Part 39 (1/2)
”You're not going to distract me, Wiley Cantrell. This is about you and your male nurse. He's the first man in a long, long time that you've actually fallen in love with, and those are your words, not mine. How many times do you think that's going to happen to you?”
”He had prescription drugs!”
”It's hardly shake and bake, baby. Everybody does something.”
”I don't want that in my life.”
”Then tell him that and give him a chance.”
I sighed rather too heavily.
”Do you love him?” she pressed.
”I don't know.”
”That means you do and you don't want to admit it. Call that man. Unless, of course, you like wallowing in your misery.”
”I just want to be happy.”
”Is that your way of saying you'll call him?”
”I'll think about it.”
She got up, opened the fridge door.
”You got any beer?” she asked over her shoulder.
”I love it when you talk butch,” I said. ”When is your mother going to marry Mr. Eddie?”
”Never, I hope,” she said, putting two beers on the table. ”You know what the word you're looking for is, Wiley?”
”Well, no.”
”Poker. It'll distract you and I need the money. Where's the cards?”
”What makes you think you're going to win?”
”Don't I always win? We ought to go to the casino next weekend. I've got four days off for the July Fourth holiday. What do you think? If you'd pick up that d.a.m.n phone and call your boyfriend, we could introduce him to the wild side of life in Mississippi.”
That would would be fun, actually. be fun, actually.
”I can't think about that right now,” I said.
”But you'll think about it?”
I agreed I would.
”Find the cards so I can kick your skinny white a.s.s. I also need to tell you about Bryan.”
”Who's Bryan?”
”Just a lawyer I met, that's all. Now find those d.a.m.ned cards. I ain't got all night, sugar.”
55) h.e.l.lo, it was me
IT WAS WAS late when Tonya left and I lay down on my bed in my underwear, thinking about Jackson Ledbetter. late when Tonya left and I lay down on my bed in my underwear, thinking about Jackson Ledbetter.
I punched in his number. When it rang, I hung up, suddenly unsure of myself.
I wanted him. Sure. Needed him. Needed him. Or at last needed something. s.e.x. A friend. A distraction. Something. Anything. Or at last needed something. s.e.x. A friend. A distraction. Something. Anything.
I need somebody to love!
Well, that too.
I wasn't grieving for Kayla. I was sad, of course. We were inseparable as kids. But then we grew up and grew apart and drifted into much different lives. It would be wrong to say I hated her, or that she hated me. We just outgrew each other and the feelings of closeness and friends.h.i.+p stopped.
I felt sorry for her. She was the perfect child of perfect parents who had set impossibly high standards that she could not meet. Disillusioned, she had rejected them and everything they stood for. When she got pregnant, they tried to use her pregnancy to force her back into the straightjacket they had sewn for her.
She tried. I had to give her that. She allowed herself to be talked out of having an abortion. Carried the baby. Gave birth. But then reality washed over her and she cut her losses and ran and never looked back.
I could not judge her because I had been tempted to do the same. Had she not run off, I might very well have walked away from the situation. I might have somehow convinced myself it was for the best. I was, after all, a gay man. What else could they rightfully expect of me? And I had been one of the people telling her to have an abortion. Not that I wanted her to have one. Not that I thought it was right. It was simply hard to see what possible future this child could have under the circ.u.mstances with a mother like her and a father like me. I wanted her to know she had a choice; that she didn't have to let biology force her into decisions she was not prepared to make.
Ten years later, lying on my bed, it was hard to imagine life without Noah. Impossible, actually. I didn't even want to imagine such a life. I felt guilty that I had so much as thought of an abortion.
I was sad that Kayla had missed this, had turned her back on something she didn't understand, had shut herself off from what had turned out to be such a blessing. I wished I could have shared it with her. I wished she could have felt what it was like to be loved by Noah, loved by someone who was so wonderful and good-hearted. Now she would never know the happiness she had brought into the world.
Maybe that's what filled me with such bleakness and unhappiness. Now that she was gone, she would never have a chance to know the other side of the coin. And Noah would never have a chance to show it to her. His heart was so full of love and such stout determination. He could have walked her through it. Could have at least given her a taste of it, enough to let her know that she hadn't made a mistake; that despite her, despite me, the end result had been good. Very, very good. G.o.d had brought something good out of our foolishness, something we had never dreamed possible when we were in the thick of things. G.o.d had found a way to redeem our sin. Like Mrs. Humphries always said, The Lord was gon' find a way-and He had.
I stared up at the ceiling and thought of the heavens beyond, that ”place” where G.o.d lived.
These were weird thoughts for me. I chalked it up to the funeral, the need to make sense of what was ultimately senseless, my need to fit everything into a box and store it away in my mind.
Weird as it was for a gay man, I was a father, and I loved being a father. Loved that more than anything else in my life. I would not at all mind having more kids. I wouldn't mind getting gay-married, creating a happy home, adopting, creating a family. I wanted that more than anything else.
I was startled when my phone began to vibrate, then ring.
The man who could have made all of that possible was calling me back.
He could still make that possible, I thought.