Chapter 21

Just The Way You Are

 

 

THE days that followed that seventh day were rough. I, of course, woke up with doubts ringing through my head, sure that I wanted to take back that initial I love you, sure that Vince wanted to take back his response. I didn’t show that fear, though, because it wasn’t supposed to be about me right then. Vince opened his eyes to find me watching him nervously, berating myself for being that guy, the creepy one who watches his partner sleep like it’s supposed to be romantic or something. I averted my eyes momentarily until I felt his fingers on my face.

“Paul,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

I shrugged, trying to minimize everything. “You okay?”

He sighed as he dropped his hand. “I think so. Maybe. It’s weird, you know? I hadn’t spoken to her in months before this week, and I was okay with that. A little mad, maybe, but okay with it. Now she’s gone for good, and I’m… what am I? Sad? Relieved? Angry?” He looked away. “I don’t know what I am right now,” he muttered.

“She was still your mom,” I said quietly. “Regardless of what else happened, regardless of what she did later, she was still your mom.”

“Yeah.”

“Vince?”

“Yeah?”

I chose my next words carefully. “Everything always won’t be perfect, you know?”

“I know.”

“So you know you can’t pick and choose what to tell me, then, right?”

“Yeah. Look, Paul, I—”

I shook my head. “Don’t. I’m not mad at you for that. I’m sorry that I acted like a jerk. It wasn’t my place to. I should’ve respected your wishes and not gone behind your back.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’m not ashamed of you.”

I was startled. “I never said you were. I never thought that.”

“Okay. I just wanted you to know that. If anything, I was ashamed of them. And jealous of you.”

I snorted. “What the hell do I have for you to be jealous about?”

“Everything,” he said seriously. “Your friends, your family. You. You have everything. You are everything.”

“Vince….”

“No, Paul. How can you not see it? Why can’t you see that you’re perfect just the way you are?”

His earnestness was catching. I’m a sucker for earnestness. And bike shorts. Put those things together, and watch the fuck out. “I’m pretty sure your definition of perfect is skewed,” I told him. “You may have a bit of a bias here.”

He looked satisfied, as if I’d agreed with everything he’d said. “A very big bias,” he assured me. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if I didn’t, I’d still see it. I just didn’t want to put any of this on you. It wasn’t fair. We’d just met. Hell, you would have probably run screaming, your arms flailing in the air.”

“I would not have flailed my arms,” I said, slightly affronted.

He smiled weakly. “A bit,” he said, sure of himself. “Probably would have written in your diary all about it.”

I rolled my eyes, glad to hear him joke, but also hearing the sadness in his voice. I brushed my fingers over his face. “You can tell me anything,” I said. “At least, you should. It’s how these things work, Vince. You have to know that.”

“I just didn’t want you to see pain,” he said. “I didn’t want you to know sadness. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I just wanted you to be happy, every day, all the time.”

“And what about you?” I asked him. “If you knew this was coming, why didn’t you think about what you wanted?”

“Because I was just thinking about you,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You were the person who helped me through this, even when you didn’t know what was happening. You were the guy who made me happy when everything else was going to shit. You were like this light in the dark, Paul. You are my light.”

I groaned. “Sandy’s never going to let me hear the end of this. I’m a motherfucking lighthouse.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Vince said, confused.

“Shit,” I muttered. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”

“You talking about me and you?”

“Yeah?”

“You bet your ass we’re going to do this. There’s no way I’m going to let you go. We got the hard part out of the way. The rest is cake.”

“The hard part?”

He leaned over and kissed me. I didn’t even make mention of how much I wished he’d brushed his teeth before doing that. It seemed like it would spoil the mood. “The love part,” he whispered. “I love you, so the rest will be easy.”

“Oh sweat balls,” I said, feeling a bit dizzy. “Are you sure?”

He nodded.

I mumbled something back.

Wheels snorted at me from his spot between us. Jerk.

“What was that?” Vince asked, a small smile on his face.

“I said I may be thinking that I might possibly entertain the idea of loving you too,” I said, my face on fire.

He chuckled. “I figured as much.” But then the humor slid from his face. “I think,” he said, the words coming out in a choke, “that I’m about to be sad.”

I curled up against him, pressing his face into my neck, wrapping my arms around him tightly. Wheels crawled on top of us, doing his impression of a dogpile. He laid his head down on Vince’s thigh and watched us. “You didn’t get to hear all of what she said to me, did you?” I murmured as he started to quake.

“No,” he gasped. “Only the end.”

“Now, you know I didn’t know her, right? I only knew what I saw of her on TV and in the news.”

A quick nod. A sharp breath.

“Well,” I said, “she loved you, Vince. She loved you because you were her son. She loved you because you belonged to her. She may not have always told you, and she may not have told you in the right way, but she did. Even when you were apart, she did. I don’t think that a day went by that she didn’t think about you, and I don’t expect a day will go by for you now where you won’t think of her. And….” I stopped, considering.

“And what?” he whimpered, starting to break.

“And I think she knew,” I told him. “I think she knew that I would take care of you. I think she knew that you would need someone after she was gone, but that she’d leave you in good hands. I think she needed to meet me to realize that. I think I needed to meet her to understand that.

“So you cry,” I whispered, my chin on top of his head. “You cry because you’re allowed to. You cry because she’s your mom. You cry because she’s your family. But… you have a whole other family now too, if you want it. You have another family that wants nothing more than to take you in and love you just the way you are. If you want to. If you let us.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I want it. I want it bad. Paul, please. Please. I’m going to cry now, and I’m going to hurt now. Please don’t let me go.”

“I won’t,” I promised him, promised myself. “Do what you have to. I’ll be here.”

And he did.

And I was.

 

 

THE funeral was a big thing, a messy thing, with lots of local news coverage. I’m sure there were plenty of people hoping for some kind of delicious drama to occur between Vince and his dad, but nothing happened. As big as it was, it was still a quiet affair, with bowed heads and whispered prayers.

The only thing that could have raised any eyebrows was that Vince did not sit next to his father or the rest of his family. I’d encouraged him to do so, but ever since the morning after his mother had died, he’d taken my words to heart.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when Mom called and asked what time she and Dad and Nana would be picking us up on the day of the funeral. I shouldn’t have been surprised when she told me she’d hear none of what I was saying. They were going, and that was final. Family is family, she said, and she would be there to support Vince. When he’d heard these words, Vince had gotten such a look of wonder on his face that it had taken my breath away. He’d reached out and grabbed my hand, refusing to let go even when my mother insisted on talking to him herself. I could feel the heat from his hand, the bite from his grip as he said things like, “Yes, ma’am, I mean Matty,” and “Thank you, Larry, I’d appreciate it,” into the phone. After saying, “Say hello to Johnny Depp for me, Nana,” he hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s like they’re mine too,” he said in awe.

I snorted. “Like nothing. They are yours too. You better hope this is what you wanted because there’s no way in hell you’re escaping them now. They’ve got their hooks in you, and even if you tried to get away, they’ll find you wherever you go.”

He eyed me. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Is that what you want too?”

I shrugged, trying to play it off. “I found you first, didn’t I?” I mumbled at him.

That got me a sweet kiss that turned slightly dirty. I was okay with that.

So we went, then, to support one who was becoming our own: my parents, my grandmother, my best friend Sandy, and Vince’s brother Darren. Vince didn’t want to sit next to his father because he didn’t think he was wanted there. He’d told me the night before, as we lay in bed, that all he’d ever wanted was to be wanted. And since he had that, he wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to pretend that everything between him and Andrew Taylor was going to be okay. I thought about pushing the issue, telling him that he couldn’t just write off his dad like that, because no matter what, Andrew would always be his father. But I caught the look in his eye, almost a defiant thing, like that was what he expected me to say to him, like he knew what I was thinking. Vince was grieving, yes, and it hurt him greatly, but he was also showing me that he was stronger than I’d first thought. He was greater than what I’d seen.

But it was still a sight to see, especially when I realized that he was mine. He’d been right, of course, when he said we’d gotten the hard part out of the way and that the rest would be easy. I didn’t tell him (though I thought it quite often) that falling in love with him had been the easiest thing I’d ever done. I think he knew that, anyway.

So the guy in the front preached about God and Heaven and about how those we love are never really gone, just as long as we can remember them in our hearts. Many people came forward and said nice things about Lori Taylor. Songs were sung and prayers were said. We stood when we were told rise, and we sat when we were told to be seated. The whole thing was very surreal, the church large and airy, the voices echoing throughout the building. Vince looked handsome in his charcoal gray suit. I looked like a sweating beaver in my black suit. I sat next to him the whole time, his hand in mine, ignoring the glares we received from his father from across the way. It wasn’t about that. It wasn’t about him (and, to be fair, Nana glared right back enough for all of us; there was a moment when the Tucson Boys Chorus was singing the gorgeous hymn “Abide With Me” that I was pretty sure my dad had to keep my grandmother from launching herself at the mayor after a particularly nasty look he shot Vince. You could tell Dad had a split second when he seriously considered letting his mother-in-law launch herself at one of the highest ranking people in the room. I almost motioned to let her at him, but then I realized I still didn’t know if mayors had Secret Service protection and was thankful when he pulled her back. I reminded myself to ask Vince later to see if he knew).

Afterward, Vince was supposed to go stand in line with the rest of his family so that well-wishers could offer their condolences. Vince looked like he would rather get punched in the face with a fork, but I figured his mom would have wanted it. So I told him I would stand with him, if he needed me to, as the others in the line had their immediately family standing behind them. The look he gave me then was wide-eyed, but then when the rest of my family and Darren said they’d do the same, you could see his surprise like it was a palpable thing. He couldn’t seem to find his words, but I thought I knew what he was trying to say.

We moved to follow him to where the family gathered before leaving for the cemetery. With his shoulders squared and his head high, he took three steps toward them. We moved to follow until he stopped suddenly. He looked back at me and held out his hand. I took it without hesitation. If he was sure about it, then I would be sure for him.

His father was not pleased.

I know what you’re probably thinking: here comes the big scene, the disruption at the funeral, the father’s blatant homophobic remarks cutting deeply. I’d stand next to Vince and defend him and all would hear the weight of my words and silence would fall as the mayor and I glared at each other, daring the other to speak again.

But it didn’t happen. Well, kind of. I was still pretty much a badass.

Vince stood next to his father, only a few feet separating them. Both of them were stiff but aware of the other. Vince kept glancing back at me until I understood he needed to feel my presence, so every so often, I’d reach up and squeeze his shoulder, just to let him know I was still there. He relaxed further every time, focusing on shaking hands and receiving hugs from people I’d never seen before.

As if he was the opposite, the mayor grew tenser. You could see it in the lines of his shoulders, the twitch in his jaw, the little sideways looks he shot Vince, the anger in his eyes. And when the line was finished, when the last person had offered condolences, I knew the mayor was going to turn on his son. So I stepped between them while Vince was distracted by my mother.

Andrew Taylor stared at me like I was nothing better than the shit he’d scrape off the bottom of his shoe. I didn’t feel bad at all about not voting for the guy. “Don’t,” I told him quietly, just for him to hear. “Don’t do that now. It’s not about you. It’s not even about him. It’s about your wife. So don’t.”

“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” he growled like some clichéd heavyweight. I felt sad for him.

“Frankly?” I asked. “I couldn’t care less. He’s no longer your concern. He doesn’t belong to you anymore. We’ve got it from here, Mayor. I’m sorry about your wife, I really am. But you don’t get to make this worse for him. Not now. Not today. If I were you, I’d start focusing on what you’ve lost and what you can gain, rather than something that you don’t agree with.”

“He told us about you,” he said, taking a step closer. “Me and his mother. How you’d just met. How he’s certain that you’re it for him. He’s going to leave you, just like he did us.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Unlike you, I won’t give him reason to.”

“Paul,” Darren called sharply. “We got to go.”

“He’ll be with me,” I said, “if you ever change your mind. But if you don’t, that’s your choice. I don’t care who you are—if you try and hurt him, I will break you in half.”

Andrew laughed. “You? You’re nothing.”

I smiled. “Your son thinks I’m something. And that’s enough for me.”

And just as I pulled off that wicked awesome exit line, I spun on my heels and didn’t trip and face-punch a wall or anything, even though it was what I expected. I might or might not have walked away a little bit slower and with more care than I normally did to make sure that I didn’t embarrass myself before leaving the church. After all, how often does one get to tell off one’s boyfriend’s father in God’s house and pull off some badassness before walking away practically in slow motion? One does not get to do that often.

But apparently God has a funny sense of humor because I could see them all watching me, especially Vince, and I opened my mouth to say something to him, anything to continue my streak of being amazing, but instead, I accidentally sneezed and burped at the same time and it was pretty freaking gross. And, of course, it echoed throughout the church and several conversations near me stopped as people turned to stare at me, convinced, I’m sure, that I was possessed, and a demon was trying to crawl its way out of my mouth. I expected priests to come running at me, spraying me with holy water, screaming in Latin about how the power of Christ compelled me and the demon needed to be gone from my earthly body.

“We can’t take you anywhere,” Sandy muttered.

“That was very manly,” Dad said.

“I’m pretty sure I thought he was barking at me,” Nana mused.

“He used to do that as a child,” Mom reminisced. “It’s even grosser as an adult.”

“Is he the man in your relationship?” Darren asked Vince. “Does he tell you to go make you a sandwich in the kitchen while he sits in his recliner and scratches his balls?”

“You can’t say balls in church,” I scolded. “Jesus might hear you.”

“I think Jesus is running away from you,” Vince said.

And just because I wanted to, and just because I could, on the thirteenth day after I’d met him, I kissed him in the church.

The world, interestingly enough, did not explode.

Take that, homophobes!

 

 

WE WERE the last ones at the cemetery. Vince wanted a chance to sit with his mother after everyone else had left. I asked him quite clearly if he wanted me to go as well, but he shook his head, gripping my hand tightly as the rest of the mourners cleared out, heading to the mayoral mansion for continued services. Vince hadn’t wanted to go to that, as he was almost done with the day.

It was odd, really, sitting next to the hole in the ground that contained a mahogany box holding his mother. The employees at the memorial grounds understood that we needed a bit more time and could complete their interring once Vince was ready to go. It probably didn’t hurt that I reminded them who he was and who was being buried. They nodded and drifted away, starting to stack chairs and moving flowers.

I walked back over to Vince, who lay on his back in the grass next to his mother. His eyes were closed when I reached him. My shadow covered his face, and a line appeared on his forehead. “Paul,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Vince.”

He sighed. “Today is one of those days that I wish was already over.”

“I know.” And I did. Even if I didn’t know what he was going through, I could imagine. No matter what I said about my family belonging to him, no matter what my family did for him today, he’d still lost someone. He still had to say good-bye to his mom. I tried to think about how I’d be if it was my mom, and I hated the thought. And I hated the idea of what he was going through.

He would need me, I’d been told.

He was going to break, I’d been told.

So far, he’d been far stronger than I think I would have been in his position. And for some reason, this filled me with great pride, knowing that he was stronger than people gave him credit for, stronger than I gave him credit for.

I lay beside him on the grass, not caring about my suit coat. There were more important things to worry about. Our shoulders bumped, and as soon as I was down completely, he reached over and grabbed my hand, curling it into his own.

I waited.

“I’m trying,” he said finally, “to think of a good memory. Any single one that I can take with me when we leave here today.”

I hesitated. “Can you find one?” I hoped he could, because he needed it. He needed to be able to say good-bye.

“I was scared I couldn’t,” he confessed quietly. “I thought that I’d only be able to think about the past few years and that it’d piss me off and I’d just be angry about it forever. I don’t want to be angry forever, Paul.”

“I won’t let you,” I said, ignoring how I’d essentially just acknowledged the word “forever.” It didn’t freak me out as much as I thought it would. “I’ll be sure to kick you in the nuts if you stay angry forever.”

He chuckled. “Thanks. I think.”

“Did you find the memory you were looking for?”

“I think so. Can I tell you?”

I smiled as I squeezed his hand. “You can tell me whatever you want.”

He turned his head to look at me. “I can, can’t I?”

I nodded. “It’s kind of what boyfriends are for, I guess. Though I haven’t had much experience to say so.”

“You’ve done pretty good so far.”

“Pretty good?” I said as I rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks for that ringing endorsement. Nothing strokes the ego like pretty good.”

“How about amazing?”

“A little better.”

“Extraordinary.”

“So it’s been said.”

“Unexpected.”

I grinned. “Likewise. What did you find to think about your mom?”

He let out a low breath and turned to look back at the sky. I followed his gaze to the azure blue. “I think I was ten or eleven,” he said finally. “We lived up in the foothills in this old house on Windriver. I came home from school one day and found my mom and dad fighting. I wasn’t supposed to be home that early because I had soccer practice, but it got canceled, so I just rode the bus home.”

He rubbed his thumb over my fingers. “It wasn’t a normal fight, like I’d heard them get into before. It was very loud. They were very angry. My mom was screaming at my dad, and he was screaming back at her. I couldn’t make out what they were talking about, I just knew it was bad. My friend Jake’s parents had just gotten divorced and his mom had moved away and he never got to see her and I remember thinking, This is it. They’re going to get divorced and she’ll move away and I’ll never see her anymore because she won’t want me. I thought that if they kept fighting, they would eventually see that they didn’t belong together and they would divorce and I wouldn’t know my place anymore.

“It didn’t last that much longer. The voices quieted down, but they were still angry, and finally my dad left the house, slamming the door behind him. I heard the car starting in the garage before he left, and I didn’t think I was going to see him again. I didn’t think he was going to come back, and the only thing I wanted to do right then, right at that moment, was to find my mom and remind her that I was still there with her. That I was still alive. That I wouldn’t leave her, no matter how hard it got.”

His voice broke, and I thought about asking him to stop, that he didn’t need to say any more, but he pushed on. I hurt for him.

“So I went to her. She was sitting on the stairs, her face in her hands, and she was crying. That scared me more than anything because for all that I could remember, I couldn’t remember a time when I’d ever seen her crying. It seemed worse than I’d first thought, and I didn’t know what I could do. I was just a kid. I was little. What did I know?”

“But you did something, didn’t you?” I asked him quietly. “You helped her.”

He nodded and looked over at me again. Our eyes met, and for the rest of his story, we stayed that way. “Maybe. I like to think so. I didn’t know the best thing to say to her, so I sat on the steps above her, and I pulled her back into me. I wrapped my arms around her and put my chin on her head and told her the only thing I could, that it was okay. That it was all right. That somehow, I’d figure out a way to make it better for her. I asked her to stop crying because I would always be there for her and I wouldn’t walk out the door. I told her I….” He stopped as his eyes grew brighter and his face trembled. “I told her that there was nothing she could do to make me leave her.”

I reached over with my free hand and thumbed the tears from his face. He kissed the palm of my hand, the tips of my fingers. “What did she say to you?” I asked hoarsely, knowing she must have said something.

“She said… she stopped crying and she looked up at me and smiled. She said that she didn’t know what she would have done without me. She said that she was glad that I was there for her and that she was sorry she was sad. She said that she loved me and that she always would. And then she kissed my forehead and pulled me up, and we went to the kitchen and we made peanut butter cookies and it was a good day. It was a good day, and that is what I want to walk away with. Paul, that’s all I want to remember.”

“Then that’s what you remember,” I told him. “That’s what you take with you, and fuck all the rest. The rest doesn’t matter. The rest isn’t important.”

“It’s like the stars, you know?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He pointed toward the sky. “You can’t see them now, because it’s daytime. But you know they’re still there because they haven’t left. Not really. It’ll just be a little bit of time before you can see them again.”

“Yeah, Vince. It’s like the stars.”

“Paul?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m ready to go now.”

“Okay.”

“Can we go back to your house? I think I just want to lay down with you for a while and not think about things.”

“I think we can manage that.” I stood and offered him my hand. He watched it for a moment, and then a beautiful smile bloomed on his face. He reached up and grabbed my hand, and I pulled him up with me. He put his arm around my waist and laid his head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around him and led him away.

We were almost back to the car when he spoke softly. “I’m glad I found you. I think someone somewhere knew I’d need you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

And that was that.