmed a same-sex household was no risk to a child and was in fact as good as any heterosexual household. Spenser’s lawyer also offered up Clara, who lavished praise on Spenser, as did Ryan from Avenues when he was called to testify. As the lawyer and social workers had predicted, the judge declared there were no grounds to halt the adoption. Their side of the courtroom burst into cheers, tears, and rounds of hugs.
Spenser cheered too, but he couldn’t stop one last glance across the courtroom, where Dorothy Graves’s stony expression cut through him like a knife.
Clara came up to Spenser, distracting him from his doubt by hugging him tight and whispering in his ear. “Your mother wants to see you.”
Spenser drew back, more than a little rattled. It would have been jarring any day, but today of all days, it nearly knocked him over. “My…mom?”
Clara squeezed his hands in hers. “We’ve had lunch several times now. I don’t want to give away anything we talked about because you have the right to hear her story from her, but I will tell you as your other mother, I believe you should meet her. I think it will help you, especially now. It will be healing for you both.”
Not knowing what else to do, Spenser agreed, and he was so caught up in the whirlwind of the adoption that he let Clara arrange a meeting the next day, a Saturday morning coffee. But it and his revelation about Dorothy nagged him all through their celebratory dinner at the Jimenez family table, and that night he lay awake in Tomás’s arms, trembling with nerves.
“I shouldn’t have said yes. I saw her when I was nineteen and she got out of prison, and it was awful. I can’t remember why anymore, if it was her who made it unpleasant, or me, or both of us. All I know is I didn’t want to do it again. What if this is a mistake? What if that happens again?”
“You can still cancel,” Tomás pointed out.
“But I don’t want to. Especially after seeing Dorothy. I feel like I have to see my mother now.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And don’t feel guilty about Duon’s grandmother. The judge examined the evidence and ruled in our favor. We’re what’s best for Duon.”
“Yes, but we had Oliver Thompson’s lawyers.” Spenser couldn’t bring himself to wonder it out loud, but he couldn’t stop thinking…had it made a difference that he was white? Would the courts prefer a white parent over a Black one?
Probably, he admitted to himself, and the thought made him sick. And yet if the judge appeared before him right now and asked if Spenser wanted her to rule fairly, even if that meant he’d lose Duon…he wouldn’t want fair. Not unless Duon chose otherwise. Spenser wouldn’t fight him, but it would break him in half.
Spenser shut his eyes and buried his face in Tomás’s neck. “I hate this. I hate feeling like this. Hope and terror. It’s all I ever know. Hope things might actually be getting better. Terror I might have been a fool for letting myself hope. I’m going to worry until they give us the adoption papers that they’ll still try to take Duon from us. I’ll worry even after. Every time I turn on MPR on Supreme Court days, I hold my breath in case they rule on the DOMA case. Every time I pray with Renata I blink back tears because I’m afraid I won’t get to do that much longer. Every part of my life is tossed into the wind, and I don’t know how to pin any of it down. Or to trust it’s firmly in my hands.”
Tomás pulled Spenser’s hand away from his body and unlaced the fist clenched tight. He threaded their fingers together, drawing the knuckles up to his lips for a kiss. “There’s no guarantee in life of anything. Every second is precious. Every breath is a miracle. Every connection is a gift, each drop of joy a treasure. If you spend your whole life with your breath held for a moment of true safety, you’ll never exhale. All you can do is live as best you can. As hard as you can.”
He rocked their joined hands back and forth, a soothing gesture. “Every time I dance, every time I leap into the air, I risk maiming myself. If I land incorrectly, if I slip or if I simply turn at the wrong time, I could cripple myself for life, if I’m unlucky enough. The more advanced the dancer, the greater the risk of injury. You’ve seen my ugly feet. Look at Laurie’s sometime. Hell, look at Ed. Runs KT Tape along his neck and dances, though the wrong head snap could paralyze him. But we dance, Spenser. We dance and enjoy our lives despite the pain and potential for destruction because it’s our way of spitting in the face of the futility and hopelessness of it all. Of dancing in the face of despair. The only promise of life is death. Nothing else is guaranteed. Not love, not fame, not simple courtesy. Only that one day, no matter what we do, there will be darkness and end. But the time between the spark and the curtain’s close is ours to shape.”
He released Spenser’s hand, drew their bodies so close they were practically one, and whispered into Spenser’s ear. “Your dance is beautiful. No matter what happens to you, to us, to the world—no one can take that from you.”
They made love, slow and sweet, Tomás wringing an orgasm out of Spenser so complete he slept without dreaming, waking to the faint stream of sun through his curtains and the polite interruption of his alarm, telling him it was time to get up, shower, and get dressed. And go meet his mother.
Clara had set up the meeting at the coffeehouse next door to Laurie’s studio. She met Spenser outside, hugging him in the
parking lot. “She’s inside, waiting. She’s nervous. And excited.”
Spenser didn’t know what he was. Both of those, and several emotions that felt like tornadoes with a thousand teeth. He hugged himself, pressing his forearms against his riotous stomach. “I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a terrible idea.”
“If it does, I’ll be over on that park bench. If you need me, you come out and get me.”
Spenser drew her to him in a fierce embrace. “I love you so much, Clara. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Hush, none of that.” She patted him on the back. “Go on. The worst part will be walking in the door.”
It was. The coffeehouse wasn’t large, but the walk to and through the front door was the longest walk of Spenser’s life. Then he rounded the corner—and there she was.
Christina Harris. Spenser’s mom.
She seemed different than the last time he’d seen her. Better. Much, much better. By rights she should have appeared older, and in a way she did, but she had a brightness about her now. A sparkle. A terror too, her body rigid and trembling as she pushed away from the table, standing as if she meant to come meet him, stopping abruptly as she second-guessed herself. But unlike the last time Spenser had seen her, she was healthy. Her hair was shinier. Her skin had more wrinkles, but her cheeks were fuller. Eyes sharper. Clothes neater. Not fancy, but…neater. It was the first time in Spenser’s memory he’d seen her take care with her appearance.
She looked like him. He was male and she female, but he saw echoes of the face that looked back at him when he gazed into his own mirror.
Mine. This woman, for better or for worse, is mine.
He closed the distance between them but stopped at his side of the table, where a cup of tea waited, bag still steeping in the water. She had the same before her. He smiled at her tentatively, keeping his hands to himself. “Hi, Mom.”
She smiled back, nervous, but not tentative at all. “Hello, sweetheart. Look at you. You look so good.”
“You do too.” When the conversation stalled, he gestured to the table, their seats, the mugs of tea. “Do you want to sit and talk awhile?”
“I’d love to.”
They sat. Spenser noticed they gripped their mugs the same way. Saw her bite her lip briefly, absently, in the same way Tomás teased him he liked to do.
She cleared her throat. “I hear you’re getting married and adopting a child too. Congratulations. That’s so wonderful.”
“Thank you.” He couldn’t help himself from adding, “You know I’m marrying a man, right?”
“Yes. I knew you were gay. Gina told me, when we met last year.”
Spenser’s face clouded at the mention of his middle sister. “Whatever she told you about me couldn’t have been good.”
“No, unfortunately. But I’ve been working on her, and Hannah too. I couldn’t get them to vote against the amendment last fall. But they didn’t vote for it. They promised me they wouldn’t.”
Spenser blinked. “You…lobbied them?”
“Of course I did.” She cut her glance away. “I’ve done you wrong all my life. The least I could do was try to stop something that would harm you more.”
Spenser stared at her, ears ringing. She’d lobbied his sisters for him. To stop something that would harm him.
His chin trembled, and before he could prepare himself to hold them back, silent tears fell down his face.
Christina’s eyes welled up too, but whereas Spenser couldn’t look away from her, she could not seem to bring herself to look at him. “I’m grateful you came to see me today because I wanted to apologize to you in person for what I’ve done. Technically it’s one of my Steps, one long overdue, but I’d want to do this even if I weren’t in AA.”
She lifted her eyes then, her tears flowing freely, though she held her voice steady. “I’m sorry, Spenser. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. To our family. I’m sorry I wasn’t the mother you or the girls deserved. I didn’t mean to be what I turned out to be, but I was, and I hurt you, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you grew up alone. I’m sorry you had to live so many places, with people who didn’t want you. I’m glad you met Clara, but I’m sorry you had to. I’m sorry I wasn’t part of your life. I would love to be a part of your life now, even a small part—but if you’re not ready for that, or if you never are, that’s okay too. Right now what I want you to hear is that I love you, I’ve always loved you, and I’m sorry for failing you.”
Spenser had been frozen in place while his mother spoke, almost out-of-body, but when she finished, he became aware of himself and the world around him. Of his breathing. Of the salt of the tears on his lips. The stuffiness of his nose. The bittersweet scent of blackberry tea, of the coffee and baked goods behind the counter. The soft music playing, the scrape of chairs and whirr of the coffee grinder and the whoosh of the espresso machine. The muted quality of the light landing in faint, patchy squares on their table and the floor.
It was his turn to talk now. His turn in the dance. Except he didn’t move across the floor, but rather along a wire. The same thin wire he’d been on for months, ever since the day he’d found Duon in front of his apartment door. Tomás was wrong. He couldn’t dance on this. He could barely move without falling. And now he was supposed to reply to his mother. The woman he had hated and loved his whole life. Who he had yearned for as much as he had tried so hard not to think of her. The woman who had left the greatest ache in him, the one he knew now he could never fill.
Not without her in his life to take up the space.
He drew in a shuddering breath, feeling the wire beneath his feet shake. The world was trembling, a terrible quake of his life. He choked back a sob, but it escaped anyway. He could not stay on this wire. He could not keep this up, not for another minute. He was going to fall. Right here, in a coffeehouse full of people.
Christina sobbed too, and as if she couldn’t stand it any longer, rose and came around the table to him.
Spenser let her engulf him, let the scent of her surround him, a memory so powerful it brushed him off the wire as if he were nothing but a speck of dust, sending him into the void…and directly into her arms. He wept. People were no doubt staring at them, whispering, but Spenser ignored them all. His mother—one of many, not always the best but forever the first, this one the mother of his birth, the one who had been taken from him—crouched before him, swaying him back and forth as if he were a tiny child.
“It’s all right, sweetheart.” She kissed his hair, pulling him tighter into her arms. “It’s all right.”
It was. Spenser knew enough to understand he and his mother had a great deal of work to do before they could have the kind of relationship they both dreamed of, that there were so many ways it could fall apart before then and be worse than it had ever been. But in that moment, it was good.
In that moment, in his mother’s arms, Spenser Harris danced.
Tomás was glad the meeting had gone so well for Spenser and his mom. He listened with a smile on his face as his fiancé retold the story of the reunion, and the hope he saw in Spenser’s eyes gave him hope too. Unfortunately there weren’t enough good wishes in the world to bolster him for his scheduled meeting with Alisa.
He hadn’t had a chance to give her a warning of what the lawyers were planning to do before she appeared in the hospital. In his defense, he hadn’t been able to find her. The lawyer pointed out it was probably better this way, because the intensity of José’s situation permeated more than words ever could. While this was likely true, it didn’t make Tomás feel any better. It was ironic that he’d spent so much time convincing Spenser it was okay to use the lawyers to secure Duon’s safety, but now that it was his family and his sister, logic felt hollow, cold, and impersonal. Nasty was how it felt, honestly. Tomás couldn’t decide who he resented more, his sister, the lawyers, or the ICE workers. Though there were plenty of days where the person he hated the most was himself.
The lawyers were right
though, because Alisa didn’t simply agree to meet with Tomás to discuss custody, she actually showed up for the appointment. She was fifteen minutes late, but in Alisa time that was practically early. She arrived at the law office wearing a sundress too cool for the day’s temperature, though it was clean and mostly professional, which Tomás knew was Alisa’s way of making an effort. It moved him, so much so that when he caught her shivering, he shrugged out of his sport coat and passed it to her.
She accepted it with a small, awkward smile of thanks. “Should’ve brought a sweater. Didn’t have time to get to the laundry, though.”
Thomas resisted the urge to remind her she could have brought her laundry by the apartment. He wasn’t sure that was appropriate right now. He barely understood what was. “Thank you for coming.”
“How could I not?” She had the jacket on, but she still rubbed her arms, as if there wasn’t enough heat in the world to warm her. Her gaze looked hollow, and for the first time in a long time Tomás thought she might not be on anything. “I can’t let the ICE take Mama and Papa. I don’t want to lose my babies, but I can’t let our parents go.”
Her words punched Tomás in the gut. He glanced at the lawyers, unsure of what he should say, but they were busy chatting with each other. Laughing at a story in a way that told Tomás they weren’t discussing the Jimenez family. It was jarring, but he told himself for them this was another day at work. It made him want to always have a job where his greatest worry was getting a coffee order wrong or not having enough people to cover a shift. He never wanted to feel blasé about breaking up one part of a family to save another.
Fuck it.
Tomás turned to his sister and took her hand. “You don’t have to lose the kids. Yes, you need to give them up to our parents for now, but you can still see them. We don’t want to shut you out. We only want what’s best for the family. That includes you.”
Enjoy the Dance Page 22