No Place Like Home (24 page)

I pushed him down on his back. “You were sleeping and I crept into your room, and woke you up with my mouth.” I illustrated, slowly and erotically, and like all men at such moments, he only made an incoherent sound, low and deep. He put his hands in my hair and pulled it around us, smoothed it over his belly, and I used the hair, too, laughing low in my throat at the strangled sound, which also gave a little more excitement.

“God, Jewel,” he groaned, and pulled me up to him, to his mouth, and I couldn’t be aloof or pretend to be wicked or playful or anything else. I kissed him with my heart on my lips and I tasted his and we made our way to joining with the ragged sound of hungry breath, crying out together when it was accomplished.

And in that single second, we both paused. Malachi lifted his head and I opened my eyes and we hung there, eyes open, lips softly greeting, once, twice, three times. I felt my trembling and his, all through us, and then we tumbled into the deep, taking refuge from each other in each other.

When it’s right, it’s so right.

Everything disappeared but Malachi, and the force of us joining. There was only now, this very minute, burning white and blue, with Malachi moving with me, in me, over me, through me.

Only him. Hiding and revealing himself, ducking away and dipping back for a kiss, driven to join, to take refuge, to relieve his pain, his loneliness here with me, and I opened all the way, taking the chance again, because it was impossible not to give that one thing that it was possible to give. Shelter. Peace for five minutes. A heart beating warm in the darkness. To take the gift of his sensitive hands, his giving mouth, the unbelievable, unmatchable pleasure of being with a man I really wanted.

Malachi and me. Me and him. Rain falling outside, patting against the windows, our hands sliding, lips falling on chins and necks and chests. Thunder and the hard, rocking, fierce motion. The smell of him and me, and the rain, rain wafting in light sprays over my face as I held him, his enormous body spent, his nose against my neck, his mouth in breathless, butterfly kisses over my throat.

When it’s right, it is
so
right.

We lay there, spoon fashion, ghostly light coming through the curtains like a blessing. His arm lay heavy across my side, his hand clasped in mine. My rear end rested against his hairy thigh, and against the hollow of my back, I could feel the damp softness of exhausted penis. In appreciation, I pulled his hand to my mouth, kissed his fingers. “Oh, that was good,” I said on a sigh.

He kissed the place at the base of my neck that gives me shivers every time, kissed it with that slow laziness of a satisfied man. He moved his bristly chin against the spot. “Told you,” he rumbled.

I laughed and shifted a little, rubbing my foot on his shin. “So you did.”

The long fingers slid from my grasp and moved to cover my breast, an easy clasp. “God, that’s nice,” he said, and his lips touched my back again. “So soft. Nothing in the world has that exact kind of weight. When I was about thirteen or fourteen, I wanted to have breasts of my own so I could just feel them all day long.”

Laughing, I turned over and faced him. Light caught on a swoop of hair and I lifted a hand to touch it. “Boys are so vulnerable to breasts. When Shane was that age, he kept downloading pictures of these women with triple Z breasts. Stripper variety. The most amazing breasts I’ve ever seen.”

“What did you do?”

The light edged his nose, too, and tipped the very edge of his lashes, hiding his eyes. I moved my leg over the outside of his to feel the slide of his skin and that crisp hair against my inner thigh. “We talked about it.”

“Yeah?” He moved his palm along my ribs, up and then down again. His toes touched my ankle. “What did you tell him?”

“That I understood why he wanted to look at those pictures, but that real sex was a lot better.” With one finger, I touched the edge of his jaw, wanting with a fierceness that surprised me to kiss him again. So I did. Slowly. “That no picture in the world can come close to the real thing.”

“Good answer.” He kissed me back. “And what did you think about sex when you were thirteen?”

“I didn’t.”

“Liar.”

“What does that mean?”

He laughed. “You’ve been thinking about it since you knew it was in the world.”

“I don’t know why you’d say that, Mr. Shaunnessey.”

“You love it, Jewel. Everything about it.”

“I do.” I closed my eyes to breathe him into me, the prickle of sweaty skin, the solidity of his body next to mine, the smell of him, the sound of his breath. “Yes,” I said, moving my hand and feeling the slight tensile shift in his organ against my palm, my fingers. “I really do.”

“So what did you think about when you were thirteen or fourteen? When boys are looking for breasts in size Z, are girls thinking about dicks the size of pogo sticks?”

“No,” I said. “I did want to see a penis, you understand, but my fantasies were about pressing my breasts against a boy’s naked chest. I thought I could be happy with that.”

“Like this?” He moved close. Crisp hair pinged over my skin.

I hadn’t thought of hair at thirteen. I just didn’t know how good it would feel. “Sort of.”

He bent and opened his mouth over one nipple. “Or was it more like that?” He suckled and let go, and in spite of everything we’d done already, a blip of arousal slammed between my thighs, and I laughed.

“It would never have occurred to me to think of that much.”

He lay back. “So who taught you to think of it?”

Dangerous territory, that. “Let’s not spoil this.”

“Will it spoil it?”

“Probably.”

“Why? Was he better than me in bed?”

I thought of the backseat of his Fairlane, and the hurried moments in an empty apartment borrowed from a friend. “No.”

“Then tell me.”

“You first,” I countered. “First lover.”

“Nope. I asked first.”

I sighed, turning over on to my back. “Jesus Medina.” Not
Gee
-zus. Hay-soos. At the sound of his name, a face long forgotten pressed into my mind. I’d loved his name so much. “He was the most dangerous boy in school—even had a tattoo around his arm. I was sure I could save him.”

“Save him from what?”

“I don’t know. Himself, probably. We worked together at a restaurant in town.” The moment rushed back. The table by the window, where it was so hot, the sun shining hard through the windows to light on his hair that was so long and straight, so black it didn’t reflect any color but white. He had lifted long, almond eyes, faintly hostile. Eyes that turned soft when they lit on me.

Jesus. A whirl of images came back. Those big white teeth that showed when he let go of his defenses and really laughed. The wide mouth and good lips, and a kiss that could melt diamonds.

I would have done anything for him. It made me quiet, remembering.

Malachi’s hand moved a little, prompting. “And what happened? Why did you pick him?”

As if there had been a choice involved. “I didn’t, really,” I said, and knew it was a lie even before he snorted. “Okay, I did. I knew from the first that he was the kind of boy who knew what to do, you know?”

“Yep.”

“I was still a nice Catholic girl at the time—thought I’d been pretty good at following the rules. But he just had this aura that made me think about it all the time, what real sex would be like.” I stopped for a minute, then went on. “It was his bare feet, actually. I was sitting with him at a party and his feet were bare, and they were so beautiful that I just wanted to touch him so badly . . .” I shook my head. “How weird is that?”

He only looked at me softly, his hand moving on my body.

“Now you,” I said, feeling revealed.

“Kimmy Johnson. She was twenty-three and I was sixteen.”

“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“I have a history of older women.”

“Thanks very much for reminding me.”

He chuckled, rubbing his chin on the top of my head. “Thought I’d died and gone to heaven, yes, I did. We had one seriously hot summer.”

I tried to figure the age difference—by then I’d met Billy and Michael. We were probably already in New York. It made me feel old, and I pulled the sheet over me.

He pushed it off, leaning close with that bad-boy grin. “Five years is a lot when you’re sixteen. Not so much in your thirties.”

“Forties. I’m forty.”

“Oh, well, then forget it. You really are old.”

His grin was wicked, wild, so free. I looked up at him, shifting my head on the pillow so that I could really see him, and I had one of those aware moments, a space of a few seconds that I could really be alive in, seeing his aggressive nose and the fall of his dark hair across his neck. I touched the length of his throat, realizing that this whole thing hadn’t been for him at all. I’d done it for me, and not because I was desperate for sex, but because I’d wanted to lie here like this with him, feeling whole.

Feeling whole. How could that be?

“The difference is,” I said, making my voice light, “is that you could have women who are twenty.”

“Nah. Twenty-year-olds are too idealistic.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

He shook his head. “They always think sex is love.”

I made an outraged noise. “That is so sexist, Mr. Shaunnessey!”

“It’s also true. How old were you when you fell in love with Billy?”

“Seventeen. Much younger.”

“Mmm. And would you fall now?”

I lifted up on one elbow, narrowing my eyes. “I don’t know. He was pretty lost.”

“Would you have sex with him?”

I thought of Billy’s long black hair, the depth of his eyes, the way he could get that expression on his face that turned my body to instant mush. With a wry grin, I said, “Probably.”

“There you go.”

“Have you ever fallen in love, Malachi?”

He pulled back and looked at me for a long minute, and I could see the worry in him that I’d asked such a question. “No.” And the way he said it, I could tell he meant it.

“How did you avoid it?”

A shrug. “I just have.”

“Never a twinge? Never even a bad crush?”

“If it gets there,” he said, “I leave.”

“Run.”

“Same difference.”

I smiled, suddenly very sure, and bent to kiss him. “What are you going to do this time?” I whispered, and rubbed the length of his belly with an open palm. I didn’t close my eyes, and let him see the amusement his little paper walls gave me.

He didn’t bother to protest, but pushed me back on the pillows, an edge of aggression to his movements that amused me even more, and I chuckled.

“I’ll figure it out,” he growled, and kissed me.

NANA LUCY’S NOVENA

Novena to Saint Therese of the Little Flower (Patron Saint of AIDS patients)

Saint Therese, the Little Flower, please pick me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me with a message of love. Ask God to grant me the favor I thee implore and tell Him I will love Him each day more and more.

The above prayer, plus five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys, and five Glory Bes, must be said on five successive days, before 11 A.M. On the fifth day, the fifth set of prayers having been completed, offer one more set—five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys, and five Glory Bes.

Chapter 17

Michael came home on Monday morning. From his bed by the dining room windows, he could talk to someone on the porch or see into the kitchen. It was the heart of the house.

He was weak but in good spirits that day and the next. Our whole goal—and by ours, I mean Michael’s, mine, my family’s—was to see him strong enough by Saturday to go to at least part of the wedding and reception. Shane had already volunteered to be the one to bring him home when he got tired, bring him home and stay with him. He did add that he hoped it would be all right if Alicia, the girl from Falconi’s, could come with him. Michael and I exchanged a look over that, and Shane had the good manners to blush.

Michael rubbed his shoulder. “I’d love to meet her, kiddo. If she won’t be . . . bothered.”

“Oh, no. I can’t see why she would. It’s not like you’re contagious or anything.”

“Does she know what his illness is, Shane?” I asked.

He bristled, his accent equal parts, suddenly, of New York and Pueblo. “What, d’you think I lie about it?” His brows pulled down, heavy and dark. “You think I’m ashamed or something?”

“Nobody thinks that,” Michael said mildly, rubbing Shane’s back. “But it’s a small place. Maybe not everyone is hip as you.”

Shane looked up, his eyes wide with shimmering tears. “I’d rather I never had the chance to be hip to this,” he said.

“Me, too,” Michael said simply. He looked out the window, as if spying someone walking beyond the porch, and a gentle smile touched his lips. “But that’s the gamble, ain’t it? Roll the dice and see what you get.”

“It’s not fair,” Shane said.

“Why not?”

I went into the kitchen to finish rolling out pie dough, far enough away to let them talk, but not so far I couldn’t shamelessly eavesdrop. Shane had been circling this for days, and I was relieved that he’d finally been able to bring it out in the open.

“It’s just not,” he said now. “There’s a million people out there who are just a waste of friggin’ oxygen. Why can’t they be the ones to die of some killer disease? Why does it have to be you? Why’d it have to be Andre?”

Michael was silent for a long minute, but you learned when you talked with him to expect that, and Shane waited along with me. Finally, Michael’s low, gravelly voice drawled, “You figure disease should be a punishment, then? Cancer for murderers, AIDS for rapists, like that?”

Miserably Shane said, “Well, no.”

“I know you don’t think like that, boy. Judgment’s a bad road to walk, cuz sooner or later, you’ll be the one on trial for one thing or another.”

“I know.”

“Come on and sit down.”

From my spot by the kitchen window, I heard the scrape of a wooden chair against the wooden floor, and out of the corner of my eye I also caught sight of Malachi’s foot sticking out into my view. He sat close to the kitchen door on the wraparound porch. Michael wouldn’t be able to see him, but I suspected he knew his brother was there anyway.

Michael went on. “Lotta folks would say I was paying for my sins with this disease, and you’re gonna hear ’em say it if you haven’t already, so you may as well be ready. Don’t get mad, don’t think there’s anything to it. They’re just trying to find a way to make themselves safe in a dangerous world.” A pause, and I imagined Michael’s bony hand on Shane somewhere. “What you know, and what I know, is that there’s nothing safe at all about life, and you might as well go on and live it, instead of hiding in some corner.”

“But I’m going to
miss
you,” Shane said in a small voice.

“I know, son. But we’ve had good times, haven’t we?”

“Yeah. But I had good times with my dad, too, and I still miss him. It doesn’t help all that much to just remember.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I stopped pretending to roll out the dough, my eyes filling with tears. With a deep breath, I stood up and went quietly out on the porch, where Malachi was sitting on the floor, his feet out in front of him, his face sober. I sat down next to him and took his hand.

Inside, Michael said, “You believe in angels?”

“No,” Shane said with disgust. “I don’t believe in any of that crap. God and angels and voodoo. It’s all bullshit.”

In spite of myself, I was shocked. It wasn’t like I was a good religious girl anymore, but the idea of anyone not believing in some kind of religion made me really sad. It was my own fault, though. Had I ever taken him to church regularly? No. Another mark against my mothering.

Michael said, “When I was a little boy, my mama used to take us to Sunday school when she could. Wasn’t like she could settle in to one church or anything, because we moved so much, but when things were all right between her and my daddy, we’d all find some little bitty church in town and go.”

I looked at Malachi, my eyebrows raised in a question. In all my years with Michael, I’d never heard this story. Malachi gave me a rueful smile and nodded.

“D’you hate it?” Shane asked.

“No, I liked it. Made me feel good to think there was angels lookin’ out for me.”

“Whatever.”

“I figure,” Michael drawled, “that I can put in a special request, be your guardian angel till you don’t need me anymore. So then all you have to do is just holler, and you’ll know I’m there.”

Shane let go of a soft, heartbroken sob. “That’s just bullshit, man.”

“Well, I don’t happen to think so, but you’re welcome to your own ideas. Just remember I said it, all right?”

Next to me, Malachi’s shoulders were shaking, and I looked over, alarmed and afraid he was weeping, but it was laughter making him shake all over. It took everything he had not to fall over. Perplexed, I gave him a questioning look and he shook his head.

“I’ll remember,” Shane said.

Malachi lost the fight. He let loose a wild whoop of laughter and fell over on the porch floor. “The archangel!” he cried.

“Don’t you forget it, either,” Michael called.

In spite of that depressing little talk, Michael improved dramatically every day. It had been like this with Andre, too. Up and down, sometimes really up and really down, though when he started to decline, he’d been a lot sicker a lot faster.

Michael made me think of a candle, a white taper, slim and straight, the flame burning clean and dripless even to the very end. I tried not to think about how close he had to be getting to the bottom, but I alone understood what his T-cell count meant. His burning improvement was an illusion. Or maybe, like a dog or a cat that simply goes to the end, happily ignorant of the progression of its disease, he was living every day. Not such a bad thing.

On Friday, Malachi carried him to the river at dawn so they could fish. I stood in my bedroom window watching them, my fingers pressed to my mouth. Malachi carried his brother as if he were a child, and Michael, once so big and strong, let him do it. I was glad of that—that Michael was letting go of the aloof independence that had always marked him, letting the rest of us do things for him. He accepted our offerings in the spirit they were intended, a way to make his way, and our own, a little easier.

In the soft light of dawn, their dark and light heads together were beautiful, and I could imagine them as children, when it would have been Michael piggybacking Malachi. Brothers. Not that different from sisters, I guessed.

And I was suddenly and fiercely glad that I’d written to Malachi over and over and over to get him to come here. It had made Michael so happy to spend time with his brother, and from what I now understood of Malachi, he would never have forgiven himself if Michael had died without this chance.

Shane appeared at my door. “Whatcha doing?” he asked, and fell on my bed with a tangle of cats, putting his face against one, his hand on another, letting the third crawl up on his bare belly.

A wave of deep fondness rolled over me—he’d always been the
sweetest
child, with a depth of goodness and kindness that colored everything he did. He always watched out for the little kids in a group, keeping them safe as if he were the only one around to do it, and he stuck up for the weak and small, collected strays with an unerring eye. In New York, I would often have a litter of lost boys in my living room, begging for broiled cinnamon toast and popcorn and cups of tea I fixed for them while I listened to their stories. Not their real stories, of course, because boys just don’t do that. No, they just talked; talked and talked and talked, their eyes bright under badly cut or purple hair. At such times, Shane was loud and gave them a hard time and laughed, more or less ignoring me, but I knew why he brought them to me. It pained him that they didn’t have this little oasis of quiet and mother in their lives, and he wanted to share it.

This morning his eyes were swollen with heavy sleep, and his lip showed a shadow of dark bristles, and yet I saw the little boy and the bigger one beneath the man-child one when one of the cats reached out a paw and touched his mouth, then bent her head to his forehead and purred.

I wanted to curl up with them, boy and cats, but settled for dropping to my knees beside the bed and reaching out to rub Giovanni’s silky back. “You’re up early.”

He yawned. “Couldn’t sleep anymore.” He kissed the paw on his mouth. “I was dreaming about a song and wanted to get up and write it down before I forgot it.”

“Did you remember it?”

“Scribbled it on the back of a pizza box in my room.” His indigo eyes, made deeper by the sleep in them, raised to mine. “Do you think I might really be able to do something with my music, Mom? No crap. The real thing.”

“Yes,” I said firmly and without hesitation. “It won’t be easy. No artist has an easy life, but you know that.”

“Yeah.” He narrowed his eyes, looked away. “But is it worth it?”

“I don’t know. That’s something you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

He took a breath. “I’m afraid of being lonely.”

I touched his head, the long length of glossy hair. “You’ll always have me, kid, no matter what.” But more soberly I added, “Loneliness is part of the game, though, I’m afraid. No one thinks the way you do, except other musicians, so you have to find and keep those connections.” I thought about the healthy musicians I had known, and despite the press stories, there are a lot of healthy ones out there who live good, solid, honest lives.

“It’s not easy,” I said again, “but what would the rest of us do without music? We rely on all of you to accept that not-easy life so that we can get through ours. The upside is, you will know more perfect love in a day from it than most of us see in a lifetime. That’s your reward.”

He listened intently and silently, very seriously absorbing my words. “How do I . . . how do I stay together through it, Mom? That’s the part that scares me.” A pause. “Dad. Some of his friends. They just self-destructed.”

Hard question. “I don’t know, exactly, Shane. I wish I had some magic formula for you, because God knows that’s the last thing I want for you.” I drew a lock of his hair through my fingers. “There are some obvious things—stay away from the drugs and booze. When you find people you can really trust, do whatever you can to preserve the relationships. Don’t make enemies if you can help it.”

He nodded, liking the sensibility of those suggestions.

It wasn’t enough, though, and I frowned, trying to focus what I knew had short-circuited Billy. “One of the things that makes you a musician is that you feel things more than other people do, and that can be really hard when the feelings are painful ones.”

“Like Kurt Cobain.”

“God forbid! What you have to do, I think, is learn to accept all your feelings. They’re your material, and all of them are good and real, and if you feel them honestly, you’ll be able to use them.”

“Wow, that’s just like my dream.” He sat up on one elbow, tossing his hair out of his face, and I had to let him go. “I was watching this woman dance, you know, like in a sari, and she had all these veils, all different colors, and all of them were feelings. Like sadness was this pale, kind of silvery gray, and I could hear the sound of it.” His face took on a glow, and he gestured with one big hand. “Love was pink and red, mixed up together. She was dancing with one, and then another one, and she’d put each one around her and let it cover her all up, then let it go and pick up the next one.” He stopped and gave me a pleased little frown. “It was a cool dream.”

“Really cool,” I agreed. I never dream like that. Not even in color. “I wish sometimes that I had some artistry in me, so I could have dreams like that.”

“Mom, you are an artist! Food. You’re so good!”