Halfway Home (24 page)

I thought Daniel was reading his comic book. In any case my eyes were glued to the road, no distractions. Then, with a casual air that seemed entirely unrehearsed, he said, "My last year's teacher got sick. She had to leave right before Christmas and didn't come back till March. We had a substitute." I could feel his eyes turn to look at me. "Is that what you're doing?"

I swallowed hard. "Kind of," I said. "I guess you could call it a leave of absence." I licked my lips, suddenly dry as ashes. "But I don't have a substitute. There's only one of what I do."

He nodded, mulling this over. "So how do you feel?"

When was the last time anyone asked? Not that Gray and Mona didn't care, but they tended to figure it out rather than putting it point-blank. "Well, pretty good," I offered. "I get tired easy. Dizzy sometimes. My knee hurts." Was that the whole ball game? I shrugged. "Manageable."

I knew his eyes hadn't left my face. It flashed on me that he was the one taking care of me and not the other way around. "Are you gonna die?"

The sky itself seemed to darken perceptibly. This was getting too Bette Davis, even for me. "Did your parents say that?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, eventually. Not for a while. See, I have this disease that nobody understands yet."

"AIDS," said Daniel quietly, but not flinching in the least. "They told us about it in school."

Didn't miss a trick. "Yeah, so it's hard to predict. Could be a year, two years—" I made a vague motion with one hand, like somebody groping in the dark.

But it struck me that he knew more about the subject than his mother, and wasn't afraid of it either. Indeed, he seemed to relish the notion of being grown-up about it all. Perhaps he'd heard Susan at a particularly off-the-wall moment, proposing fumigation and quarantine. He reminded me of myself again, who always preferred the company of adults, my parents excepted, because the kids of my acquaintance were all frivolous and mean.

Then I felt his hand touch my arm reassuringly. "Uncle Tom," he announced with spirit, "I hope you don't die for a long, long time."

"Thanks, Daniel."

It really wasn't lugubrious at all, or even misty-eyed sentimental. We were just being very real, like a couple of guys in a foxhole. I put on my blinker and slowed, waiting for five hundred yards' clearance before I made the left into the driveway. Somehow it didn't surprise me that a boy who'd only learned about death four days ago, when his dogs were snuffed, was better equipped to face it than his elders. He hadn't had enough time to build up a lot of bullshit about the issue. The oleanders on either side were waving rhythmically, wind off the ocean, as we came to the foot of the drive. I stopped beside the garage, wilted with relief to have got him back safe and sound.

Yet no shadow of our mortal talk pursued us as we tumbled out and made across the lawn. It was in my mind that we'd go right out to the bluff and check on the progress of construction. Enough time had gone by since Brian relieved the boy of his paintbrush. Maybe we'd jump in again and be useful. We should have gone there direct, and I don't really know why I detoured into the kitchen first. Maybe I thought he should have some soup—ice cream was hardly a proper lunch. I banged the screen door wide, and the two of us tramped in.

Instantly I saw I'd taken a wrong turn.

Susan stood at the sink, stacking the dishwasher beside it. When she turned to face us, there was almost a look of demonic glee across her features, a smile of horrible triumph. She ignored me. It was all for her son. "Where have
you
been, young man?" she hissed.

Daniel seemed to shrink beside me. "We just—"

"Who gave you permission?" Almost a shout. Swiftly she crossed toward us, her wet hands spraying. She hunkered down and grabbed Daniel's elbow. I heard him gasp. "Don't you
ever
leave this house without telling me."

"It's my fault," I protested.

"Stay out of this," she growled, not even deigning to glance at me. She snatched the comic book out of his hand, glared at the cover. "Junk," she sneered, dashing it to the floor as if it was witchcraft. "Now go to your room."

"I'm sorry, Mom—"

"Sorry's not good enough. Now go."

Why was I silent? She was practically quivering with loathing. Clearly the boy didn't have any options. Head sunk between his shoulders, he shuffled out through the dining room. Was it all just territorial that I hadn't stuck up for him, tacit acknowledgment that hers was the only real power here?

Then she turned her hunted eyes on me, murderous with hate, and I realized I'd held my tongue to protect Daniel. What was between his mother and me was ugly enough; it shouldn't be laid on him. For if looks could kill, Susan and I stood armed with fire enough to scorch the earth. "And you," she spat at me. "You leave my son alone."

Like water off a duck's back. "Don't you see," I asked, maddeningly reasonable, "he's just trying to stay out of your way while you guys figure out your life."

"Oh really? And now you're an authority on children, is that it?"

"Hey, pick on me, that's fine. Don't pick on him."

God, how she hated the medium cool of my demeanor. She gripped the air between us with her fists and seethed in my face: "I'm. His. Mother." Rung down like Old Testament law, immutable and pitiless. There was no answer, and no escape for Daniel. She wheeled around and crossed again to the sink. With a supreme act of will she began once more to rinse dishes and prop them in the dishwasher. I could still hear her breathing heavily, as if her heart were hammering.

"He's a great kid," I said to her back. "So you must have done something right." I didn't mean it as any further volley in the war. A left-handed compliment, to be sure, but I figured to leave it at that and made for the dining room.

"This place isn't right." Her voice had altered, the fury gone. The revulsion was still there, only now it wasn't just her brother-in-law but the very walls of the house. "We don't belong here. Your... people are a different breed."

I stopped in the doorway. "Susan, if I disappeared, your life would still suck right now. Even if you were staying with white folks."

No answer, but then I expected none. I'd said as much before. Honestly, if it gave her any comfort to think of me as the enemy, it was really no sweat off my ass. All I wanted from her was that she not fuck over her kid. I tramped upstairs, empty inside, wanting to go across to Daniel's room and divert him from his exile. But for now at least, it wasn't worth the potential for further explosion. So I took my usual refuge in Foo's room, staring at the ceiling, not quite able to shake the feeling that I too had been sent up here as punishment.

The noise of the men working filtered in through the balcony doors, their voices hearty and curt amid the hammering. From this far off I couldn't really separate one from another, though a sudden bray of laughter wild as an eagle was clearly Merle. Because of the blowup with Susan, I felt separate from their workers' cheer, as if they'd all been chosen to play but me.

Underneath was a mix of guilt and powerlessness, for having got my nephew into trouble. Of course it was my fault, not to have thought it through that he would need a pass to leave the base. I wondered if he blamed me. Wondered if the outing had been worth it, despite the verbal lashing from the commandant. No to the first,
yes
to the second, I told myself firmly. After all, the kid was probably used to the scathings of his mom, the banishing and confinement. Now at least he had the taste of ice cream on his tongue.

You can't exactly sleep with all that hammering, but I must have gone into an alpha state, my brain pulsing with the throbbing noise. All I know is, I heard the silence when they were done, sharp as the crack of a rifle. Eyes wide, I tingled with alertness. A minute or two passed, and I heard their voices closer as they climbed to the top of the bluff. Again they were indistinguishable, relaxed now and joking, a bunch of guys sauntering home from work.

Silently I slid off the bed and glided to the balcony doors, but careful not to show myself. Merle appeared first, then Brian, then Gray, each carrying tools and odds and ends of boards. They straggled through the cactus and onto the lawn. "You guys want a beer?" asked Brian, brimming with comradeship, as if he'd just come off the field.

"Some coffee," said Merle.

They laid their burdens down at the edge of the terrace, then moved toward the house. Swiftly I slipped out onto the balcony. As I leaned over the rail, Merle had already disappeared under the pergola, Brian right behind him. "Sst," I whispered sharply. Gray looked up, grinned when he saw me, started to speak. I laid a finger on my lips.

Then I slung a leg over the rail and peered down the side of the house. With hardly a pause for breath I reached out a foot and groped, touching one of the sculpted beams that roofed the pergola. Recklessly I shifted my weight, feeling the pure tilt of midair before I landed in a crouch on the beam. I teetered a bit, then reached down and gripped the beam. Kicking out with my legs I swooped down and swung by my hands, dropping neat to the ground directly in front of Gray.

"Count Zorro," I declared with a small bow.

"You're crazy."

"Not quite. But I have most definitely had enough of everybody else." I grabbed his hand. "Now show me what the big boys did."

I tugged him after me toward the bluff, though he groaned that he was beat. Only now did I feel the first sprinkle of rain in my face. It thrilled me, pushing me forward with even greater urgency. Gray was laughing behind me, useless to protest. As we pitched headlong down the stairs, I tossed off a breathless account of my outing with Daniel and run-in with Susan. I couldn't tell how much he caught, but it didn't matter. Just to feel the pressure lift, as if in the sheer rush of words was my real life, whatever I could share with Gray.

Reaching at last the sturdy final landing, its bright new wood and glinting nails, was almost an anticlimax. I staggered for the railing. Gray caught at my shoulder and spun me around. "It's tacky," he said, letting me half collapse in his arms instead.

Who cared how tacky I was anymore, I thought belligerently, then realized he meant the wood, still fresh with its slick of sealer. This struck me so funny I howled with laughter, falling ever more limply into his embrace. I might as well have been crying, for all the sense I made. But Gray demanded no logic, holding me fast while I caught my breath, rocking me softly, till I felt the rain again on my face and there was no sound but the wind.

"Alone at last," he whispered in my ear.

We didn't say a word about the new construction. Arm in arm we headed down the bottom flight of steps, which lay securely now in the fold of the rock. Perhaps it was enough just to christen it. As we stepped down onto the sand I realized I'd stopped taking my daily walk, because of the clambering required around the broken steps. The air was colder here at the base of the bluff, whipping in off the water. Still the rain was mostly drops in the wind, tapping at our faces, barely leaving them wet. The full storm would come with the night, the dark perhaps an hour off, the light on the water already dim and leaden.

Gray pulled me close and nuzzled my hair. "We can't stay. You'll catch a chill."

Oh, but I wasn't going back in that house again yet, with its minefield of family drama. I turned and dragged him after me under the stairs, where the shallow cave faced south, cutting the seaborne wind. It was dry in there, feathered with a light down of sand. I crawled in first and sat cross-legged, grinning out at Gray. With a game shrug he ducked in and lowered himself beside me. "Are we going to play pirates?"

"No—desert island. You think we could finally have a little make-out session?"

About time. He smiled and put his arms around me, gently drawing us down till we lay face-to-face on the floor of the hollow. Now that the moment had come, the jangled urgency had passed. In the dusky light we looked in each other's eyes, very, very quiet, the way you would watch a star-shot sky. With one hand he smoothed the hair back from my forehead. For the first time I felt the luxury of how solid he was, his rangy frame and his big hands. I liked feeling small, burrowed against him. I couldn't even begin to say how long it had been since I'd held a man for real.

He brushed my lips with his, lightly, attenuating the moment till we were breathing together. Hunger wasn't part of it, not then. Perhaps we were both too grateful to waste it being frantic. When we opened our mouths at last to drink each other in, it was astonishment rather than passion shivering in me. I never expected another chance. I'd shut this part of me down for good, like a summer house, the day they told me my antibody status. And given how bad I was at love, there had almost been a perverse relief in letting the whole thing go—the way a spinster feels at fifty, when everything's finally frozen over.

But you'd never have known any of that now. I kissed as if I'd been kissing all my life. I tugged his flannel shirt, pulling it out of his work pants. Then slipped my hands along the taut of his belly, reaching the patch of fur at his breastbone. All
terra incognita.
I'd never even seen this man with his shirt off, let alone his pants. I liked discovering him by feel instead of by sight. And for the moment anyway, I didn't even think about my dick, or Gray's either. This from an old-school pig who used to root for the prize like truffles, usually without preliminary.

Kisses beyond counting, and then Gray pulled back a couple of inches, smiling wryly. "I suppose you think you discovered this place yourself."

"Well, it's true that I'm something of an explorer in these parts." I could feel his heart beating under my hands.

"Just so you know, I used to sleep down here before you were born. My sleeping bag and a kerosene lamp—right over here." He pointed at a cavity in the wall, just above my head. "And Nonny would pack a survival kit so I wouldn't starve."

"Oh ancient one, teach me the secrets of your cave." I leaned close and bit his chin, then along the line of his jawbone, tasting the salt of his day's work. Darted my tongue in his ear, making it rush like the sea. "And tell me, were you ever raped by a shipwrecked sailor?"