There is a terrible silence while we stare at each other. And then he slowly shakes his head. “Not until you ask God’s forgiveness.”
It’s really astonishing that you can storm out of a house at eighteen in the middle of a shouting match, and then pick right up again in the same place eight years later. We’re still trapped in the same dialogue we’d had my entire last year of high school.
“I am humble before the Lord,” I say quietly. “But I will not apologize to Him for who I love, or who I am.”
My father gives me a disgusted look, as if I just announced my committed worship of Satan. He folds his arms across his chest. The posture is clear. Go away. You are no longer my son.
Message received. I feel a flash of the old hurt, but it’s followed swiftly by exhaustion. My anger is muted by two days behind the wheel of my car and by already having years of living with his rejection.
Still, I look him right in the eye. You arrogant fuck. Who says you can judge me?
My mother sniffs, and I know she’s crying. Mom wants me to come inside. But she doesn’t want it enough to stand up to him.
That’s when I finally realize I’m done here. Probably forever. There is nothing left to do but turn around and leave.
I take one last look at him. But there is no softness there. No affection for the kid he used to love, although I’ve always been me. I’m the same boy who caught all those baseballs with him in the various yards around the country where we lived when he was in the Air Force. I’m the same son who mowed the lawn and got up early to go fishing, because I craved his attention.
He doesn’t even blink. His rejection is unmoving.
So I turn around and make myself walk away.
The sound of the heavy wood door shutting behind me comes even more suddenly than I expect it to. And I have the sudden, terrible urge to spin around and hurl myself at that fucking door. Open up, you cowardly fuck! I might scream. Part of me wants to make a big scene, the way I used to when he lectured me during my senior year of high school.
But the other half of me is already numb. I drove all the way to Vermont thinking I might have a chance. When God closes a door, he opens a window. It’s the worst kind of cliché, but I wanted it to be true. All the way here I wondered if my breakup was some kind of sign that I was meant to live my life elsewhere. I thought maybe I was sent home again for a reason.
Apparently not, though. This week, when God closes a door, he also engages the deadbolt.
I go back to my car and start the engine again. Might as well have left her running. I do a three-point turn without looking at the house, yellowed pine needles crackling under my tires. It’s time to form a Plan B. So I point my car toward the center of Colebury.
I’ll bet my father is already watching the playoff game again. Maybe he’s treated himself to a second beer, just to wash away the disturbing intrusion of his queer son during the fifth inning.
And my mother is crying into a hand towel in the bathroom. Quietly. So she doesn’t make a fuss.
I can’t think about them right now. I have more practical problems—like how to get a job immediately. And where to sleep tonight. Best-case scenario—there is magically a job opening at the King Arthur Flour Bakery, where I began my career. But even if they hire me tomorrow, it will be at least two weeks until I could expect to be paid.
I have to figure out how to stay alive for several weeks on a few hundred dollars.
As I drive into town, I notice that my gas tank is almost empty. There goes twenty-five bucks. I drive slowly anyway, taking in the sights, wondering what’s changed. Just before the turn into Colebury, I spot a couple of new businesses. There’s a bar called the Gin Mill with lots of cars in the parking lot. That place looks like a good time, but I don’t have money to spend, not even on a single beer.
In the same lot, though, there’s another business that’s even more interesting to me. The Busy Bean. A coffee shop. It’s closed now, but I make a note to pay it a visit soon. If it’s a big coffee shop, they might be able to use a baker, one who doesn’t mind pouring coffee, too.
Beggars can’t be choosers. And since I’m this close to becoming an actual beggar, I have to keep my options open.
I gun the engine, climbing the hill toward the town square. The houses look a little better maintained than the last time I was here. It’s a warm autumn night, and there are people standing outside the old diner, chatting. That place has shined itself up, too. When did Colebury get cute? I’m stunned at how cheerful it looks, with window boxes on the store fronts and every street lamp lit.
My nostalgia bubbles up inside me again like yeast. This is my hometown, even if I never felt welcome here before. I was born here. And even if I spent most of my first eighteen years living on various military bases around the world, I finished high school here, too.
And I like the look of the place, damn it. I feel the pull.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I settled down in Colebury right under the noses of my parents? I want to see the look on my father’s face when I walk into the diner holding hands with my future boyfriend.
Now there’s a happy thought I’ll need to revisit when I’m trying to fall asleep in the passenger seat later.
Behind the old diner, I see something that’s actually useful to me. A gym. TRY A WEEK ON US, reads a sign in the window.
It’s the first lucky break of the day. Or maybe the month, if I’m honest. If the gym has even a half-decent locker room, I can shower there every night. I’ll need to look professional while I’m job hunting.
I park my car and get out. Come on, Colebury. Don’t let me down.
Kieran
I’m leaning against my car in the parking lot at the gym. I’m aware that just standing around outside the gym defeats the whole purpose of being here, but I’m on the phone, listening to my older brother plead with me to do his chores at home.
“Come on, this is my opportunity to make an extra hundred bucks. You can come into the Gin Mill and I’ll buy you a beer.”
“How can I come in and drink beer if I’m moving the cows for you?” I ask. People always tell me that I have a grumpy voice. But lately it’s extra grumpy when I talk to Kyle.
“Come later,” he says. “After chores.”
Only Kyle would pretend that’s a workable plan. He expects me to abandon my workout, drive forty minutes home, move the cows’ grazing fence before it gets dark, and then finish the other farm chores.
Then drive forty minutes back for a free beer? Ridiculous.
And here’s the shitty thing—Kyle gets paid by our dad for farming. But I don’t. “You have two jobs, and Kyle does most of the ranch work,” he’d said last year when he’d finally added Kyle to the payroll.
That would make sense if only it were true. But Dad’s back problems started getting worse right after that, so I’ve been pitching in three nights a week. “Let me get this straight. I’m doing your chores for free so that you can earn money elsewhere?”
“Please?” he begs. “What if I paid you twenty bucks? It’s only a two-hour gig, but Alec says the beer-industry people are big tippers.”
I look forlornly toward the gym. If I’d gotten here ten minutes earlier I would have been inside already, unreachable. I do everything that’s asked of me. Everything. And nobody really appreciates it.