The gloom settled in as soon as I closed the door behind me. It smelled musty, almost wild. The windows hadn’t been opened in weeks, I guessed. It was odd to think about, but I had never been in the house before: outside it, near it, but never in it. Mr. McPherson led me into the living room. It was darker back here; no windows. The only light was the television itself. “I was just watching the game,” he said, taking books off the couch. He set them on the floor and gestured. I sat down. He lowered himself into the recliner near the wall. “Want something to drink? I got scotch around here somewhere—,” he asked.
“No, thank you. I have to get back soon,” I said, and ignored how his face seemed to fall even further. “I was passing by coming back from the store. I thought I’d—I’d stop in.”
“Last minute things for dinner, huh?” he asked.
I smiled, “You know mom,” I said. It wasn’t until after I’d said it that I remembered he didn’t. He nodded anyway. On the screen, a man in a red jersey and white tights ran with the ball until a man in black jersey and gold tights knocked him down.
“Who’s winning?” I asked, even though the score was on the screen.
“Huh? Oh, umm—no idea, really. Mostly just have it on for the noise, you know,” he said. I moved to get more comfortable, and my foot knocked over the stack of things he’d moved so I could sit.
“Sorry,” I said, bending over to straighten the stack. I kept on moving things even though he repeated “Don’t worry about that stuff,” four or five times. I didn’t mean to read the letterhead at the top of the stack, but couldn’t help it. Delany Hospital it said in bold black letters, and just underneath, Mr. Peter McPherson. When I tried not to read that, as I shuffled books back into the stack, I read the bottom line: Dr. Emmet Baker, Dir. Psychiatric Evaluation and Services unit.
“So, umm, where—uh, where is Mrs. McPherson?” I asked, sitting up. His eyes had gone back to the television. His stare was blank, and eerie. He didn’t blink.
He turned his head to me, and though his eyes stayed that way, his lips moved into a smile. “Hmmm?” he asked.
“Mrs. McPherson?” I asked, looking back down the hallway. It seemed as though no lights were on anywhere in the house.
“Oh. Well. Hmmm,” he said, shifting in the chair, “It seems that Gwen needed some rest from—things. She, umm, she needed to go away for a little while.” He turned back to the television and the smile disappeared.
I didn’t know what to say. “How long has she, umm, how long has she been gone?” I asked.
Without turning from the screen, he said “About three years now, Mikey. Three years.”
I didn’t move. I wanted to know why no one had told me. I wanted to know where she was. I calmed down, though, slowly realizing that I didn’t know who would have known in order to tell me. I was the one who hadn’t been home in four years. I was the one who hadn’t even visited Pete the last time I was home, or the year before that. I looked back down at the stack with the letter on top. I hadn’t seen him, except in passing, since the day of the funeral.
The phone rang. I jumped. Pete didn’t move. It rang again. Pete didn’t move. “Umm, Pete?” I asked. He turned to look at me. The next ring made him jump. It was as if I’d woken him up. He got up and walked out of the room. The next ring sounded, then I heard his “Hello?” On the screen, a man in black jersey sprinted down the field, and almost made the end zone before someone from the other team dove at his feet, knocking him down just short of the line. The crowd went wild.
“Yes, I’ve been keeping up with the news about that. Have you—?” Pete said in the other room, then there was a pause, “I see,” he said. After a moment, “Are they sure? I mean, they’re definitely a boy’s?” he asked. “Certainly. Well, I appreciate your calling. Please let me know. Thank you,” he said. The voice sounded hollow. There was a thunk in the other room. I got up and walked that way. I came around the corner just as Pete did, and we almost ran into one another.
“Is everything, ummm, is everything okay?” I asked. He looked up from the floor, and maybe some writer guy somewhere would say it better, but his eyes looked like glass windows into an empty room.
“Yes. Everything is just fine,” again, the hollow voice, “thanks for stopping by, Mikey. I’m sure you’ve got to get home.” He walked me to the door.
“Okay. Well, Happy Thanksgiving, Pete,” I said as he opened the front door. He was still looking at the floor.
“Same to you, Mikey. My best to your parents,” he replied, and I was barely through the door before he closed it.
ELEVEN
I had just put the grocery bags on the counter when Sarah found me. She blew into the kitchen and put her hand under my elbow. That meant we were going to have a discussion.
The first time she did that I was maybe nine. We’d been playing with her dolls out back, and she’d started taking off the doll’s pants. She told me to take the ones off the doll I was playing with, too. I didn’t really care; they weren’t my toys. When I did, she put the two dolls face to face and started making kissing noises.
I got really upset about it. To this day, she and I don’t talk about that. I sat in shock for a moment or two, then dropped the doll and ran inside. I think I cried. Of course, my mother found me. When she asked what was wrong, I told her. I didn’t know enough to not tell her. I didn’t even know what we had done, to be honest. All I knew was that it made me very sad and lonely inside.
Mom went downstairs, and outside. I curled up and went to sleep. When I woke up and went downstairs, later, Sarah was sitting on the couch. She stood up and I knew: she’d been waiting for me. She walked over, took my elbow, and without saying anything walked me outside. Even though she was younger, she was always able to move me around wherever she wanted me. When we got outside, she whispered-yelled “We was just playin’ undress-up. You better stop being such a baby.” What is almost funny to me is that over the years, this never changed. No matter how many new words she learned, whatever new book she used to back up what she was saying, it was pretty much always “stop being such a baby.”
She walked me out of the kitchen and onto the front porch. She closed the door and whisper-yelled, still holding my elbow “What is this shit about you making me go to church, Michael?” Just like every time before, I had no answer, so I looked at my shoes. They looked so big and awkward when compared with hers. “Dad comes to me and says ‘your mother would like you to speak to Mikey.’ He says, ‘he’s going to ask you to come to church with us this evening.’
I shrug, saying “when he came out earlier, he sort of cornered me into asking you. He used mom as an excuse.” She looked down, shook her head, nodded, then looked back up. I knew a whole conversation had just taken place.
“Fuck,” she said, and finally let go of me. She crossed her arms, and looked at her car out by the curb. Then she looked back at me. For a split second, there was something else in her eyes; something I’d never seen before or since. Then she looked down, and said “Fuck,” this time a little softer.
“You could, I dunno, go,” I said. In my head, there had been more there, and different words, but somehow they just didn’t make it out. She looked up, and her face back to the one I’d always known.
“Michael, do you understand at all what I am going through? No, scratch that. You wouldn’t. You can’t,” she said, rapid fire, “I am gay, Michael. Do you know what that means? That means I have a history of oppression that goes back just as far as—you know what? I’m not even going to have this discussion with you. I’m not going to that—that—church,” the way she said it reminded me of the way most people say the word cockroach. “Since you let them get you involved, then you can be the one to go tell them.”