The Families in Rossford

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

 

As the choir sang above them, Logan looked about Saint Barbara’s. It didn’t remind him of Our Lady of Mount Carmel at all. The seats were slowly filling, and at the altar was the manger scene. He didn’t believe in much about Christianity or Jesus, but he believed in this He believed in Christmas and couldn’t exactly explain what he meant by that.

 

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

 

“This is a nice little church,” Logan said. “I’ve never been in here before. I’ve only been in Saint Aggie’s.”

“Um,” Brendan frowned.

“Brendan is Saint Barbara’s for life,” Sheridan explained.

“Seriously? Does it make a difference?”

Brendan did not explain. Sheridan did.

“There is an intense rivalry between Saint Agatha’s and Saint Barbara’s. I mean, it’s so serious that even though Saint Barbara’s has the only Catholic high school in town, parishioners from Saint Agatha’s send their kids out of town.

“They’re snooty,” Brendan shrugged.

“Except Kenny’s family went to Saint Agatha’s, I think.”

“Well, there are exceptions.”

“I think I remember Kirk Stanley’s family goes there,” Logan said. “Though I can’t be sure.”

“Like I said,” Brendan repeated, “there are exceptions.”

“Brian Babcock is the head of music there.”

“Well, that just proves it,” Brendan nodded triumphantly.

But while the two around him chuckled, Brendan became instantly melancholy again.

“You know, since I was a senior in high school, me and Kenny have always gone to Midnight Mass together. Except for one year,” Brendan remembered, accurately.

“Well, how about this?” Logan wrapped an around Brendan.

“We’ll be going to Sheridan’s family after this, and so you can start a new tradition with us. How’s that?”

“I’ll go put some tea on,” Meredith said. “Or cocoa? Cocoa is better.”

“I’ll go make cocoa,” Chay told her, moving to the stove, “and you can just go sit down and relax.”

Meredith smiled and nodded.

“I’ll be in the library,” she said, and headed there.

Old books lined the sizable library of the Meradan house where Nell had grown up, and having inherited it from her mother, lived with two husbands. There had been a large television in it as long as Meredith could remember, an old console like a piece of furniture, and she turned this on struggling, for some reception. Digital TV was worse than analog, no fuzzy screens. Either it worked or it didn’t. Most of the time, in this room, it didn’t. Meredith shrugged and opened the cabinet above to turn on the stereo.

“From Cambridge earlier today we will be running this season’s Festival of Lessons and Carols.”

“That suits,” Meredith decided. There was really nothing like British children singing to make her feel like Christmas had come.

She looked from the large window out onto the backyard dusted from the remnants of snow. This was not a white Christmas. And then she pulled them close a little, found her favorite couch, maneuvered herself onto it, and lay back, waiting for Casey and Chay.

When Chay was coming in, in his sportsjacket, followed by Casey, Meredith realized she must have drifted off.

“You really did need to stay home tonight,” Casey assessed.

“Here you go,” Chay said, putting the mug of cocoa before her.

“Oh, wow,” Meredith marveled, moving her feet so Casey could sit down. “This is great. Thanks guys.” She yawned again, “I’m a terrible hostess.”

Chay, who looked so different with short hair and that beard, gave her a white toothed smile. He was so handsome and little, Meredith thought. She’d never actually looked at him like a man, but now she understood what Casey saw in him.

“Just think of me as the hostess,” said Chay.

Casey was snoring on the sofa, and Meredith, in the windowseat, said, “If you’re in Chicago and I’m in Chicago, how come we never see each other?”

“Because Casey’s studio is in Chicago, but we’re always flying to LA and to conventions.”

“What’s that like, Chay?” Meredith said, amazed. “To be high flying porn people?”

“It keeps money in the bank,” Chay shrugged. “But really, it’s about making a name for a lot of former clients. And the thing is I’ve been with Casey so long. I remember when he first started out. It was just him. And now he doesn’t even direct most of the things he does let alone participate.”

“You stood by him all those years,” Meredith marveled.

“Well, he was worth standing by. And he stood by me. I know no one understood it. We didn’t even understand it. But…” Chay turned around and watched Casey, mouth a little open, arms flung back, asleep on the couch.

“He needed someone to love him,” Chay reflected. “I don’t think anyone ever realized how much he needed to be loved. And how much he needs to love. It took me a long time to understand it, but with him it’s so powerful. I love him so much. He loves me so much. That’s the real secret.”

“When I hear you speak that way I wonder if I’ve ever been in love at all.”

“You’re married.”

“I know that, Chay. I don’t need you to tell me that.”

“What about Mathan?”

“I loved him,” Meredith said quietly. “But not with the love you’re talking about.”

Chay was bothered by this and said, “But that’s just the way I talk. You know me. I like drama. I love the drama. My love life has been crazy.”

“You’ve slept with two people in your life and you loved both of them. That’s not crazy.”

“I was fifteen and Casey was—”

“Much older.  But still.”

After a while Chay reflected.

“I loved Sheridan.”

“Do you still?”

“Well, I love Casey.”

“It’s that easy?”

“Yes. I loved Sheridan but he did me wrong too many times. He wasn’t evil about it. It was just… I don’t know. That last time, when he left me for Logan I realized that Logan was deep inside of him in a way I couldn’t be. Didn’t care about being. And the love I’d had for Casey, the love that had always been so complicated suddenly became a lot less complicated.

“I never looked back.”

“Before Mathan and I split up we spent this period just having sex anywhere we could.”

Chay waited for her to continue.

“I was in love with Kip Danley.”

“The guy that was involved with Robin and the rape.”

“Yes. I wrote him in juvy. I wrote him after he got out, and for some reason I thought I was bound to him. And then when I finally got the courage for it I went to him before I realized that it was crazy. And then even though things were dead with Mathan, I kept it up with him too, thinking that somehow sex could make the spark come back. It couldn’t, and I’ve been trying to get the spark back ever since.”

“Maybe…” Chay took a breath. The cup of cocoa hung in his hand.

“Maybe what?” said Meredith.

“Maybe everyone isn’t supposed to have a spark.”

Above them the organ music blared over the exiting congregation, and Dylan, touching Fenn, said, “I’m going up to hang out with Dad.”

Fenn nodded and touched Dylan on the back of his head while his son exited to head up into the choir loft.

“Where is everyone off to?” Todd asked.

“Off to bed, it’s one in the morning.”

“We were gonna hang out a little,” Sheridan said, encompassing Logan.

“At the house?” Will said.

“I thought you and Layla were coming.”

“Will and Layla have their own place,” Layla said. “And aren’t your folks sleeping?”

“Well, we’ll be in the basement.”

“Do you really want to go to sleep?” Will asked Layla.

“I could be persuaded to stay up,” she shrugged.

“Dena,” she whispered as Dena approached with Rob holding her hand and Cara asleep in Milo’s arms.

“Hum?”

“I was just about to ask if you all were going to bed, but now I see that was a stupid question.”

“Not so much stupid as woefully optimistic,” Dena told her. “I’ve got to get these creatures into bed and the whole thing is they’ll have us up before six.”

“Bren,” Dena said, “Why don’t you hang out at their little Christmas after party?”

“Not tonight,” Brendan shook his head. “Tonight, I’m going to sleep.”

“You,” Logan told him, “are no fun.”

“I’m not going to argue you,” Brendan said. “I’m just going home.”

As he began hugging them all, working his way to Fenn and Todd he said, “Goodnight you guys.”

Dylan watched his father on the organ. For a moment Tom Mesda looked up and said, “Do you need me, Son?”

“Not really,” Dylan told him, sitting down beside his father. “I just like watching you play.”

Tom played like a lover, eyes closed, shoulders heaving, body swaying as the instrument moaned under him. Tom urged it to great and greater heights, before bringing it down. His fingers were so gentle on the keys. For a moment the shock went through him that Tom was his father. Yes, Fenn was his father, and in a way his mother, and if he thought about it, the final word rested with him. Fenn was also, for better or worse, his secret keeper and his chief advice giver. But this man right here was the one from whom his physical traits, his musical ability, his lauded good looks that got him into so much trouble had all come. This was the man he felt somehow protective of, the father he didn’t tell everything to, the one who, once he had fought with violently. He watched Tom finish, and when Tom was done, he looked up at Dylan and smiled.

“I remember the first time your mother put you in my arms… I almost cried. I loved you so much, and you were mine. You were my son. You were me. I named you Dylan without even thinking about it.

“Are you ready to go, Son?” he said.

“Yes,” Dylan told him.

If only they had said nothing. Things were not bad, Brendan thought. Things could have gone on like this forever. Kenny would have been beside him tonight.

Christmas did not make him think of the present, and he’d never had the sort of mind that went into the future. Brendan thought of what had been, and every Christmas he remembered that first Christmas party with Kenny. It had, in fact, been the same one where Layla, having discovered Julian and Vanessa, brought her aunt to Fenn’s house. It had been that same Christmas that Fenn and Tom had been given Dylan. That night he and Kenny had been in matching clothes, new and full of hope, and the whole ugliness with Dena was finally past. In Kenny’s house, in Kenny’s bed, they had made love and fallen asleep. The memory of Christmas party, of holy Mass and fucking in the dark combined to stir something deep in Brendan.

“Maybe tonight,” he thought. “Maybe tonight, a seasonal miracle, something would be rekindled. He had gone home and forsaken parties because he couldn’t bear to go to a party alone, firstly. And then because he thought, in the back of his mind, something would happen with Kenny.

He parked on the street before their house, and on his way up the little hill, took off his glove and fiddled for the house key. He unlocked the door, and the house was in darkness.

Don’t wake Kenny. Or wake him gently.

 He stood in the living room wondering if he should or not, and then decided he wanted to go to him. He took off his noisy shoes and padded up the steps, then down the hall.

“Damn, Kenneth,” he muttered walking into a pile of Kenny’s clothes, tossed on the hall floor.

He heard a startled sound, and went to the open door.

The window curtains were open, and the moonlight shone in. Kenny was was kneeling in the middle of the bed, grinding as he fucked himself on the man lying beneath him. His eyes were closed, and his beautiful face was arched as he pumped up and down, up and down. Brendan allowed himself to walk into the room, standing in the shadows. Glassy eyed, mouth open, Ruthven Meradan was under him. Brendan stood there a little and then, as a gasp escaped Ruthven’s mouth, and Kenny panted: “Oh… fuck!” Brendan turned to leave.

“Alright,” Fenn said, “Dylan’s with Tom, Maia’s with Tara. No one’s coming over until at least eleven.”

Todd sighed and looked around the living room.

“The house is ours again,” he declared. “Atleast for the next ten hours.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Oh, fuck!” Fenn stomped his foot.

“Who would that be?” Todd wondered, going to the front door.

“Who wouldn’t it be?” Fenn said and followed him.

“Brendan?” Todd said, opening the door while Brendan Miller stepped in.

“Oh, Brendan,” Fenn said, joining him. “You look terrible.”

“Guys,” Brendan began, “would it be too much to get back my old key to the apartment?”

In the early morning, Todd Meradan opened his eyes and looked around the semi darkness of his bedroom. He lay in that half conscious space of weighing if he could go back to sleep before going to the bathroom, or if he dared to walk the ten feet across the room and shut the door with a grunt. A very long time ago, Fenn had said, “Once I went to a friend’s house, and her husband went to the bathroom with the door wide open. Everything about him was wide open, his pants, his gas, his clothes all over the floor. And I always disapproved of that.”

In the bathroom Todd took two of the generic Excedrins as well because he was feeling his age today, and when he came out Fenn was sitting up half awake.

“Are we going back to bed?”

“I was waiting for you to get out of the restroom,” Fenn said. “Nature is calling.”

In the darkness he went in now, and when he came out Todd scooted over in bed and pulled back the covers for him.

“I gargled in there,” Todd said. “And cleaned up a little.”

Fenn pulled the covers around himself and pulled Todd to him.

“Are you trying to say something.”

“I noticed you did too.”

“No, my breath is always minty fresh.”

Leaning on his side, Todd kissed him.

“There’s no one here,” he said, kissing Fenn again. “No one’s going to be here until at least eleven.”

“What time is it?” Fenn asked him, although he was already on his back, and Todd was pushing the covers away, and placing his body between Fenn’s legs.

“Time for this,” Todd told him, kissing down his neck, and taking his tongue up and down his body. “Time for this.”

While Todd made love to him lower and lower, and Fenn planted his hands in Todd’s hair and massaged his neck, he said, somewhat breathlessly, “I think you’re right.”

Dylan Mesda woke up bright and alive that morning. His body sang with a longing for Lance. In the end they both decided that him being with his family and Dylan staying with Tom was more important, that they would have all the nights until New Year, and so Dylan woke up in his room at Tom and Lee’s.

From the living room he could hear his father playing the piano. It was no Christmas song. It was Dave Brubeck. It was Time Out. Dylan lay in the covers listening, and then he closed his eyes tight, clenched his feet, clenched, his toes and let the music thrust through him. His eyes flew open and he pushed out of bed going to the corner of the room for his saxophone. He knew it so well he didn’t needed to turn on the light. He pulled on his top and pj bottoms and slipped his feet into house shoes, and then headed out of his room, playing along to the piano. He came to the top of the stairs, looked down into the living room, and then went down into it. Tom was looking up at him, and he was looking down at Tom and the two of them were in perfect sync playing to each other, trying not to smile, dipping in and out of the others rhythms. Danasia, Ron and Lee sat on the couch, and the children were waking. Even though it was scarcely seven in the morning, Danny had a drink in her hand, and she stood up and held her hand out to her husband. Ron rose and as Dylan came down the steps, the Lewises did an intricate waltz in the middle of the living room, Ron dipping his wife, Danny being dipped in an ecstasy. Lee, snapping his fingers began to scat as the music intensified and Dylan, now by his father played on.