by Robert Price
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The darkened windows, the roaring fire in the stone hearth and the table and floor lamps with their Victorian shades all gave the large living room a golden glow. Gabriella and Patella wandered about wiping up drink rings and collecting paper plates from the odd places the guests had stashed them after they had finished eating. Elizabeth, Jon and Mrs. Hubbard were gathered on the couch and stuffed armchairs at the end of the room by the fireplace watching little Tommy roll a drink caster around the coffee table like it was the wheel of a toy car. Peter and Alley Hubbard watched the boy play as well. Occasionally they would perk up and take note of what was being said, but most of the time they appeared to be drunkenly drifting off.
Elizabeth kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs. “How nice of you two to join us,” she snipped at Carrie and Ezekiel as they entered the room. She twisted her back on the cushions of the stuffed chair in search of a more comfortable position.
“Here,” Jon said, slidding over on the couch, inviting the newcomers to join them.
Mrs. Hubbard smiled fondly at each. Although her eyes remained on the boy, her thoughts were focused on what Jon and Elizabeth had told her about Tom’s relationship with Ezekiel. Her son had been gay, they said, and then they did their best to minimize the true nature of Tom and Ezekiel’s relationship by avoiding amorous and explicate terms, like lovers.
Kind of them to try to protect me, she thought. But in truth, she was happy. Though I buried a son today, I gained a grandson and his beautiful mother, and I also get… There was the difficulty defining Ezekiel, this other man who loved my son. I get him, too. She had an overwhelming desire to express gratitude and love towards each and every person in the room. But a lifetime of burying emotions safely inside prevented her from doing so.
Mrs. Hubbard glanced up and caught Patella’s sympathetic eye. My new friends are so helpful, she thought, unaware Elizabeth paid them to clean. “Leave that,” she said, motioning to both her and Gabriella. “Sit, sit. Please join us.”
Elizabeth shook her head in disapproval, “No.”
So Gabriella and Patella remained on the fringe of the family circle offering Mrs. Hubbard a polite, “No gracias.”
As if just waking from a catnap, the two old Hubbard brothers grunted and stirred, looking for attention. They had listened in on Jon and Elizabeth’s talk with Mrs. Hubbard and were up-to-date on the status of Carrie Phillips, the boy and Ezekiel. Now everyone in the Hubbard family knew everything.
“How’s my little man?” Carrie asked as Tommy embraced one leg through her long skirt.
“Sit,” Elizabeth said to Ezekiel, motioning toward a chair and offering an artificial smile. “It’s been along day.”
“Thank you.”
Nervous, Ezekiel realized that for the first time he was sitting down with Tom’s whole family. For him, this constituted the initial step in building a face-to-face connection with them—a big and positive move beyond the anonymous relationship he had painstakingly maintained for Tom’s sake.
Jon winked reassuringly at Ezekiel. He recognized the man’s nervousness having experienced it himself, before his wedding, when first met Elizabeth’s family.
“Shhhh,” Elizabeth reprimanded her husband for the wink. Then, pointing to a spot on the couch next to Jon, she suggested that Carrie, “Join the family.”
Elizabeth resigned herself to the fact that her brother had, by all appearances, fathered the boy, and that Ezekiel was indeed her brother’s partner. She was unhappy about it and entertained very little intention of ever being happy about it, but she would tolerate them, which meant that she would accept them all—the boy, his mother and her brother’s gay lover—on her terms. She would welcome them, but only with a forced smile and the appearance of kindness.
“Thanks, Elizabeth, but I think I’ll stand for a bit. I feel like I’ve been sitting all day,” Carrie said, brushing her son’s hair with her hand. They had stayed longer and became much more involved with Tom’s family than she had ever intended.
Tommy was comfortable with them. However, she needed to plan for their departure, wanting their leaving to go smoothly, without drama; a few well-placed words about future plans, then out to the car.
“Carrie, I think you have as much energy and spunk as that boy,” Mrs. Hubbard gushed, complimenting her.
“Oh, I don’t know about my spunk or energy,” she said, seeing an out, a way to turn the conversation toward her imminent departure. “He is certainly a challenge to keep up with. I think the day is beginning to wear on him, though. I imagine he’ll sleep well on the ride home.”
Tommy held onto Carrie’s hand and spun around so he faced the family. He leaned back against his mother’s leg and let his head droop.
“Let me just say this …” Slurring words as he prepared to give Carrie advice on the topic of spunk and energy, old Peter Hubbard pushed his way into the conversation.
“Oh, Jesus, here we go,” Elizabeth sighed disdainfully.
“Look here, missy—” Peter Hubbard shifted in his seat and pointed his pipe stem at Elizabeth. “Seems to me your mother forgot to teach you about respecting your elders, but that’s not the point I’m tryin’ to make here.”
He turned back to Carrie.
Elizabeth’s comment had thrown him off track. But not for long. Peter began to drunkenly philosophize. “You see, spunk only lasts so long and then other things … complications, take it away.” This profound statement met with silence, so he tried again: “What I’m saying is that when you get older and things slow down, things that didn’t mean so much then begin to take on more meaning. Like Tom’s life, for example, and this war. Think. There was Tom living his life and then this war came, see?”
Elizabeth, fed up with the day’s events, challenged her uncle. “Just what the fuck do you know about Tom’s life?” She impatiently tapped a foot. “Isn’t it time for you two to put the stopper in the bottle, pack it up and head home?”
“Elizabeth, he’s just talking. Excuse her, it’s been a tough day.” Jon immediately wished he had chosen to swallow his words instead. If he had remained quiet there was a chance, just a chance, that his wife, after her last comment, might have dropped the conversation. His remark, however, only fueled Elizabeth’s temper.
“You butt out,” she pointed at Jon and then glared at the Hubbard brothers.
Elizabeth wanted a fight. She had accepted the boy, his mother and Tom’s gay lover, but these two, along with their brother, her dead father, represented all of the reasons why she thought her own brother had behaved the way he had. Became gay the way he became gay. Abandoned his child the way he abandoned his child. Avoided visiting his family the way he avoided visiting his family. And, eventually, got killed in a senseless war. To her, these two curmudgeons were siphons. Like her father, they had sucked the life out of Tom’s youth, and now she was sure they intended to sink their teeth into the last thing that at was still Tom’s.
“Elizabeth,” her mother sharply cautioned, “for the sake of your brother, God rest his soul, remain civil.”
“Are you serious, Mother? These two old bastards have been hanging around here like vultures. All day they’ve waited to swoop down and grab the last scraps of Tom’s life—his land—and we all know it!”
“Elizabeth, this is not the time or the place,” Mrs. Hubbard warned.
“Vultures, Mother, vultures waiting to pick apart the last of the farm.” Then Elizabeth turned on Carrie and Ezekiel. “Do you two want to be part of this family? Is that it? Do you think you have a claim on Tom’s land, too?”
“Elizabeth,” Jon interjected. “Your mother is right; this is not the time or place.”
Ignoring her husband, Elizabeth continued, “Do you? Well, Carrie? Ezekiel? No disrespect, but if you believe you have a claim on that part of Tom’s life, then you should jump in right now and defend yourselves, because these two old bastards will most likely drag us all into court again over that land.
Am I right?”
She practically spit on the living room rug as she wagged a finger at them.
“Uhh,” Ezekiel was at a loss for both thoughts and words.
Ally Hubbard erupted with a drunken slur, “Now listen here, little girl, your mother made her choice a long time ago. And that choice had consequences.”
Carrie pulled Tommy close to protect him.
“That’s enough,” Mrs. Hubbard slapped her knee.
“Casey, aren’t you ever going to tell this girl the truth about her brother?” Peter Hubbard leaned forward to see the old woman’s reaction as he challenged her.
“That’s enough! I won’t have you dragging this out today.” Reeling from the tension and anger that now seemed to emit from every corner of the old farmhouse’s living room, Mrs. Hubbard began to shake.
“After all these years, and he’s dead now,” Peter Hubbard forged ahead. “Don’t you think it’s about time to give our brother his rightful dignity? He deserves it, for Christ’s sake. Tell us who the bastard’s father was.”
Mrs. Hubbard crossed her arms over her chest and shook in distress.
Ezekiel sprung from his chair and pulled the shawl around her as she rattled in her seat.
Carrie slipped out of the room and into the parlor with Tommy. The argument was incomprehensible to her. The outburst, the language, the violence vibrating in the air frightened her and Tommy. Never had she subjected the boy to anything resembling this.
Jon stood up, too. He wanted to defend someone, but was unsure who needed his help.
“Opened a can of worms, didn’t you, missy,” Alley Hubbard stated coolly from his chair.
Tony passed Carrie and Tommy on his way into the living room from the front parlor. He had heard the argument and assumed the brothers had instigated it. Now, positioning himself across from the old men, he prepared to remove them from the house if necessary.
Alley Hubbard sized Tony, now standing in front of him, up and down. “What are you gonna do, defend your bastard cousin’s honor? Come on, Mr. Griffin, we both know your father, like us, knew the truth. Hell, we even know you were there that day when it was explained to Tom himself.”
“I won’t stand for this,” Jon angrily declared.
“What are you gonna do?” Peter Hubbard laughed. “This is a family matter. It has nothing to do with you.”
Defeated, Jon sat down. Ezekiel, however, remained standing. He had no idea what everyone was talking about. Was there a question about Tom’s father? Tom had never mentioned anything about that, or about land. Did Tom own land?
The argument lulled. Tommy could be heard crying in the parlor with his mother attempting to calm him down. The Quinns, also in the parlor, were preparing to leave, and Neil Bingham had gone outside to the portico to wait for Ted Dorsey to return and pick him up. Gabriella, Patella and Eduardo were in the kitchen preparing to leave as well.
Elizabeth, who had started the argument, now stared blankly at the floor. She remembered the rumors that had circulated around town when she was a child about who Tom’s father actually was. Like everyone else, she thought the rumors had finally disappeared because there was no basis to them.
“Wait.” Confused, seeking clarity, Ezekiel prepared to ask a question. “Are you saying that Tom’s father …” He didn’t know what to ask, this was all new to him.
“Go ahead, ask. Why not? We heard you had a bit of Tom’s ass yourself. And we’re guessing, that—” Alley Hubbard stopped, twisted his mustache and turned to his brother for confirmation.
“Uh-huh,” Peter Hubbard nodded, cocksure, leaning back in his chair.
“We’re guessing that you’re here to claim your share of Tom’s land, too,” Alley Hubbard said, pushing out his lips. “Just like that boy in there, weeping away, is gonna do. Or at least his mother will. She probably thinks her son has as much a rightful claim to this property as his father did—son of a whore that he was.”
“That’s ri—”
Before Peter Hubbard could finish, Ezekiel lifted his brother Ally up by the shirt collar and headed toward the front door, dangling the old man like a Raggedy Ann doll.
“Jesus Christ, you big homo asshole! Let my brother go.” Peter sprang to his feet, then lost his balance, staggered, tripped and fell to the floor.
Taking a cue from Ezekiel, Tony bent down and caught Peter Hubbard by his belt and the back of his shirt and lifted the old man as if lifting a baby cradle. Tony headed toward the front door when all of a sudden a faint boom was heard in the distance.
The floorboards quaked.
Everyone fell silent.
“What was that?” Elizabeth asked, looking around the room.
It had begun faintly, in the background, a low thumping sound—only nobody had noticed it during the family commotion. Now, the thud-like noises grew louder and came at regular intervals until they reverberated through the building like an approaching freight train.
The old farmhouse began to rumble.