The Beloved Son

by Jay Quinn

  Annike sighed defeatedly and looked at Caroline. “I wish I believed that. But I don’t think Frank has ever loved Sven, for whatever reason. What makes me sad is that he is pushing Sven away, and once I am gone he will be very lonely. Sven only puts up with Frank’s meanness because of me.”

  Caroline and Karl exchanged significant glances over the table. They knew of Sven’s plans to move to New York, but apparently Annike didn’t. Yet she seemed already to be aware that Sven wouldn’t maintain a close relationship with the man who had resented him his entire life.

  “I’m sure it will all work out, Mom,” Karl said evenly.

  “I wonder where your father has taken my granddaughter?” Annike said as she looked around. “Surely they must have had time to go through the entire house by now. Even if Melanie wanted everything, there’s not that much.”

  Caroline stood and looked out the breakfast room door onto the lanai. Something caught her eye, and she opened the door and stepped outside. Annike and Karl heard her call out, “Hey, you two! Melanie can’t take the fruit trees!”

  Frank called something back that Karl and Annike couldn’t make out, and Caroline laughed and returned to the breakfast room. “They’ll be back in a minute. Frank is giving her a tour of his garden.”

  Annike smiled and looked at Karl with mischief in her eyes. “Will you sneak me a cigarette from Frank’s hiding place?”

  Karl smiled and stood up. Without a word, he went into the kitchen and reached high into the cabinet that held her official pack of cigarettes and lighter. Grabbing the ashtray from the counter, he returned to the table and set the items in front of her. “Njuta av din cigarette, Mama,” he said with a smile. Enjoy your cigarette, Mama.

  Annike lit her cigarette and inhaled with obvious enjoyment. Exhaling, she looked at Caroline and said, “Your husband is sly. He pretends he can’t remember his Swedish, but he always knows exactly what to say. Does he ever speak it at home?”

  Caroline looked at Karl and smiled. “Sometimes he mutters something when he is frustrated, and very rarely he says some things in his sleep, but he never really speaks Swedish, no.”

  Annike shook her head and said, “I am sorry that Melanie grew up so far away. I wanted to teach her some of the language. It is part of her heritage. I am lucky Sven has kept it up. It makes me happy to know my children have something of me that is only mine, you know?”

  “Melanie’s French is very good,” Caroline said consolingly. “She calls you Grandmere to this day. You taught her to say that because she could never get the Swedish right when she was small.”

  “I am losing my French,” Annike said sadly. “Though there are times when I am aware I am thinking in it. It happens most often when I am back in the days when I met Frank, or remembering my school years.”

  “I guess it’s like you told me,” Karl said gently. “If you don’t have a chance to use it, you lose it.”

  “It’s true,” Annike said. “You know, when we were in New Jersey, I had many opportunities to use my French. The Girards and Benoits both were from Lyons. They lived down our street, and Jeannette and Alise and I were good friends. They helped me find French shops with the most marvelous things—food especially—and I would shop there just to hear French spoken. When we moved here, there was not so much opportunity. Forty years ago, Boca Raton was very southern. Now there are people from all over. There is even an Alliance Française in North Miami. I wanted to join a few years ago when I discovered it, but Frank was not happy about me driving so far south on I-95. And then there was the expense,” she said and flicked her ash into the tray. “You know your father,” she said as she glanced toward the door.

  “Was he being stingy, or didn’t he want you to get out by yourself?” Karl asked astutely.

  Annike shrugged eloquently and took a drag from her cigarette.

  “Has he always been so jealous?” Caroline asked with gentle interest.

  “Always,” Annike said immediately. “There is a saying that a man with a beautiful wife has no friends, he always said.” She shook her head with annoyance. “I suppose I was attractive in my day, and there was a common stereotype that Swedes are very sexually free. That is a bunch of nonsense, but Frank is a very American man. He pisses around his territory like a dog, and I have lived my whole life with him looking over my shoulder. But I have always loved him dearly,” she concluded, and shrugged as if to say that explained it all.

  “But Karl has never been possessive of me,” Caroline told her. “You’d think some of his father would have rubbed off on him.”

  “How do you know I’m not jealous?” Karl asked, amused. “I get jealous. I just don’t bother you with it.”

  “Thank God for that,” Caroline said, looking at him lovingly. “But I hope I’ve never given you cause to be jealous. You are a devoted husband.”

  “He gets that from me,” Annike said decisively. “He is my son, too. All of his best traits come from me.” She laughed.

  As Karl and Caroline joined her laughter, Melanie opened the kitchen door and stepped inside with Frank behind her. “Well, you guys are in a better mood than when we left,” she said awkwardly.

  Frank looked at the little group around the table expectantly. “I smell dinner. I suppose Sven has flounced off in a huff.”

  “Hardly,” Karl told his father with a directness that made it clear he’d had enough of his father’s attitude. “It was actually just time for him to go. What surprises me is that he didn’t stick around to tell you to go to hell.”

  Annike looked at Karl approvingly, then gazed up at her husband. “You go too far sometimes. I’m not sure I shouldn’t tell you to go to hell myself.”

  Frank rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at his wife for a moment. He started to say something, then hesitated. At last, he moved toward the kitchen and said, “It’s three-thirty. Would anyone care for a drink?”

  “Actually, I’d prefer a cup of coffee,” Karl said as he stood. “Would anyone care to join me?”

  “I’d like coffee,” Caroline said. “I’ve hit my midafternoon slump.”

  “Coffee would be nice, thank you,” Annike told him. “There are sweets, if anyone cares for some pastries.”

  “Gramps, I think I’ll have coffee as well,” Melanie said as she took her father’s seat. “I’ll get sleepy if I have a drink right now.”

  “Suit yourself,” Frank said as he filled a highball glass with ice from the refrigerator.

  Karl stepped around him and tried to remember where his mother kept her coffee. The maker was near the sink, so he acted on a hunch and opened the cabinet above it, where he discovered both coffee and filters. Smiling, he set to his task of making coffee.

  “Grandmere, I chose quite a few things from the house for myself,” Melanie told her grandmother. “I love the modern Scandinavian pieces you have in the living room. When did you get them?”

  Annike waved her hand dismissively. “They are all from the seventies. That was the last time Frank let me decorate the house. It is surprising they have come back into fashion.”

  “I looked under the chairs,” Melanie confessed. “They are all from Denmark. But the look is very in vogue right now. Uncle Rob and Uncle Sven said they’d store them for me and help me pick out the fabrics to get them recovered for my apartment in Manhattan.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of them,” Annike said and smiled. “And when are you planning to move to New York?”

  “Within a few months, perhaps sooner,” Melanie told her confidently. “I have a job interview next week.”

  “How is your Drew?” her grandmother asked.

  “He’s good,” Melanie said. “He is doing well with his job, and he’s eager for me to move up.”

  “When do you plan to marry?” Annike pressed.

  Melanie laughed and said, “Just as soon as I get settled in my new job. I promise you we will get married, Grandmere.”

  “I am sorry I will not be there to see yo
u married,” Annike said and sighed. “You must promise me you will get married m the church and raise your children as Catholics. This is very important,” Annike said imperiously.

  “I promise,” Melanie said cheerfully. “Drew is very High Church Episcopalian, so he has no real problems with the religious thing. We’ve discussed it already. He respects my religious upbringing. So don’t worry,” she said, and nudged her grandmother’s foot with her own.

  “I do worry,” Annike said and scolded, “When you put off your wedding in favor of your job, I think you have your priorities backwards.”

  “Give the girl a break,” Frank said as he brought his drink to the table and sat down. “She has her head screwed on straight. Times have changed, Annike.”

  “That sounds unusual coming from you,” Annike shot back.

  “Maybe. But I’ve talked with her, and she has me convinced she knows what she is doing,” Frank said generously.

  “Frank, you surprise me,” Caroline said cautiously. “I happen to agree with you, but I’m surprised you share my feelings.”

  “I’m not a bastard all of the time,” Frank said. “I read the papers and keep up to date. What worked when I was starting my family doesn’t go anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked curiously.

  Frank took a sip of his drink and rattled the ice in the glass contemplatively. “Caroline, when you get to be my age, you realize you can’t tell young people anything. Look at Sven. I did everything but chain him in his room to keep him away from Rob and from turning out queer. As hard as I pushed in one direction, he pushed harder back. I’ll admit my own mistakes. If I hadn’t been so hard on him, it might just have turned out to be a phase. Now if we push Melanie to get married, she’s going to push back twice as hard not to. I say give her some room to make her own mistakes and she’ll come to the right thing on her own.”

  “Gee, thanks… I guess,” Melanie said and rolled her eyes.

  “Time will prove me right,” Frank asserted.

  Listening from the kitchen, Karl was struck by how pompous and arrogant his father sounded. As he stood waiting for the coffee to finish dripping, he counted out four mugs from the cabinet over the dishwasher, and as he took them down from the shelf, he decided to push his father’s buttons. “It’s a shame you can’t feel the same way about Sven,” he said shortly. “I think he has his head screwed on straight.”

  “Sven is different,” Frank retorted. “He’s my responsibility. I’m the one who had to do my best to rear him the way I thought was right. I’ve admitted I made some mistakes. But you can hate the sin and love the sinner.”

  “That is a bunch of bullshit,” Karl said angrily.

  “You can’t stand there and tell me you think Sven’s living a decent life,” Frank said dismissively. “Even the Pope says he’s intrinsically disordered. But that doesn’t mean he can’t change and put his deviance behind him.”

  “Could you change being right-handed or having blue eyes?” Karl demanded.

  “I could learn to use my left hand if it was God’s will,” Frank spat back. “I don’t know what having blue eyes has to do with anything.”

  “Dad, it’s a widely accepted fact that people are born with their sexual preferences in place. You can’t tell me that Sven would have put up with you all these years if he could change.”

  “You’re just spouting that liberal line about people being born gay,’’ Frank said angrily. “And Sven has just put his back up like a cat to show me he can. I have to hand it to the little fucker, he’s stubborn as hell.”

  “Sounds like someone else I know,” Caroline added sarcastically.

  Frank shot her an unpleasant look and said, “If it’s genetic like the homosexual agenda says, then why aren’t there any gay people on my side of the family?”

  “That you know of,” Karl said as he handed out mugs of coffee. Turning back to the kitchen for cream and sugar, he added, “In those days things like that weren’t discussed, but they still went on.”

  “Son, I was in the army,” Frank declared. “You aren’t telling me anything I don’t know. But I can safely say no one in my family was gay.”

  “I think my brother Andreas was gay,” Annike announced. “He was very sweet-natured and very artistic, like Sven. I confuse Sven with Andreas sometimes,” she admitted.

  “I always thought Andreas was a little light in the loafers.” Frank snorted. “But he didn’t give a damn for me, and the feeling was mutual.”

  “Andreas and I were close, Frank,” Annike said heatedly. “He didn’t like the idea of you carrying me so far from home, that’s all.”

  “Well, he never married,” Frank countered. “Maybe that’s where Sven gets it from. I had nothing to do with it.”

  As Karl put a container of half-and-half and the sugar bowl on a tray, he thought about his uncle Andreas. While he had only seen him on infrequent visits to Sweden, and once when Andreas had visited them in New Jersey, he did remember him fondly. He looked a lot like Sven in height, build, and hair color. Try as he might, however, Karl didn’t remember him as being effeminate in any way. But he hadn’t seen the man since he was seventeen, and at that time he was interested in other things. A lack of language skills on both their parts had kept them from more than cursory interaction, but Andreas had always been unfailingly kind to him as a child.

  Karl took four spoons from the cutlery drawer and sighed. There was so much of his life that was a blank when it came to family. Frank had never been close with his own father, mother, or siblings. Karl knew that side of the family even less than he knew his Swedish relatives. He’d gone to his grandparents’ funerals m western Pennsylvania, but he couldn’t even remember the name of the town where they had lived. In Karl’s experience, family was really limited to his father, mother, and brother, and now his own wife and daughter. He had no contact with his aunts, uncles, and cousins. This suited him when he thought of Caroline’s relatives and their obligations and internecine spats and grudges.

  As Karl carried the try to the table, Melanie piped up. “Gramps, what I don’t get is why you can’t seem to just accept Uncle Sven for who he is. I mean, why can’t you let go and just love him for being himself?”

  “Because it’s wrong, that’s why,” her grandfather retorted. “Why am I the bad guy? Why don’t all of you get it? I believe homosexuality is wrong. It’s been wrong throughout history. Let’s leave the Church out of it. If homosexuality has always been around, and it’s all la-di-da cool all of a sudden, why are there laws against it all over the world? Is it me, or is the whole world crazy?”

  Melanie nodded thanks to her father as he handed her a spoon and thoughtfully fell silent as she creamed and sugared her coffee. Finally, she looked up and gently told her grandfather, “Gramps, it used to be against the law for blacks and whites to get married. It used to be against the law for women to vote. But the world changes. And that’s a good thing.”

  “I don’t know what’s so good about it,” Frank said irritably. “Karl, what have you been teaching this girl?”

  Caroline reached for the half-and-half and said, “Frank, Karl and I believe that the less we have to say about other people’s personal affairs, the better. We reared Melanie to believe it’s wrong to condemn people for being different. If you think about it, Melanie grew up having two uncles. Sven and Rob have been together since before she was born. And it’s been her experience, and ours, that she couldn’t have been blessed with two finer people who have cared about and loved her all her life. That Sven and Rob are gay hasn’t marred Melanie in any way. In fact, she’s better off knowing, loving, and accepting people for who and what they are. Can’t you understand that?”

  Frank drained his glass and stood. “I’m nearly eighty years old, and I’m not going to change just because the world has gotten to the point where it tolerates things I feel are abhorrent. I don’t think blacks and whites should mix in marriage. And I think giving women the right to vot
e has probably been the reason this country has had to suffer through Roosevelt, Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Slick Willie Clinton. I am not ashamed to live what I believe, so you all are going to have to love, respect, and accept me for being who I am, too.”

  Frank looked at each one at the table in turn and rattled the ice in his glass. “I’ve told you what I believe, and right now I believe I’ll have another drink.” With that he left the ensuing silence around the table and went into the kitchen for the scotch.

  Karl watched his father as he made himself another drink and returned to the breakfast room, only to go out the door that led to the lanai. Once he’d closed the door behind him, Karl sighed and shook his head.

  “Melanie, your mother tells me your French is excellent,” Annike said cheerfully. “Would you indulge your grandmother by speaking French with me for a while? I’d love to hear about your trip to Paris and Florence this past summer. Maintenant, me dire de lui, s’il vous plaît. J’aimerais tout savoir,” she ended in French. Now, tell me about it, please. I’d like to know everything.

  Melanie happily obliged her grandmother as Caroline turned to Karl and gave him a wan smile.

  “I think I’ll go out and join Dad,” Karl said quietly. “Would you like to come along?”

  “No. I’m going to finish my coffee and make the salad for dinner,” Caroline told him. “My French is rusty, but I might be able to enjoy the conversation in here a lot more.”

  Karl nodded and bent to kiss the top of her head as he passed her on the way to the door. “Wish me luck,” he whispered.

  Coro smiled and nodded in reply.

  15

  KARL FOUND HIS FATHER sitting at the small table where he usually breakfasted at the far end of the lanai. He sat hunched over his drink looking round-shouldered and small. Karl felt a stab of pity for the stubborn, lonely presence seated before him. “Want some company?” he asked cheerfully as he made his way to the table, stepping smoothly to avoid sloshing his coffee from his mug.