Chapter 13

St. Louis, June 1973

"I met her when I moved away to St. Louis," Bobby said, a finger still lingering on the photograph. "She was an intern in psychiatry, and we didn't really start talking until we realized we were both new and spending our lunch breaks kind of alone, or getting stared at by the more senior doctors."

Bill stared as Bobby let his hand fall again, and rested his back against the wall.

"I didn't know at first, why I was so drawn to her, but after a while… I don't know, I just knew. You're attracted to people like you, and I think one evening we got drunk, and she just told me outright ‘oh by the way, I know about you, and I think you know about me, too.' That was her way of probing but still keeping an out in case she'd been wrong. Well, she wasn't, and her radar had been as good as mine."

Bill frowned, and it took a good few seconds of silence until Bobby clarified:

"She's a lesbian. And she'd caught on that I was gay."

Relief made him dizzy for a second, and he pressed a palm into the wall, under the frame of the picture.

"As you well know," Bobby continued, "there's a form of… pressure, in our field, to be a respectable married man, and children are always a bonus. I never understood how that made you a better practitioner, but anyway. Since Dorothy and I had been spending so much time together anyway, it didn't seem such a big stretch to pretend we were… dating." He laughed. "Any other queer would have seen how fake it was from miles away, of course. But I mean, there are so many loveless straight marriages out there, that if we never kissed or held hands, nobody seemed to care. It was a safety blanket, as long as we could say that we were waiting to get married, saving money and all, you know… We weren't living in sin, nobody could have reproached us sleeping together, that's for sure."

Bill's mind was reeling with images of Bobby with that woman, and an irrational, uncontrollable jealousy rose inside him at the idea that she could have loved him in public, and that it would have been encouraged.

"So there you go, I sort of pretended for a few years… And it did work, nobody batted an eye, we spent all of our lunches and dinners together, went out on ‘dates', until she moved away. Kind of broke my heart, to be honest. But yeah… for a few years, there was someone, and I don't think my mom ever believed it would actually turn into a marriage and kids but… I think she was happy that I wasn't alone."

Bobby still wasn't looking at him, and the lines around his mouth made it clear that, though it was platonic, this woman had meant a lot to him and he really did miss her.

"You never saw her again?"

"Oh I do, she visits once in a while. She lives in New York now, went on to teaching in a big university. But it's not the same, is it?"

"I wouldn't know," Bill shrugged, aware that neither of his marriages had brought as much tenderness in his life as Bobby seemed to have felt for Dorothy.

At last, the other man looked at him again.

"That's the saddest thing I've heard in a while," he said, as if Bill needed to be reminded that his life was a tragic farce.

"So…" he tried for a change of subject, "you never had any real lovers while you were with her?"

Bobby chuckled, pushing off the wall.

"Of course I have. I'm not a monk."

He walked past in the direction of the kitchen again, ignoring Bill and the thousand questions he had but mostly, leaving him alone to think about all these other men who hadn't been so scared, and how he hated them for having done what he couldn't.

He dragged his feet to follow Bobby and found him making more coffee. It probably wasn't healthy to drink that much, but Bill didn't refuse the mug Bobby handed him without a word.

"So, what do you say about this hike, tomorrow?"

Bill blinked a few times, the steam from his coffee clinging to his eyelids.

"Um… I'd just need better shoes, I think," was all he found to say.

"Well I can lend you some, unless your feet have kept growing since your thirties," Bobby stated, as if remembering his shoe size was perfectly normal.

"I suppose."

"I'm gonna go on painting, if you don't mind," Bobby snapped out of the blue, sounding insulted of all things.

He left Bill alone again to wonder what he could have said to offend him, and to conclude that as usual, his mere existence must be enough for that.

He picked up Emma again and went to sit outside, this time, hoping that giving Bobby some space would help him work out whatever had put him in a mood. In truth, Bill settled in a deckchair, opened the book, and didn't read a word all afternoon.

He thought of Kate and her kindness. Of Bobby and Hannah, left alone to bury their mother while their father was still fucking around in England. Of Hannah's child who may never know his grandparents.

He found some ill-hearted solace in the knowledge that of all of Bobby's lovers, he was the only one that Kate would have considered as her son, and loved as such.

He didn't realize he was crying until a drop fell and blotted the ink on the page, where Mr Knightley was professing his famous ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more'. He laid the book at his side and decided that after all that, nobody could begrudge him a nap.

Sunday began with Bobby laying out hiking shoes for Bill to try out, as if he was a seller in a shop. He knelt in front of Bill, forehead close to his knees, and inspected each of the three pairs until he claimed that the blue one would be perfect.

Bill was flustered and once again, confused.

They packed sandwiches and as much water as they could in the trunk of Bobby's car, then waited outside for Hannah to arrive to cat-sit again. When Bill asked the other man if his sister didn't mind being on call to watch Poppy, he replied that she actually liked the quiet she found in his house.

Hannah did seem happy when she parked on the driveway that was getting crowded with all three cars there, but her face soured when she noticed Bill at her brother's side.

"You're still here," she said while looking at Bobby, oddly.

"Yes he is," Bobby answered, giving her a pointed look. "And we're going away for the day. If you need to leave before we come back, just give the key to Mrs Holbard, okay?"

She nodded and pocketed Bobby's key before hoisting a sleeping Edgar from the back of her car.

"Enjoy your excursion then," she pouted, and let herself into the house.

Bill didn't dare ask about that interaction, nor Bobby's eye roll before they settled in his car.

Bobby turned on the radio and drove off a little shakily, prompting Bill to clutch at the handle on his side.

By the time they were out of the city and on a highway, Bobby's shoulders had relaxed, but he hadn't said a word since they left his street.

"So, this hike…" Bill tentatively said. "Is it far from St. Louis?"

"Hmm?"

Bobby's eyes were focused on the road and his mind, it seemed, was not in the car.

Bill kept to himself for the rest of the drive, happy to let his social battery recharge and watch the landscape fly past his window.

They parked on a patch of dry earth, where two other cars were gathering dust under a tree. Bill was greeted by a particularly hot wind when he opened his door, and pushed his sunglasses on his nose, despite how ridiculous those huge shades made him look. They'd been a present from Margaret, and he hadn't bothered to get new, less in-your-face ones. This decade clearly wasn't meant for him, style-wise.

Meanwhile, Bobby looked quite dashing in his colorful t-shirt and shorts, hiking shoes laced all the way above his ankle. He'd slipped a backpack on his shoulder, and the same sunglasses on him made him look more like a TV model than a big fly, as Bill imagined himself to appear.

"Christ, I always forget how dry it is here, compared to the city," Bobby laughed, pulling a can of sunscreen out of the bag and dabbing some onto his cheeks.

He offered it to Bill after he was done, but thankfully didn't provide any help. Bill was wearing a long sleeved shirt, having forgotten to pack much else, and the only pair of jeans he owned. After Bobby had seen him dressed like that in the morning, he'd wanted to lend some clothes to him as well, but Bill knew the odds of him surviving the day while carrying the other man's scent on him were very slim.

Bobby handed him a fanny pack that contained some essentials – snacks and a mini first-aid kit – then locked the car. He put a hand over his brow and looked in the direction of the path Bill had noticed, stomped grass meandering in between sparse vegetation. They really had driven further south than he'd noticed.

"Well… here we go."

Bobby led the way, walking at a steady pace that was easy to follow. The path was narrow to begin with as they started uphill, and Bill bristled in silence at feeling sweat already beginning to drip down his back. When they reached the top, barely five minutes later, he looked on both sides of the little ridge they were standing on, gasping for breath.

For one blessed second, it felt as if they were the only two people in the whole world.

On the left, a valley serpentined away, river bracketed by the thicker foliage of oaks and maples. On the right, the landscape was brighter, short bushes growing in between the rocks, where a strong wind kept hitting the earth.

Everything was quiet save for the breeze, or a hawk calling. When he gazed at Bobby again, he was smiling.

"Is this the view you've been meaning to paint?" Bill asked.

"Yep."

At no point did Bobby hint at pulling out a camera to take the pictures he'd mentioned. They sat on a rock to share some water, and Bill suspected Bobby was taking pity on him at seeing the sweat patches all over him, giving him a chance to cool down before they went on.

It was fair to say Bill hadn't stayed on top of things, physically, and let himself go out of shape. He didn't particularly care about his belly, on a regular day, when there was nobody around to seduce.

Now, he wasn't sure what Bobby would think of the middle-aged man sitting next to him, out of breath and straining against the buttons of his shirt. His suspenders were digging uncomfortably into his shoulders, but anything was better than wearing a belt, and Bill didn't own joggers either.

"Should we get on?"

Bobby led him through the slow descent in between lush grasses. It was more than Bill had ever explored out of his own city. He'd never taken either of his wives on a drive to nature, and it had never occurred to him to take his children out for a hike.

They stayed silent for the most of their walk. Occasionally, Bobby would point at a plant, and go about explaining what it was, if it was edible or had any use in medicine.

Bill didn't dare ask when Bobby had had the time to learn all of that, on top of having a career. Bobby may not have written half the papers that Bill had, but now he wondered what may have been more useful. If Bill was to be left out in the wild, he would never know which cactus to cut open for water, or which fruit he could eat for sustenance. His books wouldn't be of much help, here.

They stopped for lunch a good two hours later, and Bill realized he had never asked Bobby how long this hike of theirs would turn out to be. His feet hurt, not from the shoes or the terrain, but, he was afraid to admit, from a complete lack of use. He couldn't remember the last time he had walked further than a few blocks for a coffee.

"Take your shoes off," Bobby said, nodding at his feet while he was sitting cross-legged on the ground. "We can stay here a bit, if you want."

Bill didn't answer anything, unlacing his shoes and slipping them off with a sigh of relief. He joined Bobby on a patch of grass, facing him as they unpacked their lunch. Over the past two hours, the vegetation around them had changed drastically. They'd started off surrounded by dry soil and succulents, trees with thick leaves to keep their moisture in. At some point, as they kept going downhill, and joined a little stream that was now a couple of feet wide, the greenery around them had changed to thicker grasses and a few flowers.

Sandwiches long gone, they'd been sitting in companionable silence when Bobby spoke out of the blue:

"Those always made me think of you, you know?"

Bill frowned and looked over to Bobby who'd just plucked a bright yellow dandelion from the grass around them. He was smiling down at the flower and kept talking, as if to himself:

"They're persistent little shits… The only way to rid your garden from them is to use pesticides so in a way, to kill them off… The roots are deep as fuck and no matter how hard you pull, you may well end up falling on your ass in the dirt and they'll still be standing. They're annoying, but they're also bright, like little suns scattered in the grass. Even on dark days they're still this luminous, gleaming yellow."

Bobby's gaze turned melancholic then.

"But next thing you know… They turn into this beautiful, brittle sphere made of a thousand little pieces… Like shards of glass barely held together, and with the smallest gust of wind, it falls apart."

Bill stared on, throat clogged with too many jumbled words, and he had no idea which one to pull out first. What was he supposed to even reply to… all that?

There was a time when he would have easily pulled Bobby into a hug, maybe a kiss, provided they were out of sight from the rest of the world.

Now, the ghost of touch starvation hung between them, and Bill's own body felt dry from disuse. Tenderness was a muscle that he had forgotten to exercise for too long.

He kept his hands to himself, fists clenching, balling up the denim of his pants.

"I guess we'll never know which form of the flower suits you best," Bobby concluded with a wistful smile.

"I'm no flower," Bill grunted, frustration finally pouring out with all that he couldn't say.

Bobby raised his eyes and fixed them on him, boring through the thick armor Bill had crafted over the years, and thought to be solid, until life put Robert Bachelor in his path again.

"You've never been such a good judge of character, Bill."

Bill shrugged.

"I think we could take the facts as proof, then," he snapped, and began listing his flaws on the fingers of one hand. "I live alone with a dog I don't even like. I can't interact with my kids without making a fool of myself and them locking themselves in another room. My first wife hates me for subjecting her to the most boring decades of her life, the second one just grew tired of me. All I have is a career in which I have no friends either, because I've always been too busy using my brain for academia rather than being a functional human."

The hand that landed on his knee made him jump so harshly that Bobby pulled his arm back in apology.

"Bill…" he said, his other hand still twiddling with the stem of the dandelion. "I know you've never wanted to talk more about this but… I think there's a very good reason you struggle with all of these things, and you're more comfortable with intellectual work than… the rest of life. And it's not your fault."

Bill squeezed his hands harder, anger now bubbling to the surface.

"And how is that meant to make me happier? I've fucked up every good opportunity I've ever had not to end up a sad old sack. It's too late now."

"I never said that," Bobby frowned.

"Well, I'm saying it."

The other man huffed, sounding increasingly frustrated, too.

"You know what your real problem is, Bill? You've never had an outlet in your life. Even when you used to box you were too in control most of the time. Everything that's boiling inside you, you keep it in. You know what happens to a pressure cooker left on the stove, right? It fucking explodes. And I know that's a corny image, but the day you finally burst, I don't think it's going to be pretty."

"And what do you suggest?" Bill spat, his skin hurting with all the things crawling underneath it.

He'd expected Bobby to retort something back, to tell him all he'd ever done wrong, finally spill the list of grievances he must carry against him. Instead, Bobby hopped to his feet, took a deep breath in, and…

Yelled. From the top of his lungs, and for what seemed like forever. The sound of it echoed in their little valley, ringing in Bill's ears and making creatures squeal and scurry away in the bushes around them.

When Bobby's voice died out and he was left panting, staring at Bill from above, he pointed his chin at him and breathed out:

"Your turn."

Bill recoiled with a grimace.

"You're mad."

"And if you keep on bottling everything up, you're gonna give yourself an ulcer or worse. Now do it."

There was really no room for argument in Bobby's stern tone, but it still wasn't enough to pull Bill out from the barricades he'd hidden behind all his life. He was stuck to the ground, leaden with the burden that his life had felt like until then.

That didn't seem to deter Bobby, who stepped closer, eyebrows raised in an expression that spoke of determination. He held out his hands and Bill grabbed them on reflex, huffing out when he found himself hoisted up to his feet. The movement brought him chest to chest with Bobby, who thankfully pulled back a few steps, and ordered again:

"Now let it go."

Bill's heart was beginning to race, thudding behind his ribcage, almost off-rhythm. He wished he could be free of what Bobby asked him to release, he really did. But he didn't know how to undo fifty-three years of sweeping things under the rug.

A push against his shoulders sent him tumbling back, and he caught his balance just in time.

"Hey!" he shouted at Bobby, whose chin was raised again.

"Do it," the other man repeated, advancing on him and putting his hands up between them, mimicking nudging Bill again.

He parried the move, grabbing Bobby by the wrist and trying to keep him still. He hadn't expected Bobby to put up such a fight, shoving with his shoulder until the frustration poured out of Bill in one single loud cry.

Bobby stopped then, staring up at Bill from the awkward arm-hold he had him in.

"Go on," he whispered.

This time he didn't have to insist. Bill put all his strength in pushing Bobby back away from him, his body heat burning his palms, and he emptied his lungs with all the rage that lived in there, in his belly, in his jaw, letting the latter drop wide open until his throat was aching with it.

The crying took them both by surprise.

His voice broke on a hiccup, and once it began, he found that he was powerless to stop it. He raised a curious hand to his face, touching where tears were wetting his cheeks for the first time in several decades.

He didn't have to do much more before he was engulfed in Bobby's arms, surrounded by him, and shaking his sorrows away.

Somehow, Bobby lowered them to the ground until they were both kneeling and Bill's whole weight was gathered in the other man's arms.

For the first time in forever, he felt light. Untethered, if not for the solid anchor of Bobby's grasp – Bill could almost feel himself float away. In the part of his mind that wasn't completely breaking down, he saw them from above.

Two hunched over silhouettes, staining their knees in the grass, surrounded by the yellow freckles of dandelions in full bloom. His back was racked by violent sobs as he unloaded everything onto a man he'd failed to love properly. And now he was failing him again.

Bill pulled back, shivering hands going to his cheeks to wipe the traces of his breakdown away. Removing all the proof of his episode would prove tough, he mused as he spotted a wet stain on Bobby's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he rasped.

"No. Please don't do that," Bobby arched his eyebrows and reached for him again, a hand grasping at the front of his shirt.

"Do what?"

Bobby's smile was pained, then, and Bill wondered what it was the other man had had to shout about, earlier.

"Retreat into yourself right after you've shown a bit of vulnerability."

Bill took a gravelly breath and asked:

"Do I do that?"

Bobby gaped at him for a second, before breaking into laughter. His hand tightened in the fabric of Bill's shirt and he pulled until Bill fell off balance and into his arms again.

"Bill. One of the main reasons people struggle to get close to you is that you don't let them. You can't resist all the time and then complain that you're lonely."

All energy sucked out of him, Bill felt his legs turn to noodles and let himself be pushed around until he was lying flat on the ground, with his head in Bobby's lap. For a brief moment, he was reminded of a summer's day quite like this, oh… thirty-five years ago. Over half his life, but still sketched in his memory as if he'd just taken pen and paper to trace the edges of it.

The two of them lounging outside in a park by Bobby's mother's apartment. The lawn had been freshly mowed, and the air smelled thickly of plants. The skin on Bill's nose was tingling with the beginning of sunburn. It was a peaceful day.

And yet they'd been sitting so far apart. One of them on a fold-up chair that had lost all color and creaked dangerously as soon as someone sat in it, the other against a tree. There had been a cat then too, a stray that had taken a liking to them. Bill couldn't remember what it looked like now, only that it had been an affectionate one, rubbing against his bare shins with intent. And Bill had wanted to hug it so badly that it had taken all of his restraint to keep his arms crossed over his chest, squeezing himself instead. Refusing to let the world see that he could be in need of affection.

But how could he accept his own primal needs, when running to his mother crying had always resulted in shouts and blows? When he'd been punished every time he let anything show?

He knew what Bobby would say. That there were studies about other people like him, who struggled with touch, eye contact and sometimes even verbal communication. That it wasn't his fault.

And maybe he was right about some of it. But never had Bill brought himself to tell his friend the whole truth about what had gone on in the Mercer's household. Or what happened exactly, on the day he was dropped in front of Saint Clarence's school for boys.

You think you scare me?,old man Mercer had glowered from above him, taking advantage of the few inches he still had on his son.

That was the day Bill had grabbed a knife.

So he lied to Bobby, on the day they met. He didn't believe in ‘taking it like a man'. He just knew from experience that sometimes, defending yourself was the surest way to nearly get yourself killed.

He felt a few more tears roll down the sides of his face, and quivered whole-bodied when Bobby gently swiped them away with both thumbs.

"How are you feeling now?"

Bill couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh.

"Awful."

Bobby stilled with one hand on his cheek, so tender it burned.

"Sorry if I pushed you too hard."

"You mean literally?"

The other man chuckled too.

"Whatever meaning works."

Bill took Bobby's hand away from his face but found that once he held it in his own, he couldn't unclasp his fingers to let it go. So he gently brought it to rest on his own chest, to feel the frantic rumble of his heart there, and hopefully, let Bobby know a little of the power that he, too, still had.

"Don't be sorry. I think… I think I needed that, you're right. It still feels like being rolled over by a truck."

Bobby's fingers splayed out on his sternum, a soft pressure that almost convinced Bill he could have sunk into the ground, then.

"Take whatever time you need, then."

Bill thought for a second that Bobby's thighs and knees must be hurting from his weight on them, but the other man made no sign of moving at all, simply keeping Bill in a soft hold and breathing quietly behind him.

Above, leaves of all shades of green were rustling with the breeze, the sound merging with that of the river stream flowing along the rocks that lined its banks. A bird chirped.

It reminded him of that poem. The Sleeper in the Valley. He couldn't remember why he'd had to learn it by heart, only that one day, reading up on Rimbaud, he'd found a few lines in a biography which strongly hinted that his bond with fellow poet Verlaine hadn't been a platonic one. At the time, Bill had made quick work of pushing that information away. There was no reason for him to be interested in it.

It is a green hollow where a river sings

Madly catching on the grasses

Silver rags; where the sun shines from the proud mountain:

It is a small valley which bubbles over with rays.

How he could still remember the words, he had no idea. Was it sympathy he'd felt for this boy of another time, who'd gone and broken societal norms to live his passion with a man, or envy that he'd been free enough that he'd written poetry about sodomy and not been hanged for it?

He sleeps in the sun, his hand on his breast,

Went the ending. But the man in the poem wasn't really sleeping.

Tranquil. In his right side, there are two red holes.

Bill filled his chest with air. He lived. The right side of his chest was warm with the weight of Bobby's forearm. He might have bled through heartbreak and self-inflicted pain a thousand times, but he was still here. And so was Bobby.

He was fifty-three, with a whole lot of life to live still.

Slowly, worried that Bobby's hand would flutter away like an impressionable passerine, he reached up and covered it with his own. When the other man didn't pull away, he threaded their fingers together. Now the bird was inside of him, wings batting madly, making it hard for air to find its way in.

"What made you change your mind?" Bill spoke, voice as soft and breathy as the wind.

Fingernails lightly raked at his scalp and he shivered from head to toe.

"About what?"

"Me. You… when you left Houston, you didn't seem to ever want to see me again. And when I showed up the other day, I felt as if… I was bothering you."

He took a shaky breath in, pulling whatever courage he could from the earth beneath him to keep talking. "Which you had all the rights to feel. I just wonder…" he looked down at their joined hands, and chuckled. "How we came to this, now."

He felt Bobby shifting under his head, and lifted it for a second, letting the other man rearrange himself into a cross-legged position. Again, fingers carded through his hair, and the sensation, though not novel, was one he hadn't felt in so many years that he couldn't help the goosebumps covering his body, despite the ambient heat.

He heard and felt Bobby sigh, his belly expanding and pushing against the crown of his head.

"To tell you the truth… what you just said is all true. I was so conflicted, at the end of Houston because… I was angry. You didn't do anything that I didn't want you to, but for you to reappear like that and still make me feel… so much… It felt unfair. How dare you just disrupt the twenty years of quiet that I'd cultivated, in just a few days? So when I kind of ran away on the last day, I did that because I couldn't handle it."

Silence followed for a minute, but with the way Bobby was breathing behind him, it felt like there was more to be heard.

"Then you showed up at the clinic, and again I thought, what right did you have to make me feel like a teenager just by showing your face at my workplace? I couldn't get anything done properly that afternoon. So yes, I was angry again. And the next day… I just didn't know what to think anymore. So, wanna know what I did?"

Bobby nodded, feeling as if opening his mouth would break whatever spell they were under.

"I called Dorothy," Bobby laughed.

The same wave of jealousy that had taken over Bill earlier rose through him again, warming his chest and all the way up to his neck, but he kept his mouth shut, made sure to lock his jaw and not ruin this bubble of honesty that was forming around them.

"I've always told her all about my lovers. And she did too, about hers. Though she liked to go into more details than I always fancied," Bobby chuckled. "But… she knows about you. I never mentioned your name, who you were, but she knows about… this boy. Man. That I…"

Loved.

Bill prayed, though he'd never believed in God, that Bobby wouldn't say it. Wouldn't use that past tense. Bobby cleared his throat, and began another sentence:

"So I told her you'd come back. And that I was so fucking lost about it, I… I didn't know what to do, how to even talk to you. That I thought, after all this time, I was over this story but…"

There was no way Bobby couldn't feel the sudden surge of Bill's heartbeat under their joined hands.

"And we talked for hours. My phone bill is gonna be murderous, but, I needed it."

This time, when Bobby stopped talking, it sounded final. Bill wouldn't learn more about this phone call, and Bobby didn't owe it to him either.

The tension in his shoulders slowly melted away again. His mind filled with the sounds of wind, running water, and birdsong a second time.

None of this was over, but he was confident, for once, that time would work in their favor. All he had to do, for now, was breathe through this moment, thankful that in his version of the story, the sleeper in the valley had been saved just in time.