But do you think they’ll be surprised?” Peter Bishop asked.
“Huh?” Fenn said from where he stood over the stove.
“Are you paying attention?” the grey headed man asked.
“To this gumbo,” Fenn said.
“I said—”
“Yes, yes,” Fenn assured him, “They’re going to love the car.”
“Because it’s important for your gay son to know how much you support him,” Peter continued, while Fenn stirred in more file powder. “I was reading this book by a man who has a gay son and he said his son opened him to all sorts of things, and even though he started off thinking he should be tolerant—”
“Bring me that can of crab meat.”
Peter blinked, his blue eyes huge through his spectacles, looked around then, finding the crab meat, brought it over.
“Even though he thought he should be tolerant of gay people he realized he should emulate them, and he did emulate his son, and that’s how I feel about Lance. I just respect the hell out of him.”
Fenn one eyebrow raised, carefully dumped the pink crab meat into the brown gumbo.
“And now the lid.”
“And by the way,” Peter said, “I respect the hell out of you.”
“Of course you do,” Fenn said. “Now hand me that lid, and my cigarettes.”
“My wife never lets me smoke in the house.”
“That’s one of the good things about not having a wife.”
But almost as quickly as Fenn sat down, a black truck rolled into the driveway beside the kitchen and Peter said, “You think they’ll appreciate it?”
“I think they will appreciate whatever you give them,” Fenn said, “and I think they’d better take that truck out of the driveway and to the front of the house before Todd gets back.”
The house was full. Layla and Will had gone to England to visit Pam and their other friends, and Fenn had come as well with Adele and his mother. Though he never spoke of it, Fenn was grateful to still have his mother when he was the age he was, and he was rarely separate from her.
“I did wonder if her heart could survive the flight,” Fenn confessed.
“Anne would never let you leave her in Indiana.”
“I don’t think I could. She’d never seen England. Of course,” Fenn said “I’ve only seen it once.”
There was no Christmas party that year, but for a few years the Christmas parties had been a bust. When they got on the plane to England, and Fenn strapped his mother in, who instead of complaining, kissed him, Fenn wondered how those parties had first started. He couldn’t quite remember the first one. Certainly, in his years with Tom, there had been no Christmas parties, and not in his first years with Todd. Where then? Had Layla been the main instigator? After all it was her generation, her friends, who seemed to dominate the whole thing. They had just gotten bigger and bigger. And then, in the last years, what with Meredith moving away, and Dylan and the boys not being able to reach town until Christmas morning, and then one thing and then another, the parties had become smaller, and then really not worth mentioning.
With no Dan Malloy and no Bick Throbbing, with no Logan or Kenny, no Moshe, it just wasn’t the same. When Brian and Chad went to Pennsylvania with Shelley or Jonah, and Keith and Sean went to New York, it just wasn’t the same
The year that Fenn had decided to go to England was the year he was tired of people apologizing for not coming, and the year that there was no party was the year people really began to feel its absence. In Pam’s house in London, they sat in the living room and listened to Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College. As the strong, thin voice of the chorister at the West Door began, “Once in Royal David’s city…” Fenn lifted the cup of tea to his lips and thought, “There will be no more Christmas parties. From now on, New Year. From now on Epiphany.
“Two parties?” Todd said.
“Yes,” Fenn said, “in one week, and if no one wants to come that’s not my problem. I don’t know how these things started. I don’t know how I had the nerve to be so sad when people stopped coming.”
Todd said nothing. Fenn had never confessed to being saddened by the shrinking of the parties. What was more, he offered no invitations to New Year’s Day.
“Dad, I didn’t think it would be terrible when nothing happened on Christmas but…” Dylan began.
“It sucked,” Thackeray said, simply. “We knew you were coming back, but it still sucked. Things are supposed to happen here on Christmas Eve.”
“You’ve gotten much too used to your dad always being there for you,” Todd said, “and much too used to you being there for you when it’s convenient.”
“Well,” Maia, said, lifting her baby to her breast, “when you’re right, you’re right.”
New Year’s Eve had been a quiet dinner at Layla’s house. She and Dena had made soup and sandwiches and Jonah had brought wine as well as Keith and Sean. Rob wore a suit all night and Cara said he was stupid for doing it. Their younger sister Barbara made bread and wondered why her older brother and sister couldn’t seem to do anything. Claire and Julian came with their three, and Nell and Bill were there. Meredith had just arrived that night and the house was filled with children. When Fenn and Todd arrived, followed by Maia and Bennett and the baby, Layla hugged her uncle warmly and said, “You are the guest of honor. After all these years it’s my turn to do something.”
Adele was there and Anne was there, and they played dominoes and then, when the kids were departing, poker. And laughter was there, and cigars. Todd and Fenn, Adele and Anne, Nell and Bill left after midnight, and early the next day Fenn began to cook. The house had been quiet and quite empty until around eleven. Thackeray was staying in Dylan’s old room.
Maia and Laurel began bringing dishes over at around twelve. And then Layla arrived with Will and the kids. Dena and Maggie showed up and said their husbands would be coming later. When the television in the living room went on it meant Bennett had arrived.
And now here were Dylan and Lance and Elias and Bennett swung around the door crying, “Is that my less attractive brother?”
“No, Matthew is somewhere else,” Elias said dryly, as Bennett jumped on him.
Dylan kissed his father, and Fenn touched his cheek, then said, “Go talk to your brother.”
“Is he alright?”
“No.”
“Oh,” Dylan frowned.
“Go see your brother.”
Fenn could hear Peter Bishop saying, “Austin has something for you at the house.”
“I can go see him tonight.”
“You can, but it seems a little urgent.”
Lance looked at his father, and then, for some reason, he looked at Fenn.
“Where are you staying tonight?” Fenn asked.
“I thought downstairs in the apartment?”
Fenn nodded. “Then go see Austin now. But make sure you park that truck someplace else.”
Lance nodded, Maia stood up to hit her husband and then Elias in the back ot the heads.
“Stop wrestling with each other in this kitchen. We’re cooking, you idiots. Take that shit into the living room.”
“You’re the best daughter an old man could have,” Fenn told her.
“You’re probably right,” she said while Lance headed out the door, “but don’t call yourself old. That’s my job.”
Lance turned around and asked his father, “Why are you here and I’m the one whose leaving?”
“Your dad and Fenn are attached,” Maia said.
“It’s like a bromance,” Peter Bishop said.
“It is not like a bromance,” Fenn said, putting a bit of potato salad on a small plate and reaching into a box of plastic forks.
“And your father will go with you,” Fenn said, “and bring back some ice. And maybe your brother and sister.”
“Are you sure it’s not too many people?” Lance said.
“No, no,” Fenn shook his head almost absently. “This isn’t like Christmas where everyone shows up for three hours before midnight Mass. This is New Years. People’ll be coming and going and… it’s whatever.”
Lance nodded and then Fenn added, “Besides, if Maia is the best daughter a man could have, you’re the best son.”
