“If we don’t have trust, we don’t have anything.”
-Sheridan Klasko
Years ago, when Brendan was almost fresh from college and he lived with Fenn and Todd, he had found Fenn, half passed out in the library with his old black beaded old rosary in his hands, listening to the Office of Readings. Brendan knew it wasn’t right to speak during prayers, but he also knew that if Fenn had not wanted company, he would have closed the door. Bren slipped in and sat down in a chair under the classics bookshelf.
Later, Fenn had talked about living in a monastery when he was younger, and all the monks who prayed the office of vigils, standing before God, reciting the psalms when the whole world was asleep, and praying when only those who were up late at work, or despairing of life and felt like they were alone, were up. And so now Bren, both as a praying Catholic, and an exhausted one who felt somewhat alone, and perhaps a little separated from things, prayed the Office of Vigils.
In the same way Brendan had come into the private space Fenn was sharing with God, so now Raphael, came into the room and climbed up onto his father’s lap. He touched the white rosary beads, and Bren opened his hands so that the white stone beads could spill into his little son’s palms
“Papa, take me to bed,” Rafe said, and Brendan realized he had dozed off in the middle of his thoughts. He lifted Raphael up.
Enough thinking. His head felt stretched. He came to bed. His bed light was still on over his nightstand, but Sheridan’s was not and from the darkness his husband said, “There’s your mail on the table.”
Brendan was a little miffed by this. At one in the morning the last thing he wanted to see was mail. He had an envelope from Geico he would dismiss, and one from Publisher’s Clearing House and then, in writing he could recognize anywhere he saw a letter and picked up, promising to read it in the morning. Scrawled across the front was one name:
Brendan murmured, “Kenneth McGrath.”
He had done Kenneth so wrong. Three letters had arrived last year, and he had responded to none of them. The last time he had wanted to, but it had been right before Christmas, nearly a year before, when he and Sheridan had gone to Chay and Casey’s house, and what they had learned that made their marriage stronger, threatened to make it more fragile as well. After that weekend, there was no way he could read a letter from Kenneth.
He never slept through an entire night. Four hour bursts, a break to the restroom, or looking over some work, was the best he could do. And then back to bed. It was on this break he took the letter to the toilet, sat down and opened it.
Dear Brendan,
I’m hoping you will respond to this letter. I hope you and Sheridan are well. Do you remember all those years ago, when we lived in Chicago, and I wanted to be there for you, but I couldn’t be? You were pursuing your dreams, and it was killing me. I didn’t understand back then that it wasn’t the city. It was the dream. We lived together so long, and I never really sat down and asked myself what was right for me. That was my fault. I hope I’m not rambling. It’s only that I was never meant to be a wife, and I guess that’s why, in the end, we had to find our own happinesses.
Speaking of our own happiness, I read your last book just recently. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, buy especially after I read it. I thought to myself, we were so long ago. He wouldn’t want to hear from me. It wouldn’t matter. But now I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to write you. Even if I wasn’t going to see you. I missed not communicating with you.
The problem with us, is that we loved each other too late, and never at the right time. I think when we first got together, you wanted to be in love, and I knew I loved you. That sustained us through college and then we just kept coming back to each other because we were used to each other. I think we just didn’t want to go onto something new, and thank God we did, because that’s where life is.
I was talking to my mother and I asked her if she believed in soulmates. She laughed and said no, that she believed that you just got used to someone. I asked her if she didn’t believe in love, and she said of course she did. But when you stayed with someone it was because you were used to them and you loved them. So I wrote this Bren, because I realize I was very used to you, and I still love you, and wish you everything.
For a long time Brendan was still, until he realized that it was almost five in the morning, and he was sitting, nearly naked on a toilet. He couldn’t think about this right now. Sheridan was asleep in the bedroom and their son was asleep in his own. Brendan looked at the address Kenny left.
415 W. Addison Street.
That was here! That was in Chicago. Somewhere on the Northside. Brendan looked at the bottom of the letter and there was a number. 773…. But Kenny was here. He was in this area. Immediately his dick was hard, and Brendan frowned over this. But he came out of the bathroom, wandered back into the bedroom and shoved the letter under all the other envelopes, and then thrust them into the bottom drawer of his bureau, he willed himself to go back to sleep.
“So, I’ll take Rafe to school on my way to the station,” Sheridan said. He was in dark trousers, dark shirt and his hat was on the table. Sheridan wore his gun at his side while he shook cereal into the bowl, and Brendan thought how safe he felt being married to a cop. He chuckled a little at this, and Sheridan looked over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Brendan said.
He had known Sheridan since the boy was about seven, hanging about him constantly, the very opposite of a cop, a skinny kid with tea colored hair, always in some sort of trouble.
“You did not sleep at all last night,” Sheridan said, sitting across the table and folded his hands together under his chin. His eyes were a very pale blue that looked through you until you looked through them.
“Ahh…” Brendan began, his head hanging, he blew out his cheeks looking for an answer. But Sheridan gave him one.
“It’s that case, I know. It’s bullshit, and you’ll prove that it is.”
Before Brendan could say anything more, Sheridan said, “I got into the police to make things better, and its like the moment you show up, you realize how fucked up everything is.”
“I think that’s the way everything is,” Brendan said.
“But still, you can make some changes with the law.”
“Some,” Brendan shrugged.
“You know what?” Sheridan reached over and touched his wrist. “I think sometimes you forget how much good you do.”
“Wha?” Brendan said, half distracted. Then, “I dunno. Maybe.”
“That piece of shit lawyer who tried to take that Black kid’s money after he sued his landlord. You made that shit turn around.”
“Yeah,” Brendan said, “Cedric actually lost that case.”
“He lost that case, but you defeated that lawyer in the next one. You made his name mud.”
“He was mud,” Brendan said. “But I do see what you mean.”
“And where that gay couple got fired from that company just for being who they were, and that one kid whose parents threw him out on the street after he came out. You got him a nice chunk from those fuckers and, do I really need to say more?”
Brendan shook his head. “It just seems like it takes a lot of work to do a little good, sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Sheridan smiled and rubbed Brendan’s knuckles, “and sometimes you need someone to remind you of what you’ve done.”
As Sheridan left the house, Rafe said, “Am I under arrest?”
He had just thrown his arms around Brendan and then thrust his hand into Sheridan’s.
“Yeah,” Sheridan returned in a rough voice, “and I don’t want no back talk.”
Brendan reclined against the beam on the porch and watched Sheridan secure Rafe in the back of the police car, and then, shoving on his hat, get in the front seat and wink at him. When they pulled into school, Sheridan would turn on the siren and all the kids would gather around as he let Rafe out. Being a police officer was not the highest paying job for a parent at Saint Mary’s school, but in the world of ten year olds it was, next to firefighter, the most glamorous, and of course firefighters could not drop their children off in their trucks.
When Sheridan and Rafe were gone, the house on Chicago Avenue seemed especially large and quiet. Brendan plugged in the Christmas tree, cleaned the kitchen and then he jogged around the neighborhood, came back, showered and sat down at his desk, looking over the messy papers. But the more he tried to work the more he thought of the letter from Kenny and, at last, he got up and rounded the bed to pull it out of the bureau. He held it before him without looking for some time and then, at last, he went to his desk, picked up his phone, and dialed the number at the bottom of the page. He sat on the bed with the phone ringing on his thigh, trying to convince himself that it didn’t matter if Kenny picked up or not. It rang four times and on the fourth, Brendan not only hung up, but shut the phone off.
“Best to get to work,” he murmured, and he was working well for almost two hours until he realized that his phone was off and no one could reach him any other way. He turned it on then, and put it beside him. It was nearly eleven o’clock, and the phone began that annoying ring which was so different from the old rotaries he remembered from childhood.
“Sheridan?” he began.
But the voice on the other end said. “No… Is this Brendan?”
Brendan shook his head, disconcerted for a moment, and then looked at the phone.
“Kenneth.”
“Yes!” Kenny said with relief. “I’m sorry I missed your call. Did you get my letter?”
“I…” Brendan started, “I did.”
“Good. Are you busy right now?”
“No,” Brendan said. “Not at all.”
“Great,” Kenny said.
“Yeah,” Brendan replied, because he didn’t know how else to reply, “Yes.”
“I wasn’t sure if you would want to hear from me.”
“Of course I’d want to hear from you.”
“We haven’t seen each other in a long time. And… I wrote you before.”
“I know,” Brendan said. “I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t really fit company for… for anyone, really.”
“We fell out of touch.”
“You make it sound like we’re old friends who just drifted apart, Kenny.”
“It was sort of that way.”
“We were together for seventeen years.”
“With breaks in between.”
“Oh, my God, Kenny,” Brendan said, “there were parts of your letter…” Brendan stopped to read them: “Where you didn’t think it would matter if I heard from you again… Where you asked me if I remembered things that… how could I forget them?”
“I don’t know, Bren. I’d written you a bunch already.”
“We were together,” Brendan said again.
“We weren’t married. That wasn’t legal. I don’t know if we would have married if we could have.”
“We would have.”
“We didn’t have kids. It kind of makes a relationship… evaporate. I dunno. I just was thinking about you.”
“Uh… I’d like to see you,” Brendan found himself saying.
“You must be very busy.”
“I’m not,” Brendan said. Then, “I mean I can be unbusy. During the day. I don’t know. Maybe you’re busy.”
“I… uh…”
“What’s wrong?”
“Brendan, I don’t know what came over me. I really, really wanted to write you. To know you’re okay. And I am so glad you are. I mean, I’m sure you’re really busy.”
“I’m not,” Brendan said, and was surprised by how desperate he sounded. “You live here. In town. I saw your address. I could take the Brown Line, I bet, and…”
“I’m packing up to head back to Rossford,” Kenny said quickly. “Things are really a mess. I just wanted to say hi.”
Brendan cleared his throat.
“Bren?” Kenny said.
“Then you don’t want to see me?” Brendan said.
“It’s not that. I mean, I need to get packed and things are busy, and it’s good to hear you.”
“But you don’t want to see me.”
There was silence for a long time, and then Kenny said, “I shouldn’t even have written you. I don’t know why I did. I’m sorry, Bren.”
“But Kenny, I’m glad—” Bren began, but there was a click, and Kenny was off the phone.
Bren bit his lip and frowning, he stared at the dead phone, waiting for Kenny to call back. After a while he thought maybe he should call again.
“I will call,” Bren said to himself. But for now he would leave his old love alone.
