by Robert Price
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jon trusted that his wife would at least try to act civil and watch her words while he went to talk with Ezekiel. In short, he hoped she wouldn’t offend Carrie Phillips too much. He understood Elizabeth’s concerns about a woman just showing up with a boy and claiming Tom was the father. And she was right to question Carrie Phillips’s motivation—there was, after all, the land to consider. But when Jon saw the boy next to his mother-in-law and compared the two of them to the picture of Tom in his dress uniform on the mantle, the resemblance, although not exact, was uncanny. The boy’s chin and cheekbones, the square jaw and even the corners of his eyes were a softer, youthful version of the man in the photo.
But if Tom was the boy’s father, then who was this man Ezekiel? Jon wanted to learn more about Ezekiel’s relationship with Tom. He also wanted to know more about Ezekiel’s relationship with the boy and the boy’s mother. So he excused himself from Elizabeth, his mother-in-law, Carrie Phillips and the boy, and slipped out of the sitting room and into the kitchen to find Ezekiel.
Although the reception had wound down to just family and close friends, Jon decided he would still try to avoid any unnecessary attention. He hoped to keep this new family secret about Tom possibly having fathered a son quiet for just a little longer.
Jon walked through the kitchen and into the access hallway, pausing in the back of the empty dining room; the Dorseys were in the entrance hallway. He watched and waited as Ted Dorsey pointed to the living room as if trying to figure out if he’d forgotten something. His wife Shelly threw up both hands in frustration before pushing their two children out the door. Ted shrugged and followed after her. With the coast now clear, Jon crept forward into the dining room, satisfied he could avoid any awkward, probing conversations about the events in the reception room.
In the entrance hall by the front parlor doorway, Jon stood on tiptoes and stretched his neck to see over a couple who were pulling on rain coats and blocking his view into the living room. Unfortunately, this move attracted more attention than anticipated. Glancing down, he saw Billy and Jeannine Quinn looking directly up at him from the couch in the parlor.
“Looking for someone?” Billy Quinn asked.
“Well,” Jon hesitated, “that big guy, Ezekiel. Have you seen him?”
“I did,” Jeannine perked up. “He went out a little while ago. I said goodbye, but he said he’d be right back, just running out to the car to grab something. He’s a nice man, isn’t he, honey?” she chided Billy, who still felt rather silly regarding his earlier run in with Ezekiel. “Want me to tell him something when he comes back?” Jeanine offered.
“No, but thank you.” Then, just as Jon returned to the dining room, the front door opened and in walked Ezekiel carrying a small knapsack.
“Just the man I’m looking for,” Ezekiel said, placing a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “I was hoping we would have a chance to talk more.”
“Me, too,” Jon replied. “How about the kitchen?” He wanted to keep their conversation as private as possible, and the only activity in the kitchen was Gabriella and Patella cleaning up, as per Elizabeth’s earlier insistence.
Ezekiel placed the small knapsack on the cluttered kitchen table. “I brought some things to share with the family.” As he spoke, Patella hurriedly cleared off the table, stacking plates by the sink and moving several containers with leftovers to a counter. Then, without a word, but flashing a knowing smile at Ezekiel, she returned to washing dishes.
“Thank you,” Jon said to Patella, appreciative of her efforts, and then to Ezekiel, “I’d love to see them.” Jon sat kitty-corner to where Ezekiel stood and with a determinant wave, as if with a client at the law office, invited Ezekiel to join him.
Ezekiel’s size dwarfed the table and chair as he sat. “First, I really need to be out in the open. I loved Tom very much; we were partners, as much as any two people can be.”
“I suspected something, but I wasn’t positive that Tom was …”
“Please, Jon, just let me talk,” Ezekiel softly placed a hand on Jon’s forearm, quieting him. “Where do I begin? Tom was a happy man, but a confused man as well.”
Ezekiel stopped, held his breath, folded his hands on the table and began again. “Why am I telling you all this? Well, because I want an ally. You see, strange as it may seem, although you don’t know anything about me, or that I even existed until a little while ago, I knew about you, all of you—Mrs. Hubbard, Elizabeth and your children. Each year I updated your Christmas-Chanukah photos on our refrigerator. I’ve watched you all grow and change. But it was more than that, really, I followed you for Tom, because Tom, in many ways, lost sight of things, like his family. Well, it was more than that, you know … well, how could you know?’
Jon looked quizzically at Ezekiel.
“What I mean is, well, you see—Tom and I celebrated our tenth anniversary together just before he went back over. That’s three years longer than you and Elizabeth.”
Ezekiel let the words hang in the air, watching for any signs that Jon understood the point he was trying to make—that his loss of Tom would be the equivalent of Jon losing Elizabeth.
“Uh-huh,” Jon said, missing Ezekiel’s point.
“How should I put this?” Ezekiel continued. “Do I say that seeing you all today at the funeral and gravesite broke my heart? Yes, it broke my heart. But I respected my partner’s wishes. Do you understand? You didn’t even know I was there and yet Tom was the center of my life for the last ten years. Did you know we owned our house together in Arlington?”
Jon nodded slowly, it was a lot to swallow: Tom had had a life that the family had known nothing about.
“After the burial service, I watched you and Mrs. Hubbard and Elizabeth get out of the limousine. I was angry. I felt robbed of my rightful place. Tom was my life partner, my everything, and you people, whom I kept in contact with for him, got to be the public face of his family. It seemed so unfair.
“Did you even know who Tom was? Did you know that Tom was active in our community? Yes, he was a volunteer at a homeless shelter. And do you even know what he did for work?”
Jon hesitated. “He was in the Army?”
“He was a track coach, Jon, and a high school Phys Ed teacher. Did you know his rank before he died? He was a First Lieutenant in the Army Reserves. Or did you know that when he signed up he never dreamed he’d end up in an actual war? But he loved the army; loved being part of it. He loved the whole thing, loved being a soldier.”
Ezekiel sighed. “But I realized something watching you all this morning. I realized that as much as I resented you for getting to represent him instead of me, as much as I hated it, I couldn’t be angry with you, because over the years I have fallen in love with you, with this whole family. Tom’s family became my family, from afar—do you understand? I’m the one who sent you cards and gifts. I’m the one who made him call a few times a year. Me. I know you don’t know this, but I’m the one who picked out the knives for your wedding gift and had them engraved seven years ago. He refused to let me join him at your wedding. And, as you didn’t know I existed, you couldn’t invite me.”
Ezekiel shook his head at the absurdity of it all, then paused for a moment before starting again.
“I am sorry to tell you this, but he wanted nothing to do with you people. He told me how much of an asshole his father had been. How he’d get drunk and beat him. But at times he spoke so fondly of his mother and Elizabeth—about growing up around here, on the farm.” Ezekiel reached for the knapsack. “I have a black and white that he loved. It shows the empty fields in front and this house behind him. This area, the house, the farm, it was all there, present in the man I loved.” Ezekiel took his hand off the knapsack and placed it over his heart.
The two men sat in silence until Eduardo, Juan’s son, crashed through the back entryway of the kitchen with a load of firewood cradled in his arms and headed for the dining room.
“Cuidado! Cuidado!
Careful,” Gabriella called after him.
“My Tom carried some serious wounds. I often got the feeling that he was always fighting inside. But Tom was also a loving man. And I thought it was important that he didn’t lose contact with his family. I had faith that he could heal. I wanted him to at least try. I knew he’d been deeply hurt. I also knew how much he could love and wanted to be loved.”
Ezekiel looked off to the side and wiped his damp eyes.
Jon felt moved to do something that was out of character for him—he reached across the table and placed a hand on top of Ezekiel’s.
Ezekiel continued: “My family abandoned me when I came out to them. I didn’t want that for Tom. I didn’t want him to lose his family the way I lost mine. So I did it; I played along with Tom’s need to keep our life a secret from this family. I kept wishing that one day somebody in this family would break the ice, say they already knew who Tom really was, and then we could all be together, open and loving. It was a dream I had for him—for me.”
“I know it is late, maybe too late, but is there anything I can do now?” Jon asked.
“I do want something. I want recognition. I know I say that sounding like it’s just dawned on me today, but it didn’t. Look,” Ezekiel pulled at the knapsack again, “I’ve brought photos of our life together. I brought them to share. I think it would be nice for Elizabeth and Mrs. Hubbard to see how happy he was. You know, Jon, I said I was looking for an ally, and I am. I’m telling you all this because you’re the only one here today who seemed at all interested in who Tom was, who he really was.”
Ezekiel turned to face Jon, looking him square in the eyes. “I want recognition for having loved Tom. Is that too much to ask?”
Jon sensed that Ezekiel had finished. “No, that’s not too much. What would you like to do?”
As Jon waited for Ezekiel to respond, he considered the situation in the reception room. “Before you answer that, I do have one other question …”
“Yes?”
Jon wanted to be sensitive to all the private sentiments that Ezekiel had shared, but instead he ended up sounding like an amateur detective. “Carrie Phillips and her son, what do you know about them?”
“I just met them today,” Ezekiel answered cautiously; he had just confided in this man, and he asks this? What does she have to do with me? “She’s friendly and the boy’s a darling. Why do you ask?”
“You arrived together?”
Before Ezekiel could respond, Tony rushed into the kitchen from the access hallway frantically waving one hand in the air. Going straight for the sink, he pushed Gabriella aside and held his hand under cold running water. “Burned my hand, damn it. Goddamn log rolled out of the fireplace.”
Tony’s face was a mixture of apology and frustration. “¿Dónde está su … what the heck … Where’s your grandson?” he asked, looking for someone to blame for his own stupidity—picking up a burning log, barehanded.
Patella went to the refrigerator. “¿Heilo, heilo? Ice, Ice?”
“You seen that kid, Marcos, Juan’s son; he’s been taking care of the fires?” Tony asked, still shaking his hand for relief.
“No,” Jon replied, annoyed by the interruption.
“No big deal,” Tony said as Patella handed him ice wrapped in a dishtowel. “Gracias, thank you.”
“By the way, Elizabeth asked if I’d seen you,” Tony lied. He wanted Jon to leave so he could talk with Ezekiel alone. There was something that Aunt Casey, Patella and Gabriella had said about Tom that had bothered him ever since meeting Ezekiel earlier that afternoon.
“I’m sure she’ll find me,” Jon remarked curtly, trying to cut short the conversation with Tony.
Missing the gist of Jon’s pointed reply, Tony leaned against the butcher-block counter and held the dishtowel with ice on his hand. “I’m Tony, Tom’s cousin,” he said to Ezekiel. “We met before, in there with my aunt,” he nodded towards the sitting room with his chin.
“Yes, I remember,” Ezekiel turned around to face Tony.
“I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk yet. My aunt was a little loopy from the whisky, but she said that you and Tom were partners—in the war. Or something like that?” Giving up on easing the pain of the burn, he dumped the ice into the sink, shook his hand again and wrapped the dishtowel around it.
“No,” Ezekiel said with a nervous laugh. “That’s not it at all.” He turned to Jon, as if asking permission.
“You said you wanted recognition,” Jon smiled.
And Ezekiel, looking relieved of a great burden, opened his arms wide and began to tell Tony everything.