Chapter Eighteen
Muffled sobbing greeted his announcement.
Noah nearly dropped the phone, almost spared himself the pain of listening, but forced himself to stay still for her recriminations. Maybe it would help him to face some anger. Remind him why he’d been so very foolish with Adrian. Why celibacy was the right choice for him. Yes, he almost welcomed her disappointment.
“I’m...sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have sprung that on you. Please don’t cry.”
“Oh, Noah.” She took a noisy, sinus-clearing breath. “I’m not crying because I’m sad. I wasn’t sure if you’d ever feel like you could tell me.”
“You...you knew?” His world tilted, the neat orderly blocks he’d assigned his family jumbled up like a mess of Legos.
“I suspected. Ever since you were a kid, really. You never...Girls just weren’t your thing. And you were so quiet...and then you stayed away more and more.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Outside his window, the Texas sun beat down, completely contrary to the storm raging in his brain.
“I didn’t want to offend you if I was wrong. And for a long time I wasn’t sure if you knew.”
“I knew,” he said quietly. “It’s why I couldn’t marry Sarah.”
“I had a feeling,” she said, no censure in her voice. “You did a brave thing. Letting her go like that, not trying to force yourself to live a lie.”
“I live one every day,” he said, not meaning to reveal so much. His words seemed to be tumbling out through the holes in his defenses.
“But you’re telling me. And that’s a start. And if you’re telling me...” She drifted off, and he could almost hear her smile. “You must have met someone. You wouldn’t be telling me otherwise, and I’m so—”
“No.” Slapping his counter for emphasis, he stopped her before she could express happiness. A boulder landed on his chest, pain radiating everywhere. Why couldn’t she be mad? This would be so much easier if she would just yell at him—
The way you always yell at yourself?
“No?” Ruth sounded sad.
“Why are you so okay with this?” he exploded, voice raised enough to startle Ulysses away from his food. “Shouldn’t you be lecturing me about my soul? We went to the same church together. You still go to church every week, right? And you vote—”
“Noah.” Ruth’s voice was sharper now, big-sister tone back. “How does how I vote explain why you kept this from me for years? Because you assumed I’d be too judgmental to handle the truth about my own brother? And yes, I go to church, but we’ve got a new minister now. A more progressive one. Times are changing, even in the church.”
“Not everywhere.” Outside his window, the leafless trees danced in the wind. Through their branches, he could make out the campus chapel’s steeple, up the hill from his RV park.
“You mean Landview? I’ve wondered for years why you went there. It’s part of why I never mentioned your sexuality—I felt like you’d thrown up this giant Do Not Enter sign. But you say you knew about yourself and you went there anyway? Why do that to yourself?”
“Do you know how few tenure-track jobs there are?” He trotted out his standard argument, one that was feeling more worn and tattered each time he used it.
“This is about Dad, isn’t it? And how he always said that a real man found a job and stuck to it? You don’t have impress him anymore. He’s gone. You don’t have to impress any of us, really. We miss you and we love you and we’d love you even unemployed.”
Unemployed. The word alone made him want to hurl. The disgrace...And yes, Ruth was right, a lot of it was wrapped up in their father and his values, but Noah wasn’t sure how to untangle himself from those judgments. Even now, years of thinking that being gay was a sin weighed heavily on him. He’d heard that message growing up, then at college, and now at Landview. Over and over, until the condemnation seemed to come from deep within his own soul. He’d worked hard the past few years to find a view of the Creator that allowed for unconditional love for everyone, but it wasn’t easy to make such radical changes to his belief structure.
“Mom would care,” he said stubbornly. “She’ll be heartbroken when you tell her.”
“When I tell her? Oh no, you’re not putting this one on me. You barely talk to her, and if this is a reason why, she deserves to hear it right from you. I think she might surprise you. She likes the new minister a lot. Her thinking has...softened in recent years.”
“Maybe.” Noah sank down onto the couch. He hadn’t exactly planned on coming out to Ruth ever. His mother next? He wasn’t sure when he’d be ready for that.
“Have you really been staying away because you thought we’d reject you? You’re breaking my heart here.” Ruth’s voice wavered.
“No. Not just because of that.” Oh heck. Now his own voice was wobbling. He picked at a fraying seam on his pajama pants. “It’s just hard. You and Tom are so happy. And you’ve got the kids now. And the fabulous in-laws. All those nieces and nephews. Everyone’s so happy. And I’m...” Alone. Always alone.
“You deserve to be happy too. I don’t care what the church growing up said, or what Landview says. Being alone is making you miserable. Jealousy is keeping you away from your own family? That’s toxic. You need to do something about that.”
This was more the big sister he’d been expecting, full of proclamations. “I don’t know what else to do.” That was a lie. He knew exactly what his choices were, had known for days, but still he resisted the coming tornado to his life. “I’ll be tenured after this spring. Am I supposed to ask Adr—someone to live with me in the closet?”
“Adr? You lied. There is someone.” Her voice perked up considerably. Hell. Ruth should have been the archaeologist; she was that good at unearthing his secrets.
“There was someone. Sort of. There’s not now.” His voice quavered again, tears filling his eyes. He wished he could tell Adrian about this, tell him that he’d come out to Ruth and the world hadn’t ended. Adrian would be proud of him.
“Tell me,” Ruth said, voice soft as the cotton blankets she favored.
To his surprise, he found himself doing just that, telling her all about Adrian, giving her the G-rated version, right up until their fight in Denver. “So we fought—”
“That’s not a fight,” Ruth interrupted. “Tom and I fight all the time. A fight is a disagreement.” She spoke slowly like Noah was missing some basic relationship intelligence. Which maybe he was.
“You fight? I thought you hate conflict—”
“No. You hate conflict. I hate emotionally abusive men. That’s different than arguing. Normal relationships have disagreements all the time. You try raising three kids with zero conflict. It can’t be done.” She laughed. “But anyway, my point is, you didn’t have a fight with Adrian. You shoved him away before you could really fight. You were so scared over imagined fights in your head that you pushed him out of your life. Just like you did with me.”
“I did?” He clunked a foot against the base of his sofa. He thought of all the times he’d imagined Ruth’s anger, his mother’s condemnation, Tom’s censuring looks, the way coming out had always twisted his guts up. “I did, didn’t I?”
“And now you’re doing it with Adrian. You didn’t want to have to face the inevitable argument over your job or coming out, so you did it for him, cutting off any possibility of compromise. Making his choices for him.”
“He deserves more than some guy in the closet. You should see him with his niece and nephews.” His voice got warm at the memory of Adrian holding the baby. “He deserves someone who would live openly with him. Have a family.”
“Maybe you deserve that too,” she said. “I’m not going to lie and say it would be easy. It wouldn’t. Not for you, not for us. But we’d work to welcome him. We’d welcome you. So if that’s what’s holding you back...”
“I don’t know anymore.” Another lie. Fear. Fear was holding him back. And with each passing moment, that fear seemed more stupid and pointless. Something to move beyond, not something to hide behind. He leaned back against the couch. “I don’t want to lose him.”
“Then don’t.” She said it in the same tone she’d said “Then get your PhD and teach” all those years ago when he’d told her he couldn’t think of a career he wanted other than archaeology. He’d been scared then too, scared to admit to his decidedly blue-collar family that he wanted a life in academia. But Ruth had cut through all his sixteen-year-old fears, helped him research schools, and told him, “You can always teach.” And so he had.
Right now, however, he needed a plan. An answer. Ulysses yawned next to him, paw rolling over a tiny ball. One of Pixel’s toys. Noah’s chest caught. Maybe he did know. He didn’t want to know, but he knew what had to be done. He didn’t need Ruth’s advice—the answer was right in front of him, waiting for him to shove aside this stupid mantle of fear and act.
* * *
The Roberts Humanities Hall was eerily empty. The students would be on break for another week and a half, and most of the faculty had taken the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. But not Chuck Morrison. Noah knew exactly where to find the dean. He took the stairs to the third floor slowly, allowing ample time for alien abduction or solar flare or any other deliverance from his errand. He’d biked over, and he’d taken the long way around campus, looking over the sandy brick buildings and empty courtyards. Five years ago, he’d honestly thought he’d found the right place for himself. Commitment to teaching excellence, dedicated students and ample research funding. It wasn’t only a job to him. This was his home.
Except maybe it wasn’t. After Noah’s father died, his mother had painted the house brown. It had been blue with white trim for twenty years, but brown and caramel trim had greeted Noah on his first trip back. His mother had rearranged the furniture too. No more overstuffed recliner in the living room—instead a demure pair of floral wingback chairs flanked the fireplace decorated by a new mantel painting. Each change had felt like an unwelcome reminder about the ugly truth of his parents’ marriage. Being home had ended up leaving him so unsettled that on his next visit, he’d stayed with Ruth on the pretext of helping her rip carpeting out of her upstairs bedrooms.
This home, his campus home, had him feeling similarly out of place in his first ride back. His familiar haunts felt off, changed in his six months away.
It’s you.
He didn’t bother locking up his bike—no one ever did on campus, but a grim chill chased him up the steps and into the building. He’d done these stairs dozens of times a day for years, but everything from the polished wood banister to the solemn portrait of the school’s first dean seemed to have taken on a foreboding cast in his absence. The departmental assistants had the week off, but the lights were still on in the dean’s suite and he could spot Dean Morrison’s balding head through his glass door.
You can do this. Remember how good it felt after Ruth? After talking to Ruth, he’d felt like he’d chugged one of Adrian’s favorite energy drinks. He’d showered, trimmed his beard, eaten a full meal. And that night, he’d slept better than he had in months. Scaling a mountain couldn’t have given him a greater sense of triumph. If only he had someone to share it with...The ache of missing Adrian was still insistent, but he wasn’t paralyzed by pain anymore.
To the contrary, his blood surged with purpose. He made list after list, rehearsed and rejected speeches in his mirror. He’d been building toward this moment for days, but that didn’t stop his pulse from leaping as he knocked on the dean’s door.
“Walters!” Dean Morrison came out from behind his desk, clapping Noah on the back. “Didn’t expect you around here quite yet. Couldn’t stay away?”
“Something like that.” Noah forced himself to offer a smile.
“Great timing on your part. I finished your book. Well done, my boy, well done. Probably the best book to come out of the department since my and Delong’s biblical archaeology text. We’re on our fourth printing now. I predict good things for your book too.” He returned to his cushy leather desk chair and motioned for Noah to take one of the upholstered visitor’s chairs.
Dean Morrison never could resist a chance to plug himself—or to remind Noah that he didn’t share the same area of interest as most of the department. Oh, he’d done his time with school trips to Israel digs, but it wasn’t his passion the way it was for Morrison. One more way that Noah didn’t quite fit in.
“Thanks.” Noah fisted his hands, then clenched them, repeating the motion a few times, trying to keep his blood flowing to the right places. “I was wondering about the tenure—”
“Oh don’t you worry another day about that. Like I said on the phone, it’s formality.” The dean leaned forward, took a candy out of the giant glass bowl on his desk. “Candy?”
“No, thanks. Thing is, there’s something I think the tenure committee might need to know.”
“Oh?” The older man licked his papery lips around the last of the candy.
“I’m gay.” It was easier to get the words out this time. He’d told Ruth. He’d told his mother last night, a tear-filled conversation on both their parts. The world hadn’t ended. Like Ruth, his mother was mainly sad that he’d stayed away, and while she expressed reservations, the conversation had gone far better than he’d hoped.
“Walters,” the dean said sternly, looking at him over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Why are you telling me about your personal life?”
“I, uh...” Could it be possible that this too might go better than he’d thought?
“Unless you need a recommendation for spiritual counseling? Our pastor would be happy—”
“I’m not looking for spiritual guidance.”
“Well, why burden me with this?” The dean set his glasses on the desk. “I like you. Always have. Your personal struggle is of no concern to the department—as long as you are still managing to lead a good Christian life. There are programs to help you, and choosing celibacy instead of giving in to your demons is a noble choice.”
So close. So close. He could nod his agreement and this might be the end of it. The dean would know and this wouldn’t go any further. But he couldn’t do it. “What if I’m not? Not celibate, I mean? Not closeted? What if I choose—need a different path?”
“You want permission to live as a sinner? To live contrary to God’s natural laws?” The dean shook his head. His expression was stonier than the Roman bust on his bookshelf. “You know as well as I do that the school has a morality clause. And for good reason.”
Noah opened his mouth to speak, but the dean held up a hand. “No, I can’t possibly condone you being...openly deviant.”
“I don’t want to live a lie.”
“Walters, a biblically truthful life is not a lie. A lie would be you setting an example for our students contrary to good Christian teachings. Next you’ll be telling me we need one of those gay clubs the liberal colleges all have.”
“Actually, a number of religious colleges have gay-straight alliances now.”
“Your people may have managed to hoodwink the judiciary and get gay marriage, but there is no deceiving God. Landview Christian University will never have a...celebration of deviancy. Our moral code is everything. You asking to subvert that makes me question your place here.”
Me too. Swallowing hard, Noah nodded. “I love my students. I love teaching—”
“Then as I see it, you have three choices.” The dean held up three bony fingers. “One, you can agree to get some spiritual guidance and to refrain from acting upon or discussing your urges, and we won’t speak of this again. You’re a good man. A godly man.”
“And the other options?” Noah’s whole body shook. The praise made him nauseated.
“Well, if you insist on proclaiming this identity, you leave me no choice but to report you to the disciplinary committee. There won’t be a need to convene the tenure committee.”
Noah squeezed his eyes shut, drawing in a shuddery breath. “But I could still finish out the academic year, right? Classes are already scheduled—”
“You think the university won’t be willing to make an example of you? You want this to be public knowledge—anything more than you confessing your problem to me right here? You’re going to have to deal with immediate consequences. The disciplinary committee will have to act swiftly in the best interests of our students.”
“I’m not...a predator.”
“I know you’re not, Walters.” The dean gentled his tone. “And that’s why I suggest option three. You resign. Immediately. No public humiliation. I’m not going to lie, I want you to pick the first option. We can pray together right now over it. I’ve known other men who have overcome—”
“I don’t want to overcome it.” Noah’s voice was surer than he would have thought.
“Then it’s your choice. Lawyer up and face the disciplinary committee or quietly resign.”
“I need a moment to think.” Noah dug his hands through his hair.
“You are the one who brought this to me.” The dean clicked his pen against his desk blotter. All Noah needed was the Jeopardy theme song to make the nightmare complete.
Slowly, he raised his head. Didn’t matter how jumbled his thoughts were, he’d known from the moment he entered the building what the only real choice was.