Warm Dark Stone

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! So Donovan is going to bed with Simon? Interesting. I am very curious to read what happens next. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow! I will be reading and commenting late as I am out most of the day but I will get here eventually. Have a great week.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, as you see, I'm just getting around to comments myself. I almost didn't get to posting. What strange days these are and I had to make up for them with a lot of sleep, so I understand busy ness and work. Yes, this is how I wanted this next business in the story to be looked at, as an interesting new development, and I can't wait for you to see how it develops. Two questions? Do you like Simon? And the next question is completely unrelated, if I re ran the last part of the vampire and werewolf stories, would you be reading them. I ended up changing so much that they turned into very different stories.

 

[CharmedFan28]

I do like Simon, he seems like an interesting guy. I would read the vampire and werewolf stories with changes so feel free to post them if you want to.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I think I will post them, because I feel like the first version was rushed through. There are a few other things that are going to be reposted to, like Jinny's retreat story, because it sort of leads up to something big I've been working on. I really like Simon, so let's see what happens.

 

[ChrisGibson]

He was irritated, bugged and could no longer sleep. He lay in bed bugged and bothered the way his mother did when she just had to get up clean house. She was always cleaning house, never satisfied till the stove was scrubbed and the closets straightened and then, when it was clean, rising to clean some more. He loved her, but he didn’t want to think about her, because that irritated him as well, and this was not the time to go on, in his own head, about his mother.
Simon was here, and Simon was more than beside him, the softness and warmth and kindness and love of Simon, the bones and flesh and blood and breath of him, white and pink and gold like a cloud, or like a spring morning, so unlike Cade in the delicateness and smoothness of his build, in the tenderness of his lovemaking, the peppermint on his breath, the cry like a bell when he came, and Donovan would never have gotten up except for this call, this bugging need.
When it was ike this, he didn’t bother to make coffee or get out a cigarette. There was no time for the bathroom, or maybe only just time to go as he turned the laptop on, and at this moment it was like a gift.. He’d better get to it now. There could be no day until he got to it, even if the day was Simon, placing his palms in the palms of his hand, joining his body to him.
He sat naked in the well appointed living room, the deep room with curtains pulled to let in the sun, and he began to type about a princess who lived in a castle by the sea with black hair and traces of blue in it. And the castle of grey stone with traces of blue in it as well. Her land had been a proud one, long ago, but now the people around had forgotten who they were. A young man came to her, the kind of man Donovan would love, He was short and broad shouldered with a stong chest and strong thighs, He had beautiful tilted eyes and a small black beard. He was not a lover though, not to this princess, nor was he a prince. He was magic and his story was long and deep. He came from a town that was run down like the towns around here. A town which was also on the shore, and jutting from the town was a long pier, and that pier ended in a pile of rubble which, itself, had been a great castle. These two, the young mage, and the Lady Manderly had many conversations about life, about what they cared for and what they did not, and Manderly told how she had several sisters, all with their intrigues.
He was startled to feel eyes on his back and said, “How long have you been there?”
Simon chuckled before speaking. “I didn’t want to disturb you. I woke up and wondered where you were.”
Donovan turned slowly to him, and Simon continued, “I was afraid you were gone.”
Simon stood before him naked, and Donovan was glad of this because he would have felt naked if Simon where in shorts or night pants, He felt naked now. Simon was so much thinner, and younger that him. Even in this uncertain light, his tender cock was thick, red tipped coming from the delicate bush of honey brown hair, and darker than the white of his body,.
“No,” Donovan shook his head. “I just had to… I am…”
“Driven, yes,” Simon said, blinking, his blue eyes smiling.
“You don’t have to explain being driven to me. It’s what I love about you. I’ll put on some coffee and—”
“I don’t really want to get up,” Don said. “It’s so early in the morning. I just had to write. If I didn’t obey the call nothing would ever get done.”
“Well, then I can put on the coffee and we can go back to bed,” Simon suggested. “We can make a morning of it. Be together. Later in the afternoon I’ll bring you back?”
It was said like a question, but it was really a plan, and they’d decided on it before Donovan was out of the chair. Catlike, Simon went to the kitchen and set the coffee maker, and Donovan loved his body, not watched his body or observed it, but loved it, the delicate back, the small of the back that went to the gentle roundness of the small soft ass he wanted ot hold, loved to caress when they were together, was making him rise again. Rise again. Rise again. Easter was next week.
That first time he’d seen Cademon Richards singing to children, walking them to snack, he knew he was in love with him, and the first time they were together smoking cigarettes, he knew they’d be best friends. That first night, when they had come back from walking, and the moon floated high and white in the blue heaven, and they had lain on the bed, Donovna knew he’d let Cade fuck him. He didn’t know that the heat of him, the need for him would make him hard as iron, and he would fuck Cade just as hard, strike him like lightning as their bodies huddled moaning and whimpering in a corner of the bed, almost silent as men fucking can be.
And the following Sunday, when he’d come to Cade’s houde and known Cade’s deception, seen Simon beside him, Cade had suggested. “He doesn’t mind. We could be together. We could all be together.”
And it wasn’t that Donovan was a prude. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had lovers before, but he remembers being disgusted by this. And he should have been. This was a whole surprise, he had come to Cade as Cade, not Cade as part of someone, The whole time they’d fucked in the dark and held onto each other for dear life, Cade had said nothing about this other man. He and Cade had gone through so much to not be fucked up, to be a real couple, and when they had finally decided on their life, when they were so new, Simon, alone and broke and perfectly lovely had come to them. He had come into their bed and even though, a while later, Cade said he didn’t want this, that he only wanted Don, and even though Don accepted it, that first time when Simon came, he felt complete. He felt completely free in the arms of those two men, free in giving himself to them both, free in Simon’s hands clutching his shoulders and releasing as he came, free in the exhausted sleep the three of them had afterward. He felt free everytime he was with Simon, free all that late morning while the sun came into his room through white curtains, and they shared each other and a sadness was in Don because he was convinced that Simon belonged with them, not alone in this house, but somehow, at theirs, He was thinking this the last time they made love, when he held Simon, damp hair pressed to his stomach arms around his waist, smelling sweet like a puppy almost, the way white boys do after lovemaking.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am enjoying reading more of Simon and his relationship with Donovan. This story is getting more and more interesting! Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thanks for reading. I'm just commenting this morning. Do you think there is a difference in this time around with Simon compared to last time? If there is, what do you think the difference is?

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER NINE

FOR THE LOVE OF SIMON


​

How can it still be so early, barely two when they are rolling over the cobble stone streeted hills that wind down to the house on Moore Street, driving slowly under the branches with their green, white and pink buds appearing, None of them has traveled too far in the last few years. Donovan has never traveled far at all, not farther than he needs to. At least Cade and Simon can say they weren’t born in Indiana. When Don met Cade he was working at the public school at the bottom of Moore Street by the river, and Don went home everyday by walked up the street the two blocks. He could just barely see the the school from the brick split level where he lived, which he said was as far as you needed to be from work. A block up from this began downtown, and quiet as that was, a beyond that was the gas station where a woman was shot, and across from it on the other side of Moore was the Taco Bell where the prostitute shot up heroin before dying in the bathroom.
But, back down to the safe version of Moore, by the river, closer to the school than where Don was living, and around the corner, up the hill, he and Simon now arrived at the house on Eastbrook, old and brick, cheap because it needed work and had come with a mouse problem.
When they came to the house on Eastbook and walked in the door, the five children who were in the living room immediately stopped what they were doing and made a circle around Donovoan.
“Mr.Shorter,” they all said in different little voices, though Marlayah’s voice always sounded accusatory and she said, “Mr. Shorter, where have you been?”
“I had to take a little bit of a vacation,” he said. “You know how you just have to get away sometimes.”
Marlayah, who was six, nodded her head and the beads in her braids jingled as she did.
“That’s what my mom says.”
“Mista Short,” Aceson, peanut headed, yellow, with a tiny face like an old man said, throwing his arms about his waist.
Donovan palmed the boy’s head and and he said, “Marlyllah, Ayla, Aceson, Fernando, Abigail, say hello to my friend, Mr. Barrow,”
“Hi, kids,” Simon said in that slightly loud nervous voice adults used for children.
“Do you know Mr Cade?” Marlayah asked, and Donovan said, “Actually, “Marlalyah, he knew Mr. Cade before I did.”
“Ayla, the smallest of them, slipped a book into Donovan’s hand and said, “Can you read us a story?”
“Have you been working on your reading?”
“Yes,” Ayla said, seriously. Her dark eyes were wide and reflective, her mouth in a precise mini frown.
“We’ve been being scollish, but I still like it when you read the stories.”
Marlayah slipped another hand into Donovan’s free one and declared, “Mr Shorter reads the best stories.”
As they pulled him in, Donovan said, “Help yourself to something to drink, Simon. I’m in their possession now.”
“Woah, woah!” Deanna called as they came in with Donovan and the other children stopped what they were doing and banded around him, leaping up to do something between a hug and a tackle. Donovan gave way and went on the floor in time to see Justin’s arms fling around his neck and Candac laugh as she grabbed his waist.
Cade was at a table with Joaquin, one of the few white kids in the set up, gluing together something and he shrugged and said to his partner, “As you can tell you were missed.. Hey, Simon.”
Donovan was on the floor in a loose mostly quiet circle of children questioning and being questioned by them, and Simon stepped around them, sitting down beside Cade.
“You all do this every day.”
“Ev-ry day. Well, Don does it everyday. I’ve been gone for a while. That’s why he needed some time of.”
As five or six of them shrieked at something Donovan said, and he put his finger to his lips, Simon shook his head.
“They take a lot of energy.”
“They do,” Cade said. There you go buddy. I’ll go hang this. You go play,” he told Joaquin.
“You’re looking really nice,” Cade said.
“So are you,” Simon told him.
“I’m just used to you being more formal,” Cade said.
“You know,” Simon gestured to himself. He was in jeans with a tee shirt hanging out of his pants, “Day off.”
“I forgot what you looked like casual.”
“A mess?”
“No,” Cade said. “Nice.”
It was strange. For four years they had been everything to each other, and now they wer nervous, almost like strangers. While they talked, Ayla began singing, “I’m scollish! I’m scollish. Look, I look so schollish!”
The little girl had made, as far as Simon could see, a pair of glasses out of black paper, and Donovan told her, “It’s not enough to look scollish. You have to be scollish.”
“I ate spinach so I’m going to be scollish!”
“I would be lying,” Simon said, ‘if I didn’t pretend to want to know what in the world they’re talking about.”
Deanna and Donovan were on the floor with the kids, cutting out more things from paper, and Cade whispered in a conspiritorial voice, “Once it was snack time and all we had was a bag of kale—”
“Gross.”
“Well, I suppose,” Cade allowed. ‘If you’re a child.”
“Or anyone else but you.” Simon interjected.
Cade made a face.
“Don gave them the last of my kale and told them it would make them Becketish. Cause Becketish people eat a lot of kale.”
“I did not know that.’
“Neither did I. Don’s full of fun facts. Anyway, Ayla started laughing, they all started laughing because they couldn’t understand the word Becketish. So the more Don repeated it, the more they thought he was saying Scollish, and then he decided that was great.”
“So scollish means Becketish.”
“No!” Cade said. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t mean anything! It means whatever it’s supposed to mean at any given time.”
“Shit!” Simon sat back and laughed.
“Am I schoolish, Mr shorter?” Damian asked, standing up.
“I’m Scollish,” Kingston, a little boy with a low ragged voice like a fifty year old gangster declared.
“I’m the most scollish scollish.”
“You’re allschollish,” Donavan insisted, and Kingston clapped his hands, happily.
“Don’s a fucking a genius,” Simon insisted.\
At that moment, Deanna crowned Marlayah with a pair of cow horns, and then next she slipped some on Fernanodo’s head.
“This is about to go to a funny place,” Don announced, standing up and dusting off his knees.
Simon screwed up his face and shrugged, looking at Cade.
“I dunno,” Cade said. “I just listen to Don.”
“Can I get some horns?” Aceson, the little boy with the face of a forty year old man asked.
“Sure you can, Ace,” Deanna said.
“This is the best day of my life!” she announced.
But soon Marlayah announced. “I got big horns!”
And Alya pointed to them and said, “Marlayah’s horny!”
“I’m real horny!” Marlayah agreed, smiling and clapping her hands.
Little Aceson jumped out into the middle of them, throwing his arms out like a star and cried, “I’m horny.”
“I’m horny too!” Kingston declared.
“Kingston,” Marylaah reproaced him, “you don’t even have horns. I’m hornier than you.”
“I’m hornier too.”
And then Fernando began to sing, “I’m horny! I’m horny!” and in a disorganized circle, the five and six year olds, somewhat falling on each other and then picking themselves up again, began to sing, “I’m horny! I’m horny! I’m horny!”
Simon’s face was red and Cade looked queasy while Deanna looked like she didn’t know what to do.
And then, calmly, so calmly he could almost not be hears, Donovan said, “Children?”
There were a few stray, “I’m hornies,” but now they were all looking up at him.
“The word is hornful. Because you are full of horns.”
“Ornvul?” Marlayah said.
“Orvil!” Ayla decided.
Don nodded, expressionless before saying, “Orvil.”
“I’m Orvil!” Ayla shouted, and then the children resumed their dancing, singing, “I’m Orvil1 I’m Orvil! I’m Orvil! I’m Orvil!”
Deanna gave a long sigh and Simon shook his head, murmuring, “Goddamn. He should work at City Hall.”

“Did they drive you too crazy?” Donovan asked Deanna after Justin’s mother had taken him home, and Justin ran back and hugged Deanna clumsily, and then, like a nut cracker, clenched his arms around Donvoan too.
“Oh no,” Deanna said. Then she said, “They can be… a bit much. Makes you think about having your own. Or rethink it.”
“Did you plan to be a mother?”
“I think it was at the back of my head. Now I don’t know.”
“Well, you know,” Don said, “you don’t have to have them twelve at a time.”
Deanna laughed and she thought, “I remembered Cade and Freddy as little, but I hadn’t actually had little children around me. You really have to give them you’re A Game.”
“The secret is you don’t,” Don said.
Deanna blinked at him.
“They’ll take your B game or even you C game. You just have to be there and sometimes they literally just want you to be there in the room. Hide the sharp objects, make sure they wash their hands when they come out of the bathroom. Things will be pretty good for the most part after that. Oh, and snacks. Make sure they have snacks.”
“They had Oreos today,” Deanna said. “Cade says once you gave them kale.”
“Ah… yes. Well, Cade needs to remember to do the shopping.”
“Have you thought about kids? The two of you? Your own?”
“I thought about it,” Donovan said. “They are work, I really know that now, and my heart gets light when its around four or five and I know they’re going back to their parents. The truth is, sometimes my hearts get a little less light when I know I’m going to have them all day. No, I don’t envy parents, I respect them, but I don’t think I want to be one.
“Are you going to stay with us for a while?”
“I’m going back to Ely tomorrow. To be with Mom and Dad. I was in Chicago, and I thought I needed to have that life up there, that I just couldn’t deal with coming back home. So I will go back home, and then I’ll go back to my apartment and remember that I have a family. I’m glad I came down or else I wouldn’t have had these kids and I wouldn’t have met you.”
“You’ll leave tomorrow evening?”
“Yeah.
“It’s not my business, but I’d prefer you stayed tomorrow evening, and then left the morning after. I don’t like the idea of you driving in the dark.”
“You’re kind,” Deanna said. And when Donovan protested, she said, “No, no, I’ve seen you with kids, so I know. I don’t mind driving in the dark. I love it, and I promise I’ll call or text to let you know I’m safe.”

“Don let me know he doesn’t much believe in politics,” Simon said, “Or in our mayor.”
“Well,” Cade shrugged and laughed. “You know don. You know Don very well.”
“All the time we were together,” Simon said, “you never said anything about my job, about politics, or whatever I did.”
“When we were together I never said anything about anything,” Cade told him.
“I always assumed you were smarter and better than me.”
“You did not.”
“I did. And I just always thought you were right.”
Simon nodded.
“And then,” Cade added, “you never asked my opinion. On anything.”
Simon still smiled, but he looked reflective.
“Well, that is right enough. I never did ask. I had a lot of ideas. A lot of bad ideas. And I’m sorry for that Cade.”
“Good thing about Don?” Cade said, “He doesn’t wait to be asked.”
Here Simon looked over at Don and Deanna and then Cade said, “What are you doing for dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah. Some people call it supper. It happens at night. Last meal of the day.”
“Ha. Yeah. I hadn’t planned anything really.”
“We hadn’t planned anything either,” Cade said. “Why don’t you eat with us, We’ll all plan something together. I don’t think it’ll involve actual cooking.”
“I like that,” Simon said. “I could go for some Thai or Italian or Indian.”
“I was thinking chicken or Pizza or Taco Bell, but sure.”
Simon shook his ead and chuckled.
“I’m pretentious.”
“You’re not pretentious. You just have a disposable income and good taste”
Cade thought about what he wanted to say next and then he did.
“Simon?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad Don stayed with you last night.”
“Good.”
“Real glad. I think… We love each other, but we know love is big. It’s not like when you and I were togerher. We didn’t love each other enough, and so we were always looking for love somewhere else. But… I know you and Don love each other. It’s different from the way I love him. Or the way I love you. And… yet…”
Simon looked a little nervous now, wondering what Cade was getting at.
“Deanna is staying here tonight. I love her, but she’s back after two years and I don’t feel like explaining everything. But, if you wanted to eat with us tomorrow night too, that would be great.”
“Yes,” Simon said, still not entirely sure of Cade, surprised by the dark haired man with the fringe of dark beard all along his fine face. “I can come over after work.
“Great,” Cade said. “And after dinner, if you wanted, you could stay. Stay the night like you used to. With us. If you’d like. Don would like. I would like. Would you like?”
Cade was not looking at him. His brown eyes had darted to Simon, and now looked at the table, one of his long figners was tracing a circle on the table with its remnants of yellow and red construction paper. Simon’s heart beat a little faster than it had in a while. He felt himself going firm in his pants, his skin flushing with happiness.
“Yes,” he said, “I would like it very much.”

PS. THE NEW CHAPTER HEADING SHOULD HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN POSTED LAST NIGHT.... MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am not sure what the difference is with Simon this time around. He just seems more sensible or something, I don't know. I like that Cade, Donovan and Simon are getting on so well and hopefully in tomorrow's portion they have a nice dinner and night together. Great writing and picture! I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I look forward to your looking forward---which sounds silly, but is true. I love this story and love your reading it. It means everything to be able to share it.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER NINE

His mind circled around the picture and turned away from it three times before he finally let himself go there. He had spent so many years pushing the image away. There was the old farm, just like in one of those pornos. There was always a farm in a good porno. And he remembered the blue water of the pond and more than anything else the hay, it was almost golden. In his mind everything was covered in hay, but that doesn’t make any sense, and even though he told people he came from a farm that was a lie. His mother came from a farm, and they went back there all the time. He came from a grubby Pennsylvania neighborhood that wasn’t poor enough to be a slum and not rich enough to be middle class. He can still remember how you see the trailer park from his back yard.
That’s evading too. That’s steering away form the picture. It should be a happy picture. They are all together. It’s innocent. It felt innocent. He and the twins, in the barn, the three of them naked together in a heap. Gerald and Harry—Harry because who wants to say Gerald and Herold, are blond like him, blue eyed like him,. Two years older than him. Harry wears a hemp choker. He might have been a pot head. He was bigger than the two of them. Simon is eleven or twelve, but hew wants to say eleven, at that age when if your older cousins say it’s fine, it’s fine. But then maybe he just wants to take away any of his own will, his own choice. He has a hard time looking at this story, and not because it felt bad, not because he didn’t want to be there, not even because they were doing anything wrong. They were in the pond. They were playing. Maybe a few things happened, and maybe they went to the barn because the barn was where no one would see them. But they were only sleeping. Their arms, tanned by the sun, their hair white almost because of the summer bleaching it, arms and limbs tangled together, passed out and pleased, young and hard, boners pointing up.
That was how their Aunt Jean found them. Herold and Gerald’s Aunt Jean was Simon’s mother. That was how Simon Barrow’s mother found him, when he was eleven or twelve, or more likely thirteen, naked and tangled with his cousin.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t shriek. She didn’t hit anyone. They just blinked, looked up, and then they saw her looking down at them.
“Get up,” she said, and walked away.
It was the most severe get up in the world. It shamed Simon to think of it even now. It soured him. It didn’t help that she never said a word about it, not to anyone. There was, for a long time, the fear that she would bring it up, that she would tell the rest of the family. But she simply chose to never bring it up again, and it sat on Simon like a sour stain. Sometimes he even wondered if it ever had happened, or if it was just a weird dream. It made relations with his cousins odd. He didn’t talk to them now.
He was no psychologist, and he also wasn’t the kind of person who believed you could blame your mother for everything, and he certainly didn’t imagine being caught by your mother laying naked in a barn with your two cousins would go down any better than it had. In fact, he thought of all the ways it could have been worse. But he was sure that this shameful moment had led to the other shameful moments, the subsequent foolishnesses, the other let’s do this, and lets try thats, the business of working so hard to be respectable and have a good job and be politically active and well dressed and drink the right liquor while filming himself sucking his boyfriend’s dick, making speaking engagemnts about gay rights and gay marriage at Unity churches the night after staging orgies and all night coke snorting sessions with his boyfriend. The barn was the beginning of the Simon who was getting his picture taken in the paper with the mayor in front of the new civil rights office on Wednesday while he and his boyfriend did drugs in a meth den all Wednesday night and ended up fucking on a bed with a stranger as the sun came up Thursday morning, and of course that boyfriend was Cademon Richards, whom he had left, and who didn’t get better or any smarter until he’d left him.
Here they were now, in the almost light of a new day. There was something about the light of Sunday morning, less harsh, more golden, but still not entirely welcome. The curtains held the light at bay. So many came to this house, and all were loved, but they were not here today. The house was silent. Deanna was gone. The children were gone. Noise was gone except the occasional passing car.
In the semi darkness, Simon treasure Don on his back, his arm sprawled out over the bed, another clutching the pillow. He looked at his brown back going down to the soft hills of his ass and his thick caramel thighs curled like a child’s. His hand caressed him and then he spread a blanket over Don who snored softly. On the other side of him he felt Cade, felt the firmness of his cock pressing against his ass, felt the heat of his belly and and the furnace of his chest, Cade’s long arm helped him stretch the blanket over Don.
Spring was here. Easter was in a week. The thunder had rumbled and it had rained all night, but daylight was here again. Simon huddled against Don, treasuring the softness of his body, pressing his cheek to Don’s and feeling Cade’s leg curl over them both as Cade scooped them closer to him, and they went back into slumber, and back into innocence.

THE NEXT PART IS THE CLOSE OF OUR STORY, A LONG SORT OF EPILOGUE BUT AN EPILOGUE ALL THE SAME... MORE TOMORROW NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent ending before tomorrow's epilogue! I am going to miss this story when it is over. Great writing and I look forward to the conclusion tomorrow! I hope you are having a nice week.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Usually, I announce that the story is coming to an end in advance, but this time around it surprised me too! I think the last part of the book will actually be a two day post. I don't know what the future of Cade and Donovan or Rob and Frey is, but I didn't really know I woudl see the magain, so who knows what will come in the future? It is sad to see them go, or at least start to, but also great to see the place they are in, and don't forget, every old story's end is the beginning of a new story showing up. For once I've slept all night, like a normal person, and it was good. I hope you have a good night as well, and a good day to boot.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THIRD
SCRUTINY


THE REVELATION
OF
DIVINE LOVE
IN THE
BODIES OF MEN​

“We found ourselves where we needed to be. The road was long. Maybe it has to be. Maybe that’s the way of the Cross.”

- Mark Young


“Am I late?” Sharon Frey asks, and Rob is not entirely sure if she is honest when she asks it. She looks so cheerful, and Rob thnks to himself that in the last few years he has revised his opinion of Black people. It’s so easy to tell when white people are lying. They smile broadly and push right through things, and he thought that Black people weren’t the same. But they are. They do it better sometimes, with a lot of chatter, and Sharon is blinking like she can’t wait to leave with them, but Rob wonders. And then he wonders does it matter? After all, Isaiah wouldn’t give a damn. He greets his sister with a, No you’re not late, a quick kiss and a, “Let’s get in the car.”
Sharon is not late, but she is later than Melanie and her two boys who are in their teens. They are slumped over in the liivng room, and the honey color haired woman says, “Get up you two slumps. Get up. It’s time.”
Earlier than any of them came Jason Henley. He arrived last night and stayed down the street at Javon and DJ’s home.. He will not be here for Easter, and so Easter will have to be this week. There is something about him. Rob acknowledged that even after the first time that Jason turned to him and said, “Let’s go out. The two of us. Let’s learn about each other.” Jason is tall, broad shouldered, mildly clumsy, sweet faced, and he always looks a little rumpled in a suit and yet, good at the same time.
As Melanie gets up, leaving her sons still sitting, she says, “Jason and the others are already at church.”
Sharon rides with them in Rob’s truck. She only came here to eat her brother’s danish and smoke his cigarettes. She doesn’t look like Frey, and she doesn’t look like Javon. She is dark and thin and very pretty with fine features. She says, “We’ll be riding in the truck this morning, and sits between Rob and Frey.
Melanie climbs in between them as well, and when she takes out a cigarette Rob says, “ I know you know you can’t smoke in my face when I’m driving.”
“You’re no fun. You smoke when you’re driving.’
“It’s not four people piled up in a cab,” he tells her and Frey shakes his head and takes the cigarette out of his oldest friend’s hand saying, “You know better than that.
“Where are frick and frack?” he asks of the boys?”
“They’re driving my car,” she says, shrugging. “It’s just to church. How much damage could it do?”

Just to church. This is the Sunday Rob will not go to Becket, or at least not go immediately. Josh is there anyway. He can accompany Dad to church, and he never really had to because Mom is always there. Today, the Freys make their once a year, or sometimes twice if you count Good Friday, trip to Saint Anthony’s for Palm Sunday Mass.
As a group they are resplendid and much happier than people who usually go to church, and the day is sunlit but Melanie notes that it is also, “Cold as fuck.” They are all picking up their palm branches , walking into the church and htne coming out, and gathering on the street until the choir starts to sing:

“Hosanna filio David: benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Rex Israel: Hosanna in excelsis.
“Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, King of Israel. Hosanna in the highest.”
Rob cannot sing, is embarrassed to sing, like most Catholics. Melanie and Isaiah, lifting their palm branches, look at each other and raise their voices high in song. They all march down Williams Street to the place where they can see the steeple of Saint Anne’s two blocks off and the congregation of Saint Anne’s is coming toward them.

“Hosanna filio David: benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Rex Israel: Hosanna in excelsis.”
“Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, King of Israel. Hosanna in the highest.”

Green branches flap about in the approaching spring. Now they are all gathered together in a hump of well wishing and expectation, and the choir from Saint Anthony’s has died down and the choir from Saint Anne’s is going quiet, and they all prepare to listen. This year, Saint Anne’s pastor reads from the lectionary his altar boys hold open for him.

“And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and came unto Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village that is over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose [them], and bring them unto me. And if any one say aught unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.
“Now this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophet, saying, ‘Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, Meek, and riding upon an ass, And upon a colt the foal of an ass….’”

Rob is used to feeling like an imposter. He is used to feeling like he doesn’t quite belong in a place, and every Sunday when he goes to Saint Augustine he feels that way. He felt it when he used to bring his father to daily Mass. He felt like his father was his excuse. I wouldn’t be here. I’m the guy on Grindr looking to meet someone in a dark room with no name and no story. I’m just here helping the old man out. But today he does not feel like an imposter. The Gospel has been read and apparently these two choirs have practiced together because all of a sudden, Saint Anthony’s choir begins to sing:

“Pueri Hebræorum,
portantes ramos olivarum,
obviaverunt Domino,
clamantes et dicentes: Hosanna in excelsis.”

While Saint Anne’s begins, right after them, in English:

“The children of Jerusalem
welcomed Christ the King.
They carried olive branches
and loudly praised the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.”


Like the nuns in the monastery, the members of both choirs make two lines, and then, more or less one by one, bow to each other before departing in opposite directions up Williams Street and now their concgregatiosn began to separate, heading back to their churches, and one woman says, “It’s so sad there are such divisions in the Church we don’t celebrate together.”
“What’s she talking about,” Rob asks Frey.
“Saint Anne’s is Epsicopalian, but she’s really just saying shit to say shit. The reason we don’t celebrate together is because it’s too many damn people to fit in one church. I mean, from a practical stand point.”
“That’s the gay church, right? The one we’d go to, if we went to church.”
“It’s a little more than that,” Frey said, “and besides, you do go to church, and today so do I.”
But just then the Saint Anthony’s choir began to sing:

“All glory, laud, and honor
To thee, Redeemer, King,
To whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring….”

He had Pat Thomas with Javon and DJ in the crowd. Pat came to him throwing an arm around his waist.
“Happy… Palm Sunday,Rob,” Pat said into his ear holding onto him for a while.
Rob had remembered that night when he had found Pat weeping in Frey’s arms, found Pat saying he didn’t know what he was or what he wanted to do.
That night, Frey said Pat would stay there, and he slept between them. It was all innocence but Rob had never seen that even the sex was innocence, that despite everything, he believed just like a straight person, just like some Catholic Midwesterner. They were all naked together, like children, and Rob just caressed Pat’s hair and stroked his shoulders and his hips and told him, holding him, it would be alright. Everything would be alright. Pat’s arms had wrapped about Frey’s waist and they had all held each other and there was no jealousy and no fear and none of the past, only mercy.
“Why don’t you stay here for a while,” Frey had said, “with the boys or with us.” Find your feet?”
Laying between them, loved by them, like a child between parents or brothers he didn’t know he needed, and Pat needed so much love, there was so much love that had been taken from him, he said, “I never ever had that chance. To find my feet.”
Maybe this is the gay church, Rob thought.
Pat’s love, his love for Pat that had been beaten and burnt but not destroyed, was like a ring. It was like Isaiah’s love for his sister, for his son, for Melanie and her two reluctantly happy teenage boys, flapping green palm branches. They were a family, a thing round and whole.
The blue sky was clouding a little, and Rob Dwyer was ready to get into the church and sit down. Jesus came to Jerusalem, and those who loved him in innocence waved palm branches. They didn’t know what was going to happen to him, or to them. They didn’t now what was happening in the coming days as they came through the gates to the Temple, or as Rob came up the steps and through the great door into the church.
They just knew love and hope.
It would have to suffice.


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

A beautiful start to the end of this story! I don't have much else to say other then great writing and I look forward to the 2nd part of the end tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I named all three parts, including the shortest, scrutinies because there are three scrutinies in the last three weeks of Lent, that the catechumen is supposed to look at and examine before getting baptized or confirmed at the Easter Vigil. So hopefully you've been able to look at yourself and this story and things going on in it and find your own scrutinies and points of consideration.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART TWO OF THREE

​

He had wanted to love God, but his heart was not pure. He knew for sure that his heart wasn’t pure and that was terrible because he knew that everyone else’s was. Well, not everyone else, but all the people around him who were so much better than him, holier than him. Even people like his brother who just didn’t want to be bothered with religion had their own sort of purity. So why was it, Keith McDonald wondered, that he was the one called to be the priest? And he was called. There was no getting away from it. He’d tried to date girls and that hadn’t done anything. He’d tried to be a regular college student, but as soon as he’d gotten his degree he was on his way to the seminary.
Seminary was where he belonged. If only he could be more like Jesus or be Jesus to the world. He wasn’t like other men. They wanted everything but Jesus and Jesus made you soft. He wanted this life, studying theology, running, jogging, playing basketball, the energy that Father Bart said kept the demons at bay. This was the life, studying theology, and reading St Ignatius, singing the Divine Office, spending a semester pouring over Saint John of the Cross. Lectio divina, even pronouncing the phrase. And above all, being with other men like himself, the first men he’d really ever loved being with, was the life.
He loved Mark Young. He loved the way Mark prayed. Yes. The way he closed his eyes and bowed and folded his hands and became all reverent, especially when they were alone, quiet in a church. He loved the set of Mark’s lips, and sometimes, sometimes he wished he could reach out and touch Mark’s hair. Once he had, by accident, and in that moment he’s almost been knocked off of his feet, a simple sweeping away of blond hair from Mark’s innocent face opened up things he had forgotten, the shadow moments he put away, the longing that terrified him that he couldn’t dare to think about too much.
They were free at the seminary. Later on he would learn from his sister who had become a nun after she’d been married and divorced and brought three children into the world, that it wasn’t like that for women. He and Mark went out all the time, but it was always to places like Dairy Queen or the zoo, a PG movie at the most. Keith didn’t know how to express his frustration, how he loved his time with Mark, but wanted more and didn’t know what the more was.
Mark was smarter than him, more honest than him. Mark had left his rosary in the chapel and Keith had come to bring it back, tapping on his door.
“Come in,” Mark said.
But Keith knew better. You weren’t supposed to go into a brother seminarian’s room, certainly not close the door behind you if you did. That was sacred space. But even as Keith said that, he knew this wasn’t the real reason. He knew it when Mark closed the door behind him. When a pent up vexation flooded Keith’s body and Mark said, gently, “You’re not the first future priest to come into another future priest’s room, Keith.”
Then he said, “You’re not the first future priest to do anything.”
Mark was so handsome, and he worked out all the time. They were always running, always keeping something at bay, and Keith felt stupid for not knowing what the something was till now. Mark’s tee shirt revealed the rills of his muscles, and his short shorts showed the strength of his thighs and calves, and more than that, much more than that, Mark’s body was beautiful, so beautiful Keith ached. But it didn’t matter because in the end it was Mark’s eyes, and the sadness in his face, the way Keith felt the few times he touched Mark’s long hands that effected Keith more than anything..
“I thought,” Mark started, putting the back of his hand though his golden hair, “I thought I could be good. I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thoughtr… I could start over. I haven’t done a lot. Not a lot of bad things, but I’ve done some things, and I didn’t really feel bad about them. I thought… I could give myself to God, as a gift, be pure. It’s… hard. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ramble.”
Keith kept nodding his head, feeling miserable, feeling like someone or something was squeezing him, and he just needed to be released from the torture he could not explain
“You know Cal goes and makes it with women? You know that.”
“He shouldn’t be a priest. Everyone knows that.”
“His uncle’s a bishop and he wants to be a bishop too. He could get a girl pregnant, and I’m tying myself into knots because all I want… all I want it is to serve God, but—”
Keith couldn’t stand it anymore, and he hoped he was right. He pulled Mark to him and kissed him, and the pain went away. The hard pressure that was squeezing all of his body like a vice melted away to one central hardness, one wonderful hardness and the pressure in his head went to the pressure of his lips against Mark’s. Mark melted in his arms and his mouth opened for Keith. He did not protest like Mickey had back in fifth grade when he’d called Keith a faggot and then shown up the next day and told him sodomites went to hell. Mark fell into his arms, and they just melted together, limbs linking, breath together, all tension gone, He felt like he was holding Mark up, or Mark was holding him. They were not making noise, not even opening their eyes.
They undressed quickly, only to cling together again, learning what love was for the first time....

There were transgressions against love. Love is faithful, we are not Keith would say years later. He would stand in vestments and tell his congregation God is faithful even when we are not. Because at that time he didn’t know God and love were the same thing, even if it said it said so in the Bible. And the Bible never said God and desire were the same, and so he never knew. The Bible never told him that when your head was on straight you didn’t betray what you loved.
Mark opened him up to sex. He was opened to the thrill of the orgasm, the pleasure of the body and, as he learned later on often happens, having found the pleasure once, he realized all the other times he had longed for it. Having understood desire in one boy’s eyes, he could see it in others who looked at him and saw a tall man, a well muscled, dark haired all American would be priest. Mark it was that he loved, but he fell in love with others briefly. Mark it was that he tried to make a life with in the seminary, but Mark wasn’t the only one he went to. Mark wasn’t the only boy whose eyes, whose parted lips conveyed something, whom he followed into a shower stall when the door was left a little too open a little too long. Mark wasn’t the only one whose shoulders he gripped and felt the rocketing as he came. Was there something innocent, or innocent isn’t the right word, maybe ignorant about those days, maybe freeing, knowing that when you made eye contact with that gentle boy in black across from you at evening prayer, the smile would be fulfilled in bodies locked in a small room an hour or so later?
He never told Mark. He knew it would hurt him. But he was already on the road to who he would be come. Deprived so long from something good, he couldn’t get enough. Told that all the sex he had was bad, but that sins could be forgiven, there wasn’t much of a healthy way for him.
“I can’t live like this,” Mark said, and when he said, “like this” he meant, “I cannot be a priest. I cannot pretend that I’m celibate and virginal and the whole time do what I do. I have to find my life. An honest life. Somewhere else.”
Mark begged him to come along, but Keith didn’t. He said God had called him here. He believed it, and there were years of mistakes and bad choices after that. A long time later, after his past had caught up with him, after he was worn out with pretending, he finally tracked Mark down. Mark was balding with grey in his hair but somehow more glorious to look at. The eyes were still there, more there, more shining. His body was still strong. The little belly seemed only a gain. Keith, now a middle aged man and no longer a boy, still loved what he saw. Mark was living in Chicago, running The Gay and Lesbian Spirituality Center. There was no anger in him, Keith had stayed for a few days but they had slept together the afternoon he’d arrived, both amazed by the easiness of their love for each other. The first time he’d slept with Mark a light went on in his heart, and it happened again, feeling free again and good again after so many mistakes at they lay in Mark’s bed with the fan twirling slowly over head. Keith said all of these things.
Mark only said, “We found ourselves where we needed to be. The road was long. Maybe it has to be. Maybe that’s the way of the Cross.”

Now it was almost forty years after that first night with Mark. But how could it be forty years from when he had first tasted a lover’s kiss, first marveled at the feel of warm flesh and muscle under his hands, first linked his body with another man’s and sighed with the joy of it, exhaled with the need of it, when they had kissed deep as life, and Keith stretched out across him, and his arms lay across Mark’s? All the gravity of his desire was concentrated in the stiffness of his cock while he pierced him over and over again and now, remembering Mark’s words, Keith thought, The way of the Cross begins and ends in this.
It always does. Here again, this sighing, here again, stretching himself out and embracing a man, his love, the lover it took so long to live with because it took so long to live with himself. It is a lie that desire fades, or at least, it does not for him. It takes longer to stoke, and perhaps a more expert hand, but it does not fade. He and Dan Malloy make love that afternoon, It is such a surprise. Dan has come in from fishing by the lake, and there is something always a little childlike in his lips, in his eyes, in the roundness of his face, even when the once bronze hair is grey.
“Hey, Keith,” he says, holding up a string of fish, “what are you looking at me so crazy for?”
But this is why, and they are together in this bed and together with all of their memories and memories with love and hope in them are a type of prayer, and Dan’s mouth moving, sounds escaping his lips, his eyeslids fluttering, is a type of prayer as well.
They shower together, hurrying to dress in white shirts and khaki trousers and get their vestments ready, and even as they are getting ready here comes Burt Fitzgerald and here comes Andrew Frye and here comes Patty Johnston, and they are bringing candles, and they are bringing incense and bowls for foot washing. Here comes Linda Richards with her tall son, Cade, the young man who walks by the beach, and he has brought a mischievous looking Black man with glasses, and a blond boy, soft and innocent like… like Mark, Yes. Tonight is Holy Thursday. Tonight, as the world darkens, they gather to love each other and remember the Lord’s Supper when John, the Beloved Disciple, leaned across Jesus and knew he was loved. Keith has always assumed that John was gay. There were wasted years, years when he hated himself and now he knows he hated gay men, but this is so sad he thinks, looking at the blond young man next to Cade Richards and thinking of Mark, because now Keith knows there is nothing more beautiful for a man than to be in love with another man.

​

AND TOMORROW NIGHT, OUR CONCLUSION Later tonight, more of Rossford

 

[CharmedFan28]

I really liked this portion! Very descriptive and a great read! I look forward to the conclusion tomorrow and more Rossford soon! I hope you are having a nice night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I enjoyed this part too. I'm afraid we're going to have a lot of Keiths tonight, Keith McDonald and Keith Redmond with Jonah. In fact, here he comes right now...

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND NOW THE CONCLUSION OF WARM DARK STONE


My cousin says come, I’ll show you this place. When we were young he was always showing me places. I remember the old days, when we were children and the whole world was magic, but back then we didn’t know other people didn’t believe that, and we didn’t have to work so hard to find it. Back then everyone loved Jesus, and the whole world came to Palm Sunday when branches waved, when we streamed into the church singing for joy and the sanctuary was all covered in red. White candles burned in brass candlesticks all around the altar, and we knew it was holy, but we didn’t know holy meant “Keep away.” We didn’t know all the things that would happen to us or all the things that would happen to the people whose lives were happening around us.
I do not ask Frey where we are going. He says he and Rob have been there before. He says, mysteriously, healing has happened before and will happen there again. I tell him, “But I don’t need healing.”
But this is one of those times when, having said something, I immediately realize it isn’t true. I can feel the brokenness in my back, and in the soles of my feet. I feel it like a tinge going up my side and to my wrists. Cade drives and I have Simon sit in the front beside him while I sleep in the back. The trip will not be quick.
We were at the house or at the house church of the two priests Cade’s mother said she knew. I wasn’t resentful or doubtful of going. I was willing except that I didn’t want to go to any church at all, But here they were, lifting up their arms in prayer. They looked, even though it was a house, like old fashioned priests, and when the dark haired one lifted the bread and the blond one genuflected, and a little boy rang the bell I was shaken to my core—which sounds cliché and it rarely happens—but I was shaken to my core. I hadn’t wanted communion because I hadn’t wanted church and I certainly didn’t want the Catholic Church. But this was something different, something on the outskirts, and maybe this was the Church I wanted and this was the Communion I needed.

So, when Isaiah Frey called me later that night, when we were at Linda Richard’s house with Cade’s sister and brother and with his father, and he said, “Are you and Aunt Anne coming to Mama’s for Easer?” and I said of course, he said, “Well, wait, Because I’m not in town, but I’m coming to town, so meet us in Wallington.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“I will not meet you now,” I told him. “I’m in Ely anyway.”
“Then can you meet us… in the morning.” It wasn’t really a question. “We have to get to Saint Clew before twelve. Not long before twelve, at least.”
I don’t ask too any questions. That’s annoying. Frey likes religious spots. So do I. It will be Good Friday . I say yes, and that means I’ve promised that Cade is driving back from Ely in the morning, driving all day really, and I’ve sworn Simon into the bargain.
There is no need to go into the details of us going back home to Wallington to get our things, of Simon coming with us because that’s what he’s doing now and city hall is closed and I’m glad he’s coming. And then we are heading for Wallington, and Simon has driven us this far, so by the time we get there and follow Frey and Rob and the boys, Cade decides to do some driving and relieve Simon who sings:

“Hosanna, hosanna to the son of David
Oh blest is he ‘
Oh blest is he who comes in the name
of the Lord.”
“Because I feel like we’re on a pilgrimage,” Simon explains, joyfully, the way I’ve never seen Simon before
We drive on for two hours and come into a land of rivers and a river half circling a castle, but the castle is a monastery, and this is not the Middle Ages. This is the beginning of things. The trees are all in pea green bud. The grass is the deep green of someone asleep just waking up, blue like cornflowers sparkles on the water. We are just in times for the midday Psalms.


“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,
and his kindness is for ever.
Now let Israel say, he is good.”

This is where we remain Good Friday and Holy Saturday. We stay for the Vigil and then, knowing we must all be with family in the morning, though Frey is going to stay s little longer, Cade and Simon and I head back. I need to sleep in my bed. We have been taken through the pageantry of kissing crosses and lifting crosses, of churches veiled in red and singing hymns together, of being emotionally wrung and praying all night in half darkness. At the end, when the lights come on it is too much. I don’t know what to do with myself. I have to sleep. I’m so weary I’ve been three days and all of Lent contemplating this change that I do not understand, this going from the dead into the living.
Simon sleeps in the back on our way home.
When we get home and I cannot sleep and I cannot stay awake, I get up and go to the living room to listen to an audiobook, something about conspiracy theories, and that was a stupid. Passing out on the couch, I have a restless awful sleep, dreaming of being chased by Nazis, of being terrified to go out at night .My parents go to Greece and I visit them, but tell them I have to get back because I haven’t let the dog out, and she must be worried. She had no idea I’d be gone so long. Even as I say that, I remember that dog died twenty years ago, but maybe if I get home quick enough, I can help her live again.
I wake up in a funk that I can only walk myself about the living room from. I do not feel like Easter. I do not feel like resurrection. I feel like fear. The fear that I will get the call that says my mother is finally gone. The fear that SARS or Flu is coming at last to kill me or kill us as it creeps though the world, the fear that we will be poor and on the streets, the fear that I’ll never be free from fear. The… What is this? The fear that I don’t know what to do with Easter the way I knew what to do with Lent.
I go out with scissors and a bag to cut flowers from around the neighborhood. It is four in the morning and sixty degrees. There are no cars driving, but many parked, and the air is that blue color of pre morning. I walk about looking for any flowers that don’t definitely belong to someone and can be placed on the small altar at home. I am a covert snipper, kneeling and slipping things into my cloth bag, a strange Christian hedgewitch. I feel light and loose and unsafe, like something that will slip away. I don’t feel like a child of salvation. I feel like confusion. Passing the parking garage that is darkened and shut down, I see a wide dark opening before a shallow dip of grass, and there is a blossoming tree. I go to it, pick the white blossoms and think, “Is this what Mary Magdalene felt like? That first Easter when she came to find Jesus at the tomb?”
I have never written an Easter story because I never understood Easter. I still don’t. I understand Lent and I understand mourning. We mourn every day. Dying and suffering, fear and betrayal I get. I do not get this resurrection.
There is the temptation to make Resurrection smaller, handle-able. I resist. I do not metaphorize it, or cut it down. There is the temptation to ignore it. Or maybe to sing the songs and ring the bells and look at the white and gold altar and the flowers. There is even the tempation to disbelief. What a comfort it must be to turn your back on the incomprehensible and unreachable, to not live in that space. There is the temptation to do anything but look at this empty tomb, but Resurrection is a different country. Resurrection is all that I see when I walk by the river on cold spring mornings. Resurrection is a hungry goose on her nest of eggs waiting for their hatching in forty degree spring time weather. Resurrection is fragile buds waiting to come. Resurrection is the memory of a spear in your side and five half healed bloody wounds. It it not the certainty that everything will be alright, not in the general every day since of the word. What it is… is the certainty that from now on the rules have changed and everything will be quite different.
I am heterodox but I am not no-o-dox. I am sometimes a maverick, but not an unbeliever. I have been feeling a hundred things for three days and right now, as I come back to the house I am not sure how to feel.
The front door is open, to my surprise, and Cade and Simon are standing there in pajama pants, Cade tall, his dark hair messy, arms folded over his bare chest as he shakes his bearded head, looking at me like I have a lot of explaining to do and he was worried but now he’s about to fuss for an hour. Simon looks boyish, his blond hiar tousled, and as he runs down the porch steps to embrace me I remember how tall he is too.
“What is this…. flowers?” Simon says, opening the bag and pulling me into the house as he takes it.
“For the house altar.”
“Oh, that will be nice. That will be wild. I mean, you stole them, but… Oh, Don, we were very worried about you.”
“You know I go walking, sometimes,” I said to Cade.
“Yes, but it’s four in the morning, and you were so strange. You… are strange right now.”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t think about anything at all. I felt… unmoored. Not secure. Like something flapping around and about to blow away. Silly of me to say that, but—”
“Everyone in this house knows what that feels like,” Cade silences me, kissing me on my head and closing the door firmly behind him, then locking it. Simon has put the flowers in three jars and put them all in the refrigerator, as I would do, efficiently. He comes and takes my hand.
In this night of heavenly love, I had forgotten earthly love, and how the two are one. That is the story of Jesus. Love is heavy. Love is warm. It is stone.
“Come on,” Simon says, squeezing my hand, and looking at Cade who nods, solemnly, “We won’t let you go.”

April 12, 2020 6:08 am. Easter Sunday

7/30/20 2:54 pm
Lammas Sunday, 3:42pm 2020

10/23/20 10:45 am