“No, I wasn’t, but…he was always more experienced and worldly than Lane. And he said…” Mom’s eyes shot toward Isaac, watery, tears already spilling. “Oh God. I’m sorry, Isaac. I just… I’m trying to make sense of this. Of what was going on beneath our noses and we didn’t know. You’re brothers.”
“No, Mom, we’re not. We were raised as family, as brothers, yes, but only since we were fourteen, and we’re not really related. We’re in love, and as much as I love you, if you accuse Isaac of something, if you push this off on him as if he were at fault, I’ll walk out that door with him and won’t come back.”
“Lane,” Isaac said, warning in his voice, but I ignored him, didn’t even look at him, instead seeing the hurt that flashed in Mom’s eyes.
“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “You know I love you, Isaac. You’re my son.”
Just like I was her son, which was where the problem came in. She didn’t give birth to Isaac, but she’d raised him and loved him, she’d cared for him the way a mother does their child, and now we were telling her that we were in love with each other.
“I think we need to have that seat now,” Timothy said, going for the dining-room table without my mom. He was hurt from her accusation, and while I could understand it, he had to know Mom hadn’t meant it.
She turned and followed him. I waited for Isaac, whose face looked like stone.
“She didn’t mean that, Isaac. She loves you.”
“I know.”
But did he? He’d said he couldn’t lose another mom, and then she’d made that kind of accusation.
“We’ll make them understand.”
Isaac nodded, tried to smile, and we joined them—Timothy and Mom on one side, Isaac and me on the other.
“I guess this explains Isaac’s response to Jayden,” Timothy said humorlessly.
Isaac said, “Nothing happened while we were growing up. I knew I loved him, but I didn’t tell him. Not until Jayden left and Lane was staying with me. I tried, Helena. I tried to stop. I tried to make it go away. I tried to ignore it. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t…I can’t be without him if he’ll have me.” Isaac dropped his head.
“It’s not just us, son. The rest of our family, friends, everyone who knows us sees the two of you as brothers. What do we tell them? I don’t know that either of you boys have really considered what people will see, what they’ll think.”
“Is that what you see and think?” Isaac asked. “That this is perverted? That there’s something wrong with us?”
It took Timothy a moment to respond. Each second that went by seemed to last longer, like an echo that continued to linger. “I think that for sixteen years, I’ve had two sons. The two of you have been brothers. I’ve loved you both the same and treated you like siblings. Everyone we know has done the same. Grandma tells people about her grandsons, and your aunts and uncles of their nephews. And now you’re telling us this, that you’re a couple, but I can’t magically wipe out the past sixteen years and see you differently. Even if I could, what about everyone else?”
“I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Isaac said harshly. He did. I knew he did. It would break his heart to hurt our family, that we were hurting our family, but that didn’t change how much he loved me. It would change Isaac, though, if he lost Mom or Timothy or someone he loved.
“I don’t understand how this happened,” Mom said. “Are you saying you want to be a couple? To tell everyone about you? Then what happens if it doesn’t work out? What happens if you change your minds? If it becomes too much? If one of you realizes it’s not what you want? This doesn’t affect just the two of you.”
No, it didn’t. We’d seen that with Mom’s accusation against Isaac. If things went bad between us, if one of us hurt the other, how would that ripple out to those we loved? What would it do to Mom and Timothy? To our extended family?
The four of us sat there quiet, nothing but our breathing and our heartbeats between us.
“So it’s better to call it quits now because of what-ifs?” I asked. “I don’t want to hurt either of you, and I don’t want to cause problems in our family, but…I need him,” I admitted. “I spent my life looking for something in a partner, and never finding it, never being satisfied, because they weren’t him. I didn’t see that what I needed was right there waiting for me the whole time. Relationships are never a guarantee. And I know ours is different than most, but…I can’t walk away from him, Mom. I don’t want to either. It would be like leaving my heart behind.”
Timothy cursed.
Mom cried.
I understood it was difficult for them. I knew it was hard to hear we were together when they saw us as brothers. And I understood there were concerns when it came to our family. But Isaac was mine. He’d said he was selfish, but if that was true, I was too.
Mom said, “I love you both, but I can’t make sense of this. How do I wipe away the past sixteen years so the two of you become something else? I’m scared for what this does to our family.”
Timothy didn’t respond. He looked away, and that was all I needed to see to know he felt the same.
“What does that mean?” I asked, feeling as if I’d let Isaac down. I’d promised him he wouldn’t lose another mom.
“I don’t know,” Mom replied.
“You’re still our sons,” Timothy added.
But therein lies the problem. They wouldn’t disown us. They would never do that, but they couldn’t see us as a couple. They couldn’t see us as anything other than brothers.
“Are you expecting us to hide who we are with you?” Isaac asked. “With the family?”
“I don’t… This is a lot. I just…” Mom didn’t finish. She left the room crying.
“I should go after her,” Timothy said. When Isaac nodded, Timothy paused, opened his mouth as if to speak, but then sighed and went after Mom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Isaac
We drove to Manhattan so we could protect Lane’s artwork. He’d brought two pieces from Yours. They were of us, of course, but you couldn’t tell that from the paintings, just knew they were two male bodies, entwined in a way that in some places, it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. They were beautiful. We were beautiful.
“Will it be hard to show them? It’s so fucking personal, and considering our…extenuating circumstances…”
It was Lane’s turn to drive, and he glanced at me from the driver’s seat. “Does it bother you that I show them? I should have asked. I didn’t even think about it.”
“No. It doesn’t bother me. Are you kidding? I want to shout that shit from the rooftops. Make sure everyone knows it’s me that’s so inspiring.”
Lane chuckled. “Okay, well, what if I told you that I wasn’t sharing paintings of us?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It is you and me in the paintings, don’t get me wrong, but to someone else, it’s them. That’s part of the beauty in them, and part of the reason there are no faces. They represent love as a whole. For you and me, that’s us. For another couple, that’s them.”