P A R T
F O U R
F I F T E E N
“I have never had a year that was so great that I looked with anticipation to the next.”
-Chay Lewis
On the Last night of the year, Cara walked into Rob’s room, and she was almost standing over him when he shot bolt upright and touched his phone so the light went out.
“You don’t just walk in a guy’s room!” he told Cara.
“I do when the guy leaves the door open,’ she said.
“Oh,” Rob said, smoothing his dark red hair back. “Well… what’s up?”
“Not much, brother. Just came to say goodnight.”
“Goodnight, sis. Can you close the door when you leave?”
“Sure thing.”
When Cara was gone, Rob lay back in bed with only the little golden light over head and he closed his thighs together and then closed his eyes for a moment savoring the feeling before he took up the phone and turned it on again. The message he had not yet sent, he finished. It was short.
MY DICK IS SO HARD IT HURTS… I WISH I COULD GET IT SUCKED.
Rob slipped his hand into his shorts and squeezed himself, closing his eyes until he moaned.
And then he clicked SEND, and reached up to turn out his light.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Dena said. “I wanted to,” she said almost immediately, “But it wasn’t mine to tell, and if I told you, you would have had to tell Will.”
“I understand,” Layla assured her.
“I hated keeping that secret. For all we know, nothing happened. He was just thinking about it.”
“Well,” Layla said, “I’m not going to think about it. I’d much rather think about my life.”
Dena lifted her cup of coffee to her mouth and finished it.
“I’d rather not think about life at all.”
She was quiet a while and then she said, “I need a job. I have to go back to work. The kids don’t need me at home anymore. They don’t need me home all day.”
Layla nodded and Dena said, “You found your niche. You’re so lucky, you know that.”
“How do you figure?”
“You love teaching.”
“I do not love the money,” Layla said. “And I don’t love that every semester they tell you that you may not have enough classes for your winter semester and—”
Layla stopped.
“You know what? That is flat out ungrateful. I have to stop sounding ungrateful.”
Dena nodded, not in agreement with her friend, but because she needed to do something as well.
“I’m glad you’re home,” Dena said. “I’m glad you to go to England, but I’m glad you’re home.”
“Oh, I’m always glad to be home,” Layla said. “England is wonderful, but it doesn’t have my soft bed or my easy chair. Or you.”
“I come after the soft bed and the easy chair?”
“Well, you’re not soft, and you’re rarely easy."
In the tired night, the anger dissolved, the distance dissolved. Sheridan struggled out of his underwear and tee shirt and Brendan did the same. They did not make love. They were too tired for it. But Sheridan climbed onto him, wrapped his arms about him and fell into his arms. They slept like that. Once or twice, Rafe had found them like that, covers off and completely naked. He saw them holding each other, mouths open, and took off his clothes and climbed onto the bed with them, throwing his arms over his sleeping fathers. Sheridan had awaken laughing his head off and Brendan said, “Oh, by God, get a sheet, Sheridan.”
“Get that sheet, Little man,” Sheridan told Rafe in that relaxed voice, Brendan was sure he’d learned from Logan. Rafe brought them the blanket and Sheridan pulled over Brendan and himself. He did not care about being naked in front of his son, and wrapped Rafe up in his own little sheet.
“Chill,” he said to Brendan. “We’re his parents. He saw us loving each other and he just wanted to be part of it.”
Brendan turned over and put an arm over the boy.
“Still.”
Naked, Sheridan climbed under the sheet with Brendan, pressing his body to him, “If he doesn’t learn love from us, where’s he gonna learn it?”
Brendan blinked awake and saw Rafe looking down on him through the crook of Sheridan’s arm.
“Rafe,” he murmured, from under Sheridan, “It may be time to talk about knocking on doors and wearing clothing.”
“Can I go out with Liam?”
And yet, there was something touching about the fact that Rafe had no since of shame, and Brendan didn’t want to put one in him. He was completely unaware of Sheridan’s bare ass.
“Yes,” Brendan said. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”
“I need clothes.”
“I’ll lay some out little man,” Sheridan groaned.
“You’re awake?”
“I am now.”
Sheridan climbed off of Brendan who swiftly pulled a sheet over his middle while Sheridan, stretched, reached for his boxers, pulled them on and then followed his son out of the room.
“You really don’t give a shit, do you?” Brendan said.
“Contrare,” Sheridan said, scratching himself as he followed his son out of the room, “I think I give just the right amount of a shit.”
The knock on the door came the same time the phone rang, and while Todd made what Fenn would consider, “An old man noise,” and sat up turning on the light, Fenn turned to look at the phone and the message said, “It’s me downstairs,” and was from Thackeray.
Fenn climbed out of bed, yawning, and went to the closet to pull out his housecoat.
“It’s the boy,” he said, heading downstairs.
As he descended he hit the light switch that shed light only on the landing and left the rest of the first floor in shadow. By the door a red votive candle burned before an icon of the Virgin, but aside from that there were no other lights.
“Thackeray?”
The boy looked up at him and for a moment, Fenn thought he was looking at Tom. He had to remember the actual Tom Mesda was forty years older than this. It was hard to gauge how much Tom had changed until Fenn was confronted with the small boned, thin, messy haired figure of him at eighteen.
“Can I stay in the apartment?”
“Brendan and Sheridan are here with Rafe,” Fenn shook his head. “What’s up?”
“As in why am I here?”
“Glad as I am so see you, yes.” Fenn yawned.
“Jackie is pregnant.”
“Oh,” Fenn blinked. “Well, do you want tea?”
Now Thackeray blinked.
“Dad, I just said—”
“I am well aware of what you just said,” Fenn told him. “But its twelve o’ clock in the morning, and that isn’t the time for anything terribly heavy. Everything looks better in the morning. Where are your bags?”
“In the car. I’ll—”
“Just sit down,” Fenn said, pulling out the chair. “I’ll put the tea on, and I’ll have Todd go get your bags. When are you going back to Chicago? Never mind, we’ll figure that out—”
“I was actually thinking of staying here for a few days.”
“Of course you can, Son. You can stay as long as you wish.”
As Fenn but the mug into the microwave he said, “Pregnant?”
“Uh,” Thackeray looked very embarrassed, “Yeah, Dad.”
“Hum,” Fenn thought, “I’d always assumed you were a virgin.”
Fenn Houghton, aged sixty-umph, woke fully in the middle of the night, with no traces of sleep and heard the wind rattling the old windows. Todd was asleep beside him, and he felt a curious lightness of heart that was rare. Lying on his back, he went through the reasons, but concluded that, from Todd’s presence, to the presence of the children, it was something different altogether. The new year had never been a thing he’d greeted with pleasure, certainly not excitement, and so the fact that this was New Year’s Eve could have nothing to do with how he felt, but he pushed himself out of bed and began to dress, making sure not to wake Todd. He crossed to the closet and pulled out coat and gloves, hat and scarf. He had eaten and slept the whole day, and listened to the radio, and now it was time to take his daily walk. Never mind that it was past two in the morning.
He went down the stairs Down the stairs into the living room, shuffling into shoes when he heard the kitchen light switch and saw a shadow stretching before him.
Fenn stood up, jamming his foot finally into his left shoe and saw Thackeray standing in the doorway of the kitchen, unshaven, his hair sticking up.
“Put your coat on,” he said.
Thackeray obeyed.
A moment later they were walking up Versailles Street. Though the wind was strong it was warm, nearly fifty degrees. Last night snow had come down, and Fenn had expected more of the same. Tonight most of the snow was gone and they crunched across the thin leftover layer that covered the stretch of grass between the cul de sac and Dorr Road. They did not speak. It was not required. Fenn was surprised by he joy he had in Dylan’s brother, the last boy who had shown up nearly fully grown and reminded him so much of Dylan and in some ways so much of Tom but in the end was wholly himself. How a full grown child should show up and take such a place in his heart was still remarkable. However, Fenn had to admit, for all that Thackeray had been fifteen, he was not full grown. He had been unparented, and he had lived with Fenn for three years before going off to college. The thin young man with dark curls hanging out of his cap who walked beside him was apparently about to give him his first grandchildren, but the girlfriend was not here, and really she was the one pregnant with baby. They had not talked in a week, though Fenn hoped they would, though Fenn had much to say, many questions. Ah, best to speak on that later.
Best not to speak at all, or think at all as they walked up Dorr and one car and now another passed in the night, on its way to who knew? Maybe some other soul that just needed to drive. The wind, steady for a moment, picked up, and they had to lean forward to walk in it. Fenn, glad to concentrate on walking in the wind and push all other thoughts from his mind, was interrupted by Thackeray pointing out: “Saint Barbara’s.”
The old brick church was across the street from them, with the long brick building of the school, and the school yard, and Fenn said, “When I was young the light would always be on, and you could always go in.”
“Do you wish you could go in now?”
“Not really,” Fenn discovered. “So many of the good times of my life happened there, and I think when I’ve gone back it’s been to look for the good times that are in the past.”
“Every Sunday?”
“I haven’t really gone any Sunday,” said Fenn. “The truth is I haven’t really been going at all.”
“Dylan said—” Thackeray began.
“It is the strangest thing,” Fenn said, “for years I went all the time and was not entirely sure I believed. Then I went because I believed. Now I think I believe enough that I don’t have to be burdened by priests I don’t know and silly people I don’t agree with. I spent such a very long time looking for God in other places, but if he isn’t in me, he isn’t really anywhere. Is he?”
They were stopping at the corner of Dorr and Birmingham and beside them was the old all night diner.
“I could eat,” Thackeray said.
“I’ll watch you eat, and I’ll get a paper from that machine.”
It was one of the last paper racks in Rossford, old and red, and Fenn was surprised to see someone else getting a paper when he came there. He was tall and as he worked with the latch and pulled out the paper, he grunted, and said, “There,” then turned in blinked in shock.
“I didn’t see you. Oh…!”
The man stood looking at Fenn and Thackeray, apparently pleased. He was short haired, with brass rimmed spectacles in a grey car coat, and he began to laugh when he understood they did not know him.
“Fenn! Thackeray.”
It was Thackeray who knew him first.
“Logan!”
“Logan Banford,” Fenn said. “I had not expected to meet you at two in the morning on New Year’s Eve.”
“Well, now it’s almost three,” Logan said. “Are you all coming in?”
Logan had gestured to the restaurant, and Thackeray said, “We were,” and Logan said, “Well, alright then.”
They walked across the small parking lot, and pointing to a respectable looking, but winter grimed one time black car, Logan said, “We can drop you off when we leave?”
“We?” Thackeray enquired.
But the door opened and a little man said, “You know how I hate to sit at a booth by myself looking stupid. What in the world is taking—?”
Chay Lewis opened his mouth in surprise.
“Fenn! Thackeray!”
“Well a late night walk is turning into an early morning party,” Fenn noted.
“It’s all the party we’re going to get,” Chay said, hugging Fenn and then Chay, “I’ve always goddamn hated New Years Day.”
“I have never had a year that was so great that I looked with anticipation to the next,” Chay Lewis stated. “I absolutely, goddamned, totally, no doubt, hate New Year. I want to crawl up in bed and forget all about it.”
“But how do you really feel?” Thackeray said.
“It was worse back in the day,” Logan said. Except for around a few people, he called acting in porn, “back in the day.” “They would send us to clubs to ring in the New Year, and there is something soul killing about showing up in a gee string all oiled up at some club where everyone is coked out and thinking, I am doing the exact same thing I was doing last year, except now I am poorer and older. Which is what the motto for New Years should be.”
“I don’t think Dick Clark could sell that,” Fenn said.
“Who’s Dick Clark?” Thackeray demanded.
All three men looked at him.
“It doesn’t matter,” Logan said after a while. “They would have to roll out his embalmed corpse. He’s been dead for years.”
“I think the last few years they actually did roll out his embalmed corpse,” Fenn said.
Chay said, “I suddenly feel better.”
“For not being a en embalmed corpse?” Thackeray guessed.
“Well, that’s part of it,” Chay admitted. “It’s only that the New Year has a tendency to get me down. Don’t mean to get the rest of you down.”
“To tell the truth.,” Thackeray said, “I am okay with being a little down.”
They turned to him. They turned to Fenn. Fenn looked at his son.
“It appears I’m going to be a father. Or not. I haven’t heard from Alice.”
“Wow,” Logan said. Then, “That’s awful.” Then, “Or it’s good.” Then, “I’m sorry, you probably didn’t need to hear that.”
Thackeray shook his head, “It’s alright. Everyone gets a rough New Year now and again. Right?”
