Saint Patrick’s was crowded for High Mass, but everyone was more or less in their usual seats so it wasn’t hard to find Joel. Seth, of course, was not there. Mark was pretty sure Seth didn’t even believe in God. When Mass began Mark tried to pay attention, tried to be reverent, tried to lose himself in the service. He’d always been serious about church even if, in his own mind, he wasn’t the greatest Catholic. And he needed to be serious right now. He needed to pray.
But even when he prayed he observed. He observed the various looks on the people’s faces. He watched for who was missing, who was here, why Mrs. Swank’s daughter was here when she ought to have been at college. Was she here for Thanksgiving? It was next week and everything.
And when it was Communion, Mark realized that Joel didn’t get up. Maybe Joel had just forgotten to go to Confession yesterday. He was a real stickler about things like that. He didn’t ask because Joel wouldn’t want to answer.
When Mass was over, Mark said, “Are you coming to our house?”
“All right,” said Joel.
“Will you call Seth and see if he wants to come.” Mark said.
“How is Seth?” Chris asked on the church steps.
“He’s in Pennsylvania,” Joel scratched his head. “Go fig. He and a friend went there.”
“One of Sully’s friends went to Pennsylvania,” Chris commented.
It was a polite enough question. There was no way in hell Seth McKenna would have set foot in Chris Power’s house. The three fathers might be together, and Mason might endure Chris, or Seth would hang out at Mason’s house, but Seth and Chris... they lived in two different worlds now.
“Mason, it’s open!” Savannah said and was surprised when it turned out to be Adam who entered the room.
“My, Mason, you’ve grown,” she said.
He was so tall and so thin, there was something about his leanness, and his oddness.
“Good morning,” she told him.
“Will you be coming out for tofu on the promenade,” he offered his arm.
“I was going to go get Mason and Balliol.”
“Oh, they’re occupied,” Adam told her. “Apparently some friends of theirs turned up last night. There was this big crisis back in Cartimandua. Seems like we can’t get away from Ohio no matter how hard we try.”
“Well, in that case,” Savannah said, standing up and offering her arm, “I guess I’m free.”
The worst thing in being curious about someone new was that you kept wanting to look at them and get close to them, but the moment you were close, you had to stop looking because then that would be staring, so while they walked together to breakfast, Adam making small talk, and the surface of Savannah’s mind responding, she kept on catching sneak glimpses of him. She kept sniffing him too. A man who didn’t bathe was a problem. A man with bad breath would become a problem. So far he wasn’t going to be much of a problem.
“I’m just going to come out and ask it,” Savannah said. “Starting with your hair.”
“No, I’m not gay.”
“What?” Savannah tilted her head.
“All men who tint their hair aren’t gay. I’m not gay, I just like tinted hair.”
“I wasn’t even going there,” Savannah told him.
“Oops,” Adam went red and Savannah said, “See, you turn red when you’re embarrassed. But you’re brown, like you’re Spanish or something, and the dark hair that’s tinted red and blond isn’t even your real color.
“My mutton chops,” Adam said, “are my real color.”
“You’re brunette?”
“I thought they were blond.”
“They’re more like dirty blond.”
“Okay,” Adam said.
“So I wanted to know what you were?”
“Oh,” Adam said. “Well, now that’s hard.”
He stood still and screwed up his face.
“My last name is Bannerjee. My dad was born in England. His father was English, but his wife—my paternal grandmother—was Indian. From India. Not like a Native American. Then my mom is actually half Lakota and half Potuguese.”
“You’re everything.”
“Everything but Black. If we had a kid, then we could take care of that. Speaking of kids, we’re going to go out when we get back to Ohio, right?”
Savannah looked aghast.
“I’d apologize for being forward,” Adam said. “But you don’t get far being timid.”
“I—” Savannah started. “I’m seeing someone.”
“But you already told us he was no good.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. Yesterday in group meeting. So, how about we start going out?”
“I—I—ah—”
“I’m going to take that as a yes. But how about for now we just talk about little things and forget I mentioned our future together.”
Savannah laughed and shook her head. “All right then, Adam Bannerjee. Yes, let’s pretend to be normal and ask normal questions.”
“So what kind of work do you do?”
“Real estate.”
“Really?” Adam said as they sat at the table. “That’s interesting.”
“No it isn’t,” Savannah said. “I think I’m going to pack it up one of these days and just start working on one of the family gas stations.”
“Family—oh!” Adam cut himself off. “Darrow. That Darrow. Darrow Gas, Darrow Groceries.”
“Don’t forget Ginger’s Boutique. That’s my aunt’s store, me and my aunts.”
“You own all this,” Adam said.
“Yes?”
“Then why the hell are you a realtor?”
“Because... Because people are supposed to work and—”
Adam shook his head. “People are supposed to work if they have to. It’s no virtue in pretending you’re poor if you’re not. You should be shaking your ass.”
“Oh,” Savannah said, “would you shake your ass if you could?”
Adam smiled at her and said, “I shake my ass whenever I feel like it.”
Over brunch, Mark said, “How do we all feel about issues?”
“What?” Joel said.
“I mean,” Mark explained, “we go to church. The Church says this is wrong and that’s wrong and we have to make our own decisions, right?”
“Well,” Sidney said, “Your Church says this is wrong and this is right. It’s very little
the Episcopal Church says about anything. Like, you all have this hang up on whose sleeping with who and can men sleep with men and—”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “And that’s a big deal to a lot of people but like, I’m sure even here, in our neighborhood, you’ve got people like that. You know,” Mark said.
“People like that?” Sidney said it all in one word.
“Like men,” Mark said, not as comfortable with this as he thought he would be, “who like other men.”
“Gay people,” Sidney said simply.
“Yes,” Mark said.
Chris began tapping his foot on the floor rapidly, and when Joel looked at him, he stopped.
“And women on the pill, and people shacking up,” Sidney went on.
“Well, we know you don’t care,” Mark said.
“Just because I don’t have the exact same moral code as the one holy and apostolic Roman Catholic Church doesn’t mean I don’t have ethics.”
“Right,” Joel allowed. “But you’re not a practicing Catholic so it doesn’t matter. What Mark is saying is for a Catholic, where do you draw the line?”
Sidney sighed. “The younger ones probably make better sense of it than we do,” Sidney said. “Or at least than you two do.”
“That’s right,” he said. Joel turned to Chris: “How would you feel if...?”
“Hum?” said Chris, swallowing his milk and smiling.
“I’m trying to think of something,” said Joel.
“If you met a gay person,” Sidney said.
“Sid!” Joel said.
“Don’t be naive, they’re everywhere,” Sidney told him. “And at a school like Saint Vitus’s every tenth kid’s probably a big old homo.”
Mark rolled his eyes and said, “Homosexual.”
“Am I still supposed to be answering this question?” said Chris.
“Yes,” Mark said now, convinced his son would have a good answer.
Chris looked perplexed and then he touched his throat and let out a long breath.
“I guess the younger generation isn’t quite as ready as we thought they were,” Sidney said, though he was confident Mason would have been.
Chris smiled lightly and shrugged. “I guess not. I don’t really have an answer for you all.”
Mason and Balliol had decided to go back in Seth’s truck. Balliol was stretched out in the back, asleep, while the other three sat up front, smoking. Savannah drove with Adam who had come here by train and had originally planned to take the train back to Ohio tonight.
“They’re going to be an interesting couple,” Balliol said sitting up.
“He’d be a weird uncle to have,” Seth commented. “But your family’s weird already. Not that I should talk.”
“Well, provided she doesn’t hop into bed with him on the first date there might be a future,” Mason said.
“Ouch,” Addison murmured.
“We all know Savannah’s a slut,” Mason told them. “In fact, she knows it and tells me all the time.”
“Guess what guys?” Seth said. The way he said it, Mason instantly knew that Seth had been waiting to say this for a while.
“What?”
“I found something when I went into my Dad’s room last night... to get some gas money.”
“What, a condom?” Addison joked, and they all laughed. Even Balliol who had only met Joel McKenna twice.
“No,” Seth said. “He’s too Catholic for a condom. But obviously not too Catholic to fuck his new girlfriend. I found her slip.”
“Are you serious!” Mason gagged on his cigarette.
“I am totally serious. The bed was half made. He must have been plowing the fuck out of her before I got home.” Seth shook his head. “Jesus, I can’t believe this!”
They were quiet awhile and then Addison spoke.
“Seth, you have a sex life, so why can’t your dad?”
“Because he’s my dad. He’s a good Christian and all that and he walks this walk that... I’m supposed to believe in. Only, obviously not. It’s like, what am I going to find next, rolling papers? Joel McKenna snorting cocaine?”
Mason was a little taken aback too.
“He’s my Confirmation sponsor. He’s my second goddad. I mean, that would like finding out Dr. Powers was.... I don’t know, bisexual or something,” Mason shook his head.
“But, I will say this,” Mason told him. “He’s a real person, just like us. I mean, grown ups are people and he hasn’t been with anyone since your mom left so...”
“I know,” Seth said, sounding a little whiny. “But he’s my dad and—”
“And we don’t even know exactly what happened,” Mason reminded him.
“Oh, I think we do,” Balliol said.
“Balliol!”
Balliol shrugged and lay back down in the back of the truck.
“Jesus!” Seth said again. “A slip in my dad’s room! Jesus!”
That evening Chris came down the stairs in jogging pants and a tucked in tee shirt. He was holding a cup of cocoa in his hands and looking very grownup and serious while Mark was finishing the last of the dinner preparations.
When Chris didn’t speak at once, Mark said, “Yes?”
“I was thinking,” Chris said, putting the large mug down on the kitchen table. “About what you asked me this morning.”
“Hum?”
“The whole gay business.”
“Yes,” Mark was instantly embarrassed and wondered if he was turning red. He moved to the sink and turned the water on, as if the sound of the faucet would drown out the pinging in his ears.
“And I’ve thought about it.”
“It was just an academic question,” Mark said, pretending he’d finished washing the glass he’d picked up out to the sink. “It really didn’t mean anything.”
“Oh,” Chris said lightly. He smiled and shrugged. “… And after I’ve come up with an answer and everything. I’m going to lay the table out.”
“Is Sully coming?”
“Not tonight,” Chris said, his voice still light.
Chris reached for the plates and put two of them out. They always set the table.
“Well,” Mark said, “It’s a shame to have a brilliant son ponder over an academic question and not hear his answer.”
“Huh?” said Chris, reaching for the glasses.
“What was your answer? What did you come up with?”
Chris sighed and said, putting his feet together as if he were delivering a speech.
“Everybody is so afraid of so much, right? And when two people love each other, it’s only love. But people are afraid of love because it shakes you up and it makes you soft and turns you into something you didn’t think you were, and people have always been trying to make love... what it should be, ordering it into something. Like, say, in the Middle Ages you didn’t marry for love, you married who you were supposed to, and they had the courtly love thing where you were supposed to pine for someone you couldn’t have. And then Jesus just told people to love each other and he got killed for it. We’re always so busy trying to define love and limit it and make it into something we understand. Why should we worry about it? And then you have a word like gay, or like straight and it just confuses people because no matter what you say, there is something wrong with being gay. It’s not being straight. Straight and narrow and… right. It’s being crooked. It’s not being right, and people are always afraid of that. But it’s silly, isn’t it Dad?”
Chris stopped, realized his face was a little screwed up and then said, tiredly. “People should just love whoever they love and quit worrying about so much. Pass me the forks, Dad.”
Mark did. He looked at the clock on the stove and said, “I think the chicken is ready.”
They prepared the meal in virtual silence and then brought their food to the table. Mark said, “Do you want to ask the blessing?”
Chris didn’t, not really, but he did, and then they both crossed themselves and Mark turned on the television.
“You never turn the TV on.”
“I know,” Mark said. “It’s this show, though. I usually watch it when I’m cooking. Dinner’s ready early tonight, so... Do you want me to turn it off?”
“No,” Chris said noncommittally. “Is this that one dating show?”
“Yes,” Mark admitted.
“Dad, you’re a shrink, you know this is stupid.”
“I’m hooked,” Mark shrugged, grinning.
Chris shrugged and grinned back. He twirled noodles onto his fork and said, his mouth full, “It’s all these idiots looking for love, but they won’t find it because,” he swallowed and sipped his milk, “they think you can just shop for it, and you deserve this one perfect person who is...” Chris shook his head. “What they don’t get is that when someone loves you you better jump on it, I don’t care what form it comes in. Because it’s not going to come again. Like, think about it, you and Mom were the real thing, a once in a lifetime thing. And Sidney and his wife, they never get divorced because... love is unusual.”
Mark was just looking at him with his mouth open.
“What?” Chris said.
“What you said... Love... wherever it comes from…”
“I’m just saying we shouldn’t be so choosy. And we should be... honest. like, maybe if you fall in love you don’t want to admit it because it’s with the wrong person, or it’s going to be too difficult, you know, take too much out of you. So you just turn away from it. That’s the dumbest thing you could ever do.”
Chris went on eating, he reached for another roll.
Mark was rising up.
“Chris, could you clean up the kitchen for me?”
“Huh?” Chris looked up from the roll.
“I have to make a stop. Can you clean up for me?”
“Right now? You’re leaving now?”
“I have to,” Mark said. “I might not get a chance to do this again.”
Chris nodded, his eyes on his father, weighing him. “Sure thing, Dad.”
Mark went to the closet got his jacket and came back into the kitchen, stopping at the kitchen door.
“Chris?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Where did you...? How did you get so wise?”
Chris looked at his father with a trace of a frown and said, “I’m eighteen, not ten.”