They sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.
“Has it been really hot in Florida, Mrs. Stein? I imagine the humidity is worse than here.” Sam could sense the desperation in Zach’s voice to keep the conversation rolling. Anything to get him and his mother to speak. But Zach didn’t know their history.
Without taking her eyes off Sam, his mother answered Zach. “It is terrible. I never turn off my air conditioner. And the tropical storms are the worst.” Her lips curved in a brief smile.
“Do you remember how scared you used to be of lightning when you were little, Sam? You used to come into my bedroom and ask if you could sleep with me.”
That was a surprise to him. “I have no memory of that, sorry, Mom.” He took a sip of wine. “I’m guessing it was a very long time ago.”
Perhaps she thought he’d remember or at least pretend to smooth over the awkwardness, but he couldn’t. Her smile faded, and she removed her sunglasses from her head, placing them on her lap.
“Sam, why did your friend call me to visit? What’s wrong?” Though she favored Zach with a brief smile, her attention focused solely on Sam. “Not that he doesn’t seem nice, but who is Zach to you?”
“Zach is my lover.” There didn’t seem to be any need to pussyfoot around it. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, worried whether his mother would love or accept him. Still, he couldn’t keep the defiant tone out of his voice or harden the tilt of his jaw, as if girding himself for a fight. “I love him.”
He heard her quick expulsion of breath. “I was wondering if you were ever going to tell me.”
Shocked, he stared at her. “What?” His mouth hung open with surprise.
Regret glimmered in her eyes. “I didn’t know when you were a child, but when you never spoke about girls in high school or mentioned ever having a date, I suspected something. You never talked to me and were so angry all the time, so I left you alone.” Her red lacquered fingers laced and relaced themselves in her lap. “Now I see how wrong I was.”
“I wasn’t angry at you, specifically. I was angry at the world; Dad for dying, and myself for the feelings inside me that I knew were different. All the guys were looking at girls and whispering; meanwhile I was having strange thoughts about men.” The glass of wine in his hand shook, and Zach wordlessly took it away.
“I couldn’t talk to you about sex—you were my mother. Dad was gone, and any time I thought maybe I’d talk to a teacher or guidance counselor at school, I’d hear someone making a homo joke, and I’d forget about it.”
She raised her agonized gaze to him. “I failed you and I’m sorry. Your father and I got married so young and then he was away most of the time.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I was lonely all the time. After he died, I know I went crazy. I needed to feel loved again and did everything I could to make myself attractive to men.”
Strange how perspectives can change with a little conversation and insight. If someone had asked Sam to describe his mother yesterday, the picture he’d conjure up in his mind would be that of a weak woman in denial of her age, dressing and acting inappropriately.
But after the most personal talk they’d ever had, she didn’t seem like a desperate woman refusing to give up her youth by dressing in too-young clothes. Maybe her bright clothing and eye makeup gave her a sense of strength. Or maybe she hid behind the colors to keep the darkness of her thoughts at bay.
He was in no position to judge her.
Before Zach came into his life, his existence was pretty much colorless; a wash of neutrals that all blended together without any vibrancy or cheer. He dragged himself along with Henry and forced himself to play ball, but the truth was he would most likely have been content to be a couch potato for the rest of his life.
Everyone deals with grief in different ways; how he’d felt as a fourteen-year-old boy who’d lost the father he worshipped was different from his mother, who’d lost the man she loved.
“Did you and Dad have a good marriage? Did you love him? Did he love you?”
That question required his mother to take another sip of wine. “I loved him with the desperation a twenty-two-year-old girl loves a man who tells her she’s beautiful and he wants her. I was so happy when we got married and I got pregnant right away. But then when he went to work for the FBI undercover and was away most of the time, it was as if we became strangers.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “He’d come home every three or four months and we’d sit quiet, like we’d forgotten why we were married. When we’d start to reconnect it was time for him to leave again.”
She blinked and then smiled at him. “But he loved you. So much. Do you remember when he’d take you to the beach or kite flying?”
Sam couldn’t answer, so he nodded; his throat was too tight to swallow, much less speak. Zach took his hand and squeezed it gently.
“Sam and I went kite flying the other day,” said Zach. “It was my first time, but Sam was a pro.”
“You still have your kite?”
“Yeah,” Sam said gruffly, clearing his voice. “I hadn’t flown it in a long while, but lately I’ve been thinking about him…”
“He wouldn’t have cared.”
His heart fluttered in his chest. “He wouldn’t?” It became imperative for Sam to understand the little he could about his dead father, and this was one more sliver of his life.
“No,” said his mother, shaking her head. “Nothing could ever change how much he loved you. I remember,”—she brushed the tears away with her fingers, smearing her makeup a little—“I once told him how worried I was raising you without him around. I wanted you to have a strong male presence.” She smiled through her tears. “He said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Barbara. Sammy will be whatever he is, no matter if you or I raise him alone or together. It’s what’s in his heart that matters most.’”
All these years he never knew. “I’m so angry he isn’t here.”
