I couldn’t answer her.
“You weren’t this much fun before you had the concussions,” she laughed, leaving me awake and fearful that I might have peed my bed.
* * * *
I swore I wouldn’t, but I fell back to sleep. Instantly, I was ‘there’. This time though, I was quiet, not speaking my dream out loud. It wasn’t that it was private, like so much of the rest of it—could have, should have been, but at least it gave me closure. After the soldiers had taken what they wanted and finally left us alone, I asked, “Friedrich, why did we not bury the—the—my crew?”
“I’m not surprised you’re asking now. You just figured it out, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t want to ask before. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Well, my friend, the bastards found them, in the plane. They had no suspicions of you, had they?”
I thought about that, all that planning from before. Perhaps the soldiers should have known, but I guess between the bodies and the amusing story I’d told about my piratical ancestor, that had been enough. I apologized to my former mates, whichever two they were, every night in my prayers.
My dreams got fewer and lighter, and I think everyone was grateful for the better sleep we all got. Dad did his planning, and it was only three weeks later that he and Grandpa left for Germany. The temper tantrum I had because they wouldn’t take me, was legendary.
So Dad and his dad flew over to Europe to see the wreckage. I had so desperately wanted to go, but both my parents and doctors said no. I was hobbling around on crutches as it was, and they wanted me to wear a protective helmet so I wouldn’t have another concussion, but the tantrum I threw over that was even bigger than the one I’d just thrown about not going, if I do say so myself. Even Frederick was impressed. I think he got hard. So thank God, no helmet.
And then I was back in school, on crutches, with the attitude of a wounded mother grizzly, enough so that everyone left me alone, except for one of the boys in auto shop who confessed he had had a terrible crush on me for years, this over a six pack of beer outside auto shop one lunch period. Who knew? A bear…huh. I was both scared and pleased. I wondered if he could fix an airplane.
* * * *
One night, Dad called all excited saying that tomorrow they would be talking to the son of someone who had known the ‘people from the plane’. One of Frederick’s relatives, who still lived in the area, had found the man and introduced them. Dad was thrilled that finally, he and his dad would have the answers they wanted so badly to know about their father and grandfather, my namesake.
The next night, Frederick was with us when Dad called back. We had been just getting ready to go to the church to practice, me on the harp and him on the organ. It’s not like it was a date or anything, even though the cots they pulled out for the homeless in the winter were stored in a room right beside his office. I still got a kick out of that, but it didn’t really matter. Well it mattered in my imagination, but Frederick taught me the term ‘jailbait’ as if I didn’t already know it. So I do have a date—for my eighteenth birthday. Which is before his next birthday, when he’ll be twenty-one, so he’s really not that much older than me. Others might think I wasn’t old enough to feel real love, but I felt as bonded to him as if our souls had been stuck together with gorilla glue.
Anyhow, Dad told us this. “We talked to Dieter, the man who owned the land where the plane crashed. It was he and his friend Friedrich who had helped two of the men out of the plane. Another man had come down by parachute—they could see it in the distance, but couldn’t tell who it was or what happened to him. Blaine was injured, but the other man, Thomas, was unhurt. After several days in Dieter’s family’s care, Thomas took off to find help. Blaine never saw him again, but they heard he had been caught and shot. Blaine himself healed and stayed with Dieter’s family until the war was over, avoiding the Allied armies when they came to ‘save’ the area. He never did give himself up or go back home, but lived with Dieter’s family until he was quite old, in fact, passing away right around when I was born. They saw his grave in Dieter’s family plot. He had never formally married, but had made a life with Dieter’s sister Janina, who was shell-shocked and had never really matured. They never had children, and indeed, Dieter whispered, holding his hand out limply, he believed that Blaine was a homosexual, because he and Friedrich had become uncommonly close. It had never been proven, and nobody really wanted to know. “Schwule,” the man had whispered, shaking his head, then continued, “but he treated Janina like a princess. Nobody cared who he really loved.”
There was a silence, then Dad added, “My dad’s not taking the news well. He had what I can only call a temper tantrum over the fact that his own father would rather—uh—that he chose to not come home to his legally wedded wife and child. He spouted out words I’d never heard him use before, and I know the pain he’d felt all those years was finally coming out. But then I told him, oh God, I told him to shut his mouth because the grandson he cherished, oh Blaine, you know how much he loves you and Maggie, was the same way.
“He turned gray, then started to cry, and I held him until he calmed down. Finally he took a long breath, and dried his eyes on his shirt sleeve. ‘Live and learn,’ was all he said. ‘My old man had a right to live his life the way he wanted, no, needed to. I understand that now, even if I don’t understand how it is.’”
There was dead silence after Mom had turned off the speaker phone and hung up. I saw people looking at me furtively and I didn’t know how to react, so I just made a face that could have meant anything. Mom blushed and looked away.
So my namesake ancestor was a deserter and queer? Cool! I almost grinned, but inside I realized just how upset my grandfather and dad must have been over this news, well, obviously my grandfather was shocked. My mother and Frederick both looked at me again with something in their eyes, something halfway between awe and an unanswerable question. I must say, though, Frederick looked pleased, like he felt like I did about his namesake ancestor, for the Friedrich they’d mentioned had been a great-great-something or other to him.
* * * *
There weren’t words for how I felt about our ancestors and namesakes being in love with each other and making the best kind of life they could, under the circumstances. It gave me chills.
“Mom, Dad,” I said. “I am so glad that I will never have to hide from my family to be who I am, and to be with the person I love.” I looked at Frederick. “Oh God, I’m going to cry. Thank you for accepting me, accepting us.”
Maggie smiled proudly. “I’m the one who made the dream come true!” she bragged, and everyone laughed.
That night, after practicing at the church, I came home and starting composing a song for them, for all the old soldiers who did what they were able to do, even if not quite what they were supposed to do. My dad and granddad came home sadder but wiser, and on my eighteenth birthday, well, you can imagine how I celebrated that. Let’s just say that there are ways to love beyond a kiss, and ways to stay in love beyond that, too.
And my grandfather—he insisted he be our best man at our wedding, so Maggie got to be just the maid of honor.
THE END
ABOUT EMERY C. WALTERS
Emery C. Walters was born Carol Forde, a name he soon knew didn’t fit the boy he was inside. Transition was unknown back then, so he married and then bore and raised four children. When his youngest child, his gay son, left home, Emery told Carol that she had to step aside, and he fully transitioned from female to male in 2001.
Emery worked in county government and as a college writing tutor before retiring. He and his wife Robyn, herself raised mistakenly as a boy, live in Hawaii where they combine snorkeling, scuba diving, and volunteer work with activities to boost LGBT rights and awareness.
Interested in Ninjutsu, both land and underwater photography, and writing, Emery can usually be found writing, reading, or sailing on his imaginary pirate ship.
Emery’s 2010 first published n
ovel, Last Year's Leaves, is an intense story of recovery from abuse and loss, finding love, and coming out whole. The book is laced with his trademark humor. His recent publications include four other coming of age novels involving coming out and overcoming obstacles as well as two books of short stories. All are humorous and filled with hope. Drystan the Dire, Emery’s Welsh pirate ancestor, shows up at times to help the heroes and annoy the villains. Emery currently has two more novels in the publishing pipeline.
Between them, the Walters have eight adult children, umpteen grandchildren, and one great grandchild, none of whom can do a thing about the genetic material handed down to them—their gift to the future. So there. More information can be found online at ftemery-theemeryboard.blogspot.com.
ABOUT QUEERTEEN PRESS
Queerteen Press is the young adult imprint of JMS Books LLC, a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance. Visit queerteen-press.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!
Namesakes Page 4