The Blinding Light (24 page)

My jaw was clenched tight at the memory, and I stared out over the park, but I could see the stunned look on Patrick’s face in my peripheral vision. “You are joking. Hell, Jake. Did you go to the police?”

I scoffed at his naiveté. “You don’t understand the purpose of the pictures, Patrick. They were all taken in places where the girls could’ve easily been snatched. How hard would it be for a van to pull up beside Maria and drag her into the back and take off? Sure, I could tell the police about it, but they couldn’t do anything until one of the girls had been hurt or taken. It wasn’t an idle threat; it was a statement of intention. And how well could the police protect us all? We don’t have the money or resources to disappear. So I had a choice—give up my possessions or watch my sister or niece be hurt. It wasn’t much of a choice.”

Patrick nodded wisely. “So you paid it.”

“Of course. I lied to the bank to get a loan. I told them I needed eighty grand for a new car I wanted and that my intention was to do up my car and sell it to pay off the loan. The guy believed that it was only to be short-term, a couple of months. So we did up the loan for five years, and as soon as it was finalized, I sold my car and used all the money I had to pay up. I still was a bit short, so I begged a couple of mates for money, sold all my furniture and stereo and gym equipment. Everything went. I knew it would be tough, but I thought I could do it. I thought I could pay off the bank loan and rebuild my savings.”

“What happened?”

I rolled my eyes. “The company I worked for went belly-up a month later. So I took a redundancy packet and got another job in a panel shop. The guy was selling stolen parts under the counter, so I reported them and left before the raid, so I wasn’t caught up in the middle. Then I went and got a job at a veggie market and a couple of weeks later the owner’s son comes on to me—ugh! The man resembled a gorilla. So when I tell him no, he goes and gets me fired. Then there was a job as a courier rider in the city. They wanted me to courier drugs along with letters. I left before they could fire me that time.”

Patrick’s mouth was twitching. I turned to him in mock anger. “Are you laughing at me? I know I’ve had fuck’s luck with jobs, but that bloody loan is killing me. So Charlie gave me a weekend job, and I’ve been pissing around, doing some odd jobs and stuff until I got your job.”

“So how much do you still owe?” Patrick wanted to know.

I leaned forward and stared at nothing. “I’ve repaid all the money that friends loaned me, apart from six thousand to my friend Davo and two thousand to my mother’s brother. I have the loan down to about sixty-nine thousand dollars. The repayments are about what I get from housekeeping, so all of the money from The Tav goes to rent and food and shit. Mum still manages to drink most of her money away, so I’ve been keeping Maria fed for the last ten months, as well as topping up Lizzy when she needs it, and a couple of short-term loans to Ellie.”

“They don’t know, do they?” he asked. “About the photos and threats. They don’t know that you saved their arses, not just your mother’s.”

I was amazed at his astuteness. “No. Lizzy in particular has been scathing of my stupidity.”

Next thing, Patrick was on his knees in front of me, taking both of my hands in his. “Listen, here. What you did was not stupid. You were brave and loving and caring.” He laid his head on my lap. “You’re like some brave knight, rushing to rescue the princess. You have no fear and no thought to your personal loss. You just fight the dragons and keep living another day. You’re Prince Charming. You’re my Prince.”

I ran my hands through his blond hair and muttered, “No, I’m Snow White. You’re the Prince.”

He looked up in confusion, and I realized what I had said. Of course that demanded a round of explanations and soon he was howling with laughter over Charlie’s dwarf analogy. The only question was, who would be providing the poison apple?

I
NOTICED
that Patrick was quiet the following week, but each time I mentioned it he shrugged me off. I slept every night in his bed, only going home in the afternoons for a bit. I was getting addicted to sleeping with him. Besides, his roomy, queen-size bed was much better than my single bed at the flat, listening to my roommates have noisy sex or play music all night.

I didn’t know what I should make for Christmas dessert, so I tried a couple of creations on Patrick, making chocolate mousse one night and cheesecake a few nights later. Patrick was no help at all, since he declared them both divine and insisted I make him dessert every single night for the rest of his life.

I wish
.

I knew something was weighing on him, so I gave him plenty of cuddles and plenty of space to deal with it. He loved the cuddles and got upset with the space, insisting on spending every minute he could with me. He even came home early on Thursday so he could visit Mum and Maria with me. I thought it was a good idea for him to meet my maternal parent before Christmas Day—plenty of time for him to pull out if he needed to. But I hated the fact that Mr. Stubborn refused to take public transport, and we took a very expensive taxi ride that I wasn’t allowed to pay for.

To my astonishment, Mum was still off the booze and cigarettes, making it a record five weeks. She’d never managed both for so long in my memory. She was weak and pale, and her hands visibly shook, but she was able to make us all a coffee and sit outside for a while. She held a long conversation with Patrick while Maria and I had a silent exchange that consisted of raised brows, shrugs, head tilts, and confused shakes and nods. Mum was acting weird and neither of us could figure it out.

Finally, Maria said, “Jake, that cupboard door in the laundry keeps coming off. Can you have a look at it?”

I agreed, fetched the toolbox from the shed, and followed Maria inside. She showed me the broken hinge and disappeared into her bedroom with her phone to her ear. I smiled, glad that she was acting like a teenager for a while and not having to worry about adult stuff like alcohol withdrawal symptoms and shoestring budgets. The laundry room was at the back of the house, where the original back veranda had been enclosed to make a tiny nook. I grabbed the screwdriver and got to work. From my position I could hear most of the conversation between Patrick and Mum, although I couldn’t see them. Patrick was speaking.

“… so now he’s upset with me because I couldn’t decide whether I like the mousse better or the cheesecake. He’s been poring over cooking websites on my computer and I think he’s going to try some chocolate torte creation tomorrow, then apple pie or something. I’m not complaining at all!”

Mum laughed. “Oh, that sounds about right. He’s a great cook and a great boy.”

“Yes, he is,” Patrick agreed. “Now I’m wondering how to drop the words ‘lemon meringue’ and ‘pavlova’ into a casual conversation.”

They laughed together and Mum said, “So, do you like my boy?”

I could hear the smile in his voice as Patrick answered, “Definitely. I thank the heavens every day that they sent him to me.”

That made me grin.
Thank the heavens?
I would be making sure he thanked more than that tonight.

“Do you love him?”

Mum’s question out of the blue made me drop my screwdriver as the tips of my fingers suddenly went numb. The world tilted slightly, and I realized it was me, leaning until I could rest my shoulder against the washing machine. I stared at the white wall in front of me and held my breath waiting for Patrick’s response.

It wasn’t long in coming and was extremely matter-of-fact. “Yes, I do. But it’s too early to tell him that. He’ll never believe me. Besides, he has this distorted view of our relationship, that he’s not worthy or something, but at the same time he refuses to accept any type of help. I don’t know how to show him that I need him as much as he needs me.”

There was a pause where I imagined Mum nodding her head. “Yes. He’s always had to stand on his own two feet, never taking support from anyone. He’s had to, you see. I’m a bad mother. I loved them all, but I could never make it without help, and since no man ever stuck around, I ended up relying on Jake. It was unfair of me, I know, but at the time I was floundering, trying to find my feet unsuccessfully. Then came the day that I realized that Jake didn’t need me—he was raising the girls better than I ever could—and so I just crawled into a bottle and never came out. I wish I could go back and do it all over and make changes but….”

As she trailed off, Patrick softly said, “He still loves you, I hope you realize. He may try to be gruff with you and tell you otherwise, but I don’t think anything you could ever do will make that man stop loving you. He gives everything in him for those he loves.”

I was frozen in place, unable to move. Unable to do anything else but listen. Mum’s voice, when it came, was a bit wonky, but not sad like I feared. “I know. I just hope that he accepts help when the time comes. You seem to be a nice guy. I hope he realizes what’s in front of him and takes it.”

“I do too. So what about you, Corrine? Are you going to realize what’s in front of you?”

Mum didn’t even try to misunderstand. “It’s too late for me, Patrick. It’s too late for me to be a mother to any of my kids.”

“Rubbish! I’ve never had a mother. She gave me up when I was two days old, and for the last thirty-one years I’ve missed her not loving me every single day. You may not need to tie his shoes anymore, but he still needs a mother. Corrine, you still have a chance to take care of him. Never give up.”

“Did you… did you need a mother, Patrick? Was just having a father enough for you? I worry about Jake being gay—not having the chance to have a wife and kids. If he gets the chance to have a baby, will that child be disadvantaged?”

A baby? Me? What would I do with a baby? Put it on the back of my bike and ride around?

“I think it’s something every gay man contemplates, Corrine. Many never have the urge to have children, but others do. I know of people who have ‘gone straight’ just so they can marry and realize the dream of children. But I think society is at the point where stable gay couples with children are much more acceptable. Gay men have a lot of choices these days
—
adoption of overseas children, surrogacy, IVF
—
they’re all within our reach now. And from a personal point of view, I never lacked for a female presence. Max was rich enough to hire nannies for me, that’s true, but what a child really needs is that one person in their life who they know will love and support them through anything. I was lucky enough to have that with Max. I know that his love was unconditional. If Jake ever has a child, that child will never want for love, Corrine. That child will have a father who loves him, three fantastic aunts to spoil him, a big cousin to play with him, and best of all, he will have a grandmother to fuss over him.”

I tried to picture the happy family Patrick was describing—me as a father and my mother as a doting granny. The picture wouldn’t appear.

“Do you want children, Patrick?” my mother asked.

“I’d love children. But it’s virtually impossible. There’s no way in the world I could look after one by myself. I would need a wife—or a husband—willing enough to raise the child with me. I can’t even look after myself without help, let alone a baby. Until three weeks ago, I thought I’d never find someone I could love, and who would accept my disability without a fuss—and then along came Jake. I don’t even dare to think about the future now. I don’t want to scare him off.”

“Don’t underestimate him or yourself, Patrick. He’s brought you home and he’s bringing you to Christmas lunch. Those are not two incidental acts—they’re acts of trust and sharing. I think he already loves you. Now you just need to get him to align with you and your dreams. I’ve always pictured Jake as a planet. I know it sounds strange, but I’ll try to explain to you. A planet revolves around a sun. The sun just sits there and does nothing while the planet does all the work, revolving around the sun constantly. To me, the girls are the sun and Jake is constantly revolving around them. His life is dedicated to them. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that he’s less than they are, it’s just that he’s a planet and therefore different. He
needs
to revolve around something. Without the sun he has no light and without the sun he would simply go flinging off into space. The sun grounds him.”

I tried to wrap my head around Mum’s thinking.
I was a planet?

“On the other hand,” Mum continued, “I’m the moon revolving around the planet. I’m tucked in behind the planet, only coming out when it’s dark. I’m Jake’s darkness. Without the planet I’d be flung out to space, lost forever. It’s only the gravitational pull of the planet that keeps the moon on its track.”

Right… I think….

“But Jake’s sun is growing. If he isn’t careful, the sun will consume him. Jake needs to find another sun, and I’m hoping you can be that sun, Patrick. The girls are just about grown. They don’t need him anymore, but he needs to be needed. You’ll have to be strong and pull him out of his orbit and into orbit around you. Unfortunately, you may find that his moon follows him, but that should be okay, I think. My moon is tiny compared to your sun, something that only takes up a little bit of the planet’s time. And the old sun? Well, that sun’s about to split into three and fly off to find their own planets.”