The Houses in Rossford

“He says he’s dying,” Adele said.

“Hello, Papa,” Fenn said entering the house behind Layla, followed by Matt and Paul.

“Is that him?” his father said.

“No,” Fenn said. “Todd looks the same way he did last time you saw him.”

“I don’t remember what the fuck he looked like,” Leroy Houghton said. “All I remember was that short fucker you ran off with. Bob, or Steve, or Danny. I thought, Goddamn, if you gon have to swing that way, at least bring home a niggah. But no, you brought that short motherfucker home. Best thing you ever did was toss his ass aloose. What happened to his ass anyway?”

“His ass,” Adele said, “is with Lee.”

“Goddamn! Two in the family, and both of yawl chasing after these short, white motherfuckers. And now you got this skinny white motherfucker. This redheaded motherfucker over here.”

“Paul is just a friend.”

“And Idetta and Kittie and Clordine, and all them bald headed bigtittied bitches yaw mamma saw me with back in the day was just friends. I was a son of a bitch.”

“Yes,” Fenn agreed. “You were.”

“And you still are,” his ex-wife said. “Fenn, he said he was gon drop dead of some cancer and now he wants to live with me.”

“And me,” said Lula. “And that shit just ain’t gon happen.”

“Be quiet you mean ole bitch,” Fenn’s father barked. “Waddn’t nobody talking to your old withered black ass anyway. I bought that house your ragged ass is living in, and now you gon—”

Lula stood up and declared: “See if I don’t whoop your ass, niggah. Just like I should have the day you came into my husband’s house and said you were gon marry my daughter.”

“Bitch, you gon sit the fuck down, just like you did the day I came into your husband’s house and said, I’m gon marry your daughter.”

“Hold up hold up hold up!” Fenn put up his hands.

They all looked at him.

“What’s all this shit about some cancer?”

“Watch your mouth,” his mother said before continuing: “This son of a bitch is broke. He’s got no place to live, but now he wants to tell everyone he has some cancer. We sit up and take care of his black ass. Look at his skinny black ass! Have you ever seen an ass as old, or as black, or as skinny as this man’s skinny black ass?”

“Have you seen an ass as fat, or as badly kept as this bitch’s old black ass?” Fenn’s father asked him, pointing to his mother.

“Oh, motherfucker, you gon take that back—!”

Fenn pulled his mother back down as she prepared to cross the kitchen table.

“Now you’ve seen my family,” Layla said to Paul and Matt. “Why don’t you go upstairs and see yours.”

The brothers nodded to each other, and then took her advice.

“So… Wait,” Fenn said. “Do you really have… something?”

“Cancer!” Leroy Houghton declared. “My daddy had it when he was my age.”

“But do you have it? Have you been to a doctor?”

Fenn’s father looked at him like he was crazy, old brown eyes blazing from behind the thick glasses.

“Are you crazy? You know I don’t believe in no goddamn doctors!”

“So you made this up?”

“I feel like my time is coming.”

“You gon feel the back of my shoe in your—” Lula began, but Adele put a hand up.

Fenn sighed.

“And he wants to sit up in my house,” his mother muttered.

When his break came, Brendan stepped outside and moved under the over hang, where it wasn’t so hot, and he could get away from the sun.

“So,” Kenny McGrath said, “Can I ask you a question?”

He hadn’t noticed Kenny, or he might have stayed inside, or at least hung around out front. Now that Kenny was a cashier too, they didn’t have to work together.

Brendan didn’t say anything.

“I gotta know,” Kenny said, “when you’re fucking Dena—”

“You really need to not say that again.”

“I mean, you are fucking her, right? Well, when you’re fucking her, do you feel straighter? Do you feel like the man you always wanted to be?”

Brendan un-slouched himself from the wall and stood up straight, still looking straight ahead.

“I think I’m going to leave,” Brendan said. “You have a good day, Kenneth.”

Brendan folded his hands in his apron and turned for the back door while Kenny repeated, “You have a good day, Kenneth! Fuck you, Brendan Miller!”

“Okay, so I guess you all want an explanation?”

“No, that’s alright—” Claire began, but Matt and Paul said, “Hell, yeah,” and then looked at each other.

Layla looked at them, Claire shrugged and said, “By the way, Paul, we know you’re gay.”

Paul turned around, red, and Layla said, “Good, now we can all be awkward and embarrassed. So, what do you all want to know?”

“Why haven’t I seen that old man before?” said Paul.

Layla put her hands together.

“That old man is my grandpa. And you ain’t seen Papa, cause Papa was a rollin’ stone. He rolled into town long enough to marry my grandmother and he stayed something like faithful to her until Fenn was about five or six or seven, or hell, I don’t know. Then he just dipped. They were separated for twenty years before they finally went ahead and got the divorce. The other old lady is my great-grandmother. She never liked my grandfather, not even when he was a little boy.”

“Your great-grandmother knew him when he was a little boy?” Claire said.

“Well, yeah. See, she was his stepmother. She had been married to his father.”

“Oh, my God.”

“That’s why everyone’s last name is Houghton.”

“But they’re not niece and nephew… or anything?”

“They aren’t niece and nephew, but I’m pretty sure they are some type of cousin. It’s legal. Don’t make that face.”

“Are you sorry you asked?” Claire turned to her brothers.

Mouth open in an amazed smile, Paul said, “Not really. Where the hell does Lee come from?”

“Lee is Lula’s sister’s grandson,” Layla began.

“Oh, alright—”

“And my grandfather’s nephew.”

“The grandfather downstairs?”

Layla nodded.

Claire’s eyes were up at the ceiling and she was muttering something, counting on her fingers.

“What are you doing?” said Layla.

“Trying to make out your family tree. And I can’t.”

“You need to talk to her.”

“What do you mean, I need to… I can’t.”

“Brendan, this is fucked up!” Will exclaimed. “Look at you. Why are you doing this? And… Pardon me, but if I’m not wrong, then she’s not the only person you need to talk too.”

“I can’t… I… I’m having sex with her. We’re doing it all the time. She likes it. I mean, I like it too—”

“When you close your eyes and pretend she’s someone else—”

“I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“No, you should have, Bren. You really should have because you can’t keep on doing this. It’s not fair to her. Or to you.”

And then Will added, “It’s really not fair to her. I mean, you’re doing this to Dena so you can… Never mind.”

“So I can what?” said Brendan.

“So you can turn yourself into something you’re not. And… it’s not fair.”

“Look,” Brendan said. “I know it’s not fair. That’s why… I’m not going to stop. It makes her happy when we—”

“Fuck?”

“Stop!” Brendan’s voice grew hard.  “I’m serious, Will. Don’t ever say that.”

“Well, it’s not making love. I’m sorry, Bren. But we’re supposed to be friends, and friends tell each other shit when they see that they need to.”

“I think Layla’s rubbing off on you.”

“Well…” Will shrugged. “I think she is too. And that’s a good thing.”

“I’m so tired,” Brendan said, suddenly.

“I’m just so tired of pretending. I’m so… tired. I hate… feeling the way I do. Like this fraud, like this… this monster who is hurting everybody.”

“Aw,” Will covered his mouth and shook his head. He sat down on the bed beside his friend and put his arm around him.

“Brendan, you have to tell her the truth. You can’t go on like this. Don’t be afraid. All of your friends are going to support you. The both of you.”

“You’re the only real friend I have.”

“That is not true!”

“Well, it will be… after I talk to her.”

“No,” Will said, stoutly. “It won’t be. But even if it was, you’d still have me. So don’t worry.”

Brendan buried his face in his hands so long Will thought he was crying. When he removed them his face was red, but dry. He cleared his throat, stood up and said, “I gotta go. I gotta go see Dena.”

Monday afternoon, Julian Lawden was leaving the theatre when he saw, from the corner of his eye, Layla Lawden. He thought to keep on walking, and then shrugged and came toward her.

When he stood in front of her she said, “Hello?”

“Do you know who I am?”

Layla’s hello had been the closest thing she could come up with to simultaneously throwing out a challenge while claiming ignorance.

“Yes,” she said, at last. “I do.”

“All right,” said Julian. “Well, what do you want to do about that?”

“Whaddo you mean what do I want to do about it?”

“Look,” Julian’s voice changed. “I’m not the one that broke up your parents’ not so happy marriage, so you can lose that tone of voice right now.”

No man ever talked to her that way. No man who wasn’t in her family. But then, Julian was family.

“How old are you?” Layla said.

“Older than you. By a year.”

When Julian smiled at her, it wasn’t a welcoming one.

“You thought to yourself, ‘I’m the daughter of Hoot Lawden’—and if you want to be proud of that you can be—‘and this is the bastard of the woman he left my mother for.’ And then you learn that it’s the other way around.”

She looked at him.

“See,” Julian put a finger up. “You’re the bastard.

“Hoot was married to my mother before he married yours. It was short. They didn’t get on. He was a cheat. What’s new? He cheated with Adele. I was already about to come into this world when Adele said she was pregnant. With you, Layla.”

Layla’s face dried, and all up and down it, all up and down her body heat pricks stung her.

“My mother said, at the time, she didn’t want him anymore. He could go to Adele. So he did. But apparently neither one of them got over each other as much as they said. Whatever they did, I’m not the bastard you seem to think I am, and no matter how much you think Hoot loved your mother, whenever he left her house, apparently he couldn’t quit fucking mine.”

Layla’s hand went up to slap him, but Julian caught her wrist.

“None of that, okay?”

As he lowered her hand back to her side, Julian told her in a level, almost conversational voice, “I, for one, am tired of seeing your sanctimonious black ass walk around here, turning me the evil eye for no reason, and if it’s all the same, I just thought I’d give you a reason.”

He released her hand, smiled, and turned around to walk away.

Then he turned back around while Layla was rubbing her wrist and said, “When you want to talk civil, come and see me, sis. After all,” he said, saluting her, “we’re family.”

Layla thought about going back to her house, but winded by her conversation with Julian, she caught the Number Thirteen, putting her bike on its rack, and headed toward Dena’s instead.

When she got there, Brendan was by his car and Layla thought, “Shit, I should have called first,” but Brendan called her over.

Layla wheeled the bicycle across the street and rested on its handlebars looking at Brendan.

“You look horrible.”

“I feel horrible. Layla, just go in and be with her.”

“What?” she began. Then, “Brendan, what’s going on?”

“Just,” Brendan shook her head, “Be with her. I have to go. I need to go,” he said, and got into the car.

Layla wheeled the bike up the hill watching Brendan drive away, and then she left it on the brick porch of the Meraden house and went inside, going up the stairs in the narrow hallway and down the hall of the old house, to her best friend’s room.

Layla put her ear to the door.

“Shit,” she murmured, and tapped softly.

“No,” Dena’s voice was thick through the door.

“It’s me, Deen. I’m coming in.”

Layla pushed the door open, and Dena was sitting on the edge of the bed. It was awful to watch, her face buried in her hands, hidden by her dark hair, her body shaking.

She got up and her face was red and streaked. She threw her arms around Layla and dragged her to the bed.

“Oh, God,” she wailed while Layla rocked her, pushing away Hoot and Julian and the news Julian had told her, pushing away how hot and tired she was, how horrible Brendan had looked.

“Oh, my God,” Dena cried, shaking and sobbing.

“I knew.”

“You knew?”

“Yes,” said Will.

“What all did you know?” Layla said. “Because tonight my oldest friend tells me: one, she was sleeping with Brendan, who might be my second oldest friend, and then two—”

“I knew all of it,” Will said.

Layla stared at him.

“Brendan came to me, Layla. Dena didn’t know that. He was so confused. He was scared. He needed someone to talk to, and I’m his only friend.”

“That,” Layla said thickly, “is not true.”

“He couldn’t tell you.”

“Dena couldn’t tell me either. But Brendan, he told you everything?”

“Yeah,” Will said, weakly. “He did.”

Layla turned away from him and stood staring hard out of the window.

“Layla—”

“You know what?” she said. “There’s really enough in my life right now. I really shouldn’t even care that my friends thought that I couldn’t be confided in. I shouldn’t care. Like, did you know I met my brother today? That’s what I wanted to talk about? I met him and it turns out he’s older, and the woman my father cheated on my mother with was his ex wife, and apparently he was sleeping with my mother while he was married to her, and that’s how I was conceived? Did you know that, Will?”

“No, Lay. Sit here, we’ll talk about it.”

“I just talked about it,” she whirled around. “I just stood here, and fucking talked about it.  You’re so good, Will, about hearing everyone’s secrets, so good that apparently you know everyone’s business while I’m in the dark. And then it’s okay to tell me when you feel like it, tell me you’ve all been hiding shit from me. It’s okay because it’s all about Dena who couldn’t tell what the fuck we all could tell from a mile away.”

“Dena was just—”

“Fuck Dena,” Layla said. “And fuck Brendan.”

She crossed the room to leave.

“Let me give you a ride home.”

“No, Will,” she said.

And then she added: “ And fuck you, too.”