Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) (14 page)

J
EFF
got him a soda the size of a kiddie pool, hoping the guy's bladder would burst on the long drive between civilization and what Jeff had always thought of as a backwoods suburb.

Coloma itself was a small tourist attraction in the middle of some damned pretty country. Among the twistings of Highway 49 were smaller roads leading up hills to tiny neighborhoods of houses on big tracts of land. Those were the kids who went to the school and the people who ran the local businesses. The touristy things were all there—local artists were showcased in a couple of stores, tea shops, little cafés, the inevitable tacky-knick-knack shop, the kind that would have a T-shirt with a finger up a nose and the saying, “I found gold at Sutter's Mill.”

A block behind the tourist buildings were the business the locals used—video stores, banks, feed stores (although those had gone the tourist route lately, because not nearly as many people had large animals these days to support them), and, of course, one office in a refurbished Edwardian-era home: Beachum, Porter, and Mason, Partners at Law.

That was Jeff's father, and his father's cousins, establishing their own little patriarchy over the small tourist town like Burgermeister Meisterburger himself.

“Turn right here,” Jeff muttered, pointing to an almost-invisible road behind a feed store. “Here. There's a small parking lot—you can stay with the car.”

“Really?” Collin's lip curled up when he was mutinous. It was, uhm, actually really hot, and Jeff's palms had already been sweating since that intense moment in front of the gas station. Collin had grudged him some show tunes on the stereo—that, too, had been sort of endearing, especially when Collin launched into Valjean's part in the beginning of
Les Mis.
He had a surprisingly solid baritone—not as nice as Deacon's, but still solid. He swore he'd make Jeff pay by making him listen to Rise Against the entire trip back, and although Jeff protested, and loudly, he privately thought it was worth it.

“Uhm, yeah,” Jeff said, trying to put a spine where his swish threatened to take over. “You—well, you know, if you go down the main drag, back the way we came, there's a really nice state park. It's got a walk along the river to the mill where they discovered gold, and a statue of James Marshall, and the story of the—”

“I grew up in California, Jeff. I know about the fucking Gold Rush, okay?”
“Yeah, well you don't need to know about this.”
“Shut the fuck up and get out of the car. I'll hang around and be ambiguous gay man in the background, Jeffy, but use me while you got me.”
Jeff let out a frustrated growl and then hauled himself out of the car and stalked up toward the nice, conservative entrance of the Holly Ridge Rest Home, pulling his alpaca scarf up around his neck in the November chill. Christ, it was cold up here. He should have remembered gloves, but back in Levee Oaks, it was about ten degrees warmer. Fuck. He hated the fucking cold. Would rather bake himself in the sun like a poached salmon.
He checked the lay of his scarf again and was about to move his hand up to his hair when Collin's hand, warm and strong, grabbed his.
“Don't touch the hair, Jeff. It's fine. You look great. When was the last time you saw her?”
“We might not see her now,” Jeff said, hoping his voice didn't sound as mournful to Collin as it did to himself.
Collin's arm wrapped around his waist, and he lowered his head to Jeff's ear. In the reflection of the bay window they were approaching, it looked unbearably intimate, but Jeff couldn't make himself pull away.
“How long?” he asked gently.
“Twelve years,” Jeff rasped, and then they were through the automatic doors, and propriety gave him an excuse to pull away from Collin before he ran away completely.
His discussion with the director of the home was short and to the point.
“We're sorry, Mr. Beachum—you realize that we're under strict orders not to let her have any contact from you, you understand?”
“We went to high school together, Clarice. Call me Jeff, and stop giving me that line of bullshit. It worked twelve years ago because I was nineteen, and I didn't know any better. She remembers me, visits from me don't upset her, and I work in the health-care profession—if my mother wants to see me, she can bloody well see me, and if she wants to accept my call, I shouldn't have to find the right nurse to bribe, I should be able to give her a cell phone of her own and talk to her.”
“Well, since Rebecca doesn't work her anymore, that's hardly an option—”
Jeff wanted to smack that condescending smile right off her face. “It was only an option because it was easy, heifer! It's not easy anymore, and I have the right to see my goddamned mother!”
“Your mother has the right not to be bothered by sex deviants.”
Oh Christ. Jeff knew that voice. “Oh. My. God.” He didn't even turn around. “Do they have some sort of gay-sighting hotline here?” He aimed the question at Clarice and was gratified to see her squirm.
“I had the receptionist call your father when you walked up,” she explained weakly, and he rolled his eyes.
“Wow, Clarice. I couldn't have figured that out without your help. It's a good goddamned thing you're here.”
Clarice flushed. She'd gained a bit of weight since high school, but unlike Margie, Jeff's favorite patient, he couldn't seem to see past the hips and the coarsened skin and the graying hair and little tiny pig-like eyes to the good person inside. “He has a right to know,” she said, a bit of attitude creeping into her expression, and Jeff's returning smile was unpleasant—even he knew that.
“Does he have a right to know that I've been paying part of her rent?” Jeff asked, holding a trump card and proud of it.
“What?” she asked, and behind him, he heard his father's flinty tenor echo, “What?”
“Rebecca called me last year and let me know they were raising the fees. She said that Mrs. Beachum's husband was unable to pay, and I paid the difference. I even signed a partial lease. So, Clarice, I'm footing part of the bill, you ice-cold bitch, and I have every right to see the resident I'm paying for, and I have a right to leave her a cell phone, and I have the right to make sure she's got someone to help her use it. Like I said, Becky was expedient. Becky was a way to avoid this scene right here. But I haven't seen my mother face-to-face in twelve years, so maybe it's a good thing Becky got herself some, because I think I'm sort of fucking enjoying it, you know? Now excuse me, I'm going to go visit my mother. And don't bother escorting me—I know the room number. It goes on the line next to my signature on the fucking check you cash every month.”
Jeff felt a hot surge of triumph under his skin, and he didn't even fight to keep the snarl off his face as he turned on his heel to leave.
His father tried to stand in his way. “Now, Son—”
“I'm not your son anymore, remember, Mr. Beachum?”
God, he looked old. How could he look so old? His face was lined and his hair was gray and grown long. When had his father grown his hair so long? A little gel, a tie, he could have a queue like the other South Placer hippies.
God
, Jeff thought, his anger coming up hard to set the tight muscles in his mouth and his cheeks,
if only
. So much of South Placer was tolerant and accepting—and high off of some premium greenbud, he'd give them that. But not his father's little corner of the universe. Not Archie Beachum, who'd never had a liberal thought in his body, (although he'd apparently had a liberal swimmer in his boner, because Jeff was living proof.)
That lean-lipped mouth thinned. “Jeffrey,” he said warningly, “now see reason.”
Jeff's vision went the same color it had when he'd decked Collin. He had to fight to breathe, fight to see his father clearly—fight not to fight. “Reason?” he echoed dully. “Reason? Old man, I've got nothin' to respond to that. You….” Oh God. A thousand moments flashed behind Jeff's eyes, moments he'd kept out of the slide show for twelve years because watching them hurt too much.
“You—shit. Archie, you nursed me through strep throat when I was seven. You—you went to every swim meet I ever raced. You took me out to a steak dinner when I got my scholarship. And all of that went away one day when I came home and said I didn't love who you expected me to. All of it.” Jeff's voice seemed to detach from his actual body. His mouth moved, and he wasn't sure what was going to come out of it. It was like listening to someone else talk.
That's good. Let's listen to this other person talk.
Because when that guy was talking, all this shit happened to him, and not to Jeff. Jeff was in his bubble. Jeff was going home to his cats and having dinner with Deacon and Crick on Sunday. Jeff was good.
And this other guy—God. He was saying shit that Jeff was glad
he
didn't have to remember, because
Jesus
, would that suck.
“What you were doing was unnatural,” Archie intoned, and Jeff's voice was incredulous.
“
Jesus
, Archie. I wasn't going to make you watch! I wasn't even going to bring a boyfriend around, you know that? I just wanted you to know who I was. I was still your little boy. I was still Mom's youngest son. You just… just
forgot that
for twelve years? I mean, you may be a soulless old bigot, but—but I mean, Jesus, Dad. I was under the illusion that I grew up loved—”
“You were loved!” The old man's voice was breaking. That should have been sad. Jeff couldn't make himself be sad about it. He was aware—sort of—that Clarice-the-fucking-bitch-Thomas was backing up against her desk and looking greenly for some way out of this family reunion. He was much more aware that Collin was pushing himself off the wall tensely, looking for a moment, a reason, anything, to reach out and support Jeff and to help him and to be
that guy.
Jeff didn't get
that guy.
Jeff could do just fine on his own.
“It's not love if it goes away with the snap of your fingers, asshole,” Jeff said coldly. “Now I've got a right to see her, so you just go away and let me, and I'll be out of your hair.”
“You're the one who left without looking back!” Archie snapped, and Jeff curled his lip.
“I think I just established that
that's
a colossal crock of crap, didn't I, Archie?”
“Well
I
didn't know that!” Jeff's father snapped. “
I
thought you walked away and never looked back!”
“I sent you cards, Dad!” That other guy—he seemed to be hurting. There were tears in his voice. Jesus, Jeff was glad he wasn't that other guy. “You, Barry, Mom. You got birthday cards, Christmas cards—you had my address, you had my phone number—you couldn't have fucking called?”
“You couldn't have either?”
“I
did
!” Jeff shouted, and there was a hand on his shoulder, hot and urgent, and he was straining against it, angry, heated, furious. That other guy's voice and Jeff's heart… they were starting to beat together to the same awful rhythm, and Jeff tried really hard to keep them separate.
“You called
her
!” Archie shouted back. “You didn't once apologize to
me
!”
“I will
not
apologize for who I am!” Oh fuck. That had hurt. His throat hurt. It felt ripped, shredded, torn, and tight. “I will
not
apologize for having my entire life ripped away when I'd bought a lie for nineteen years that I was loved!”
“
You were loved
!” Archie yelled, and Jeff shook his head, fully himself, and, goddammit, in tears like the big fucking queer-assed-'mo he'd always been.
“Emphasis on
were
, Dad, right? Because I may be loved now, but it's not you who's doing it, you know? I had to go out and get a new family—I did. I had to find an old uncle who talked me through the worst day of my life and his nice wife who gave me a reason to live. I went and found a brother who didn't give a shit if I was gay or straight but who really likes to shop with me, and his sister, who likes to knit, and a father who's younger than me but who makes sure I show up for Sunday dinner anyway. I found cousins who love me, and babies….” Jeff remembered that last time at The Pulpit and found, against every scrap of common sense, a smile from somewhere he hadn't believed in. “I taught a baby the F-word, Dad, just like my cousin's baby, except this one is going to know my name in ten years, I guarantee it. There are two little girls out there who call me Uncle Jeffy, and they love me, and I bring them dresses and I go to dance recitals and swing them around the yard, and their mothers adore me and think I'm the best babysitter ever, and you know the best part?”
He was wiping his face on the sleeve of his trench coat. Shit. He was going to get moisturizer all over it. It would probably stain. But he couldn't quite seem to stop, and he was sagging back against a big, strong, comforting body, and he didn't want to fight against that anymore, not even to get a goddamned Kleenex.
Archie just shook his head to Jeff's question, and Jeff saw without seeing that his father, the man he'd worshipped until he was nineteen and that was taken away, too, was wiping his face on the sleeve of his black trench coat as well.
“The best part, Dad, is that none of these people are going to rip that away from me because of who I am. They know who I am. They love me. They think I'm a good guy. I am a good guy. I've got a good family. But you're not in it anymore because you told me you didn't want to be. But Mom—she never told me that. So I'm going to go visit her, and take another picture of her, and maybe see her around Christmas, because I've goddamned earned the right to.”
He took a deep breath then and realized that he was in the center of what was probably a really embarrassing scene. Half the staff of the retirement home was jammed in the doorway to see what the ruckus was, and Jeff—well, Jeff was blubbering like a baby.
“Now,” he hissed, furious and a little embarrassed, and heartbroken, “get the fuck out of my way.”
And his father, the man whose word had been law in his house growing up, the man who had ripped his blanket of security away when he hadn't quit growing quite yet, backed up and got out of his way.
Jeff shouldered his way past the onlookers, trying not to take too much pleasure when his pointy shoulders made contact with some people's arms or chests, and fought his way clear of the crowd of people who had apparently decided they'd had enough entertainment for the afternoon and weren't going to follow him. He and Collin walked in silence to the elevators, because his mother lived on the second floor, and stood there, waiting for the ding.
The silence was wearing—even that short a moment—and it was wearing. He had to say something. He was supposed to say something. Jeff always filled in the silences. It was his job.
“Jesus,” he murmured as they watched the dial and felt the heat of what must have been the entire town on their backs, “she's the one with Alzheimer's, and he's the one who seems to have forgotten the entire fucking thing.”
“Shut up, Jeff,” Collin said gruffly, and Jeff managed to look sideways at him as the door dinged open. His face was taut, and his eyes were red, and he looked, maybe, the tiniest bit like Jeff felt, and Jeff was sorry for the kid. He'd tried to warn him—maybe not good enough, but he'd tried to tell him it wasn't worth the baggage, hadn't he? He'd tried.
God, no. He hadn't. It hadn't been enough. Whatever he'd done, it hadn't been enough, because the kid was still here, and God help him, Jeff wanted him still there, just for a few hours more.
The elevator was full—two blue-haired women in the little electric scooters and one with a walker all looked at the two of them in surprise. They both moved chivalrously to either side and smiled in tense silence as the women buzzed or hobbled out, and then moved into the elevator as though half of Coloma wasn't watching them, apparently the town's only two faggots, getting into an enclosed space together.
“Sorry about th—”
“I said shut up, Jeffy,” Collin muttered, and Jeff found himself being turned roughly, without a hello or how-are-you, and engulfed in a hug that went on forever and ever and ever. The elevator moved at its snail's pace to the next floor, and still, Collin held on, and Jeff clung to him. Collin reached out and hit the close-door button twice more while little old people sat in befuddled silence, and kept Jeff snug and wonderful until the shudders of reaction stopped making it impossible to move.