The Prayers in Rossford

The rules Of sex

The first time, Nell had been afraid. After all it had been almost fifteen years and coming in, it hurt just a little, felt a little strange.

Charlie kept saying, “I’m not hurting you, am I?” Or, “It’s okay, right? It’s nice for you, right?”

He fucked her slowly at first, and then quicker and then it seemed like it was never going to end. She lay on her back, being humped, and then Charlie suddenly cried, and whispered, “It’s happening…” and he started quicker. This time, as it grew faster and faster, he suddenly touched something and for the first time, Nell cried out.

“What’s wrong?”

“It… it feels so good.”

And then they continued, for the first time Nell feeling him, running her hands over his back, the small of his back, pulling the soft youngness of his ass into her, reaching up again, kissing him, him kissing her, her kissing him firmly. Their bodies pressed together, moved together. For the first time Charlie wasn’t funny to her, and she wasn’t too old, or too above him. And then it hit her, it shook all through her, and melted her. At the same time he shivered and looked into her eyes as his body went still.

“That was it,” Charlie said as he sighed, laying on his side and taking off the condom. “That was it, wasn’t it Nell?”

“Yes,” Nell whispered. “That was.”

“I never… I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”

“I never do,” Charlie said. “That was… I suppose you need me to go soon.”

“Not soon,” Nell said. “Family’s coming back before morning.”

“Your sister?”

“Yes,” she lied.

“Um,” Charlie said. “Could I kiss you a little?”

“Yeah.”

Charlie did and moaned, “It’s so good, isn’t it?”

Nell didn’t want to say, “Yeah” again, so she just placed the back of her head to his chest and let him touch her hair.

“Oh, Adele!” Nell held her friend’s hand as she looked at the ring shining on her finger.

“He proposed last night. After our outing.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“I have no idea,” Adele told her.

“And now here’s where you tell me about your date with Charlie?”

Nell went silent, and then her face went red and Adele said, “Did you… Did you and Charlie?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Adele picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Fenn, guess what?”

“Adele!”

Nell said: “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Hold on, Fenn.” She turned to Nell: “Tell me what?”

“Tell you I slept with Chalie.”

“You slept with Charlie!” Adele sang.

“She slept with the weatherbaby!” Nell heard Fenn’s voice on the other end of the line.

Nell went to the phone, shouted: “Don’t tell anyone. And that means Todd,” and then she hung up the phone.

“Charlie,” Adele said, smiling like a cat at a mouse. “The weatherman… How was it?”

“Firstly,” Nell said. “I hate you. Secondly….” she whispered, “it was excellent!”

The phone rang and Nell answered it.

“Hello,” said Nell, sparing a glace for her daughter who, hair falling down her back, half asleep, was coming down the steps into the kitchen.

“Nell, it’s Charlie.”

“Good morning!” she sang and Dena raised an eyebrow as she pulled the orange juice out of the refrigerator.

“I really liked last night. It was really wonderful.”

“Yes, yes it was.”

“I was… I know that a man is supposed to keep a woman waiting and not call back right away, but I wanted to know if you wanted to get together again.”

Since Dena was looking intensely at her mother, Nell said, out loud, “I would love to get together with you.”

Brendan yawned and pulledKenny closer to him.

“What’s that smell?” Kenny said.

“I swear it wasn’t me.”

“No,” Kenny pushed the pillow into his face and commanded, “Smell, dummy.”

“Wow,” Brendan said, pushing himself off of the fu-ton. “Waffles.”

Brendan and Kennycame out into the brightness of the living room yawning while Layla, in the kitchen said, “It’s almost ready.”

Radha’s legs were folded under her and Kenny said, “Mark, are you braiding her hair?”

“Used to braid my sister’s all the time.”

Coming out of the kitchen, James said, “Consider this After-After-After Prom.”

“Noah is making the hash browns and sausage. Layla’s doing the pancakes and waffles.”

James told Layla to call her mother.

“I told her I wouldn’t be back till tomorrow.” She flipped a pancake. “And I can’t call while I’m cooking.”

“Where’s Aidan?” Brendan said, and then touched his stomach, frowned and added, “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Aidan and Annalise had to go home. And Will is home,” Layla added. “I came here after you all went to sleep.”

As Brendan disappeared into the bathroom, Noah shouted: “Don’t forget to use air freshener.

When Fenn was off of the phone,Todd was in the living room, and he shouted, “What was that, babe?”

“Nothing,” said Fenn in a tone that deserved Todd’s response:

“Somehow I doubt that.

“Come here, babe, we need to talk.”

When Todd said ‘babe’ once in a morning, let alone twice in a few minutes, it was something a little serious, Fenn suspected.

“Yes?” he said.

“It’s about Dylan,” Todd had been tinkering with a camera, and now he sat up straight, the long lens on his lap.

“Yes,” Fenn said again.

“What you said… it tempted me.”

“It wasn’t mean to be a temptation. I really think—”

“You really think I’m more attached to Dylan than you are. And more… into babies period.”

“You are, Todd.”

“And I’m the one who wanted the baby.”

“Right. You’ve wanted one for a while. You just started talking about it now. But I always knew. I never said I wanted a baby.”

“But you do love Dylan, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Fenn said. “But… I don’t know if I do in the way a father should.”

“You love him better than his mother did. And his mother gave him to you.”

“Because I’m the one that gave her the little bit of Tom in the first place.”

“That’s right,” Todd said. “And I’ve been thinking. No matter how you feel today, or tomorrow for that matter, in the long run it does make sense for you and Tom to have a child together. It makes sense for you to be the father of Tom’s baby. There’s something between you and Tom. And you and Dylan even though you don’t feel it.”

“I don’t not feel it. I just feel it a lot less keenly than Tom. Or you. I… I think I would be a really good father to a teenager. I’d be a really good parent for stepping in later. I’m not really a baby person. And that sounds terrible, but it’s true.”

“Like one of those soaps,” Todd said, “where the kid shows up years later, fully grown.”

“That’s a child I can handle!”

“Fenn!” Todd said. “Baby, Look, that’s what I’m here for. And Tom. And Lee. Look, the burden isn’t on you, It’s hardly on you at all.”

“Then I don’t understand why you won’t be the father.”

“Because I’m not the father,” Todd said. “And that’s just the truth.”

Fenn turned away from Todd.

“I don’t really feel like a father,” he said. “And the father of Tom’s kid. I mean… I don’t know. It’s very big. I don’t know why he asked. I think he asked to get back at me.”

“No, he didn’t!” Todd said. “And you know that.”

“Maybe,” Fenn said, turning around. “I need to take a walk.”

“You probably do.”

“I need to go talk to my sister.”

“That’s a good idea, baby,” Todd said, stroking Fenn’s shoulders. And then, because Todd as wonderful counselor was growing old, Fenn said, “Oh, by the way…”

“Hum?”

“Your sister...”

“Nell?”

“Yup.”

“What about her?”

“She’s fucking the twenty-five year old weatherman on news 22.”

“Have you run it by Mama?”

“Are you serious?” Fenn said.

Adele considered her brother’s question, and then said, “You’ve got a point.”

“Hell, yeah, I do.”

“Things are so different for us,” Adele said. “A year ago, who pictured I’d be getting married again and you would be having a kid? With Tom.”

“Please don’t start maligning him.”

“Hey, I’m past him. Since you’re past him. The two of you are bound together. I don’t get it, but it’s kind of sweet.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Fenn said. “I know what I should do, and even what I probably will do.”

The door opened and they both looked up the hallway.

Layla came in with Noah and James.

“What happened to your date, young lady?” Adele held her arm out, and Layla came and kissed her.

“Well, After the After After Prom—” James began, then shook his head and muttered, “I’m confusing myself.”

“After the last After Prom thingy,” Noah said, “Aidan and his sister went home, but the rest of us went to my place and crashed.”

“I cooked,” Layla reported.

Adele flashed her hand and said, “I’m engaged.”

“It’s about time!” Layla declared, putting a hand to her head as she sat down and exhaled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” her mother said.

“Congratulations, Adele,” Noah said, unconsciously wrapping an arm around James.

“And congratulations to you,” Adele said with a wink.

“Your uncle has problems,” she reported to Layla.

“That’s not news,” she said, looking archly at Fenn, who kicked her lightly from under the table.

“He isn’t sure about going through with the adoption.”

“I have no parental instincts.”

“And you’re cruel to minors,” Layla added, rubbing her leg.

Fenn frowned at her.

“I asked Todd to be the father.”

“That does make sense in a way,” Noah said. “But… I mean, Dylan doesn’t need two fathers. He’s got one father, and a bunch of other folks who will be glad to step in, Fenn. So he doesn’t need to have Todd as a dad.”

“Well, then he doesn’t need me, either,” Fenn said. “And it hardly matters, Todd said no, anyway.”

“Isn’t a kid…?” James began, “Isn’t a kid really something between the two parents, I mean a sort of symbol of something that happened between two people. Nothing ever happened between Todd and Tom.”

“I think that’s what I’m getting at,” Noah said. “Something really was between you and Tom, and you are responsible for Dylan’s existence. That’s a fact. So it just makes sense for you to be the dad.”

“I just don’t feel like a dad.”

“Oh, who the hell does?” Layla said. “I mean, look at my father. Hell—”

“Layla, that’s two hells too many,” her mother said.

“Heck,” Layla modified, “look at your father.”

“She’s got a point,” Adele said.

“The question,” Layla said, “out of the mouths of babes—that’s me—I’m the babe—is how do you feel, Fenn, when you think about you and Tom sharing a child, and that child being Dylan? Does it make you happy, or sad or…?”

“It makes me happy, Layla, but—”

She cut her uncle off with her hand.

“Then that’s all there is to it.”

Layla reached for one of the oranges on the table and said, “Now, if you all will excuse me, I need to shower. It’s almost one o’clock, and I’m still funky.”

With that she disappeared down the hall and Fenn said, “Where the hell does she get it from?”

James and Noah looked at him and both said: “She gets it from you.”

“Tom, if you don’t stop pacing, I’m going to have to get up and hurt you.”

“You’re not being very sympathetic,” Tom said.

“No,” Lee agreed. He hit save on the laptop.

“I’m working, Tom. For years I lived alone. Working. Because when you live with other people, when people are walking in and out, it’s hard to get work done. You are an example of this. Right now, Tom.”

“Am I am example of it?” Danasia said from the couch.

“You weren’t,” Lee said, archly.

“Ouch.”

Lee shrugged.

“I am just… very nervous right now,” Tom said. “I really don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Danasia told him.

Lee turned around.

“Fenn said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be a father. If he had it in him.”

“He’s not exactly the fatherly type,” Danasia noted. Lee opened his mouth, but Danasia said, “Then, again, neither are you. And yet, you did it for me. Better than Lemonade did. Or my mother.”

“Exactly,” Tom said, “that’s what I’m trying to say. I mean, he wouldn’t be the most traditional parent, you know? But, wouldn’t you feel safe with Fenn? He wouldn’t steer a kid wrong. And, it’s not that Todd would. But… I mean, just because he’s his partner doesn’t mean he’s the same as Fenn... I mean—”

“He says I mean, a lot,” Danasia noted.

Lee nodded, and turned back to his work.

“What I mean—” Tom began again.

“What you mean,” Lee anticipated him, “is that Fenn is Fenn, and he’s the only father you want for this child.”

“Why aren’t you the father?” Danasia asked Lee.

“I don’t want another kid,” he said baldly.

“That’s not it,” Tom said. “It’s just that—”

“Yes it is it,” Lee said quickly. “I’m good with being Uncle Lee. Fenn and Tom made this baby. I grant you it was in a strange way, but the two of you made it, and Tom, you gotta get off your ass and just go to Fenn and tell him, look, this is the way this shit’s gon be. You’re going to be this baby’s daddy.”

“Other daddy,” Tom corrected.

“I always thought you were more like the mother,” Danasia said.

“Um,” Lee pondered, “I always thought Fenn was. You know the way mothers are in my family.”

They looked at him.

“You’ve seen Lula.”

“Oh, yeah,” they both remembered, and nodded.

“Well, whatever you are,” Danazia said, “you better go get Fenn and tell him exactly how you feel.”

Tom looked so terrified of this, Lee said, “What?”

“What if he says no? Or… I could never make Fenn do anything.”

“You made him stay with you for ten years,” Lee said. “Now go get him.”