The Sweetheart Deal (16 page)

M
y mom seemed happy and I was glad. Not
happy
happy, not like normal exactly, but something closer to normal than how she had been. She worked in the garden again every day and there were flowers on the dining room table. The days she came to school she talked to other parents and she wasn't all hysterical laughing or anything like that, but she was different from the weeks before, when the days she did come to school to pick us up, she had driven and just sat in the car and waited for us when school let out. If she didn't hang out with the parents, Andrew and I couldn't hang out either. Except for the days when Garrett came and we played ball.

I thought she should think about being happy again, not like my dad didn't die or anything, but what good was it doing to go to bed right after dinner like she did right after he died? My dad shouldn't have died skiing, but he did have a dangerous job, and my mom, well, she was tough. She married someone who could die on the job, not like a miner or someone on the bomb squad, but it wasn't like my dad had sat at a desk all day.

So I felt okay doing something about my drawing. Kevin Gallagher had been helping Garrett with the house, finishing what my dad started. I guessed they were doing a good job. I guessed they were doing what they thought they should. My dad couldn't finish it and we couldn't live with the room half done at the back of the house like that. I just hoped when it was done it would be the way my dad would have wanted it, but it didn't matter if it wasn't. It wasn't like he was going to show up and complain about what other people did that he couldn't now that he was gone. He wasn't like that anyway. He didn't criticize other people, as much as he liked doing things his own way.

Since Kevin was around all the time, I could ask him. If the drawing was gone, it was gone, but at least I'd know. One day after my mom, Andrew, and I walked home from school, she drove to the store. Kevin was sitting in the kitchen with Garrett. I sat down at the table with them. A pot of coffee was brewing. Andrew got a bowl of cereal.

“How was school?” said Garrett.

“The usual,” I said.

“Where's your mom?” he asked.

“She went to shop for dinner,” I said.

Andrew sat down with his cereal and it was quiet except for his chewing. Now I didn't want to say anything about the drawing.

“You guys want to help us this afternoon?” Kevin said.

“Yeah,” said Andrew, with a mouthful. “Can we?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Garrett's running out of steam.” Kevin laughed. “He needs a rest and I can't do all the heavy lifting.”

I changed my mind again.

“Hey, Kevin, I've been thinking about something I want to ask you,” I said.

“Shoot.” He smiled, all easy, like I was going to ask him something different from what I was.

“Well, there's something I'm looking for,” I said. “And I was wondering if you could help me find it. It's going to sound stupid.” I picked at a hangnail on my thumb under the table.

Garrett got up from the table to pour them coffee, and Kevin leaned forward with his elbows on the table and looked at me, all serious and helpful.

“If it's something you want help finding, I'm sure it's not stupid,” he said.

“Maybe.” I picked the hangnail harder. “So I drew this picture of my dad a few months ago? Like back in February, you know, before. Anyway I gave it to him and when my mom got all his stuff back, you know, from the station, she didn't get the picture. So I don't know what happened to it. I'm afraid it just got thrown away.”

Garrett came back with the coffee, and Andrew, who'd finished eating, put his bowl in the sink and sat back down.

“Yeah,” said Andrew. He talked too loud. “Can you find that drawing for Brian? It was a really good one. It really cracked my dad up. Maybe someone else took it because it was so good.”

I wished he'd stayed quiet, and I glared at him.

Kevin sat back and crossed his arms. He was wearing a baseball cap and pulled the bill down. “Sure.” Now he was quiet. “You want to go down there? Why don't we drive to the station right now?” He stood up and patted Garrett's back, then pulled at the hat's bill again and pulled up on the waistband of his pants. I waited for him to arrange something else on himself. He pushed up his sleeves. “The professor needs a break from the manual labor.”

“Yeah.” Garrett laughed. “I can see you're in a huge hurry to get back to work yourself.”

Kevin shook his head, slow, at Garrett and when Garrett saw the serious look on Kevin's face, he stopped laughing.

We left my mom a note and the four of us got into Kevin's truck. We hadn't been to the station since December, before Christmas, when the gas grill was covered up and the basketball hoop looked cold and lonely. We used to visit my dad at the firehouse all the time when we were little, before we were in school, and my mom would take him a vase with flowers for his room, and she said the same thing every time she brought them:
Bringing you some garden
.

“I still want to help on the room,” Andrew said. “Can we?”

“I'm going to hold you to it,” said Kevin. “How about tomorrow?”

Y
our dad has a banner.” Kevin pointed at the ceiling when we walked into the bay where the truck and engine were parked.

The station hung banners from the ceiling for retired firefighters. They had their last names on them—just like the numbers of retired athletes that hung from their home stadiums—and now there was one that said
McGeary.

All the men working approached us like a troop and shook our hands.

“It's been a while since the boys have visited,” Kevin said to them. He started walking away from the other firefighters and motioned for me, Garrett, and Brian to follow him. “Let's go into the kitchen.”

I was surprised the first time I'd seen the kitchen, which looked just like any plain one you'd find in any apartment building where someone's grandmother lived, except it was a lot bigger. It was one half of an open space, and the other half was like a living room, with recliners and a big-screen TV. There was nothing special about either space, just a lot of white walls, and the rooms always felt cold, even in the summer. Nothing like the illustrations I'd seen in books when I was a kid about firefighters and the stations where they worked. Kevin had told us the firehouses in New York were different, in historic buildings, and back there the beds were all in one place like a barracks, not like the bunkroom at Twenty-Five, where each guy had his own room with a door and only shared it with the other two guys who worked on the two other shifts.

I had no idea why we were going into the kitchen, and I didn't think Brian or Garrett did either, but since Kevin seemed to have something in mind, we followed him without asking. Two firefighters had gotten coffee and passed us carrying their mugs as we came in. Kevin walked over and stood by one of the long counters that divided the two spaces. He adjusted the hat on his head again. He turned and pointed toward the wall before he crossed his arms and looked down. “No one threw it away, Brian,” he said.

It was hanging between the kitchen room and the living room spaces in a big green frame. The picture of my dad and the blow-dryer and our old freezer. Around it was a white mat with all kinds of writing on it. I walked closer to it so I could read the words.
I love you, Leo. Love you, my brother. See you on the Top Floor. You're with us every day.
Keep us safe, Lion, just like always
.

No one was saying anything, and finally Brian walked up next to me to get a better look too. His whole body trembled, and I could tell he was crying even though he wasn't making any noise. I was afraid he was going to punch me or push me away, but I moved closer to him anyway and reached up and put my arm around his shoulder, and he let me.

Kevin walked away from the counter and stood behind us. “Brian,” he said. “We should have given it back to you. I'm so sorry we didn't. It wasn't ours to keep. I'm sorry you've been worrying about it. It's my fault.” His voice was husky. “It's such a great picture of your dad. We wanted it here with us so we could see it every day. But we had no right.”

Brian managed to nod his head even though his body was still shaking.

Kevin walked around us and took the framed drawing off the wall. “You take it home with you today. It's yours. It doesn't belong to us.”

“You keep it.” Brian pushed out the words before he slipped out from under my arm and crushed himself against Kevin and sobbed.

A
fter Kevin and I had spent the day blowing in the insulation, we went to Kells. Kevin sat at his regular stool, and I sat on his other side, not on Leo's.

We were two beers in when I told him. I had to.

“So something's been happening with Audrey and me,” I said. “Like we talked about a while back. It started and it's still going.”

“I saw that coming.” He wasn't surprised and I listened for judgment, but there wasn't any. He looked at me. “Didn't you?”

“No,” I said. “I didn't. But now, now I can't imagine it not happening.”

“You're consenting adults,” he said. “Nobody else's business. Do the boys know?”

“I don't think so,” I said.

“You'd know,” he said.

I drained my glass and waved to the bartender. I felt compelled to explain.

“There's something else,” I said. “Something nobody else knows.”

“Something else?” he said. “What'd you do, propose?”

“Shut up,” I said. “Listen.”

He leaned back and raised his hands in surrender.

“A long time ago, it was Y2K, I was here for a visit,” I said. “Leo and I got drunk and he told me he wanted me to marry her if he died. It was stupid. He made me sign this paper he wrote up. It was a joke. I still have the fucking thing.”

“Man, that guy,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, well, it stopped being a joke,” I said. “He shouldn't be dead.”

We both sat there and sipped our beers.

“So you could say he gave you a kind of a permission slip,” he said. “A green light, if you will.”

I shrugged.

“Does she know about the paper?” asked Kevin. “You think that's why you're in your present situation?”

I shrugged again. “I don't know. I don't think so. I think if she did, it would have come up. And I think if she found out now, she'd be pissed.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I could see that. No question.”

We were quiet.

“You happy?” he said.

“I guess,” I said. “As much as I can be given the circumstances.”

“She happy?” he said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Sometimes she seems happier. Sometimes just less unhappy.”

“So be happy,” he said. “Life's too short. Nobody's ever happy enough when they can be. You'll be unhappy again soon enough.”

“Right,” I said.

“Well, I appreciate you opening up to me,” he said, laughing. “I think we're growing closer.” His hand clutched my shoulder in mock comfort. “But I don't think you're any less burdened, my friend.”

He was right.

“Don't sweat it—play the hand you've been dealt. You're being a gentleman?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You can't mess around here,” he said. “Audrey's not someone you can have a fling with. I know I don't have to tell you that.”

“You're right, you don't have to tell me that,” I said, annoyed. “It's not a fling, not for me.”

“Good, good, sorry, just checking.” he said. “You're all right.” He squeezed my shoulder again before he took his hand away. “But, Jesus, couldn't he have picked someone who was good-looking at least?”

S
ome days were better than others. The sex with Garrett brought comfort and guilt in equal measure, the way I imagined drinking did for a drunk. The very thing that eased the shame was what caused it in the first place. It was as infinite a cycle as the snake swallowing its own tail. I felt like I had put Leo's death in a room and closed the door in order to do what I was doing with Garrett. But the room was always there to enter when I wanted to, and when I did and let myself miss him, and agonized over what I was doing, I wondered which kind of death was easier for survivors to heal from. The shocking loss of Leo in an instant, someone still so beautiful and strong and solid one minute and gone the next, dying alone, sent out of his life without anyone there to say goodbye? Or the prolonged dying some people endured, lingering and disappearing bit by bit, devastating the loved ones gathered around while they waited and hoped for the end to come as much as they wanted it not to, saying goodbye until they had no more goodbyes to say?

And what about those tragically drawn-out deaths—when someone lingered for far too long, for years—and the still-married spouse, suspended in a purgatory between the life and death of their beloved, began a companionship, a conflicted romance with someone else, and nobody blamed them? Of course, there were people who blamed them—needing something to blame—but it usually wasn't at all about the romance, but about their own reluctance to move on, their refusal to give up hope despite the undeniable evidence.

I kept it from Erin. I had never lied to her, so it was a demanding task. To make it easier on myself, I eliminated or reduced the opportunities where it could come up in conversation and I'd be forced to lie to her. I told her I'd tweaked my knee and that until it was better I'd rather go to yoga than run. During yoga, we couldn't talk, and I often met her at the studio instead of driving together. After class, if she had time, I invited her back to the house to visit. We couldn't talk about Garrett with him right there. When she got the chance, she'd give me a look or ask on the fly, “You okay? Are things okay?” I'd look her right in the eye and keep my gaze even: “I'm good. Everything's good.” I remembered a time when those words were the truth, and tried to sound convincing. I was pretty sure it worked when I could see the relief on her face and she said, “Okay,” and nodded, seeming satisfied. Aware of my own bald-faced dishonesty, I also considered that Erin could be letting me lie to her. I waited for her to push me beyond what I told her, and she never did.

And some nights were better than others. The nights that were bad made the following days bad, because of my dreams. There were two recurring versions, and they kept me away from Garrett until the sobering memories wore off enough that I could be with him again.

In the one dream, Leo and I are in bed, making love, and I can feel his lip between mine, and the weight of his body between my legs. In any number of ways, Garrett appears—walks through the doorway, sits in the chair in the corner, or, the worst, lies in the bed next to us—and after he sees what we're doing, leaves the room. I only get a brief look at his face, expecting but not seeing any emotion. The only thing on dream-Garrett's face is resignation and acceptance, the way someone might look leaving a restaurant in search of another after learning their first choice has no available tables.

In the other, I'm married to Leo but Garrett and I are together, very innocently; we never have sex. But I'm planning on it and we both know it's going to happen. Because in this dream, although Leo is alive and we're married, I've given myself permission to cheat on him, but only with Garrett. That's my defense in the dream, although it never comes up between Leo and me. I've allowed myself to sleep with Garrett, because it's Garrett.

I still had an IUD, so when Garrett brought up that awkward but necessary matter, I told him it was taken care of on my end, but asked—I had to, given all his women—if I had anything to worry about with him, risk-wise, and he'd assured me I didn't. Despite our discussions and my wanting him to after our family was complete, Leo had refused to get a vasectomy, to
get cut
,
as he'd called it, like a bull or a stallion.
I'm afraid
,
he'd told me
, that it wouldn't be the same. That I wouldn't be.
Nothing I could say would convince him, and while I knew his reluctance was based on fear, it still felt selfish to me. He hadn't been perfect.

So while I lied to Erin, and suffered the dreams and their aftermaths, I made an appointment to talk to Father John. He had said Leo's funeral mass and called me in the weeks afterward. I thought about going to confession, but he would know it was me anyway, which was okay, but as much as I felt like I wanted to confess and be absolved—before repeating the same sin and getting absolved for it again the following week—I wanted to have a different conversation than what the confessional offered. Although he wasn't a stranger, talking to him seemed far easier than talking to my best friend. A little distance for something like this wasn't a bad thing. We met in his office one morning after I'd walked the boys to school.

“I'm glad you called me,” he said. “You seem well.”

“Thank you, Father, I do,” I said. “I know, seem well.”

Father John smiled. “What you're in the middle of takes a long time,” he said. “And while it will never fully end, you won't always be in the middle of it.”

I nodded.

“First, let's pray,” he said. We blessed ourselves and said the Hail Mary and Father said a prayer for Leo. Too late, I realized neither this meeting nor confession was going to offer the solace I'd hoped for.

“I've been keeping an eye on Brian and Andrew,” he said. “How is Christopher?”

“I'm proud of all of them,” I said. “They all have their moments, but I think they're doing the best they can.”

He nodded. “And you? What you must do is continue to move forward every day, the best you can, especially through the days that test you the most. Putting your faith in God is what makes that possible, and over time, easier.”

“I've been doing that,” I said, and I had to an extent, but I had to intervene before he offered more theology than I could handle.

“Father, I thought about going to confession,” I said. “My wanting to talk to you has to do with something I didn't expect. I think you'll find it unexpected as well.”

Father John was a smart man, in addition to being a better priest than the ones I'd known growing up. He'd been an army chaplain and had lived around the world during his time in the service. He modeled a progressive parish; there were at least five same-sex couples I saw regularly at mass. I wanted to talk with the smart, worldly man who happened to be a priest, not the man whose job it was to spread the word of God.

“I'm here to help,” he said. “Do you want to make your confession? We can do it here.”

“No,” I said. “I don't. I'm hoping we can just talk. There's something I'm having trouble with, something I feel guilty about.”

“It's your call, Audrey,” he said. “What's happening?”

“Leo and I have a very good friend, Garrett,” I said. “He's been Leo's friend since they were Christopher's age. He's been here since February and he's been a great help. Maybe you remember him from the funeral. He's finishing the work on the house that Leo was doing, and he's been wonderful with the boys. He's really a very good friend. I've known him for a long time. But recently, our relationship has developed into something new, something intimate, and I'm feeling very bad about it. I know the church's position on what we're doing, so I'm sorry I'm in violation of that. But it's really about Leo that I feel the worst.”

I didn't want a lecture, but if a lecture was what I was going to get, I had it coming. That certainly would have been a place for Father to start:
intimate, not married, let's talk about that.
But there was nothing in the Commandments or the Bible that I knew of that addressed my particular problem.

“Guilt is such a useless emotion,” Father John said. “If you told me what you're feeling guilty about in confession and I absolved you, would it make a difference?”

“No, I don't think it would,” I said.

“I'm not here to tell you what's right and wrong and what you can and can't do,” he said. “I think the only time guilt serves us at all is if it helps us go to great lengths not to repeat something we truly regret.”

“That's my conflict,” I said. “My relationship with Garrett feels like something good, but it's too soon for it to be happening—plus I never would have expected our friendship to go in this direction. I feel guilty but I'm continuing it anyway.”

“If you could name the exact reason for feeling guilty, what would it be?” he said.

“I'm betraying Leo,” I said. “How can I not feel like I'm betraying Leo?”

“Did you and Leo promise each other that if either of you died, you'd never remarry or love anyone else?” he said.

“No, no we didn't,” I said. “But it never came up.”

“Was any of this with Garrett happening before Leo died?” Father John said.

“No, of course not, no,” I said. “And Garrett's not married. He's never been married.”

“That would be very different,” he said.

“But it's too soon,” I said again. “Garrett was his best friend. The irony, of course, is that I wish I could talk to Leo about it. And I have. I pray and apologize to him.”

“
Too soon. Too long.
We all feel that way at some point, don't we? More than we'd like to admit,” Father said. “You know, we're on God's time line; He's not on ours. What comes to us sometimes, maybe even the answer to our prayers, often appears in ways and at times we wouldn't consider ideal.”

“I understand that,” I said. “I know. But knowing that doesn't make me feel any less conflicted.”

“Is your relationship with Garrett helping you live your most authentic life?” he said.

I didn't know how to answer that. I was keeping it from the boys and from Erin; that wasn't authentic. “Father, nothing feels authentic since Leo died,” I said. “What I would call authentic no longer exists.” Father John's question gave me pause.

“Is this relationship with Garrett making you happy, holy, and healthy?” he said. “I'm not keeping a list—these are just things for you to think about. Not even criteria, but steps toward self-examination. It's more productive than guilt.”

The last thing Garrett made me feel was holy, but Leo hadn't either, and I didn't know if I'd ever felt
holy
. When the boys were born, those three times I had felt a sense of what was close to holiness, but it had existed outside of me.

“That's a tough one, Father. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a hard sell,” I said. “I think I am closer to happy and healthy than I would be without Garrett, but still those things feel a very long way off.”

Father John nodded, like I was starting to give the right answers. “Love is a gift,” he said. “The love that you're having now doesn't eradicate the years of love with Leo. All God asks is that we're good to each other, and that we love each other.”

Love
. I hadn't said anything about love. Of course I loved Garrett, but there was love and there was
love.

“Audrey, in my opinion you're not betraying Leo, and you're not betraying his memory either,” Father John said. “But it doesn't matter what I think or what anyone else thinks or says. God forgives us no matter what, but it's much harder for us to forgive ourselves.”

I nodded.

“You know, there's a Kahlil Gibran quote that I think is very popular,” he said. “It's from
The Prophet
. Do you know it, about joy and sorrow being inseparable?”

“I do, yes,” I said. “It's really lovely.”

“It is,” he said. He got up and walked to his desk and took a frame off the wall. “But I think the piece is best in its entirety.” He handed me the frame, in which the poem was preserved.

I reached for the box of tissues on the table. “I've never seen the whole poem,” I said. “You're right. It's far better.”

“How long have you and Garrett known each other?” he asked.