One Door Closes (14 page)

Danny did something, a gesture Calvin didn’t see, but Angus’s jaw twitched. He got into his car with a slam of the door and backed out with such speed that he nearly hammered the gate with his rear bumper. The tires squealed as he wheeled around in the street, and he was gone.

They all stood there without speaking, Devon still holding the loan paperwork. Calvin became aware of branches creaking beyond the property line. Will’s hair was tinted red with sunlight, the ends drifting against his temples.

Jerritson approached, snapping Calvin’s attention back.

“Audrey Rasmussen was my partner in chemistry. Senior year.” Jerritson smiled. “Well, my senior year. She was a sophomore. Only one in the honors course.”

He held out his hand and Calvin took it, made sure to shake firmly. And then to keep Jerritson’s grip in his a little longer. “Thank you. Really.”

Jerritson shrugged, eyebrows up near his hairline. “I’m told you’re trying to do the same things here that she did. That you have a lot of character.” He shot a smile at Will, and Will’s chin dipped. “Mostly, though, I can see your mother in you.”

Calvin saw Danny smile, the first time in days. “I appreciate that.”

“Well.” Jerritson brushed his palms together as if wiping them free of sawdust. “I should really be back in Ritzville before that homeowner self-combusts. But it was a pleasure to put names to faces, finally. I’ve heard plenty about each of you. I should be back by the beginning of next week, and I’ll contact you, Mr. Ware, with any outstanding issues concerning the job. Will tells me you’ll be needing another contractor for the duration. I have another one on my staff that would do this place good. I’ll make sure he knows the details by Sunday.”

Calvin was suddenly far more sober. He shook Jerritson’s hand again and got out of the way so Danny could thank him as well. Calvin felt the weight of eyes and found Devon watching him inscrutably. Will waited beside Devon, and when Calvin’s gaze wandered, as he couldn’t keep it from doing, Will caught his eye.

The smile he sent Calvin’s way was triumphant, and also, around the edges, sad.

* * *

The next day it was hard to look at the house—to study the front porch and the hulking façade, the airy conservatory and the high, ornate ceilings—and not picture it being yanked out of their hands. But the threat, if not gone, was well mitigated for now. The house was theirs. The shock struck over and over in bursts, stopping Calvin with his hand on the door knob, or standing in the kitchen pondering what to make for lunch, or pushing open the big library windows to let some air in.

He didn’t have to worry constantly or keep a plan surging in the back of his mind for when he no longer had a home. In truth, for the next couple days, Calvin felt a little useless.

And uselessness left plenty of space for thoughts he didn’t want to have.

There was no one to talk to about it, to explain the walls he could feel at his back. One of them was Will himself, but the other...

“Face it.” He grimaced and slumped further into the library couch. “It’s you.”

He had the sense of a missed chance, a jump he could have made and didn’t, and now Will had slipped on by him yet again. He either had to circle back and dig every skeleton out for good, or he had to move forward. Drop that weight and hope to God he could be strong enough not to regret it.

If he wasn’t even assertive enough to go after Will, after what he still
wanted
, damn it all...then he didn’t deserve to regret.

One thing, though, he could still do, so that he could look himself and the others in the face, as had been so important to Devon, and really feel like he’d earned it.

Take a chance
,
baby.

It scared him to his bones. For whole minutes at a time, all he could imagine was this situation going right off the cliff, too, the gain of their house slammed flat by the loss of everything that made it important. Having to restart this part of his life from scratch. But with the addition of Devon’s funding, the house no longer hinged so precariously on being the support group’s home base, and Calvin didn’t want to hide anymore.

He had no illusions that their real estate troubles were over. This little secret, at least, was a weapon he could rip out of Angus’s grasp for good.

The memory of Glenna’s visit days ago pushed it right to the fore, and he could do nothing but stare at it and grind his teeth. He couldn’t ask Glenna and Tag and the other kids to open up about sex changes and ostracism and feelings of impotence as human beings when he couldn’t admit that once he’d had problems of the same nature. That he’d needed help to move through them and carry on living his life. That he still might need help.

Kneeling outside his bedroom closet, Calvin dug around in his file box, an old portable thing with a snap hinge, until he had the papers he needed. Then it was just a phone call to let them know he was coming. He put on his jacket, went downstairs and found his keys with little sense of what he was about to do, just knowing that he’d determined to do it. He was shoving his feet into his shoes at the front door when he became aware of Danny standing in the dining room doorway.

“Hey.” The nerves jangled back in the moment of inaction. “Going into town for a bit.”

Danny just eyed him for an uncomfortable second. Then, “Hang on.”

He vanished toward the mudroom and returned with his sweatshirt on. Calvin frowned as Danny took his place beside him.

“Did you need a ride?” Calvin asked at last.

“No. Going with you.”

He wasn’t sure when he realized Danny knew where he was headed and what he was going to do, but suddenly it was there, undeniable. He stared at his brother, and Danny stared right back. How long had Danny been watching him? He could have heard the phone call and extrapolated, or maybe...

Maybe Danny just knew.

“All right.” He got the door open and stopped. He could feel Danny close at his back. “Thanks.”

Danny’s response was a wordless murmur.

The day was pleasant, cloudy at the edges but clear overhead and full of light. Lest they forget it was still practically winter, the wind burned cold in the open air. Inside the car, however, heat collected lazily over Calvin’s thighs. Danny watched the road wind by, running his fingertip down the inside of the window and tracing droplet to droplet left over from the rain.

The need to speak snuck up, racing along Calvin’s spine.

“If group gets shut down...” He cut his eyes to Danny and found him looking back. “I’m going to explain it to the kids. One by one if I have to.”

“It’s only fair. They should know why their support system gets axed. Hey.” Danny leaned across the center compartment. “I think you should use that. The people who run this thing have no right to judge you for that shit.”

Calvin looked his way again, and Danny went back to staring out the windshield, his profile stiff. They drove for a while without speaking.

“Thanks for, you know.” An audible breath from Danny. “Not asking.”

Calvin frowned, half glad to be distracted, half unsettled. “It’s your business, Danny. If you wanted to tell me—” Oh, but that felt too searching when all he’d meant to be was considerate.

Danny waited awkwardly. He was chewing his lip, and for a second, Calvin thought his brother was going to unveil after all. But the moment subsided.

A block away from the support group headquarters, Danny squirmed in his seat. “I could come in. I think I should come in.”

Calvin wasn’t sure how he felt about baring his soul to even more eyes. Then again, Danny already knew most of it. “I won’t stop you,” he finally decided.
And I could use the support myself.

Danny smiled, slow and wide like he got it anyway.

Calvin peered harder at the unique light that entered his eyes. “You’re pretty observant, Dan.”

Danny’s cheeks colored. “Not really what I’m known for.”

Calvin snorted and unhooked his seat belt. “You are.”

They headed into the building, tromping up the narrow staircase inside.

“Who are we meeting?” Danny asked at the top of the stairs, snagging Calvin’s arm.

“Her name’s Maureen Markovic. She’s been running the youth center for three years.”

“Any kids in the group hers?”

“I don’t think she has kids.” A tiny duo of offices served the center’s purposes. Calvin knocked on the second door and Maureen called them in. She was older by at least fifteen years, a longtime local with sun-tightened skin over her hands and hair threaded with gray, swept back over her shoulders. A polo shirt and corduroy was her usual wear. Today she had on a light sweater as well.

“Calvin, hi. Glad you made it.” She stood, indicating a chair in front of the cluttered desk. “There’s another chair here somewhere, maybe out in the hall.”

“Actually, I think I’m okay standing for now.” Calvin was aware of Danny moving up close behind him. “This is my brother, Danny.”

Maureen leaned over, her hand out for Danny to shake. “I’m Maureen, it’s nice to meet you. I wasn’t aware you had a brother, Calvin.”

“Two,” Danny broke in pointedly. “The older one’s back at the house.”

Maureen had always been perceptive. Now she glanced again at Danny, then back to Calvin with a tiny wrinkle in her brow. “Everything okay back there?” She knew the situation with the council, that things were precarious, but that was all she’d needed to know as far as Calvin was concerned.

Until now. “It is for the moment. But there’s something we should discuss.”

“Yes?”

“First, I need you to know that I really want the group at the house. I want to keep doing what I’m doing with those kids. I know I’m not a licensed counselor or anything like that, but it’s become a really important part of my life.”

“This doesn’t sound like a resignation,” Maureen said, attempting a smile. Calvin knew it was his own expression that made it disappear, though, the next moment.

He rummaged around in his jacket pocket, pulling out the printout that had been in his medical folder for the past three years. He didn’t know how to introduce it, so he just handed it over, uncomfortable with Danny’s presence at his side. If Maureen could read it, so could he.

“What’s this?”

“History of antidepressants.”

Maureen’s eyes widened as she perused the paper, then held Calvin’s gaze for a long second. She grabbed her mouse, woke up the laptop on her desk, and began to type in sporadic bursts of letters. She squinted at the screen. Looked back at the list, and to Calvin again, a couple times.

“These are serious,” she said at last. Danny had turned into a pillar of stone, near enough that Calvin could feel his tension palpitating. Maureen cleared her throat. “Says they don’t react well with each other, some of them.”

“No. I can say from experience that they don’t.”

Maureen frowned down at the list. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Full disclosure.” Calvin was beginning to want that chair. “There’s a third party interested in our house, who thinks of this as some sort of leverage. So I’m taking that away.”

Maureen raised her head. “Leverage?”

“It’s dealt with,” Danny grated. Calvin wondered if he should be ready to rein him in, if Danny were reading things from this situation that he wasn’t picking up on. But Maureen didn’t look particularly upset, just concerned.

“I don’t want this to take the group away from me,” Calvin said, ready to get at the meat of the subject. “In any way. If it’s going to, I need to know so I can explain it to the kids.”

Maureen’s cheeks flushed, but Calvin couldn’t waste energy worrying that he’d offended her with the unspoken bit. If he had, that was probably even better. She’d be less likely to end his hosting duties. And if it was something else, he’d rather she said it to his face.

“Are you on these anymore?”

He just looked at her, and she held up her hands. “I’m sorry, Calvin, I didn’t mean—I’m well aware it’s not my business. But you’re showing me this for a reason. I only mean the ones that clash with each other.”

“I’m going to discuss going back on the one at the bottom with my doctor.” He felt Danny’s eyes settle on him. “I’m never going back on the others. They messed my life up pretty damn well. I don’t ever want to feel that way again. But I don’t think I’m as ready to be rid of the one that works as I’d hoped.”

Maureen nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a lot of stress right now. Losing a family member, and moving, and—” she waved her hand, “—everything else. Apparently.”

Finding a whole new family on top of it all. But that was something he was starting to be grateful for.

Maureen gave the list one last read-through and sighed. “Look, I know all about this one myself.” She pointed halfway down the sheet, flicking the paper irritably. “It’s a beast. And I don’t like to talk about what I was like on it either, so. My brother calls it the Replicant episode. Don’t worry about group.”

Calvin started to answer, but she kept going. “I suspect some of the kids are hiding their own prescriptions, or will be eventually. A lot more people do than you’d think. I don’t know if that’s a sadder comment on our time or on our societal stigmas. Probably both.”

It was the way Danny relaxed that finally loosened the muscles in Calvin’s shoulders. He took the paper back. “Thank you.”

“Thank
you.
Not just for telling me, which you certainly didn’t have to do. If you weren’t hosting group, I don’t know if there would be one. We really can’t afford it, and we’re about to lose this space here. And I’ll go shout in front of the council if you need it. When the time comes.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“I would too. A couple of them are really thorny. Hey.”

He met her eyes.

“I’m applying for a grant or two in the next week,” she said. “They never really amount to much in the end, but I’ll allocate whatever I can for the meetings themselves.”

“That’s actually the other thing I want to talk to you about. I’d like to apply for a grant myself. I’d appreciate any tips you have. I’ve never put together a proposal before.”

“What kind of funding are you thinking about?”