The Telling (21 page)

“Oh, why not?” Raff inquired, as though Grandma’s driving habits were of the utmost importance.

“She can’t see very well, and with her arthritis—”

Cutting him off mid-sentence, Raff asked, “Then how do you suppose she got to the benefit that night?”

“I guess Grandpa drove her.”

“Well, I want to tell you, the bidding was fierce for Miss Eileen’s apple pies.” A wide smile accompanied the words.

Michael snickered, knowing from past experience how popular Grandma’s pies were. “I can only imagine.”

“Michael, how would you describe your grandmother?”

He thought it over for a minute, about the petite but feisty woman who was the driving force behind the family. “Grandma? Well, she’s
kind, but strict, she doesn’t take anything off of anybody, but she’s always there when someone needs her.”

“Yet you think she’s needy.”

“No, I don’t!” Michael nearly yelled. How dare this man say such a thing? Grandma was one of the strongest people alive.

“Someone else drives her where she needs to go, and others have to do things for her. If that makes you needy, doesn’t it make her
needy, too?” Once again calm logic led Michael exactly where Raff intended it to.

“You sneaky bastard.” Damn at the man’s skill in using Michael’s own words against him.

Raff graced Michael with an indulgent smile, and then continued their discussion. “I’m curious, though. Why do you say you’re
clingy? You’ve never mentioned feeling clingy before.”

“Well…” Michael wondered how best to explain without saying too much. “There’s someone new in my life,
and when they’re around I have to be touching them, you know? And when he’s not there…” His mouth dropped open. Oh
shit. He’d said too much.

“Ah. So now we’re getting somewhere. You have a boyfriend. I want to remind you that you don’t have to answer any questions
that make you uncomfortable. But if it does, we will be discussing the reason why.” Though Raff’s tone was firm, Michael
didn’t feel threatened. Time and again Rafe had proven to have his best interests at heart.

That trust allowed him to admit, “Yes, I have a boyfriend.”

“Am I to understand that his name is Jay?” The acceptance on Raff’s face set Michael at ease, so he smiled and nodded, happy
that here was yet another person he could talk to about his budding relationship, someone who wouldn’t judge and who’d probably be
happy for him. “When Jay is around you want to touch him, and when he’s not around you wish he were. Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Michael replied, studying his shoelaces.

“That’s not clingy. What you’re feeling is what anyone in love feels for their partner. Does he feel the same for
you?”

Michael shrugged. “I think so.”

“Do you consider him clingy or needy?”

“No.”

Raff glanced over his notes for a moment. “You mentioned that you can’t shop alone. Does Jay go with you?”

“Yes.”

“Does he mind going with you?”

“No, in fact, he says he wants to take me and spends that time asking me about things I like, showing me what he likes, and then we go home and
cook together.”

“Ah, so you go ‘home,’ do you?” Raff asked, with a broad smile that involved his whole face.

Michael backpedaled. “No, we don’t live together. I was talking about my apartment.”

“No, I don’t think you were. I think in this case, ‘home’ is wherever Jay is. You’re in love.”

Damn, nothing got past Rafe. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Jay is home.”

“I’m truly happy for you, but I didn’t know that you’re gay.”

“Is that a problem?” Michael’s heart skipped a beat, worried that he’d misread Raff.

“No, it’s not a problem for me, if it’s not a problem for you. You see, we try to match clients with counselors of similar
backgrounds. You were matched with me because I suffered conditions similar to yours following Desert Storm. If you’d disclosed your sexuality,
we could have matched you with a different counselor.”

“No, I don’t want another counselor,” Michael exclaimed, terrified that he’d have to go through the painful details
all over again with someone new.

Rafe rewarded him with a smile. “I’m glad, because I like working with you and feel we’re making real progress. So,
let’s get back to it, shall we? We’ve now ruled out weak and needy. Tell me why you feel afraid.”

Raff was quite familiar with the nightmares already, of Jimmy’s screams, Ryan’s begging Michael to let him go, and of Jimmy and
Ryan’s shouting, “It should have been you!” Today Michael told of the encounter with Crawford, of his helplessness and
inability to defend himself from someone physically inferior.

When he finished, Raff commented, “I think you’re giving this man more power than is his.”

At Michael’s raised eyebrow he continued, “You’re using him as a bogey-man, a reason not to succeed and be happy. When you
became involved with Jay, did you worry about what this man would say?”

“Yes,” Michael confessed.

“Why? You don’t like him, he’s no longer a part of your family, and his opinion shouldn’t matter to you. Why do you
care what he thinks?”

“Because he’s a racist bigot who’ll shoot his mouth off to anyone who’ll listen.”

“And who’ll listen to him? Other racist bigots?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe it’s not Crawford you’re afraid of. Maybe he personifies everyone in the world who might not agree with your
relationship. If someone in Seattle thinks homosexuality is wrong, does that bother you?”

“Well, no. Why should it?”

“Good question. Why doesn’t it bother you?”

“Because they’re in Seattle, and I’m in Cookesville, and they can’t affect me.”

Again Raff beamed like he’d just solved the mysteries of the universe.

“I don’t get it,” Michael admitted.

“Michael, it makes no difference if they’re in Seattle or Cookesville, these people don’t matter. The ones who do matter are
you, Jay, and your family. How does your family—your immediate family—feel about you being in a relationship with another
man?”

He didn’t even have to stop and think of the answer to that one. “Mom and Angie are thrilled because they like Jay. Grandma and Grandpa
don’t really understand, but they accept it because they love me. And they like him, too.”

“Isn’t that all you need? I’m not saying it’ll be easy, because there are a lot of Crawfords in the world. But do
you really want to live your life to please someone who was cruel to you and your family? Someone who you know to be a bad person? Why are you giving this
man a hold over you? He doesn’t have any power on his own, Michael; you’re giving it to him.”

Yeah, made sense, but easier said than done. The words he’d told Jay the day they’d met came back to him:
Those people don’t matter.

“Our time is almost over for today. Have you thought of the answer to my question?” Raff asked as he rose and stretched, back arching
with an audible ‘pop’.

“What question?” Michael thought he’d answered every question he’d been asked. But then again, there’d
been so many.

“The one I asked earlier. Why you’ll do for things for your family and friends that you won’t do for yourself.”

It took a moment before the answer came to him. “Because they mean more to me than I do?”

Raff smiled like a proud parent. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing to put others before yourself, a lot of admirable people do that.
The trick is to accomplish it without neglecting your needs. Think you can do that?”

“I can try.” Michael rose from the couch and crossed the room to retrieve his CD. “Look, when Jay gets here, can I bring him
in to meet you?”

While his back was turned he heard the door open behind him and Raff’s deep rumble say, “Please, come in.”

Michael turned around, wondering who it could be. The next client was never invited in while one was still in the room. What he saw was like the sun coming
up over the horizon. Talk about timing. True to his word, Jay had come to take him home and was now shaking hands with Raff, a somewhat bewildered
expression on his face.

“Hi, babe,” Michael greeted, hoping Jay wouldn’t mind that he’d acknowledged their relationship to a
stranger—a stranger to Jay, that is. Apparently he’d said the right thing, if Jay’s eager grin was anything to go by.

After introductions and a few moments of polite conversation, he and Jay took their leave, hand-in-hand as they left the office. All in all, it had been a
very insightful session.

Chapter Seventeen

“Hey, look what I’ve got!” Jay held up a DVD case while balancing a pizza box on his other hand. “Mom sent it. I
can’t wait for you to see.”

He leaned in and kissed Michael before handing over the case and stepping past into the apartment. After depositing the pizza box on the counter, he made
himself at home, finding plates and ginger ales and placing them beside the pizza. “First we eat, then we watch.”

Michael took his customary stool at the counter, studying the disk. “What is it?”

“That, my friend,” Jay said with a smile, “is my family and my home. I couldn’t make the annual cookout, so Mom
filmed it for me..… for us,” he corrected himself.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t be there. I know how much your family means to you.”

Even if he hadn’t been busy preparing for finals, Jay wouldn’t have left Michael for the five days it would have taken to attend.
Besides, there was always next year when, hopefully, Michael would go with him. “Ah, it’s nothing,” he said.
“Besides, there’ll be other get-togethers.”

Jay popped the top on a ginger ale and handed it to Michael before heaping both plates with sausage pizza. He bowed his head and Michael asked the
blessing.
The perfect domestic scene
. “How was your day?” he asked between bites of pizza.

“Mmmm,” was Michael’s non-committal answer. “And yours?”

Jay sighed. “I am so glad this is almost over. I don’t think I could handle one more term like this one.” But end of term
meant graduation and decisions to be made. He hadn’t brought it up yet, but he was hoping to convince his lover to go back to Brownsville with
him, even though he’d feel guilty for tearing Michael away from his family so soon after their reunion.

Michael remained silent and Jay wondered if similar thoughts ran through Michael’s head, that after graduation Jay would return home, leaving him
behind.
Never!
Now that Jay had him, he didn’t intend to give up without a fight.

Silently they ate their pizza, each lost in their own thoughts.

After dinner, they cleaned up the kitchen and took their drinks into the living area. Michael settled on the couch and Jay turned on the TV, inserting the
homemade DVD into the player.

“You’re gonna love this,” he said, starting the video with the remote and taking his customary place next to Michael.

A smiling young woman’s face came into view, hair, skin, and eyes a perfect match for Jay’s. “That’s
Maria,” Jay said. “She’s my oldest sister. And that’s Theresa.” Another dark-haired girl entered the
camera’s view, a dead ringer for the first, only a few years younger. “She’s next in line after Maria.” A young man
who bore a striking resemblance to the two girls stepped before the camera. “There’s Cousin Angel. Do you remember me telling you about
him?”

Michael nodded, watching with rapt attention as Jay’s extended family, one by one, approached the camera and waved. The camera panned to a
massive table set up outside, laden with food. As they watched, more people arrived onscreen, each bringing a covered dish. Then a man appeared, struggling
under the weight of a loaded tray.

“There it is,” Jay exclaimed, mouth watering at the thought of what that tray held. “
Cabrito
! Man, I wish I could
have some of that.”

“
Cabrito
?” Michael asked.

“A young goat. When we have family dinners someone always cooks a goat.”

Seeing his lover’s scrunched face and wrinkled nose, he remarked, “What? You mean to tell me you’ve never had goat? Man, you
don’t know what you’re missing.” Jay continued narrating the video until Michael suddenly went rigid, all color draining from
his face. “Michael! What’s wrong? Michael?” Jay turned off the TV and grabbed his trembling lover. Michael’s eyes
were tightly closed, tears trailing down his cheeks. Jay kept his voice low. “Michael, talk to me, please. Tell me what’s
wrong.”

Michael refused to reply. Jay held him, stroking his back and singing softly in Spanish, something he did whenever nightmares occurred. Eventually Michael
calmed enough to be taken into the bedroom and put to bed. He didn’t resist the pill that Jay handed to him with a cup of water. Once sure his
lover was asleep, Jay crept back into the living area to figure out what had set Michael off.

Turning on the TV and keeping the volume down, Jay watched the video again, advancing to the part that had caused Michael’s reaction. Shit. Why
hadn’t he thought of this before? Someone had filmed four of his cousins playing around in his uncle’s Jeep. They were yelling and
laughing, tearing across the sand on his uncle’s ranch. Damn. It seemed that the place Jay knew, loved, and couldn’t wait to get back
to bore a startling resemblance to a battle-torn place half a world away.

Jay remembered something Michael had mentioned earlier and crossed the floor to the desk holding a computer. Searching through the ‘My
Pictures’ folder, he located the one he was looking for, gently tracing his fingers over the familiar features of his lover. His lips drew up
into a smile, mimicking the expressions of the three young men in the image. They were all in uniform, but Michael’s shirt was partially
unbuttoned, exposing a thin white T-shirt stretched tightly across a well-defined chest. He dwarfed the other two men.

This picture had been taken before the horrific events that now haunted Michael. Jay clicked on other pictures in the folder, looking for the one
he’d been told about. He paused at every one of the smiling Corporal Ritter, taking a few moments to admire the handsome man that was, for now at
least, his.