Wes poured him a vodka and Sprite and then himself awhiskey.
Art sat at the dining table, taking a sip of his drink before checking the time on his phone. “Well, nice that we could entertain Kelly and still have thirty minutes before curfew.” The ten o’clock curfew wasn’t a rigid rule at Heathrow. It was mostly a safety measure to keep residents and nonresidents from lingering around the property late at night. Penalties and fines weren’t incurred, unless you were caught being up to nogood.
Wes sat across from him, clearly awaiting the answer to the question he’d asked in thecourtyard.
“I wasn’t lying to Kelly when I said ‘no interest.’ Yes, I was very interested at one time. It wasn’t an option for us until recently, for obvious reasons, and in my case for the best, because none of my exes would have been very good fathers. I had a talent for picking out assholes. Kirk, my once partner of fifteen years, was a real bastard. Had a tendency to wander, especially on the weekend. Going out to bars to see the boys, though I knew he was doing more than seeing them. And that just seemed to be my type. Even after him, the next and the next and…just on and on, and a man grows weary of that many failures, youknow?”
“I can understand that. I’msorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. Again, it was for the best, because I also had a tendency to be drawn to the sort of men who dealt with conflict with their fists. I’m not looking for pity there. That kid who made all those mistakes feels like another lifetime now, but he had a lot to learn. And finally he got enough sense in his head to stop looking for trouble. After so many years of realizing that there are, as theLes Misérablessong goes, ‘dreams that cannot be,’ I lost interest. In men and notions about ever having any sort offamily.”
However, deep down, Art knew that wasn’t entirely true. That it had always been there, lurking in the back of his mind, reminding him of what could never be, but such was the way with so many things inlife.
“I’m sorry you got such a raw deal with bastards,” Wessaid.
“Yes, but as I’m sure you can guess, I haven’t given up men altogether. It’s been nearly two decades since I’ve been in a relationship, but physically, I have always done just fine. I only decided I didn’t need any of that nonsense that comes along withmore.”
“What do you mean byany of thatnonsense?”
“The younger version of myself had silly ideas about romance, perhaps that had filled my head from the novels I’d read as a student and a teacher. Or from movies and songs, who knows? But after I’d had enough with my last ex, Timothy, I woke up, realized that romance was about as real as God and that I had to let that go if I was to have any chance athappiness.”
“Interesting…”
“What is?” Artasked.
“I guess I was sort of the opposite. A lot of faith in a god who didn’t seem to ever be there for me, but not much faith in romance. Or my own lack of interest there. I haven’t really been in relationships with men, nothing worth noting. I’ve had my share of fun, but when I was starting to explore, I still had kids to raise, and I was determined to put their happiness before my own, and then time just went on…and old habits die hard. So I had my family, and I let that beenough.”
“You were smart. Better to have spent your life chasing something real than chasing a fantasy. I don’t mean to sound bitter. I’m sure it exists for some, but obviously not the case for me. At least with family, love isreal.”
“Yes, it is,” Wes said, but he got quiet before he added, “When you were talking to Kelly about our lives, how we seemed to always be missing one another, me moving out to LA, I couldn’t help but think about the time when Mike went back to Winebourne. He was supposed to be attending UGA at the time, but he ended up staying with my sister. When I found out he was trying to ‘find himself’ instead of taking to his responsibilities, I was furious with the kid. But he wanted some time. He wasn’t ready for school, he said. So he was working in town as a mechanic when he met Justin’s mother, Tessa. I wasn’t all that keen when she wound up pregnant. He told me later he never really wanted to go to college. Just wanted to please his dad, and that about killed me.” Wes took a pensive breath. “I’d done to my own son what my father had done to me…tried to push him into making the responsible life choice. Hurt him by wanting him to have a secure life rather than one that fulfilled him. I was an ass, because seeing him grow up and raising a beautiful kid made me as proud as I could have been as afather.”
“Did you tell him that, before the accident?” Mike had been lost in a boiler explosion at the shoe plant he worked in when he was raising his family in Winebourne. Three employees at the plant had been caught in the explosion, but only one hadn’t made it out alive. The tragedy stole Wes’s son fromhim.
“Many times,” Wes said. “Still, after the incident, it took me a while to stop hating myself for those times I wasn’t there for him. Not the way I should have been, atleast.”
“I’m sure he knew you lovedhim.”
“Yeah, but sometimes I feel that no matter how much you tell someone you love them, they never really understand the extent of it. With Becca and Mike, if I’d had the chance, I would have gladly taken their places. I would have put the chemo into my own body and let it ravage me instead of Becca. I would have lain in that bed, crippled and watching life slip away from me. I would have let a fire rip me apart slowly, in pure agony, to give Mike another hour with his family. I would have let the pain drag out for generations to spare them a moment of misery. That’s how much I loved them. I’ve lived long enough to understand the value of that love.” He fixed his gaze on Art, a smirk sneaking across his face, as though his appreciation of that love outweighed the pain of his loss. “I don’t just mean the love of a family, but the love we find in friendshipstoo.”
Art appreciated his words and his intended meaning as Wes raised his drink and said, “Tofriendships.”
“To friendships,” Art replied as they clinked their glassestogether.
