A Heart for Robbie (10 page)

coffee table or between the couch and the wall. He wished he could shrink right now and squeeze himself back into one of those places rather than

face the woman his parents tried to foist upon him.

Two women turned as they entered, one in her midsixties, with hair

too brown to be natural and a fake smile to match. She clutched at pearls around her neck like a lifeline where they rested above a sweater set. It was something right out of an old television sitcom. His mother would

marry him off to the daughter of June Cleaver and have the
Leave It to
Beaver
family she’d always wanted. The daughter seemed pleasant enough. She wore no pearls and no expectant glare, just a long floral skirt and simple white top. He liked that—not enough to be straight but enough to be okay getting to know her.

“Beverly”—his mother indicated the older woman—“and Nancy,

this is my son, Simon,” she announced as if she were trying to auction off a bull at market.
Stud services available, apply within.

“Hello,” Simon said with a smile and half wave, still trying to play

hide-and-seek behind his mother in the living room.

“Hello,” the daughter, Nancy, said in a quiet voice with the faintest

roll of her eyes that her mother didn’t see. She slid her hair back over her shoulder with a gentle flick of her hand but didn’t take a step forward

either. The strong, confident set of her posture betrayed her annoyance

with their mothers’ scheming almost as much as Simon’s reluctance to go

any farther into the living room.

His mother looked between them, and he could see the sigh forming

on her lips. Rather than listening to it escape, he shuffled a few steps into the room so they stood in more or less a circle. He then glanced around

and wondered how his father had escaped the stifling awkwardness. Hell,

he’d even go watch football or baseball or whatever, just to get away from 52

JP Barnaby

the buffet of embarrassing awful spread out on the dining room table like a lace tablecloth.

“So, Simon, your mother says that you work for a hospital? Are you

a doctor?” Beverly asked as she drifted over to one of the antique sofas and sat daintily on the edge. She pulled Nancy down next to her.

His mother took the smaller sofa, leaving him with his father’s

winged-back chair. He sat, knowing that the sooner he got the polite

conversation over with, the sooner they could eat, and the sooner he could leave.

“No, I’m the insurance coordinator.” Simon watched her face fall a

bit before she covered her expression with a smooth, delicate sniff, and Nancy touched her nose in an inaudible snort. Not at his expense, he felt, but at her mother’s.

“So, you help families navigate insurance for their medical care?”

Nancy offered, and he smiled.

God, he’d so rather be at home reading.

“Yes, actually.”

“What about you, Nancy,” his mother interrupted. “Your mother

says you do something with computers? She also says you have two little

girls. How old are they?” Her voice seemed to be laced with desperation.

This one even came with built-in grandchildren. Nothing would be

required on his part except not to screw it up.

“I’m a software developer, and my daughters are eight and six. My

older daughter, Ruby, already wants to learn how to write her own video

games. I think Sarah would rather play with her dolls, though.”

“Oh? What kind of software?” Simon asked, surprised, and happy to

steer the conversation away from kids. He didn’t know what he’d expected a woman software developer to look like—maybe that chick on
NCIS
with her black ponytails and heavy eyeliner, or maybe Angelina Jolie from

Hackers
. Damn, he watched far too many movies. Instead of watching other people, maybe he should actually get out and live. If only he could figure out how the lock worked on his live-in closet.

“I write web-based financial systems in HTML5 and jQuery,

mostly.” The jargon flowed from her, easy as breathing.

She said it as easily as he would use HCFA or date of service. He

liked her confidence. Deep down in his soul, he wished he could find her A Heart for Robbie

53

attractive. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could make something work with her, just give up the gay ghost entirely.

“I’m decent at computers but nowhere in that league.”

“That’s okay,” she countered with a cheeky smile, “I don’t know

jack about my health insurance.”

He laughed and relaxed a little, until he caught the knowing look his

mother threw hers.

At that moment, a buzzer sounded in the kitchen.

Saved by the bell.

“That would be the lasagna. Simon, darling, why don’t you show our

guests into the dining room? I’ll have your father help me serve.”

“Maybe if he served it up once in a while, you wouldn’t be so

uptight, and I wouldn’t have to do these dinners,” Simon muttered under

his breath.

“What’s that, dear?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

That would be the dining room in the next room. The one you could

see from the living room. But he didn’t argue. He simply stood and

offered his arm to Beverly as he’d been taught to do his entire life and prayed for the evening to end.

The awkward dinner conversation continued through dessert, a

lemon tart almost as sour as his mood. He and Nancy seemed to get along

well, and they might have been friends under different circumstances. If he were straight, he may have even asked her out. But he wasn’t.

As his mother brought in the sugar-laden dish, he excused himself

and went to the downstairs bathroom to escape the stifling expectations.

Something had to change, he’d known that for years, but he had no idea

how to make that change and still keep his family. If he were in a stable relationship, maybe he could find the courage, but not now, not alone. He couldn’t lose his family and be completely alone.

The heavy pasta rolled into a starchy lump at the bottom of his

stomach as he washed his hands, doing what he could to avoid the mirror

above the sink. He didn’t want to see himself right then because he

couldn’t decide if he were more ashamed of being gay or of his cowardice.

Simon opened the door to return to his mother’s waiting demands, and he

found Nancy blocking his way.

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JP Barnaby

She didn’t say anything but pushed him back into the small half

bath. For a horrified moment, he thought she would kiss him.

“Simon, look. I like you, you’re a nice guy, but I’m not looking to be

set up. I just got out of a marriage to a man my mother insisted I marry, and I wasn’t strong enough then to argue. I’m not wasting my life on

another guy she thinks would be good for me. I want to find someone, yes, but not that way.” The words came out in a rush, like she’d only found the courage to let them fly away from her mother’s prying eyes.

“My mother has been setting me up for the last ten years. I

understand, trust me,” he said with a sarcastic laugh. “She’s never going to get that….” He stopped, horrified at what he’d almost said.

“That you’re gay?” she offered, and he stared at her. The bathroom,

claustrophobic in itself, closed in around him, and heat prickled up the back of his neck.

“I’m not gay.”

To his surprise, she laughed.

“Honey, I have a lot of gay friends. Your closet door isn’t as sturdy

as you think it is. It’s okay, they don’t know. They wouldn’t know a gay man if he came in wearing pearls and heels. They’d just think he was in

the theater. Your secret is safe with me. I’ve been pretending to be

someone I’m not for ten long years. Trust me, I have an idea what that

means. You deserve to be happy, Simon.” She gave him a hug and handed

him her business card. “If you ever want to talk.”

“Thank you,” he whispered as she slipped back out of the bathroom.

He gave her a minute to return in secret as he washed his hands again,

trying to scrub off the feelings of shame.

A Heart for Robbie

55

Chapter 6

FOR THE next two weeks, Julian Holmes kept an unused room at a small

hotel down the street from St. Mary’s Hospital. One afternoon while they switched nursing shifts and ousted him from the ICU, he followed one of

the nurse’s directions to Walmart and picked up some extra clothes and

toiletries. He laughed at what they considered their book section and

grabbed a pack of computer paper and a box of Crayola markers.

He’d called Erin then and asked her to bring his laptop that night. If

he could concentrate for longer than ten seconds at a time, maybe he could get his next book outlined or even started. Liam and Clay had been quiet since their late-night brainstorming session. They’d given him little tidbits, tiny pieces of gold that he stored in his Moleskine pages while they waited to come together into a cohesive storyline.

Julian liked writing, because when he lost himself in someone else’s

head, he didn’t have to deal with being Julian Holmes. He could be Liam

Black or Clay Waters. They didn’t have numbers in their heads, a

publisher always looking for the next book, or an agent who wanted him

to speak at a conference or two when he had trouble talking to the damned barista at the coffee shop.

Ralph Kennedy had been Julian’s agent for the last ten years, and in

that time, he’d also become a very good friend. He’d sent exactly two

texts since Robbie’s birth. One read “Congratulations, Daddy” and the

other “Nothing moves until you’re ready.” The second text reminded

Julian why he had no interest in ever changing agents. Ralph understood

the human side of the equation when it came to publishing. He understood Robbie was the only thing on his mind.

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JP Barnaby

Eventually, Julian would check in and let Ralph know the status of

his current projects, but right then, he didn’t know the statuses. He didn’t want to think about putting words in a manuscript while his son fought for his life, but he had to. He needed to keep the money flowing. Mostly, he conjured Liam and Clay to alleviate the biting loneliness. He hated feeling so alone, especially when he spent every day surrounded by people.

The ICU door opened, and Brandy, his favorite nurse, peeked out

into the hall.

“Hi, Julian. You can come back in now.”

In the last fourteen days, he’d learned all of the little ins and outs of living with a child in the ICU. He’d gotten to know the other parents who spent their days by their child’s bed and their nights praying both for their child and for sleep. There was the couple barely out of high school with the little boy who couldn’t swallow and the woman who’d lost her

husband the year before to leukemia, only to recognize the same condition in her young daughter. Julian watched weight drop off her frame day after day as the cancer ravaged her little girl.

He talked to Liam a lot when he thought about that little girl.

Julian closed Scrivener and flipped on his wireless hotspot to save

his files up to the all-seeing cloud. He’d managed five hundred and

fifteen words in the last two hours, about a quarter of what he could have done if he’d been able to focus. Between the television blaring the latest daytime talk show, the kid with the beeping Gameboy, and his own

racing thoughts, he hadn’t been able to make the words come the way

that they should. But Ralph was right. If he didn’t keep working, keep

the readers happy with the next book in the Black Heart series, he would lose serious ground in the fantasy and YA markets. Gone would be the

days of the bestseller list he’d fought so hard to reach. He’d reached it despite being one of the few authors who wove gay characters in around

straight ones with such acceptance even the Walmart conservatives

didn’t complain.

He waited for the files to finish backing up, closed the machine, and

unplugged it from the wall socket conveniently hidden behind the table

next to the couch where he sat. He’d made quite the little nest for himself over the last two weeks. At some point, the hospital had become his

second home. The laptop bag bulged with not only his laptop, but protein bars, chip bags, and a couple of bottles of soda. It resembled a mobile

A Heart for Robbie

57

convenience store. He even had Tylenol in there somewhere. Everything

the weary medical road warrior needed to survive the hospitalization of

the most important person in his life.

He washed his hands and stored the bag under Robbie’s crib before

stopping to look down at his son. Robbie looked up at him, his little fists opening and closing as if he wanted to grab onto Julian.