The Ends of Rossford

[CharmedFan28]

Thanks for including past bits, it really put the situation into context. After reading this portion I think Logan and Jonathan are better off as friends. I look forward to reading about Jonathan and Kenny's date. That was some great writing and I look forward to the Blue House tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

No, Jonathan and Logan were never a love match. Jonathan is enamoured of Logan and Logan knows it.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION OF LOVE IN THE NIGHT


“WELL, THAT WASN’T PLANNED,” Adele told her brother.
“No it wasn’t,” Tara agreed.
Dan came into the house looking very un-priestlike. He was in khakis and an open knit shirt, and since that time when he had kissed him, before Fenn had left for the monastery, he could no longer think of Dan as he had come to know him, as untouchable.
“Are we talking about how Tara invited Tom and Tom invited Bryant?”
“Look,” Tara said. “I’m tired of being blamed for staying in the apartment with Tom.”
“No one’s blaming you,” Fenn said wearily.
This wasn’t exactly true.
“However,” he continued, “I am more than a little miffed that Tom would show up to this house with Bryant Babcock. Are they still sleeping together?”
“Do you really want to know?” Adele asked him.
“Know what?” Layla said, entering the kitchen.
“Know when little girls should mind their business,” Adele said, but Fenn said, “Know what a special niece I have,” and he got off the stool, lifted her up, and kissed her.
“Have you met Todd’s boyfriend?” she asked.
“Todd’s what?” Fenn said.
He put Layla on the ground.
“Oh, yeah,” Nell said. She tapped Fenn on the wrist and said, “Look out there. They’re almost happy together.”
Fenn did not want to look out there. Instead he said, “Almost happy?”
“I was less than happy when I was married,” Nell said. “Why shouldn’t Todd be almost happy?”

Fenn had seen, from the corner of his eye, someone very tall and very blond, a little silly looking. He left after a time and Todd came in with his arms outstretched.
How can I be angry? I’m thirty. He’s twenty-one? Twenty-two? How can I be angry?
He hugged Todd, but the hug was light. Last time he’d been with this boy, Todd had been kissing him. Todd had been hitting on him all this time, and the moment he disappeared for a few weeks the boy had someone new! Well, not that he was seriously going to go off with Todd. But this just proved so much. About him. About men. Better to be alone for a time.
“It’s good to see you, Fenn,” Todd said. His eyes looked like he was trying to put so much more into that sentence, but Fenn had just seen the blond boy.
“It’s good to see you too.”
Fenn went to sit at the kitchen counter.
“Did you have a good trip?”
“It would have been better if it lasted. But Dan dragged me back. And now, here in the backyard, two people I hate, and no one I’m ever going to love. And God, doesn’t that sound pathetic?
“Well, maybe it does,” Fenn answered his own question. “But it’s the truth.”
“No one to love?” Todd said.
Fenn looked at him.
“That’s what I said,” Fenn said.
“What about me?”
Fenn, on the bar stool, looked up and said, “What about you, Todd?”
Todd was swinging from the lentil, the black line of hair growing from under his navel down into his shorts exposed. He wore a tank top that read Saint Barbara’s Basketball, and he hadn’t shaved in days.
“What about you taking a chance on me? That Tom isn’t worth crying about anyway.”
“Firstly,” Fenn said, lifting a slightly drunken finger and putting the drink down as the storm door opened for Adele and Nell, “I am not crying over anyone. Trust me.”
Adele raised an eyebrow, and then left. Nell grabbed the relish and Fenn waited for her to depart before turning around and saying, “And secondly, I make a point to never tap someone’s ass if there was a place in time where I wiped it.”
“Ouch, Fenn, that’s harsh,” Todd came down from the door post and approached him. “I mean I just think you like me a little, and I already told you I like you a lot.”
“See, I don’t know where you came up with that. I don’t know when you decided that I was your destiny. Your dream man. Especially when I saw that blond thing you came with.”
“Oh, he’s not serious.”
“Then I have even less respect for you.”
“And you don’t have to be a dream man. We don’t have to dream, Fenn.”
“Stop that. And stop using that… voice.”
“Is it sexy?”
“It’s stupid. You’re—”
“I’m not stupid.”
“No, but you are a child.”
“I’m twenty-one.”
“And I…” Fenn began, “am… not.”
“I love older men.”
“Hold the fuck on, I’m not that much older.”
“But you keep saying you are.”
“I just…” Fenn started over again. “I just think it’s not a great idea. I think—”
“Hold on,” Todd said.
And then suddenly, Fenn’s face was in Todd’s large hands, and the boy, Todd had always been a boy to him, had pressed his wet mouth to Fenn’s. His tongue touched Fenn’s and for the first time in a long time of prickly resistance, Fenn Houghten gave in.
When Todd pulled away, Fenn resumed: “I …Think… that… You are…”
“Whaddo you say?” Todd say.
“I still say no.”
Todd shrugged. It wasn’t a real shrug. It was a high school shrug like ‘I don’t care’, when really you care all too much. Fenn wanted to call him out for that, to say, “See, that’s why we can’t have anything.”
Have anything.
Why, for this brief second, in the aftermath of Todd’s kiss, did having something seem a little believable?
“Todd,” he said as Todd was walking away.
Todd turned around.
“What I should have said is not now. Whatever is later, not now.”
Todd came back and approached him.
“It has nothing to do with you. Or almost nothing,” said Fenn. “I don’t want a boyfriend like Tom.”
“I’m, not like Tom.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant I don’t want to be in a serious relationship with someone who is a soulmate and all of that. And I just don’t see how we wouldn’t be that.”
“It could be light. It could just be fucking.”
“Okay, no it couldn’t,” Fenn said. “Cause that’s not us. I mean, it’s you and it’s me, but together…” Fenn shook his head. “That’s how you know something’s real. I mean with you and me even just fucking wouldn’t be just fucking. You’re in love with me.”
“And you’re not in love with me? Just a little?”
Fenn took a breath.
“I love you,” he said. “And not just a little. And for the time being I’m not ready for that, so… I don’t know,” Fenn sighed.
“Go fuck some dumbass and then come back to me in a year. I’m not going anywhere.”


“You think I’m the devil, don’t you?”
“I don’t think you’re anything at all.”
“Oh, touché, touché!” Bryant Babcock murmured. He was away from the rest of the partygoers, in a clean white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves to reveal the dark hair going up and down his arms. He had on black round sunglasses, which Todd mistrusted.
“I don’t even know why you’re here.”
Bryant shrugged. “You know what? Neither do I. Tom brought me. That was a mistake.”
“You’re damn right it was. Why would he show up with the guy he was fucking—?”
“I’m not fucking Tom,” Bryant shook his head with mild irritation. “I’m not fucking anyone.”
“Well… neither am I.”
Bryant laughed and slid off the banister.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“About what?”
Bryant slipped off his glasses and put them in his pocket.
“About how I’m here in this corner and you’re here in this corner, and we’re both here because we don’t fit in… In there.”
“I fit in just fine.”
“Maybe,” Bryant shrugged. “But you don’t think you do. You’ve got shit inside of you.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Uh,” Bryant said. “I know I do, and I know you do. But, does everyone? No. Or at least not so far as I know. I don’t know a lot of people who have a hard time looking at themselves in the morning. I don’t know a lot of people who hate who they are. That’s generally my department.”
“I don’t… hate who I am.”
“But you wish you were someone else. Sometimes? Right? Someone with less baggage?”
“I guess,” Todd said.
“I’m not asking you to talk about it,” Bryant told him. “I’m just asking if you’d like to take a walk or something?”
Todd surveyed Bryant warily, and then he nodded. Todd Meradan climbed over the rail, and they set down the street.

Fenn watched them disappear. Bryant was fucking Tom, probably, and Todd was fucking whoever that boy was who had come, and now Bryant and Todd were going back to fuck each other. No getting around that. So Bryant was the dumbass Todd he had chosen.
“Fenn,” Tom said.
He knew the voice before he turned around.
“Yes?”
It was a weary, sarcastic yes, and the first thing he’d said to Tom since it had all ended.
Tom looked nervous and small and entirely like someone he should never have taken up with. His hands were fist that he kept thumping together like an idiot.
“I came so I could talk to you.”
“There isn’t anything we have to say.”
“There’re things I’d like to say.”
“Like what?” Fenn said.
Tom’s lips pursed. He looked like he was thinking hard, but nothing came out.
“Well, if that’s the best you have to offer, then I have a home to get to. And since no one here really likes you, it would be foolish for you to stay once I’m gone.”
Fenn got up and left the kitchen. He nearly shouted when Dan popped out in the hallway.
He waited to hear Tom leaving through the back door, and then said, “What the fuck! Can a man not leave me alone? Jesus Christ!”
“I’m just here to take you home,” Dan said.
Fenn put his face in his hands, not to cry, but to take a very long breath, and then, exhaling, he said. “Alright.”

They went into the house together and Dan said, “It’s looking more like a home now.”
Fenn nodded and went up the stairs, Dan following him. When they reached the top of the stairs, suddenly Dan turned him around and Fenn pulled him forward, needing to feel his hair, to pull his face down to kiss him, to feel Dan’s arms around him.
“Are we going to do this?” Dan said. His eyes were wild and his breathing was heavy. His hair was sticking up.
This was his first love. Tom had lasted not quite ten years. But before that, in winter times, on Easter breaks, he and Dan would close the door, strip, and link their bodies. Now they were taller, heavier, the smells of their bodies… deeper. They had transformed into men, and there was something raw and fiery about Dan. He could feel the heat of his flesh from under his clothes. He had to be with him. And after all, this was the only man who apparently could actually stay out of bed with other men when he wasn’t around.
For answer Fenn began unbuttoning Dan’s shirt. There was a fierce look of desire on Dan’s face while Fenn took off his shirt, and then he quickly pulled down his pants. In the hall they both stood naked, before, with a brute force, Dan pushed Fenn into the bedroom, and they fell on the floor.


MORE ON MONDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! I thought Todd and Fenn were going to get together but I guess that doesn't happen for a while. Fenn and Dan seem to be about to have a good time together anyway. I look forward to reading what happens next! Excellent writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, well part of that was trying to give a surprise, and part of that was we had seen Fenn and Todd get together in previous books, and what I am delivering in these past sections is the things you've not seen.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Friends, it's happened. Without me paying the attention I should have, we've reached the final (but very long) chapter of The Ends of Rossford.

THIRTEEN



THE DEMONS ARE DEMONS​

He was half awake, and it was half light. Still not used to being back from the monastery, a part of Fenn thought, “But I should be up now. I should be saying morning chants.”
There was a little bathroom off the master bedroom of this house, one of the selling points when he and Tom got it. Now the toilet flushed and Fenn heard the running of water. The door opened a little and Dan came across the room, turned back the covers, and climbed back into the bed. Dan turned to him, throwing his arms around Fenn, gathering Fenn into this strength he never knew Dan possessed, burying his head in Fenn’s shoulders.
“What time do you have to leave?” Fenn whispered.
Dan kissed the back of his neck, and then kissed his shoulders.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Stop that,” Fenn told him. He turned around. Dan Malloy had the sweetest most beautiful face. His eyes shone even in this darkness, and Fenn touched a finger to the corner of Dan’s mouth.
“I don’t ever want to cause you scandal,” Fenn said. “I don’t want you to be in trouble.”
“Don’t you worry about me.”
“You’ve been here every night for a week.”
“Would you rather stay at the rectory?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Fenn said. He turned around and Dan turned around too, leaning over him.
“They always said God is love.”
“Actually, the Bible says that.”
“Well, I should probably read the Bible more,” Dan reflected. “But all I know is we heard about the love of God over and over again. And I never felt it. Not in the seminary. Not in my training. Not with any of my brother priests. It was a business. And it was hoping. Hoping that one day I would find this love. Living with… scraps of the love.
“But when I came back here, when I came to you, to be with you, then that was the love again. And all the care I have for you: that’s the love too.”
Dan twisted his legs with Fenn and held him close, his arms tightening around him.
“That night we came back here, and you let me in, that was the love. When I had to get dressed to go back to the rectory—”
“As you’ll have to do now.”
“When I had to go back it was the worst pain in the world. Going back to that bed alone was terrible.”
“Dan, I love you,” Fenn said.
“And I love you too! I always have. All those years ago I should have never let you go.”
“I think,” Fenn said to the wall, “I would have loved you less, then.”
“Huh? How’s that?”
Fenn turned around slowly. Dan lay on his side, his head propped on his fist as he looked on Fenn considering.
“You needed to be true to yourself.”
“I—”
“Shush,” Fenn said. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.
“You wanted to be true to yourself. And to God. To the voice that called you. If you had turned your back, I would have loved you less. And I do love you,” Fenn placed his finger on Dan’s sternum. “I love you more than I can say.”
Dan lay still under Fenn’s fingers, looking up at his lover.
“I have to do seven o’clock mass.”
“What time is it now?”
“Five forty-five.”
“You didn’t even look at the clock.”
“I don’t have to. It was five-thirty five when I got up and went to the bathroom. I know time. I never wear a watch.”
Fenn nodded.
Dan took Fenn’s hand, lacing his fingers in Fenn’s.
“Do you want to make love before I go?”
“We have time?”
“I’m good but I’m not that good,” Dan laughed, reaching into the drawer for the oil. “I’d like to say I take all day, but you know it takes us about fifteen minutes.”
Fenn laughed and said, “Alright then.”
He pushed himself out of the bed.
“I need the restroom.”
“Go on ahead,” Dan said, lying on his back, and placing his arms behind his head. “I already gargled and everything.”
“You were planning this?” Fenn laughed from the restroom, shutting the door.
Dan laughed in his low voice and said, “I’ve been planning it for thirty years.”

There was the yearning, stretching quality of their love, the body fusing power of it. Hands clasped, fingers linked, mouths pressed and tongues locking, flesh moving against flesh, suddenly laughs of joy, the explosion of seed, holding each other through the volcano, lying there afterwards, Dan with a cloth or Fenn with a cloth, wiping the other slowly, lying on their backs, fingers laced in the wonder of it all.
Dan leaned over him, kissing him.
“I’m going to Mass, love,” he said. “And you just go on to sleep. And later I’ll be back.”
And that was exactly what happened.

MORE TOMORROW!

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great start to the chapter! I know Fenn and Dan's relationship changes in the future but I like reading about them together at this time. I don't have much else to say other then I really enjoyed this portion, that was excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, even though Fenn and Dan's relationship is, technically a sin and Dan is full on violating his vows, I still love it. I think it is the romance we have waited for. It's been building up for the whole book.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THACKERAY AND DYLAN HAVE A CONVERSATION, RUTHVEN AND LOGAN GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER A LITTLE BETTER


AT FIRST, DYLAN WENT to visit Thackeray, and then he began to have Thackeray come to his apartment on the weekends. It was a chance for his brother to get out of Rossford and see the city. On Fridays, right after school he would get on the train and Dylan would pick him up on Randolph Street.
“I know how to take the El,” Thackeray said after a couple of times. “You don’t have to come all the way down here.”
Dylan ignored this. Of course he was going to come down here. He would have taken the train to Miller if it made sense. When Thackeray was in Chicago, but out of his sight, Dylan was uncomfortable.
“You can’t keep following him around,” Elias whispered in his ear.
On the weekends when Thackeray stayed, Elias and Lance slept in one room and Thackeray stayed with his brother. They talked long into the night whispering about this and that in half sentences, finishing each other’s thoughts so that Lance and Elias really weren’t entirely sure what the two of them were saying, and then they would go to Dylan’s room and talk some more, watch television and fall asleep.
“Are you awake?” Thackeray said one Saturday morning.
“Yeah,” Dylan yawned, punching his pillow, “now that you just woke me.”
“Don’t you have to get up and chant, anyway?”
“I don’t get up early for that on Saturdays. I think it’s all those years living with Todd.”
“Oh, well, I was thinking of something.”
Dylan turned around and said, “Well, out with it, now that I’m—” he yawned. “awake.”
“Whatever. You’ll be passed out in five seconds. Did you know you have a really huge boner.”
“Yes. Did you know you won’t see if you don’t look, you little perv?”
“Anyway,” Thackeray continued, “I was thinking, we should do a tribute for Mom.”
“What?”
“You know, a memorial or something.”
“And there goes my boner.”
“I’m serious.”
“I am too. I enjoy my morning boner.”
“Please, Dyl. She was our mom and we should… do something.”
Dylan turned around and plumped up his pillow.
“I tell you what? You come up with something, and when I wake up we’ll… put something in motion.”
“I knew you’d come around.”
“I have a hard time telling you no. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to try to go back to sleep and dream of something dirty.”
“Dylan?”
“That’s not helping me fall asleep.”
“Do you ever feel weird when you wake up with a boner?”
“Only when I wake up with my little brother.”
“Are you taking me seriously?”
“Arrrrgh,” Dylan turned around, looked at his brother and said, “Yes, Thackeray, I am taking you seriously. Absolutely.”
“Because you’re my big brother and you have to tell me things.”
“Like about sex? Because I’m gay, and unless you are too, I’m not sure what I’d have to tell you.”
“Well I mean, you’re a guy. You live with guys. Whaddo you do with the feelings?”
“Since, as you pointed out,” Dylan spoke through a yawn, “I live with my boyfriends, we have sex. That’s how that works.”
“But like before, when you were my age.”
“When I was your age—and I am not advocating this—I was having sex with Lance.”
“Oh,” Thackeray sounded nonplussed.
“Again, I’m not advocating it.”
“How old were you?” Thackeray asked him, “when you started?”
“This is a subject that makes me so seriously uncomfortable that you need to let me go to sleep so I can dream up some lie for you.”
“What about brothers telling each other the whole truth?”
“I never heard of that clause.”
Now it was Thackeray who yawned.
“I think I’m just gonna go back to bed.”
“That is an excellent idea.”


Logan hugged himself and yawned. He had slept too late, and past the warmth of the blankets, he could feel the chill. He stretched and then pushed himself out of the bed, grabbing his house coat.
“Are you cold?” he inquired.
In the bed, Ruthven Meradan knuckled his eyes and hunkered under the covers.
“I could use some heat,” he said.
“I’m going down to turn on the furnace.” Logan belted his housecoat. “It got so cold so quick.”
A few minutes later the gas was coming on, and in the kitchen Logan was scooping coffee into the coffee pot. Sheridan had once said, “It’s so easy to just make it the night before.” He had never learned that.
By the time the coffee was brewing, Logan was on his way back upstairs. He climbed under the covers and Ruthven muttered, “Damn, boy, you’re cold.”
Logan pressed himself into Ruthven.
“But you’re all heat.”
“You ever think of premaking the coffee.”
“Why don’t you? You stay here every night.”
“I kind of do, don’t I?
“Had you considered putting the coffee maker on the same floor so we don’t have to go all the way downstairs?”
Logan turned around and pressed his back into Ruthven as he thumped his pillow.
“You bitch a lot, you know that?”
“I just don’t like the cold. I’m a California kid.”
“You haven’t lived in California for six years.”
“I just went back.”
“Please shut up.”
“You’re harsh man. You’re fucking harsh.”
Neither one of them said much of anything for a while, and then Ruthven lay on his back with his hands behind his head.
“All you guys seem real down on Cali.”
“All what guys.”
“Guys in porn.”
“Because Cali was where we did the porn,” Logan said. “By the way, I hate Florida too.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
Suddenly Logan chuckled and turned around.
“What?” Ruthven looked at him.
“I give up, man. I give up on pretending to be too grumpy to talk. You’re like a crazy little Chihuahua. You’re just going to pull a conversation out of me.”
“Alright then,” Ruthven said, turning over and smirking at him.
Suddenly, Logan took the blanket down, just to Ruthven’s hip. He was so young and beautiful, and Logan’s eyes followed the small thread of gold brown hair from under his breast, to his stomach, to where it ended in the blanket. He ran his hand in wonder over Ruthven’s side and stopped at the wonder of the hip bone, at that place where the tight stomach ended and the thigh began.
“Am I still a Chihuahua?”
“You’ve been around for so long,” Logan murmured. “How the fuck did I never see you?”
Ruthven laughed uncomfortably.
“Stop that, man. Going on like I’m some… Mona Lisa or something.”
“Well, now you know I don’t go in for Mona Lisas,” Logan said.
Ruthven went red and turned his head away, pulling up his blanket.
“You can’t be saying stuff like that about me. You’ll make a motherfucker all vain and shit.”
Ruthven lay back down, looking soft and boylike.
“You wanna go some place interesting tonight?”
Ruthven looked up at him, raising his eyebrow.
“Where?”
Logan cleared his throat.
“The Butt Hutt.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Thackeray and Dylan had their serious conversation. I am also happy they are still so close. Ruthven and Logan seem to be getting along well. I like them together. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT IN ROSSFORD, A HOST OF SURPRISES

“This is definitely the oddest will reading I’ve ever been to,” Maggie said, untying the rag from her head.
“Though I confess it’s also the only one I’ve ever been to.”
Bill Affren was in a sweatshirt and ball cap, and sitting down on the edge of the sofa he said, “Mom dictated that everything be done like a housecleaning, and now everything she wanted to give away has been given away.”
“Except the money,” Maisy muttered, folding her arms over her chest.
“Maisy,” Bill said sternly.
“And the house,” she added.
Bill cleared his throat and began to read, “To my daughter Maisy Madonna Affren Baird, and to her husband, Russell I bequeath—”
“Mom was so not a bequeather—”
“I put that in there. But please listen, Maise—your father’s old leather suit case under the right side of the bed.”
“What the hell?” she began.
And then Barb left a lamp, and a golf bag, and cereal boxes, and Dena and Milo looked at each other when they inherited a crate of Coca Cola.
“Well, it’s mine, and I’m going to get that suit case,” Maisy said, at last.
While she was gone, Bill said, “and lastly to my great-granddaughter Margaret—”
“Who’s that?” Maggie said.
Meredith frowned at Maggie and said, “It’s you.”
“I forgot that was my—”
But just then there was a scream from upstairs and Bill, never once dropping the will, folded it and was running toward the stairs and his sister. But Maisy was coming down lugging the suitcase, and cackling. When Milo said, “Aunt Maisy, what’s up?” delirious with laughter, she collapsed at the base of the stairs and let the suit case fall open.
“Holy shit!” Robert swore.
“Damn,” Dena muttered.
Stacks and stacks of green bills fell out of the suitcase and Nell said, “It might be prudent to check all the golf bags and Coke crates and see what’s in them.”
So for the next twenty minutes everyone went hunting up the obscure things left them, and when it was done, the family sat in amazement, laughing, Dena and the children calmly stacked bills from the Coca Cola crate while Milo shook his head and muttered, “Grandma! Even to the bitter end.
Though he was flushed over the money, Bill reminded them, “We still have a will to read.”
“You witnessed it?” Milo said.
“Yes.”
“But you seem so surprised.”
“I didn’t know what she was putting in all that crazy stuff. I knew she had some game. And then I witnessed this last part. I was there when she wrote it, but I did know what it was.
“To my great granddaughter Margaret…”
Bill gave her an envelope. When she looked tentative, Dena and Meredith said, “Open it.”
Maggie, shaky handed, opened the envelope and her brows knit.
“What is it, Babe?” Ed Palmer asked.
Maggie’s mouth opened, but she didn’t speak. She just shook her head before handing the note over to Ed.
“Read it,” Meredith whispered to him.
Ed Palmer nodded and read:



“I was the youngest child of a father who hardly knew me, with nothing to my name when my sister moved to Rossford to live with our grandma. A year later I came so I could work, and that’s how I met your great-grandfather. Grandma died before the wedding, but she passed this house to me, the very house where she raised my mother. Her last name was Eisinger, and mine was Affren and now the house comes to you, Margaret Amelia Biggs. No matter what the names, five generations of women have lived in this house and now you will be the sixth.
Keep it well,
Grams.


“So this is where you started,” Ruthven said.
“Yeah,” Logan answered. “How’d you like it?”
“Is there a reason you said drink out of the cans, don’t get a mug?”
“Yeah. Because it’s hard to tell how clean these glasses are.”
“That’s,” Ruthven began, looking around, “what I thought.
“Ey, look at that poor kid?”
In the middle of the dark room some skinny blond boy in briefs swayed, and Logan said, “With promise he could end up where I am right now.”
Ruthven saw Logan’s wry expression and said, “Where you are now isn’t so bad.”
Logan shrugged, and then he said, “You wanna get out of here?”
“Get out of the Butt Hutt? Is there life outside of the Butt Hutt?”
“Just barely,” Logan said, shrugging and getting up. He left a fold of what Ruthven assumed were some serious bills on the table and said, “Let’s go.”

“It’s so beautiful out here,” Logan said while they drove through the back roads back toward Wallington and toward Rossford.
“Sometimes everything is just so beautiful none of the other stuff matters.”
Even though Ruthven’s eyes had been following the dark view, the trees with their leaves fallen, the reservoirs on the side of the roads, and the back yards of peoples’ houses, he said, “What other stuff?”
“I was going to tell you about my whole life, about my whole history, everything I had done. I was going to come clean.”
“I know everything you’ve done,” Ruthven said.
“Well, not everything.”
“You did porn. You were an escort. You don’t have to spell it out.”
“No,” Logan said. “I guess not.
“And then,” Logan added, “When I think of it now, it just isn’t that interesting. It really isn’t it. This night. Right here. Us. That’s interesting. And it’s over now. I mean, the way it is for Casey. I don’t think I’d ever be completely out of it. I don’t think I’d stop running Guy’s place. But I haven’t done one of those movies in a long time and… I don’t want to be kept by Larry or anyone else. I want my life. I want my lovers. I want something new.”
Then Logan said, “I want me. For the first time I want me.”
“When you said what you said, earlier…” Ruthven told him.
“Said what?”
The car moved over the bumpy road, and Ruthven leaned in to turn on the radio.
He heard:

Ooh baby I love your ways,
Everyday.

“I haven’t heard that shit in a long time.”
Ruthven had interrupted himself.
“Nobody loves my ways,” Ruthven cackled.
“Ey!” Logan sounded a little offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I dunno,” Ruthven shrugged. “It’s just…People don’t love me.”
“Can I love you?”
When Ruthven didn’t answer, Logan said, “Can I love you?”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Is it—” they ran over a bump, and Logan hit the horn. “Is it a fucking crime? I mean, whaddo you say? Can we at least… try?”
Ruthven looked out of his window and watched the shadows moving over the dirt road, the sliver of moon coming through the black trees, turning their limbs blue.
“Yes,” Ruthven Meradan decided. “I think I’d like that.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow that will reading had a surprising result. It was an interesting set of surprises though with the house and the money. Ruthven and Logan just get cuter. I hope they make it as a couple. Who knows. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, things have come full circle. Barb is gone, but her great granddaughter, our friend Maggie, has taken up her mantle. Good to see the Affren family together, and good to see Ruthven and Logan as well. Of course they make it. For now.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT A MEMORIAL SERVICE DOES NOT GO QUITE AS PLANNED


Lance Bishop had gotten used to Dhan Teras. The first day of Divali was on a Sunday that year, and Fenn had come up the night before. All the evening he and Dylan cleaned the apartment, aired out the room, and set sticks of sweet incense burning everywhere. Old curled up pictures which had been printed out on the computer were taken down and now, on the walls, fresh pictures of the woman in red, crowned in gold, holding pots of flowing gold, gold coins scattered from her hands, smiled. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, the Mother of the Universe.
About midmorning, Radha arrived from Aurora with her three children and with Matt Turner, her Catholic husband. He and Lance exchanged looks. It wasn’t that they were so Catholic, or that they had much of an investment in Jesus. Only, they had been taught there was one way no matter how drab that way might be. They would have felt a little squeamish in a mosque or a synagogue or possibly even in a Protestant church, but every religion they knew at least made a concession to being almost, kind of sort of Christian only in need of some correction. Jews and Muslims had one God, but a little trouble with his son. This apartment, hung with Lakshmis and Vishnus, where Elias was putting out little clay lamps for the woman in red, and lights and incense were being set up before a bronze image of a four armed woman, made no concessions for that God at all. He could be a god, an interesting idea for other people but, Lance considered, that downgrading pretty much ceased to make him God. Radha, dressed like something out of Gandhi, looked like a real Indian for once. He couldn’t say that out loud. She let Dylan place cum cum on her head and then she took a diaphanous shawl, placed it over her head and whole body like a tent, and sat down before the image of Lakshmi.
Some folks were still in the kitchen when she began to sing, not in that high reedy voice of the Indian women Lance had once heard when he’d gone to the temple in Lamont with Dylan, but in an American alto.

Bal budhi vidya dehu mohe
harahu kalesavikaar
Jai Ma jai jai ma!

And then here came Dylan, who was not dressed in anything Indian, just barefoot in a white shirt and baggy khakis. He came out of the kitchen with an unlit aarti tray singing:

shri guru charan saroj raj nij mane mukure sudhaari
varnao raghuvar vimal jasu jo daayaku phal chaari
budhi hin tanu janike sumirau pavan kumaram
jai ma, jai jai ma!

Now you couldn’t just run up and put your arms around Dylan, not in the middle of puja. But Lance wanted to. Dylan had the sweetest voice. He was the sweetest boy in the world. When he woke up with him he wanted to pull him close and lose himself in the sweetness of Dylan Mesda. When he woke up alone he wanted to go to Dylan, when he woke up beside Elias, amazed by his love for that boy, his first thought was of them going to keep company with Dylan. Dylan sat down while Fenn lit some of the little candles and placed them on the altar before that crazy Ganesh image, and the woman with four arms and the guitar. Elias was playing the guitar and Dylan had taken up the drum.

Laaye sanjivan lakhan jiyaaye
shri raghuvir harashi ur laaye
raghupati kinhi bahut badhaayi
tum mam priye bharat-hi sam bhaai

jai ma, jai jai ma

There was a light, but only symbolic tap on the door, and then Laurel and Moshe came into the apartment. The first day of Divali was food day, was gift giving day, and they wouldn’t be left out. What was more, sense Laurel was no Hindu that meant she could do some cooking and light work.
“Well,” Matt Turner gestured to Lance as Radha took up the singing, her children clinging to her and giggling.
And so Lance and Matt went to sit down on the floor.
Dylan was the love of his life. Years ago when his father had caught them together and Dylan had gone off to Chicago, to this city, it was when Dylan came back that Lance knew how he loved him. They’d gone out and had sex in the grass and Lance pressed himself deep inside of him and wanted to stay there forever, laying in that grass, the wind on his naked body, his hair, his back, his ass, the back of his thighs, his penis firmly in the tight hotness of Dylan, Dylan’s arms holding him, his hands gently stroking him, That’s when he knew Dylan was the love of his life. The heartbreak between that moment and this meant nothing. Jai, jai, jai ma.
When he thought he’d never find friendship or love, Elias, almost three years younger, showed up. He was so much older and so much braver than Lance, and one night Elias had made love to him. It wasn’t like anything else, because the other people he’d been with hadn’t loved him. Up until that point even Dylan hadn’t fallen in love with him. The experience of the younger boy, hands on his cheeks, coaxing love out of him, his seed shooting into, his body trembling with passion under the first person who had ever said, “I love you,” was the most important moment in his life. And it would have been Elias and Elias alone if not for the oddness that followed, the fear that Elias was too young, the feelings Dylan began to have, the dread that the new intensity would turn into the violence that had marked the end of the first relationship. And then there again, Elias, who was very like them, and very unlike them, very like no one but himself had brought them all together.
Peter Bishop did not go to college. He grew up on a farm and was a volunteer firefighter. He thought of himself as a very simple man, and this was probably why he was so easy with his only son. He just wanted Lance to be happy, which is what he told him when everything with Dylan had happened, that explosive year when they were fifteen and sixteen. When, a few years later, Lance had told his father that he and Dylan were together, his father had been overjoyed.
“He’s a good boy. He’s a solid man, and he’s always made you happy,” is what Peter said. It was his mother who was flabbergasted, but Peter just said, “Now, Ellen you leave him alone and stick to your own business.”
Having told some of the truth, he had to tell all of the truth, and so he’d told his father about Elias as well.
“Don’t tell your mother,” Peter said. “She won’t be ready for that.”
In Peter’s eyes Elias was “A solid young man with a good head on his shoulders,” and that was all that mattered. The three boys “were better than brothers and made each other happy.” Still, Peter had long ago decided that Fenn Houghton, with his theatre company, city upbringing and education, was someone worth consulting. He wasn’t like those academics that made you feel low, and he wasn’t a lady. He was, “a real solid man.” Solidity mattered to Peter Bishop.
The farmer’s son was deferential and at Fenn and Todd’s house said, “I understood when it was just Dylan. I think Elias is a good guy, but I wasn’t ready for that.”
“Neither was I,” Fenn said. “I can’t run my son’s life though, and this time around I don’t think he’s making a mistake. He’s just doing something I never could.”
When Fenn admitted that the boys’ living arrangement was just as strange to him, but that the happiness of his son was all that mattered, it was a relief to Peter Bishop. He didn’t know Elias’s fathers. He knew of them, that they were not pleased with Lance, but this could not be helped. He didn’t let it bother him. Lance Randolph Bishop was good, manly, handsome, sweet, honest, honorable, the light of his father’s eyes. He should have whatever he loved. If Peter could be right here, to see the look of love and happiness on his leggy, athletic, deep foreheaded twenty-three year old son, he would be most pleased.


The singing had stopped and now the living room was very quiet. It was filled with the smell of incense, and little lights burned pale in the morning light.
“Uh, Thackeray has something to say,” Dylan said. “Thack.”
Thackeray cleared his throat, looked around and took his hands through his dark hair.
“Well, Dylan and me lost our mom. I mean, we never knew her, but this is the start of a new year and, we’re together and that’s the one thing she did, and so we just wanted to… remember her for a moment.”
“There is a song,” Radha said. “I learned it when my grandfather died. It was what we sang for my great grandmother. Would you like me to try it?”
“Yes,” Thackeray said. But Dylan said nothing.
“Thank you, Mom,” Thackeray continued, “for giving me life, and giving me my brother, and doing the best you could. Thank you.”
Thackeray turned to Dylan. Dylan looked like he really didn’t want to do this, but he said as if forcing the words out, “Thank—you—Eileen.”
Thackeray nodded and then suddenly, Dylan said, “You fucking, crazy bitch! You irresponsible monster.”
He stood up.
“You fucked me up. Every fucked up thing I blame on you. You showed up for five seconds and then you left and never came back. You hid my brother from me. I am sick that I’m even related to you. I am sick that you gave birth to me. You—are—not—my mother. I don’t believe in hell, but I’ve been there, and I hope you go there too. I hope you are rotting there right now. I hate you. I hate you I—“
Dylan broke off, shouting, “Goddamnit I hate you!”
He turned on Thackeray.
“Why did you make me do this?” he shouted at his brother, and then turned around and left them all. His door slammed shut.
Elias and Lance were getting up, but Fenn put up a hand and shook his head.
Thackeray looked at him.
“Go to your brother,” Fenn told him.
Thackeray nodded and went down the hall. Fenn watched him and nodded. Thackeray made a small fist to tap on the door, but Fenn shook his head.
Thackeray turned the knob, and went in, closing the door behind him.
“It’s about their mother,” Fenn told Lance and Elias. “Only his brother can fix it.”

MORE TOMORROW, A SLIGHT CORRECTION BECAUSE THERE WILL BE MORE OF THE BLUE HOUSE TOMORROW AS WELL, NONE TONIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

You were right, the memorial service didn't go as planned. I don't blame Dylan for reacting the way he did. Hopefully Thackeray can help him let go of his anger or at least just help him to make peace with it. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow! I hope you are having a nice night.

 

[ChrisGibson]

We'll see what happens. Now on the other side of my own mother's passing, I understand Dylan even more.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WE ALL LEARN A LESSON OF LOVE

“Why did you do this? Why did you think it was a good idea?” Dylan demanded.
“And this is supposed to be the happiest day of the year! Well,” Dylan thought about it, “one of them.”
“I’ve been doing some reading,” Thackeray said, sitting down on the bed. “And you’re supposed to get up and take a bath before sunrise tomorrow, and then that day celebrates when Krishna defeated a demon who ruined the whole world. And I also think that after that, you make an image—and effigy—which is not to be confused with an apogee, that’s something else altogether—and then you burn it.”
“Thack, what’s your point?”
“My point is it’s time to let the demons go.”
Dylan looked at his brother.
“I didn’t even know I felt this way,” he said. “I didn’t know I was this angry. And now I’ve embarrassed myself in front of my whole family.”
“You have not,” Thackeray said. “Honestly, they probably wonder why you didn’t get angry at her a long time ago.”
“Look,” Dylan said. “I’m so confused. I LOVE our dads. I love our family. And we’re brothers. We have the same mom. She’s part of us, I mean.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Thackeray said, “we actually have the same natural father. He’s part of us too.”
“All of those years,” Dylan began, “when you didn’t have any parents at all. All of that time, and you still… forgive her.”
“I honestly don’t think of her,” Thackeray said.
“I’m not like you,” he continued. “I was brought up with people who didn’t have parents, and she never existed for me, so I didn’t really think about her. Why would I? She wasn’t around. When she turned up she was my way out, and I knew she wasn’t going to be around for long. I knew she was sick. I knew in her head she’d never been quite right. By the time she had me she told me about you. She was proud of you. She always knew what you were doing. So, I thought about you. And she said you had parents who would be my parents. So… that’s where my mind is. And really, now I just think of this sad woman who couldn’t get anything together. She could have just decided not to have either one of us. We’d be frozen embryos somewhere. Or—and this is he worst thing—she could have kept us!”
Dylan, whose eyes had been tearing for a while now, suddenly burst out laughing.
“Oh, God,” Thackeray shook his head. “Can you imagine? And all we would have known for family is Aunt Meg, and she’s okay, but I like the way things turned out.”
Dylan hugged his brother.
“What’s that for?” Thackeray whispered, having a very hard time breathing in Dylan’s embrace.
Dylan rocked him back and forth, unconscious of his physical strength or Thackeray’s inability to breathe.
“Where have you been my whole life?”
“Well,” Thackeray said, reasonably, “For the first six years I was frozen in a butter dish and then the last fifteen were spent in foster care.”
Dylan ignored this, and still crying, he just kept hugging his brother.

Dhan Teras night as many lights as could be safely left burning, burned. Tea lights and jar candles burned before Lakshmi. Little lamps, hung from the ceiling, gave their tiny sparks. In the kitchen and all through the house, candles were set up. Elias had changed the sheets in his room and aired the place out. He gave it to Fenn and Thackeray for the night. Midway through, Dylan climbed out of his large bed where Lance and Elias were and went to his father and Thackeray.
“It’s really beautiful in here,” Laurel said, her knees curled to her chest on the let out bed.
“I know,” Moshe said beside her. “We always go on about Christmas, but… This is something else.”
Then he said, “I have something for you.”
“Okay.”
Moshe leaned over and pulled something out of a bag. He presented a box to Laurel and opened it.
“There’s no better way to say this,” he began. “Would you marry me?”
“I don’t know,” Laurel said, simply.
“That was not what I was expecting.”
“I don’t think I want to be Jewish,” Laurel said. “That’s that.”
Moshe said nothing, and Laurel continued.
“Maia said even if I was Jewish I would never be a Jew. Or something like that. Even if I was white—”
“Oh, my God, are you serious?” Moshe said. “My family loves you. You know that.”
“Even if I was white,” Laurel continued, “I would have to pretend I was… you know, Ashkenazi. I would have to pretend to a culture that isn’t mine.”
“Of course you don’t have to. You’re just what you are—”
“But what I am,” Laurel said, “is not a Jew.”
“How do you know? You’re not a Christian. You don’t go to church.”
“God, that is the way you all think! It’s so tedious. For two thousand years you’ve been the people who aren’t Christians. The people who don’t believe in Jesus. Every time I show up to a synagogue or to a gathering Jesus is the three hundred pound Jew in the middle of the room no one talks about. I don’t want that either. I want to put up a Christmas tree. I… I don’t want to borrow your hang ups.”
“I have hang ups?”
“You wanted to wear a kipa while we were having sex. You have to rip the condoms open before sundown every Sabbath. We can’t touch light switches.”
Moshe frowned at her.
“I am so, so very sorry that my ways are such a burden for you.”
“It’s not even about that,” Laurel hissed. “And be quiet before you wake the house.
“It’s about your ways not being my ways. And about me needing to find my ways.”
Laurel hunkered back down in the covers.
“I’ve decided, Moshe. You’ll have to have me Gentile. Or not at all.”
“Are we supposed to pretend to not have heard that?” Dylan’s voice whispered.
“What are you all doing up?” Laurel shot up out of bed.
“It’s the second day of Divali,” Fenn replied coming into the living room. “Kali Chaudas. And we are about to bathe. Dylan first. Go in my boy.”
“I’ll be short.”
“Be short or long. Wake me when you’re done, and don’t forget to clean out the tub.”
Dylan nodded and departed while Fenn came to sit on the edge of the sofa bed.
“What is Kali Chaudas?” Moshe said.
“Satyabhama, the wife of Krishna, knew that a horrible demon wanted to kill him and destroy the world. Krishna was on his way to slay him, but she did the slaying herself and saved the universe. So on this day we remember the destruction of evil demons, the slaying of wickedness. We take a bath in oil water and are oiled afterward.”
“And you believe that?” Moshe said.
“You believe that a crabby old God who lived on the top of a mountain slew all the first born of Egypt and led your ancestors across the Red Sea?”
“I don’t really think about it. Being Jewish is just something we do.”
“And you wonder why it’s something my niece doesn’t?”
Laurel said, “It’s not about being Jewish. It’s about being anything. I don’t want to… just do something.”
“What else happens on Kali Chaudas?” Moshe said.
“People put on nice clothes and go and eat a lot, to celebrate that the demons have been overcome.”
“The demons are… bad things. Personified bad things?”
“The demons are demons.”
Moshe looked frustrated and said, “But… I mean, all the bad stuff in your life all of the hard stuff. Is that demons?”
“If you already know then why are you asking?”
Moshe opened his mouth, but Fenn said, “If I say, yes the demons are personifications of misfortune and sorrow, depression and every bad thing, then that is to not take demons or gods or the holiday seriously. But if I say the demons are demons, the devil’s running around pulling our strings, well then that doesn’t take it seriously either. You see? You’re looking for A and B and the truth is C. I don’t know how to explain C.”
“But no matter what,” Moshe said, “bad things will come again. I mean, there’s no conquering the demons once and for all.”
“No,” Fenn agreed. “When one goes, more return. That’s the way of life.”


I want somebody to hold my hand
somebody to love me
and understand
i want a woman
i want a lover
i want a friend
a woman, a lover, a friend

Fenn was barefoot with his feet in a platter of flour while Jackie Wilson sang. He had begun to walk across the carpet and stopped to say, “Me and your Aunt sang this song all the time.”
He said it to Dylan, and then turned to Laurel and said, “Your aunt too.”
He began padding across the carpet, leaving the powdered footprints of Lakshmi all over the house. As poetry it made sense to walk all the way up to the altar, and he put his hands together, rang the bell, and then nodded.
“I thought you were a Sam Cooke man,” Dylan said.
“Most of the time,” Fenn acknowledged. “But this is one hell of a song.”
There was a tap on the door and Lance answered it.
“Hey, Bren.”
“Happy Devali,” Brendan said, bearing Raphael by the hand.
“Where’s your partner?” Dylan asked.
“Sheridan went down to Kenny’s art show, and I’m headed down there myself.”
“We should go,” Thackeray said to his father.
“It’s not in Rossford,” Brendan told him. “It’s out south of Wheaton. Jonathan knows someone who knows someone and—”
“He got Kenny a show?” Dylan concluded.
“He did not GET Kenny a show,” Brendan said, still a little defensive of his old lover after all of these years. “Someone saw what Kenny did and liked it. Jonathan didn’t say much of anything to encourage it because he knows Kenny’s proud. But he got him exposure, and that’s what he needs if anyone outside of Rossford is ever going to see him.
“Raphael, tell Dylan what I taught you.”
The brown little boy threw his hands up in the air and cried:
“Happy Dwali!”
“Close enough,” Dylan clapped his hands. “If you’re here to see Dad, him and Thackeray are headed back in a few minutes.”
“Ouch,” Bren said.
He headed to Elias’s room, where he released Raphael’s hand and opened his suitcase to pull out a thick binder.
“Fenn, this is for you.”
“Eh?”
“It’s the book,” Bren said. “The way I think it’s going to be.”
“Now Bren, you know that you could have emailed this.”
Brendan shook his head.
“I don’t believe in that.”
“Well, in that case I’ll read this on the train. The ride is forever. What happened to Merell?”
“You’ll find out when you finish reading.” Brendan smiled.
“He and Jackson remind me of you and Ken. Or Me and Tom for that matter.”
“I was thinking about that,” Brendan said. “About how one thing ends, but the love stays. And I’ll just say right now, Jackson ends up happy.”
“Ends up happy or ends up not single?”
“I think in my mind the two were the same,” Brendan admitted.
“Maybe I’m just telling too much. Exposing that I don’t know how to be alone. All I know is Kenny loves Jonathan. It’s amazing. I never thought I’d be okay with him loving someone the way he loved me. Now I see it when they’re together. It makes me happy.”
“I believe that’s called a full circle,” Thackeray pronounced, his hands behind his back.
“Are you eavesdropping?” Fenn asked him.
“Not at all, Sir,” he and Fenn were the same height. “I was just here, and you just kept talking.”
While Fenn coughed on a laugh, Thackeray told Brendan, “Tonight, we’re going to Dr. Bryant’s concert. He’s directing the Regional Symphony in Bach’s Passion of Saint Matthew.”
“Yes, I forgot about that,” Fenn murmured. “I suppose I should catch a nap and then ask Todd to find me something nice to wear.”
They headed back into the living room.
“Is Dad as good a musician as Bryant?” Thackeray said.
“Sure he is,” Dylan insisted, but Fenn said, “You have a great musical gift, and so does your brother. It comes from Tom. You’ve played with him. You think of him as a very sweet, very dear man, and he is. But when your father was only a little older than Dylan he played concerts in Europe. Your father would never tell you this, but he is a very great musician. He once composed an entire score in his head on a train ride. That’s the thing about geniuses: they never know they are.”
Fenn had said this whole speech so calmly, with such matter of factness that suddenly Dylan knew why Tom had asked him to adopt both of his children.
On their way out the door, Dylan asked his father, “Have you ever told Dad all that? What you just said?”
“If Elias said the same thing about you would you believe it?”
“Elias never lies.”
“But would you believe it?”
“He wouldn’t say it. He might think it. But he wouldn’t say it.”
“Because it wouldn’t sound right. But if someone told you he said it… That would be different. That’s the relationship I have always had with your father. To him I was always the brilliant one. Tom has always had a hard time believing in his own brilliance. He never believed it when I told him how great he was. But… if he wasn’t what I said he was, then why would I have loved him?”

MORE ON SUNDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Thackeray and Dylan had their talk. I am also glad that they have each other in their lives now. So Moshe's proposal didn't go as planned? I am very interested to read what happens with that. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

There is a lot happening in the apartment on Magnolia Street, and Dylan and Thackeray have a great bond, but poor Moshe, nothing seems to be going his way or as he expected.

 

[ChrisGibson]

No matter how often he heard it, Tom always held his breath through the crescendo until the explosive:

WIR SETZEN UNS MIT TRÄNEN
NIEDER Wir setzen uns mit Tränen
nieder Und rufen dir im Grabe zu
Ruhe sanfte, sanfte ruh, Ruhe sanfte,
sanfte ruh!

Under the sonic boom of the orchestra, Tom heard the tinny sound of it playing in Bryant’s room when he came to Rossford and the two of them began their affair, making love in his bed on that hot summer afternoon.

Sanfte, sanfte ruht! Slatt, der Seelen
Ruhstatt sein Höchst vergnügt,
höchst vergnügt Schlummern da
die Augen ein

There was Bryant, aged fifty three, still tall, still handsome, his arms spread like wings. Beside Tom sat Fenn. Fenn had brought the sheaf of papers that was Brendan’s novel and, Fenn like, had been reading it for the last hour. But right now he put it down to listen to the singing, the strong music that fell into sadness. How sad, Tom thought, like the time when he had invited Bryant over and this very music began to play. Their cheeks went red, their secret music made public, and then Fenn had said, “I always loved this piece.” And Tom remembered it had been his long before it had been theirs.

We lay ourselves with weeping prostrate
And cry to thee within the tomb:
Rest thou gently, gently rest!
Rest, O ye exhausted members!
This your tomb and this tombstone
Shall for ev’ry anguished conscience
Be a pillow of soft comfort
And the spirit’s place of rest.
Most content, slumber here the eyes in rest.

“Dad,” Dylan had spoken to him that afternoon. “You should have heard what Dad said about you before he and Thackeray left.”
That Fenn really believed that… but he did. But… Tom could never accept it. He never believed that Fenn understood him, let alone revered him. How different would things have been if he had been able to believe in how much Fenn loved him? Ah, but it wasn’t worth wondering about it now.
When the music ended, when Bryant’s hands fell, there was a hush. Beside Tom, Chad sat still, not blinking through his spectacles, with the terrible concentration of a lover.
Then they applause began and when they began to stand Tom waited a while before leaning next to Fenn and saying:
“Are you crying?”
“Yes,” Fenn said. “A little. I can’t tell where this song ends and this book begins. Or where our lives are in it.”
Chad clapped louder, signaling that they should too and everyone did. But Tom said, “What do you mean?”
“When I was young I thought this piece was about Jesus. When I was not as young, I thought it was about Catholic guilt. Now I know it is about life. The happiness. The passion is all here. Here in this music, here in Brendan’s book. Because it was here in us. It always was.”

The Hamavdil flame so fat, like a rush, swept across the darkness of the room, twinkling on Rabbi Fromm’s glasses, shining over the gold in Marta’s beautifully tangly hair, over the length of Moshe’s serious face.
“Shavua tov!” Marta was the first to embrace and kiss Laurel. Every Shabbos she was with the Fromms there was this giddy embracing, this rejoicing, this drinking. Pouring one more glass. One more dinner. Marta came around to Laurel.
“Laurel,” she said in that beautiful, musical voice. “I have to talk to you.”
“I HAVE to,” The have to was always so expansive like she would absolutely die if she didn’t have the thrill of talking to Laurel. Marta Fromm was always this way.
She drew Laurel to the window seat of the house off California Street.
“You and Moshe aren’t talking,” she said.
“We talk.”
“Yes,” Marta allowed. “But not like you always do.”
“Well, things have been stressed.”
“Laurel,” Marta said in the closest thing to sternness that was ever in her voice, “I know Moshe has a ring. I know you saw the ring.”
“He told you.”
“He didn’t have to.”
Marta shrugged.
“When I met Douglas he was very Orthodox,” Marta explained. “My family was Reform. Did you know my grandmother was Catholic? My mother got religion later on. I had to do so much. I had to be re-converted by a Beis Din and everything to marry Doug. I went through hoops for him because I loved him.”
Laurel looked at Marta unable to believe what she was hearing. Was she saying, this sweet woman, that Laurel didn’t love Moshe enough?
“The Fromms,” Marta continued, “did not love me. And I learned something.”
Laurel waited for the woman who was holding her hand, so gently, to continue.
“I didn’t love me, either. I didn’t know me.
“Laurel, you are such a strong woman.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Like your whole family. You all are so strong. You all know who you are. It’s the most important thing to you, being you. I never had that.
“My husband so looked forward to performing your wedding. I know he did. And Moshe wanted that good Orthodox wedding. I think I did too. And the grandchildren? We’re going to want Jewish grandchildren. We can’t help that. But…
“A woman… she starts a child. She starts on a son helping to make him a man. But she can only do so much. And if she is good then she hopes for a good girl to come along one day and do the rest. Without you there is no Moshe. I don’t know if he knows that, but I do. And I don’t care if you’re Reform or Conservative of Frum or Catholic or…. Whatever. You are beshert. You two belong together. If you don’t marry my son, if you don’t become my daughter, I will be a very, very, sad rebbitzen.”


THAT AFTERNOON FENN met Dan in his office and they were leaving for lunch when the priest nearly bumped into a little girl standing at the door.
“Hello Darla,” Dan said.
He squatted down to eye level. “Is there something you had to ask?”
“It’s complicated,” the girl said.
“Well, don’t you have to be in class? Because I was about to take my friend to lunch.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fenn said, “I can wait.”
Dan looked up at Fenn. Somehow the look he was giving him was the same look he gave Darla. Love, approval, pleasure.
“Very well. Darla, what is it you wanted to ask?”
“Father Dan, how does Communion work?”
“Well, you know what Communion is,” Dan said, without a thought.
“It’s Jesus.”
“That’s right,” Dan told her.
“But it’s bread. So how is the bread Jesus?”
“Come here,” Dan held out his hand.
The little girl took it, and Dan led her across his office and sat her down in the chair.
“When your mom cooks you dinner, what does that mean? It means she loves you, and that food is her love. Well, Jesus is the love of God. And when you go to communion that’s what he’s giving you. Does that makes sense?”
Darla thought of this, and then she said, “A little. But… it’s still a little confusing.”
“Big things are confusing. Even little things. We don’t get everything. We don’t have to. Your whole life there will be things you don’t get all the way. But you can understand a little bit. Do you understand a little bit of what I’m saying?”
“That Jesus is God’s love. That God loves us.”
“Right,” Dan smiled. “That’s all you ever have to get,” Dan told her. “All you ever have to know is that God loves you so much.”
Darla thought on this, and then Dan said, “Do you have any other questions?”
“Not for now.”
“Then it is time for some little girls to go off to class, and I will send a note to… Mrs. Naper?”
Darla nodded.
Dan scribbled a quick note and said, “Give this to Mrs. Naper. Don’t dawdle, and tell her I said you can come back anytime you have a question.”
The little girl threw her arms around Dan’s legs and then ran out of his office.
“Let me gab my jacket, and then we’ll go.” Dan said, looking after Darla.
But by the time Dan had grabbed his black coat and the black scarf, that made his sandy hair so bright, Brendan Miller was running into his office.
“Father Dan! Father Dan! Do you have a—?”
The ten year old boy saw Fenn and said, “Oh, I can come back.”
“No,” Fenn said. “Brendan, I can come back.”
“Fenn—” Dan began.
Fenn shook his head.
“Brendan, you seem like a man who has pressing business, and Father Daniel is just the person I think you need to see. I will be out in the hall.”
“Thank you, Fenn,” the boy said, and then continued to speak to the priest.
“My mother wants to get married again.”
“Alright?”
“She’s not sure if it’s a sin though.”
“Well now, Brendan, that’s really a matter for your mother to discuss.”
“She wouldn’t do that.” The boy sat in a chair. “And so nothing’s ever going to happen.
“Before you ask,” Brendan continued, “my new stepfather is actually my father’s half brother. And my father’s been gone a long time.”
“Oh.”
“So I would go from being Brendan Miller to Brendan Miller.”
“Your mother’s marrying your uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Does she love him?”
“Yes.”
“And you do too?”
“He’s the only Dad I know, really.”
“Tell your mother to come to me,” Dan said. “Tell her it is definitely not a sin.”
When Brendan was gone, Dan came out to Fenn.
“Is it really definitely not a sin?” Fenn asked him as they walked down the hall.
Dan shrugged. “It’s not a sin to me.
When they were outside Dan said, “Hey, you wanna go off for the weekend?”
“Where?”
“The answer is supposed to be yes,” Dan told him. “You’re supposed to say, wherever you take me is fine.”
“Well, then wherever you take me is fine.”
“Great.” Dan opened the car door for Fenn, and then went to the other side.
When Dan had fastened his seat belt, Fenn said, “Now where are we going?”
“It’s a cabin my family has. In Michigan.”
At the look on Fenn’s face, Dan said, “Relax, already. There’s electric.”
“And heat?”
“You think I don’t know you by now? And heat.”
“Is there a phone? Are you going to leave your number so people can reach you?’
“That’s not necessary,” Dan said as they pulled out of the parking lot. “It’s a weekend. And there’s Father Koffman.”
“But you always leave a number so people can reach you.”
Dan thought about that for a moment, and then said, “Do you mind that?”
“I’m not needy, Daniel. I don’t mind you getting calls at three in the morning or having to listen to children’s questions all day. That’s who you are. That’s why I love you.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever told me that before.”
“No?” Fenn said. “Well,” he shrugged, “it’s true.”

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