Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (2 page)

I’m not saying the Forester Universe cities are in the United States. But if they were, this is where they’d be.

One of the things I didn’t expect as I got older was how much I would learn to value sleep, and how elusive it would become. Nights like tonight, I lie in bed and feel as though I am being taxed a minute of wakefulness for every one of my forty-seven years. Forty-seven: not so old. But some nights it feels older than others.

It’s not just the empty bed, either. I’m used to that. I can tell you with some measure of precision that the last time Eileen and I shared a bed was one and a half years ago. We were visiting Forester College to attend our son’s graduation and instead ended up meeting his gay lover.

I’d requested a single king bed with the hope that being forced to share would perhaps rekindle some of the affection that had evaporated from our marriage. Eileen viewed the king bed as a spacious canvas on which she could have her side and I mine. Until that last night, the one after the meeting in the restaurant.

Devlin was very nice, very courteous, and nothing I’ve seen of him since then has changed that impression. But at the time, it was something of a shock to both of us. We knew Wiley was gay, of course; there was no denying the denim jacket with the pink triangles, let alone the pride posters, the way his ears flattened and his fur bristled whenever Eileen mentioned marriage and cubs, the way he took phone calls from his boyfriends ostensibly in private, near enough the door that we could hear the affection in his voice for others that rarely surfaced for us anymore. But Eileen held out hope that this was a phase, because we had not seen the physical reality of his homosexuality. Wiley had never forced his boyfriends on us.

(Not that he did this time. He claimed Devlin came over of his own accord, and I believe that. Eileen did not then and does not now.)

I’m not proud of it, especially now, but I admit that after that dinner, my mind was filled with images of my son and Devlin, imagining them kissing, imagining them doing…other things to each other. Not that I wanted to; I couldn’t seem to help it. (I’ve since read that this is not an uncommon reaction when parents are first faced with their gay sons.) So when Eileen suggested we stop at the hotel bar before going to the room that evening, I agreed quickly.

We were about two hours past sober when we staggered back upstairs. Both of us could navigate being drunk pretty well by that time in our lives, but we’d gone past our accustomed limit—blown past it like we were teenagers again. And like teenagers, we pulled about half our clothes off and tumbled into bed. She had been crying; I remember the tear tracks in her fur and the shine in her eyes. Her nose inches from mine, her body warm in my arms, she breathed, “Let’s have another one. We’ll do it right this time.”

And that was the last time I made love to my wife.

Ex-wife, now. And we didn’t have another one, of course. It was the wrong time of year for her, first off, and second, she had been taking birth control for two decades. Even if she’d stopped that morning, her body wouldn’t have been ready in time. But I think back on that night often, sometimes when I’m lying in bed like now, and not just to remind myself what it was like to hold and make love to a beautiful vixen. What if we’d had another cub, as ill-advised as that might be this late in life? It’s hard to imagine even the miracle of another cub preserving a family that had already splintered, and harder still to imagine the poor cub growing up with the weight of that responsibility. No, even if by some miracle Eileen had become pregnant, I think we would have made the sober decision not to have the cub. Her health would be at risk, we would have decided, and we would be too old to be parents. Wiley wouldn’t fill in as a third parent to his little brother or sister; he might not even be a brother. In the end, we would have ended up in the same places we did yesterday, only with one more stick to throw on the fire, one more horrified spectator watching mother and son scream at each other.

It’s past midnight. I stare at the ceiling. Wiley left for Chevali this afternoon, back to his tiger, back to his life. I am proud of him, really I am, for his courage and his success, and I wish I could do more to ease his path. The explosion at his mother was about more than just our family, but I can’t ask him whether things are okay with Devlin, because he’ll bristle and snap that they’re fine, and that’s fair; I never talked to him about the problems his mother and I were having.

I think about Eileen’s face as we left. Mrs. Hedley remained as cold and un-otterlike as ever, but Eileen showed the strain of the day in her ears, her avoidance of my gaze, the distracted way she answered me. I don’t think she ever expected Wiley to explode at her the way he did, because that’s not how our family ever settled arguments.

Then again, we never burned each other’s things, either. I don’t know what to think about that.

It’s an hour earlier in Chevali. I could call Wiley, see if he’s doing okay. If there’s one thing I am pleased with over the past year, it’s been rebuilding the relationship with my son.

But no, reaching out would be a gesture of insecurity on my part. I can hear him now, “Why are you calling? Are
you
all right?” Or else I’d interrupt him in the middle of making love to Devlin. I like to think he wouldn’t answer the phone in that case, but at this hour, he might think it an emergency. Or he might answer just to be provocative. “Make it quick, Father. Dev’s got his paw on my—”

No. He wouldn’t do that. He might think it, but he wouldn’t actually do it. I grimace and turn to the side, looking for something to stop me imagining my son having sex.

By the side of my bed there’s a picture of him and me at a Dragons game. I don’t know whether he remembers that day, but I do. It was just the two of us, because Eileen never liked football, and if this were a story in a literary magazine I would say she was off doing something that day that portended our future troubles: a church bake sale, a National Organization of Wives meeting, something like that. But truthfully, I don’t remember what she did. I suspect she was writing an article for a local magazine, which she did a lot in those days.

The Dragons lost—they did
that
a lot in those days—and it didn’t matter. Wiley and I had the best time. I loved how quickly he took to the game, how he saw the patterns in it and could tell me which players were doing well. There was a portent for the future, if there were any on that day. I hope the smiles and the way we have our arms around each other may be a portent too.

A buzz hits my ears, low; it takes me a minute to identify the vibration of my cell phone. Maybe Wiley’s calling to tell me he got in okay, that he’s doing fine.

But no, it’s not his number on the phone. I breathe and pick up the call.

“Oh, Harold.”

Her voice is thick with sobs and, I think, liquor. She says my name with possessiveness out of habit, or perhaps I’m imagining it because I’ve always interpreted that little affectation of hers as possessive.

When we first met, at that gala where I was interning for her father’s company, I’d gotten her a drink and flirted successfully enough that she asked my name.

“Brenly,” I said. “Brenly Farrel.”

She sized me up and then shook her head. “No,” she said. “That won’t do. Do you have a nickname?”

“Er.” I didn’t know what to make of this. “My middle name is Harold.”

She turned her smile full on, and believe me when I say that twenty-year-old Eileen could smile with the best of them. “I’m Eileen,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Harold.”

I don’t think she’s ever spoken my first name, not in twenty-seven years. I once asked her what she had against it. “It doesn’t suit you,” she said.

I thought that charming at the time, that she saw something in me nobody else did and wanted to put a name to it. Now I think she wanted to make me into Harold rather than Brenly, and ultimately I disappointed her.

But right now, the miniature of the history of “Harold” is not relevant. “How are you doing?” I ask, inane question that I already know the answer to. But I don’t know how much she’ll tell me.

“How could he say those things? How could he accuse me—” She gulps. “He didn’t give me a chance.”

“He wouldn’t be that upset if he didn’t still care,” I point out.

“How can you say he cares? He called me names, he insinuated that I wanted to see him dead. He talked about that other person, that King person, some cub who died? Celia says she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I know.” And in the back of my head, I’m thinking,
you burned his jacket
. But she’s still upset, so I just murmur palliatives until she calms a little.

“Why did you call me?” I ask, again more to hear what she says than to find out the answer I already know. I wonder whether she’s lying in bed like me, or walking around the kitchen, or sitting alone on the big sofa in the living room.

She sniffles. “I couldn’t sleep. I knew you’d be up.”

Fair and honest, probably. But also behind it is this: I know our son as well or better than she does. Not that I think she’s looking for me to explain his behavior. She just wants someone sympathetic to complain to.

Looking back, it’s probably foolish to ascribe too much importance to one conversation, but there is one I remember clearly, and now I wonder whether Eileen mistook my comment about his belligerent, ostentatious dress for a comment about the sexuality it was displaying:

“I don’t see why we need to do anything about it,” I told her, when Wiley came back from college with his sexual preferences plastered all over his clothes and his attitude. “It’s adolescent behavior. He’ll grow out of it.”

“We can’t wait,” she said. “Beth Wornstead waited for her son to grow out of his drinking and now he’s in jail.”

We were lying in bed, keeping our voices down even though the white noise machine was on, and Wiley’s music was audible through the walls. I’d already stopped expecting that just because we were in bed together, we might do anything but sleep or argue. “He’s in jail for theft, and Wiley’s not doing anything harmful. He’s just acting out, wanting attention.”

“He stole that car while he was drunk.” Her ears were flat; I remember thinking how they always seemed to be down for one reason or another, but when Wiley was home that weekend, they never rose above the level of the fur between them. “What if Wiley gets worse too?”

“I don’t think he’s going to steal a car to go to a Gay Pride rally.” I was trying to be funny, because that usually worked with Eileen.

“I mean,” she snapped, “what if he actually acts on this? What if he catches one of those diseases?”

The worst disease gay kids were getting was the same worst disease straight kids were getting. That didn’t stop people who wanted to demonize gay sex, a group I had not previously counted Eileen among.

“I don’t like thinking of that either, but Wiley’s smart. I’m sure he’s being careful.” And here I tried to end the conversation, because I didn’t want to hear where it would go. “We
can’t order him around anymore. He’s grown up, he’s out of our household.”

“He’s still my son, and I will not let him ruin his life this way.”

Well, I was restrained enough to hold off on voicing the thought that remark brought to mind. For about ten minutes. Then she said something else along the same lines, and I said, “You realize you sound like your mother,” and then we weren’t arguing about Wiley anymore.

“Is that temper something new?” she wants to know now, five years or so later. “Is that why he was in jail?”

“No, he was in jail because…well, he couldn’t leave something alone. He provoked a fight.” It’s hard to describe the fight without mentioning Devlin or his parents, so I don’t try.

“He never used to do that.”

When he was straight, she means, but the statement is so ridiculous that it defies response for several seconds. I want to ask whether she ever actually talked to our sharp-tongued, quick-witted son, whether she sees that his refusal to accept the world as presented to him comes directly from her own fiery nature. He’s our son, and maybe he doesn’t have the best of both of us, but… “He’s doing the best he can,” I say. “He’s got a tough situation.”

“Well, he won’t accept my help.” I stay silent, and Eileen barely waits for me to respond anyway. “He never used to turn away from me like that. I should have insisted he stay at home for college.” The sharpness melts out of her voice. “And now he’s screaming at me and calling me—”

The sentence ends in a choked cough, or a sob. “He shouldn’t have used that language,” I say lamely. Twenty-five years of conditioning make me long to reach out and hug her—well, no. Saying ‘conditioning’ discounts the emotional bonds that are still there no matter whether I want to acknowledge them or not. I want to hug her and make her feel better because that’s what we’ve done for each other for the majority of our lives. Because I still care for her, even if I don’t love her.

“You were there.” She never slurs when drunk. It shows in other ways, in the excess of emotion bursting through her inhibitions. “You could have stopped him.”

“I did stop him. I took him out to the car.”

“You shouldn’t have brought him in the first place.”

“Eileen, how much control exactly do you think I have? Wiley is a grown fox. He makes his own decisions. If I hadn’t brought him, he would have come on his own.”

“He listens to you, for some reason. You could have told him to behave. You could have told him to give up this lifestyle.”

She’s hurt, I remind myself. She’s hurt and she’s been drinking. “It’s not a lifestyle. It’s the way he is, and—”

“The way he
is
isn’t what I’m talking about. God challenges us all and judges us by how we meet those challenges. His burden is these…feelings…but his lifestyle is his choice. He can change it. He can prove himself worthy of God’s love.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.” I let the words out before I can help it. “Neither does burning his clothes.”