Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (67 page)

Mikhail’s scent now reminds me of Dev’s even more. He and Duscha watch me intently. “Dev wants you to be part of his life, and you to be part of his. But when you stop talking, it can be hard to start up again. And it doesn’t help when, like, he announces that he’s gay to the world before telling you. You wonder why. You think he’s turned his back on you, and you get mad at him, and then he thinks you want to shut him out too. But you don’t, neither of you. He wants to tell you these things. He wants to listen to what you have to say. You just have to stop yelling at each other and talk.” I look down. “I go through that with him, too.”

Duscha nods. Mikhail’s eyes flick over my shoulder, at some imaginary picture of his son. “He is stubborn.”

“
So are you,” Duscha says. He scowls.

I don’t grin. It takes an effort. “The thing is, we’re all here in this hospital room because we love him. But I love who he is now. You love who he used to be. You think your son is gone, that if you can wipe away this relationship, get me out of the picture, that you can have him back.”

They both watch me intently. The silence when I pause hurts my ears. I push on. “I need to learn to love who he used to be, the cub you raised. And you need to learn to love who he is now.”

I look from Duscha to Mikhail. They look thoughtful, almost tender, but they don’t speak. So I keep going. “He’s really struggling to figure out who he is, what his place is. Not just in our relationship, or in your family, but in the world. He needs you, and me. He needs all of us.”

They say nothing, but I’m out of words. Finally, they look at each other, then at me. “We have not stopped loving him.” Duscha speaks up when Mikhail doesn’t. “Never.”

“
No,” Mikhail says. “No matter how insolent or disobedient he was. This is not the first time he has run away from home. Did he tell you that?” His eyes flick beyond me again, into the past. I shake my head. “He was ten. We would not buy him a new bicycle. He had an old one that was perfectly serviceable. So he ran away. He spent the night at a friend’s house.”

“
He came home the next day,” Duscha said. “On his old bicycle. He had run out of food.”

“
Kids,” I say. “I hope you spanked him.”

“
I was grounded for a month,” says a voice behind me.

I so rarely get to surprise Lee that I really enjoy his jump and bristled-out tail a lot more than I should. “What the
hell
?” he says as he turns. “How long have you been there?”

“
Oh, a few minutes,” I say, strolling up to him and wrapping my arms around him. Dad kinda looks away. Mom does too, but only after a minute.

He hugs back. He feels thin, or maybe it’s just my imagination after hearing he was in jail. He’s warm and he smells like he slept in his clothes. I don’t ever want to let him go. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was trying to make things right.”

He says it softly. I’m not sure my parents heard. So I talk just as soft, back into his ear. “From what I heard, you did good.”

He smiles and then steps back from the hug. “How did you get here? You need to play tomorrow.”

“
Oh,” I say, tugging at the Firebirds t-shirt I’m wearing, “the Firebirds’ owner, well, he has a private jet and Lake Handerson has an airfield.” I shrug, like it’s no biggie, but Lee smiles and I know he sees what it meant.

“
Owner’s private jet.” Dad sounds impressed, reluctantly. “To come see me?”

“
To see both of you.” I clasp Lee’s uninjured paw. “To ask you to cut it out. I mean, come on. I need to be able to play football. I can’t do it if I gotta come up here every other week, right?”

“
Absolutely not,” Lee says. His tail swings over to brush the back of my legs. I respond with only a quick flick, because my parents are still watching. When I was in high school and thought they couldn’t see my tail twining with that cougar’s, well, I was wrong.

“
So, what?” Dad says. “You think this makes it all better? You think I meant none of what I said?” He puts a paw to the bandage on his head, but his expression doesn’t get any less intense.

“
Mikhail,” Mom says, quietly but firmly. His ears go back.

“
No,” I say. “I want you to change your mind because you understand. Please, Dad.”

He doesn’t want to give in. I can see it. But he does think at least a little differently. Mom starts to say something, but Lee beats her to it. “You know,” he says, “I, uh, can wear a dress. I was in theater in college.”

I cut that off before it has a chance to go anywhere. “No,” I say. “Lee comes home with me or not, but you can’t pretend he’s something else.”

“
What pretend?” Dad grumbles. “He told us he is the girl.”

I blink, look down at Lee. “You did?”

“
Yesterday,” Dad says. “Before...”

Lee shrugs. “I thought it might make him feel better.” I want to hug him all over again.

“
It did not,” Dad says, but the way he says it is dry, a little sarcastic. “What would make me feel better is being left alone in my room to recover.”

“
Yeah,” I say, “I was worried, but it sounds like you’re okay.”

“
It is nothing.” He rubs the bandage, then drops his paw to his side.

I want to ask how it happened, but I don’t think this is the right time. “So...”

“
Perhaps we could have a moment alone with Devlin?” Mom looks at Lee as she says it, with the same velvet she used to address my father.

He nods. “Of course. I’ll just be, uh, outside.”

“
I’ll be out in a minute.” I pat the base of his tail long enough to feel it arch against my paw, back where my parents couldn’t see even if they were looking. Which they’re not.

He turns to go, claws clicking on the tiled hospital floor. I turn and watch his confident stride, his tail arched and swinging just a little bit. I want to ask him about his job, about my parents, about his father, who was waiting outside. And I kind of want to see his reaction to the other surprise, the one talking to his father now, but I can’t see them through the doorway. So I’ll have to miss that one.

“
Hey,” Dad calls. “Fox. Lee.”

He turns. Dad points to the splint on Lee’s paw, and then taps his bandage. “Even, hah?”

“
You got him fired,” I point out.

Lee grins all the way up to his cheekruffs. “And I blabbed to the tabloids.” He looks toward my dad. “Even, sir.”

The door closes behind him. I step closer to my parents. “Okay,” I say. “What. The. Hell.”

“
Watch your language,” Dad growls.

“
Oh, I am,” I say. I put my paws on my hips. “Are you okay?”

“
Is a bump,” he says. “A scratch.”

“
You had to start a fight,” I say. “You couldn’t just—”

“
He started the fight.” Dad talks loudly over me. “He...touched my shirt.”

“
You didn’t have to talk to him at all!”

“
Devlin,” Mom says. “Please.”

We stare back and forth. I inhale Dad’s scent, the one I’ve known all my life. But I also smell fox, sharp in my nose, helping me curb the instinctive reaction to drop my muzzle, to give in. My ribs sting a little with each breath, in this tense stance. I bite my tongue to stop myself from feeling that pain.

“
No, Mom, I just want to know when this is going to end. I’m not giving up Lee, and I’m not giving up on you guys, so you’re going to have to live with it. And I really don’t want to have to worry that every time I’m not around, my father and my boyfriend,” they flinch at the word; I don’t care, “might kill each other.” Emotion chokes my words. I force it back down my throat.

“
Do not be stupid,” Dad says.

I hold up two fingers. “So far you’ve seen Lee twice, and I’ve ended up going to the hospital both times. So who’s stupid?”

He glares. I almost think he’s going to come out of the hospital bed at me. My tail curls back around my leg and I feel pressure mounting in my throat again, but I stare back. I think my eyes are starting to water.

His voice is icy. “Is he teaching you to talk back, too?”

I pound my chest with a fist, ignoring the flare of pain from my ribs. “I’m saying what I feel.”

“
Hmf,” he says. “If you had done that in the first place—”

“
What?” I wave at the hospital room. “You’d magically be tolerant?”

“
Do you know how shameful it is to find out about your son on
television?
” He spits the word at me.

“
Mikhail,” Mom says.

“
I talked to him just that week!” He gestures with a paw.

My anger fades, ears flicking back. “I couldn’t...”

“
Ivan, he calls me on the phone and he says, ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘so your boy is a faggot, why didn’t you tell me?’ What do I say to that?”

“
You didn’t know,” I say. “And what the hell business is it of his?”

“
What business is it of the whole world? You go on television!”

“
Someone was going to expose me.”

His eyes widen. “And then we find out this has been going on for years. You could not tell us about this part of your life?”

“
I didn’t know—you’re always talking about ‘faggots’—”

“
You bring home this fox, you still cannot talk, you let this fox talk for you—”

“
You were never around!”

“
I know—” He stops, stares past me at the door. “I thought,” he says, calming, “that this fox is no good for you. I thought, you are not like this. I thought...” His voice drops, rasping. “I thought my son has become a stranger to me. This fox has...has taken you. So. I tell him to leave you alone.”

“
You threatened him!”

He points at his head. “He put me in the hospital!”

“
Not that time—”

He talks over me, interrupting with a ‘hruff.’ “I...did not think he would fight back. Did not think he was the type.”

I stare. He doesn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t want either of you to fight,” I say.

Mom smiles. Without looking at her, Dad says, “Your mother and I have been talking.” His eyes flick down, and then his ears fold back. The words come haltingly, like a runner smashing into tacklers, pushing through them. “There will be...no more fighting.”

His face is in shadow, but the reflected light of the sun on his sheets makes his eyes shine. I watch them until they rise and meet mine. “Wait,” I say. “So Lee puts you in the hospital, and now...”

“
It disturbs your mother,” Dad says.

Mom smiles. Her tail sways near the floor, not touching it, even in the clean hospital. She doesn’t say anything, though. She doesn’t have to. The tension leaves me in a great wave, so that I almost have to brace myself on the bed. But I stand upright on my own, take a deep breath to let the emotion in my throat subside, and say, “Thanks.”

“
Devlin,” Dad says. “I would like for you to call me this week. After your game. I would like to hear about your life. All of it.”

“
Yeah,” I say. “Sure. Like Lee said.” A new emotion threatens to choke off my words. “He’s pretty smart, huh?”

Mom gives me a smile and a slight nod. Dad sighs. “He is...not what I had imagined.”

That’s enough for now. “We’ll be in Port City...” I trail off, realizing that has nothing to do with anything. “I’ll call.”

I don’t trust myself to say any more words. Dad waves a paw. “I am a little tired.”

“
Yeah. I’d better go see Lee.” I say it quietly. Mom smiles, a little. “Glad you’re okay.”

“
It’s good to see you,” Mom stands to give me a hug.

I look at Dad, standing beside his bed. He extends a paw.

His grip is as firm as I remember it, as firm as it ever was. I squeeze back just as firmly.

“
Play hard tomorrow,” he says as he releases my paw.

“
Always.” I look down at his muzzle. His expression is distant. “I’ll send you playoff tickets.”

That gets a grin out of him, a fierce, startled grin. As quickly as it appears, it’s gone, and he just nods. “We will see if I can arrange work schedules.”

“
I’m sure Ivan will take the tickets...”

“
Pah,” he says. “Ivan knows nothing about football.”

I turn. The tile is cool under my paws. I’m halfway to the door when Mom says, “Devlin.”

I pause, staring at the door and the window to the hall outside. Dad says, “Duscha, now is not the time.”

“
Hush,” she says. Then, to me, “Do you want regular stuffing, or cornbread?”

The warmth of the room makes the door in front of me blur. My throat closes up. I wait, lifting a paw to rub my eyes, until it opens again. “Can we have both?”

Her voice is soft and warm. “Perhaps this would be a good year to do that. Yes. I think so.”

“
Thanks, Mom.” My voice cracks. I turn the handle of the door and step out.

Out in the hallway, two people I expect to be there are gone, and one person I don’t expect is there. Vogt and the police chief are nowhere to be seen. I might miss the wolverine behind a crowd of blue-gowned nurses, but Vogt would tower above them all. My father is on a bench, facing me, talking to a dusky-furred fox with tall brown ears, wearing an open flannel shirt and dirty khaki slacks. Distracted by the conversation I’ve just had, I catch his scent but don’t identify him.