Shawn's Law (24 page)

“Poor Shawn.”

“Yes—poor guy was so cut up about it. He told me all about it as he was coming out of the anesthesia.”

“I thought Shawn loved him?”

“He does. But if Harley doesn’t love him with the same passion, then he can get lost.”

“Passion? Oh, my God. Have you heard the stories about their passion?”

“No. How did you hear?”

“I had Shawn down in emergency while he was doped on Penthrox.”

“Ahhh.” There was a general consensus through the crowd at that. Shawn’s Penthrox antics seemed well known. I wasn’t happy to think that the details of my sex life were public knowledge. I blinked and tried to think of something to say, but the crowd didn’t need my input.

A woman in a nursing outfit and the name badge of “Penelope” crossed her arms in front of me and stated, “Irregardless of whether Shawn loves—”

Someone else butted in. “Irregardless is not a word.”

“It’s not?”

“No.”

There was a sigh from Penelope as she rolled her eyes. “Irregardless of whether irregardless is a word or not, I’ve heard that this Harley guy treats Shawn badly.”

What?
“What?” I cried as I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. The claim was too outrageous. “He said that?” I was staring with horrified eyes at Penelope. Several others around her nodded sadly.

Steroidal Man gave me a glare that promised retribution. “What did you do to Shawn?”

“Nothing,” I cried. “I never hurt him once. I’ve never physically touched him with anything other than love. I’ve never yelled at him in anger. How can he claim I treated him badly?”

Penelope’s well-plucked brows rose and disappeared under her dark fringe. “Did you or did you not think that Shawn was stupid when he picked up that octopus?”

I didn’t like the direction this conversation was heading. “I didn’t think he was stupid, it was just a stupid thing to do,” I said.

“So Shawn’s stupid?” she asked.

“No. I didn’t say that. It was stupid to pick up a blue-ringed octopus,” I reiterated.

“And it’s stupid that Shawn cannot walk across the road without tripping over a crack?”

I tried to keep from smiling. Luckily I had a clean handkerchief that day, as he’d bloodied his knee pretty well.

“See,” she crowed at me. “You’re laughing at our Shawn. You think he’s dumb.”

“No, no, no. Never,” I cried. “It’s actually adorable how out of six hundred people, only one person will trip over that crack in the road, and it’s always Shawn.”

“So you need to be his daddy, do you?”

I wondered if she actually knew what that meant in the gay world, but I caught her meaning. “No. Shawn’s an adult, not a child.”

“Irregardless of wheth—”

She was cut off again, by the same grammar nazi as before. “Irregardless is not a word.”

Penelope stopped and rolled her eyes again. “Irregardless of whether or not irregardless is not a word, you made Shawn feel small.”

“Oh.” Now the boot was definitely on the other foot. I was the one feeling small, with fifty sets of eyes watching me. “I didn’t mean to.”

Penelope pierced me with her laser eyes. “Irregardless of whe—”

“Irregardless is not a word.” This time several voices chimed in.

I tried not to smile as Penelope had to stop once again, sighing and huffing as she said, “Irregardless of whether or not irregardless is a word, you owe Shawn an apology.”

Irregardless of whether or not Penelope would finally accept that irregardless was not a word, she was right.

“I know,” I muttered.

“You need to crawl.”

“I know,” I sighed.

“He may not want to speak to you.”

“I know.” This time I was in total agreement.

The weight of those fifty sets of eyes was on me. I knew I had to do something big. I just didn’t know what. Before I could search my grieving and blood-raw soul, a booming female voice called out, “What’s going on here? How come my workers are all standing around having a break at the same time?”

I saw some of the faces pale, while others widened their eyes in fright. One brave person piped up, “Sorry, Mrs. Lees. We wanted to find out why Harley and Shawn broke up. That’s all.”

I noticed that no one had to explain who “Harley and Shawn” were. I was alarmed at how well I was obviously known in this hospital—and for all the wrong reasons. I saw a large Amazon push her way through the crowd, sending irate glances to the left and right. She gave a heaving sigh of discontent.

“Irregardless of whether or not—”

“Irregardless is not a word!” The volume of twenty voices chiming in to correct her speech made us both jump. We made eye contact—me afraid, her bemused. She pursed her lips in an unbecoming manner and growled.

“Irrespective and regardless of my incorrect use of words, you know what I mean. Now get to it, people.”

They scattered to the four corners of the hospital, leaving me to my fate.

I was thoroughly inspected from my shoes to my hair. I don’t think the hair or the open-toed shoes met with approval. I quaked with fear. Shawn laughs at me now and tells me that “Lee-Lee” could never frighten anyone. Who would be afraid of his lovely Lee-Lee?

I must remember to take Shawn back to the optometrist soon.

“So you’re Harley, huh?”

I remembered the mad farmers I’d stared down and straightened my spine. “Yes. According to my birth certificate, anyway.”

“What’s with the hair?”

I blinked. “A promise to my father,” I replied a little testily. Whose business was that anyway?

“So you’re never gonna cut it?”

“Not until he dies,” I told her.

Both eyebrows shot up.

“And how long are you gonna love Shawn for?”

That was easy. “Until I die.”

That met with approval. “So how you gonna prove that?”

That
was the big question.

Shawn

The part where Harley picks up the shattered pieces of my heart, one by one, and puts them all back together.

A
FTER
GETTING
out of hospital, I had many moments to wish that Harley was still around. I needed him.

After that moment of lucidity when I was injured, Mum retreated even further into her shell. It was hard because I wasn’t home to look after her, so she went to Lisa’s for two nights before Lisa rang the nursing home in frustration. Lisa cried at my bedside while I was in hospital, sobbing out her grief that she couldn’t manage our mother on her own.

Once I was out of hospital and back on crutches, Mum came home. But I needed a lot of help. The nursing agency upped their visits from three times a week to daily, but it wasn’t enough. Mum’s condition was worsening. Not only speech, but function as well. She needed help feeding herself, showering, and toileting.

The Agency counselor sat Lisa and me down and asked us if we had thought about “the next step?” We knew what it was—full-time nursing. With silent tears falling down Lisa’s face and with a large lump in my throat, we discussed the options, the costs, and the benefits.

I wished Harley were there to hold my hand.

After his visit to the hospital, I thought I would hear from him again. But it was ten days before he made contact. This time through the mail—a postcard from China.

I love you. I miss you. Forgive me. The front of this card shows the Chinese symbol for luck. I am going to buy you some.

Two days later a photograph in an envelope arrived. The slip of paper read:
I love you. I miss you. Forgive me. This is me fighting for freedom of speech in China.

The photo showed a group of people holding up flags with Chinese symbols on them. Harley was instantly recognizable in the crowd, his hand thrown up at the moment the picture was taken, obviously shouting something passionately.

My heart melted a little.

The following week, two letters arrived at the same time. I opened the one postmarked Burma first. Another photograph and another slip of paper.

I love you. I miss you. Forgive me. This is me fighting for gay rights in Burma. I want to bring you with me next time without fear we will be arrested.

I forgave him then. He put it in perspective for me. Here I was whining that my boyfriend was treating me like a little kid, yet I was childishly allowing him to do it. Never once did I stand up and say, “Hey. Don’t make me feel like a dickhead.” And what was Harley doing while I was sulking? Off saving the world. He was risking his life with his protests in countries where having an opinion could mean execution.

The second letter was a padded envelope with a variety of items in it—pens, bookmarks, laminated cards, coins, and many more. All with the same Chinese symbol on it. I assumed it meant “luck,” but to me it looked like an antenna on top of a TV.

Oh, well.

At the end of the week I’d received two more letters from Harley, and I knew he was (or had been—thanks for the quick delivery, Australia Post!) in India, protesting honor killings.

Monday morning, the postie brought me an official-looking envelope, proudly printed on recycled paper from an art gallery called “Art: Nature’s Way.”

To: Mr. Shawn and Mrs. Estelle O’Hara

You are cordially invited to attend the official opening of

Art: Nature’s Way.

An art gallery and exhibition center,

dedicated to showcasing

the best of Australian artists and their craft.

Please come and meet our resident artists:

John Lawson, Cherie McIntyre, Violet Balawindarra,

Johnny “Cockyboy” Cordell, and Daphne Clarke.

There followed a date and time, plus the address of a storefront in Mt. Pleasant. I was confused until I turned it over and saw some neat block writing on the bottom of the card:
Dear Shawn, I’m no longer in Subiaco. I’d love to meet the man who has my son’s heart. Regards, John Lawson.

He’d done it. Somehow Harley had done it. He’d moved his father’s entire business, just because I had the tiniest problem with the Council.

Okay. It wasn’t tiny. But compared to honor killings in India, it was. Yet Harley had made it happen. He’d made it happen
for me
. He changed the world.
For me.

And I lied to him.

I may as well hand in my testicles to the Great God of Masculinity. Real men don’t lie to their boyfriends.

Come hell or high water, I was going to that opening. Hell didn’t arrive, but the high water did. We had a sewer blockage for two days, and I had to move Mum to the nursing home for the weekend. I reminded myself not to take the Lord’s name in vain again or provoke him, because he sure delivered.

Harley’s packages kept arriving—a hand-carved piece of jade from Burma with an ancient symbol on it, a metal coin from China with a square center, a metal statuette from India of a cow wearing jewelry, a piece of stained glass from Pakistan, a woven piece of fabric from Tibet, and (my favorite), a plastic replica of a tiger’s penis. That one came from China too. When I googled it, it turns out tiger’s penises are in great demand and are great for virility in men. I guess having a plastic replica of one was about all Chinese medicine could do these days. I believe most male tigers are rather attached to their penises and don’t give them up easily.

At least, I’m attached to my penis. Very attached. I therefore have to infer that all males feel the same.

I rang Kris.

“Let me get this straight,” he told me when I’d finished my monologue. “The man is off protesting honor killings and the clearing of the rainforest. He’s standing up for the basic rights of humans, for free speech, and the right to be a homosexual without being imprisoned. He’s also, along the way, spreading the news of women’s rights, underage girls being sold into marriage and the underground slavery racket, and he takes time out to buy you gifts and send you postcards?”

“Kris? Are you about to say something nice? Or are you going to be not helping again?”

I could feel Kris’s smile from all the way over in Singapore. “Oh, definitely not helping.”

“Oh, good,” I sighed. “For a moment there I thought you were going to be a good best friend. I wouldn’t want you to change or anything.”

He giggled. “Can I continue?”

“By all means,” I told him. “I don’t think I’m feeling nearly as guilty as I should be.”

There was a pause as Kris obviously collected himself to speak in a gallant manner, instead of like a giggle-gurt. “So your man is off saving the world, and you’re acting like a whiny little brat because he yelled at you when you did something dangerously stupid right in front of him?”

I took a moment to think through it. “Yes. But you forgot the part where I pretended to be in love with my ex-boyfriend to drive him off.”

“Oh, let us not forget People-Eating Rory in all this. Because that man is obviously central to all our thoughts.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sarcasm just becomes you.”