Chapter 18

Lee

I wasn’t sure how I’d driven home. All muscle memory and reflexes, because I found myself in Mom’s garage, my head pounding, and no recollection of the trip.

He’s doing it again. Worse this time, because this delay, this refusal to put anything ahead of his music and performing, might kill him. I could lose him not just to the distant whirl of the music world, but completely.

Or maybe not lose him. Maybe I never had him in the first place. He lied to me about what the doctor said, obviously. He knew I’d worry, and he treated me like an unreasonable child.

Fucking Rocktoberfest and sixty thousand fans mattered more to him than I did. No doubt it would always be that way, even if the mass turned out to be nothing. He’d keep going. One more concert and one more, a trip here, a few days away there, a little series of shows, a longer series. He wasn’t made for a normal life, and he clearly couldn’t stick to one.

I might not need him at my side now the way I had when Alice got sick, but I still couldn’t afford to fall this hard and fast and completely— except I did fall — I wouldn’t stay with a man who couldn’t put me first.

I clenched the steering wheel and breathed through gritted teeth. If I didn’t calm the fuck down, Mom would see something was up. Too much to hope she wasn’t waiting up for me. Willow and the meds were helping her anxiety but she was invested in the success of the cat café concert.

At the back of my mind, a little pulse of panic beat like frantic wings, fluttering, calling, suggesting I turn around, talk to Griffin, that maybe I was the unreasonable one. That I was losing the best thing in my life by walking away. But a bigger piece of me clung to my panic and my escape. If I stayed, if I cared, losing Griffin from his own stupid obsession with performing, health or no, would destroy me in deeper and far more painful ways than this.

Yeah, every bit of me ached at the thought of walking into Wellhaven on Monday and treating Griffin like a stranger. My throat clamped down hard at the image. But it was better than the alternative. Better than being the one ditched and left behind in travel or in death, the one not worth staying for, after falling in love. I was dodging a bullet.

I’m being smart. Damage control. Triage. Take the smaller loss to avoid the big one.

Except this didn’t feel small. This felt like an earthquake ripping the ground from beneath my feet.

Well, so did Dad leaving when I was a kid. So did Griffin leaving twenty years ago. So did losing Alice. I survived, went on, made good choices. I’d do the same now.

I climbed out of the car, which took more effort than I was used to. I should work out more. I’d been skimping on exercise time for Griffin time.

The door into the house squeaked as I pushed it open. Mom called, “Lee, is that you?”

“Yes.” I headed her way. She sat sprawled against the pillows on the couch as if she’d drifted off while reading.

I squatted and picked up her book from the floor. Willow reached out from Mom’s lap and booped my chin with her paw. “Hi, kitty.” I rubbed her cheeks and she purred.

“So how did it go?” Mom asked. “Tell me everything. Did they make much money?”

“Went great.” I kept my eyes on Willow, petting her as I described the crowd and the stuffed donation jar and four cats with likely new homes.

“So what aren’t you telling me?” she murmured when I ran out of words.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Bullshit.”

That made me blink and look up, because Mom could cut loose swearwords with the best of them but she almost never did.

“I know you, Lee. If everything was fine, you’d be smiling and waving your hands and telling me the little funny stuff. You’d have a light in your eyes.”

“It’s pretty late and it was a long night.”

“See, I remember when you went to one of Griffin’s concerts, back before you broke up, and you bopped around the living room humming the tunes and grinning until one-thirty.”

“I was twenty then. I’m forty now.” Older and wiser.

“I repeat. Bullshit. What’s wrong?”

Mothers. Sometimes there was no choice but to give in to their X-ray vision. “We kind of had a fight.”

“Like a little ‘give us some space overnight’ fight? Or an ‘I want to napalm your memory’ fight? Or in between?”

I could legitimately say, “In between,” because while I wasn’t going back and putting my heart into that bear trap ever again, I didn’t want to forget Griffin completely. I just wanted him in the safe friend zone where whatever happened to him was not my circus, not my monkeys, not my heart ripped out bleeding on the floor. “I’m tired. I’m gonna head to bed.”

“Good night, honey.” Mom set her hand on mine so I was sandwiched between her soft palm and Willow’s silky fur. “Hopefully it will all look better in the morning.”

I had my doubts, but all I wanted to do was hide under the covers. Or eat my way through a bag of Oreos and that would just get me guilt and black teeth. “Night, Mom.”

I climbed the stairs to my room, did a skimpy wash, and got into bed. Those comforting covers were too hot, then throwing them off was too cold. Something downstairs was ticking, and I didn’t know what and didn’t want to go look. I tossed and turned, running through the protocol for a ketoacidotic diabetic crisis to keep my brain from going painful places. Fluids, electrolytes, blood gasses, acid-base, insulin, osmolality, CBC… If I just kept moving through the protocol, there was no room for remembering the tears in Griffin’s eyes when I walked out the door.

I didn’t regret standing up for what mattered, couldn’t, but knowing I hurt him made me sick to my stomach, even if he hurt me first.

In the morning, I’d have to go in to work. At some point, unless I hid in my office, I’d run into Griffin in the halls or the lobby. Instead of meeting his warm gaze and holding back a smile I’d… I’d what? Turn and walk away? Pretend we were still friends? Kick his goddamned ass into calling his doctor for a new appointment? Because I’d bet he still wouldn’t do it.

He’d go to LA and he’d sing with his friends. He’d go to Black Rock and scream his lungs out, traumatize his throat, make the damned thing bleed and seed tumor cells into his lungs and for what? To be Griffin Marsh, rock star, and hear the crowd shouting his name? Those creative types were all the same. Give them an audience, fans, and they’d walk away from real life to make that so-special ceramic bowl and send it home like a cat delivering a dead rat. I could imagine Griffin dedicating a song to me, thinking that made up for something.

Nothing makes up for leaving.

Hours passed. I dozed sometimes, but when I did, I dreamed. Not of Griffin but of Alice. Of the days when everything was going bad and her specialists were too busy to return a call and nothing I tried was working. Of the end, when hospice was the only thing I could offer her and it was like cutting off my own arm, each time the doctor let me up her morphine CRI, each time the meds took her closer to that edge where there’d be no pain ever again.

Nightmares, too, of things that never happened. Of bleeding I couldn’t stop, or losing her in the halls of Wellhaven, searching frantically up and down the place for her hospital bed while Zhukov paced behind me, telling me the staff on duty were not allowed to help me. Snatches of dreams I didn’t remember, waking with an overwhelming grief that I couldn’t tell myself was “just a dream.”

Around five a.m. I gave up sleeping as a bad idea and rolled out of bed. I felt stiff and sore and older than my years. My jaw ached like I’d been grinding my teeth and my throat was dry and sore. Mouth-breathing, no doubt. If I’d been screaming, Mom would’ve come to check on me.

Arriving at work at six made the staff I passed in the halls give me curious looks. I waved and didn’t get into any conversations. Safely in my office, I dug into the messages from overnight. Any other day, I’d have silently screamed at the news that our main dialysis unit was busted. That meant figuring out appointments and transport for three residents to the local clinic that backed us up, and calling the service company to rake them over hot coals because their last fix lasted less than a month. This morning, yelling at someone would be highly therapeutic.

By the time I had my to-do list whittled down to a dozen notes, the morning was half done. So far, so good. I hadn’t thought about Griffin once. Well, not enough to distract me. A flash of loss, a moment of wishing things were different, didn’t count.

Kashira knocked on my door, then stuck her head in. “Noreen wanted you to look at a spot on Harvey’s hip. Probably just a little moist skin, but she’d like your opinion.”

“Can do.” I pushed up from my chair and lurched, clutching the desk. My foot tingled with returning circulation. I’d been focusing hard for hours, sitting crooked. Need to remember to get up and stretch more often.

“Are you okay?” Kashira asked. “Frankly, you look like crap.”

“Oh, thanks. You’re so good for my ego.”

“Well, if your ego kept you up all night, you need to have a stern talk with it.” She smiled. “Were you at Griffin’s having fun after his show? Is that why there’s bags under your eyes?”

“No!” I snapped. “I just didn’t sleep well.”

Kashira chuckled. “I bet. Sorry I missed the show, but we’ve had enough private concerts here at Wellhaven, I didn’t want to give up an evening with my niece and nephew. How’d it go?”

“Went fine. Raised a bunch of money.”

“Does Griffin look as much like roadkill as you do this morning?”

I frowned at her. “I haven’t seen him. You’re the one he checks in with.”

She eyed me, some of the humor going out of her expression. “He called in this morning, arranged to have the rest of the week off before leaving for his big concert. Said he needed more practice time. He’s put in so many hours, I didn’t see how that would hurt. Didn’t he tell you?”

“Griffin Marsh doesn’t ask me for permission for anything he does.” The opposite, in fact. Bastard doesn’t— didn’t— listen to a word I said.

“Did you have a fight?”

“We disagreed.” I tried to keep my tone airy and light. “No big deal. Now I should go take a look at Harvey. The last thing he needs is a pressure sore.” I eased past her and strode off, aware she was standing behind me, staring at me.

As I headed down the hallway, I told myself it was a good thing I wouldn’t see Griffin for a while. Better for both of us. No emotional scenes in my workplace. No worries about what I would say to him. I ignored a little bit of inner drama queen that had been planning to either blow up at him in a screaming fury or beg him to make better choices. The fact that I wasn’t sure which meant any encounter would’ve been a huge, embarrassing disaster, no doubt.

Owen’s bed was pushed back against the wall when I went in. He sat in a chair while Harvey lounged in his bed. A tray table between them held playing cards spread out in some game I didn’t recognize. They both turned as I entered.

“Hey, there’s my boy,” Harvey said. “You must’ve been busy. Been a while since you came by.”

“Sorry, yeah. How are you two settling in? Anything you want us to change?”

“The rail on Harvey’s bed?” Owen suggested. “The aides put his rails up for the night before they push the beds together and it sucks to have it between us.”

“Hmm.” I eyed the set-up. We couldn’t have the beds together all the time, because then there was no room to bring in the lift to get Harvey into his chair. But rules were there for a reason. Residents with low mobility had their bed rails raised at night. “It keeps him from slipping down between the beds, since we have no way to lock them together. I think for safety it should stay.”

“Well, it sucks,” Harvey grumbled. “I’m fully compos mentis. Not senile yet, that one infection aside. Can’t I take my own risks? I’ll sign something promising not to sue you if I break my hip.”

I had to smile. “I bet you were trouble all your life. Give you an inch and you take a mile. No. The poor aides would be heartbroken if something happened, and the Department of Health would come down on us like a ton of bricks.”

Harvey frowned. “Ever try to give a hand job through a bed rail?”

“Nope.”

We exchanged stares for a minute, then Owen laughed. “Well, it was worth a shot. So what’s new with you?” He looked me over. “I’d say you look like you were rode hard and put away wet, but truthfully, you don’t seem like you had that much fun.”

“Have you been watching Brokeback Mountain again?” I evaded.

“Nope. At my age, you get tired of sad endings. And you didn’t answer the question.”

My personal life was none of their business, but I didn’t have other older queer people in my life to ask. These two men had weathered a lifetime together and I knew they’d sometimes argued.

Owen had been watching my face, and he stood, pushed his chair my way with one foot, and perched on the side of Harvey’s bed. “Have a seat and lay it out for Daddy and Papa.”

I eased into the chair but asked, “Was that a come-on?”

“Well, we wouldn’t say no.” He chuckled. “We’re a bit past that age, though. What’s wrong?”

“You guys must’ve had fights occasionally, right?”

They looked at each other. “Hell, yeah,” Harvey said. “Some doozies over the years. I almost left a few times. He’s a stubborn old goat who always thinks he’s right.”

“Because I am,” Owen muttered.

Harvey blew a sloppy, one-sided raspberry at him.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

Harvey eyed me. “Well, I’m stubborn, for one thing. I was young when we got together, but I wasn’t inexperienced. I’d met a bunch of men by then and I knew a good one when I found him. Wasn’t giving him up if I had a choice.”

“And we didn’t let things fester,” Owen added. “I won’t say we never went to bed angry. I got real familiar with this one couch we had. But we tried hard to talk things out. Back in the day, we also worried that ‘roommates’ giving each other the stink-eye for days on end might make people wonder why we stuck together so long. That was added incentive to talk. And if that didn’t work, we fucked it out. Hard to stay mad when you’re cumming your brains out.”

I choked a laugh because yeah, I wasn’t likely to get deep relationship advice here. Except Owen nudged my foot with his. “You and Griffin had a blowout, huh?”

I shrugged rather than trying to deny it.

“Something he did? Something you did?”

“We’re just not compatible, I guess. He made a choice. I think it sucks.” I think it might kill him. My throat tightened. “If he won’t listen when it’s really important to me, who are we kidding? He’s not all-in on this relationship. He never will be.”

Harvey pursed his lips. “Did this choice have something to do with his music?”

I dodged the question. “It had to do with his health.”

“And you think he should listen to you, because you know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he doing drugs?”

“Griffin? God no, not that. Well, maybe pot, but I can’t throw stones about a little weed.”

“Drinking?”

“No.”

“That’s good.” Harvey glanced at Owen. “We’ve had too many friends battling addictions over the years and that’s one problem no amount of love can solve.”

I sighed hard. “I just… I can’t do this.”

“Then don’t but…” Owen raised a bushy eyebrow at Harvey. “Can I tell him about the big fuckup?”

“Sure. He knows the only part that’s risky already.”

“Okay.” Owen fixed an intent stare on me. “So it was 1988. We lived in New York in those days. Harvey travelled a lot for work so I was the one in the city most of the time, with a bunch of local friends. And, man, that was a fucking plague year. I told you about Harvey’s uncle. We were on edge. Families were doing fucked up things, guys were sick, and I couldn’t escape it.”

Harvey set a hand on Owen’s leg and Owen covered it with his own.

“I don’t mean Harvey had it easier, but there were places where the plague wasn’t as in your face as New York.”

“I hated leaving him,” Harvey said. “But sometimes it was a relief to go into a bar in Minnesota or Wisconsin and not wonder which friend wouldn’t be there this time. He’s not wrong. It was easier.”

“Anyhow,” Owen continued. “This one time he’d been on the road for two weeks, and I’d gone to two funerals by myself. I went home and I crossed out the second name in my address book, and I stared down at the page. I listed our friends by first names, sometimes didn’t know their last till the funeral hit. That was Brian. Two months earlier had been Benny. The year before, Brad. Boris passed in the early days. I crossed out Brian’s name and the entire B page in the book was scored through. Every one of them gone. And something hit me.”

Harvey turned his hand over to clasp Owen’s fingers. “And he didn’t call and tell me.”

“It was a work trip. You couldn’t come home. Nothing you could’ve done.”

“Except talk you off the ledge.”

Owen nodded, his jaw clenched. “I went a little crazy then. I looked through that whole damned book and there were too many missing, too many thick black lines and scribbled out names. We still were having a hard time with how to think about HIV, all the rumors about where it came from, what worked and didn’t. Some folks said the Hep B vaccine was tainted. And Harvey and I had never been exclusive. Dying seemed… inevitable.”

My chest ached for the bleak look in both the old men’s eyes.

“So I got totally wasted and I went out to a bathhouse. One of the last ones around. The city had closed most of ’em down by then. It felt like an act of defiance, claiming my identity, spitting in the face of death.”

I knew he’d made it through. HIV status was part of every resident’s medical record and both these guys were negative. But I still held my breath.

“I did some things,” Owen continued. “Fucking stupid things, which I became really aware of when the booze wore off. And when Harvey got back from his trip, before I let him kiss me, I confessed.”

“I was furious,” Harvey said. “Like, wanting to kill him if he wasn’t already gonna die, steam coming out of my ears.”

Owen said, “I thought he was going to leave me.”

“I almost did,” Harvey told me. “I wasn’t sure I could face that with Owen. We’d all seen exactly how horrible a death it was. We’d carried soft pudding and mashed potatoes to guys who couldn’t eat them, washed sheets. And if it happened because of his stupid, stupid blowout? How could he do that to me?”

“But you stayed?” I asked. “I mean, obviously. Unless you came back later.”

“I stayed. We had sex with a fucking condom for six fucking months. I yelled at him a lot. But it was exhausting to be angry and I asked myself, can I really walk away from that fuckhead now and not care what happens? I knew the answer was no.”

“And we got lucky,” Owen said. “But that was when we actually did the legal you-know-what. Yeah, Harvey’s uncle visiting was a push, but that scare? There’s no terror like thinking you might not be able to be there for the person you love.”

Harvey nodded. “We did what we had to do, the only thing we could do, like a lot of other guys did back then. No matter how complicated it makes the legalities now, I have no regrets about that. It let me sleep at night, and I’d been managing on three hours a night for too long. Let me leave town knowing I had a legal right to be called if something happened.”

“It took time to rebuild trust, though,” Owen offered. “We had some more fights. Big things and small ones. But we’d made our decision that year, that we’d stick it out together, because nothing was worse than being apart.”

I ran my fingers through my beard, tugging a little. I heard what they were saying, but I also knew that by 1988, these guys had already been together for twelve years. Of course they weren’t willing to split up. That wasn’t true of me and Griffin. I could still save myself a world of pain by stepping back. I wasn’t committed.

“I’m glad it worked out,” I told them. “Really glad. Now, Harvey, Noreen said you had a skin problem I should check? Owen, if you’d close the door, I’ll take a look.”

The two men exchanged a glance I couldn’t read, and then Owen got up and shuffled over to shut the door.