Chapter 42

42

DES

I know I need to speak to Alex sooner rather than later, but I can't bring myself to do it right now. Perhaps another day of distance will calm my ass down. I'm just hurt and mad. He's left me six voice messages and a whole flurry of texts. A photograph I haven't dared open.

Is everything okay?

Why aren't you taking my calls?

I'm sorry, Des.

Please talk to me.

Please don't cut me off.

The latest one came in half an hour ago, and I'm staring at it for the umpteenth time debating whether to just call him and stop being a jackass when my phone starts to vibrate and UNKNOWN NUMBER flashes across the screen. Usually, I'd ignore stuff like this, but something makes me press answer and hold the phone to my head.

"Hello, young man," a quavering voice says on the other end of the line.

I take my mobile away from my ear and look at it again. "Hello?"

"Desmond. It's Mrs. Sachs."

"Mrs. S!" I exclaim, garnering stares from two techies at the desk adjacent to mine. "How are you doing?"

Standing up, I head toward the door of the office. Why is Alex's grandma calling me? For some reason, I don't want anyone to overhear this conversation. Has something happened to Alex? A wave of nausea makes my stomach clench. Perhaps he's been trying to reach me for a reason.

"Is everything all right?" I say.

"Everything's fine. Would you like to come to my apartment for lunch today?"

I stare down the stairs to the exit at the bottom of the building. Really? I'm ignoring Alex's texts and his grandma calls me out of the blue. Is she staging an intervention?

"Is Alex coming?"

"No. I saw him yesterday."

Her shaky breath tickles my ear in the pause that follows.

Well, I can hardly refuse. "Sure, that would be lovely. Can I bring anything?"

When I arrive at Mrs. S's apartment block, the same doorman is polishing the brass door handles and he gives me a nod. Does he remember every visitor? What must it be like to have a photographic memory? But then he destroys the illusion by saying:

"Mrs. Sachs said a good-looking blond guy would be arriving soon." There's a definite twinkle in his eye so I grin at him.

"These older ladies, there's no holding them back," I say.

This gets me a laugh. "There's no holding Mrs. Sachs back, that's for sure," he says as he walks me to the elevator.

When I arrive at the apartment door and ring the buzzer, a loud yapping starts up and claws skittle-skuttle on the marble floor, followed by Anna's voice telling Mrs. S she'll answer the door. It opens to a smiling Anna, a growling Betsy, and Ivor wheezing and waddling behind them. So I go down on my haunches, and Betsy, seemingly not able to keep up the attack-dog pretense for more than ten seconds, springs up excitedly to lick my face. I hold on to her wriggling body as I give Ivor a head rub.

"Hey, fella, how do you live with the crazy Betsy lady, hunh?"

"Desmond!" Mrs. S says as she shuffles down the corridor toward us. "How are you?"

"I'm very good, Mrs. Sachs. How are you?"

"Oh, you know, pumped up on tablets, eyesight failing: You know how it is—or perhaps you don't." She eyes me up and down. "And I told you to call me Ruth. I think we can dispense with the formalities, don't you?"

"Of course, and I'm sorry to hear about the ailments." I hope she's okay. "Do you have a good doctor?"

"The best, but I pay through the nose for it." She huffs and turns, heading down the corridor.

"Shall I bring lunch in?" Anna says as we both trail after her.

"That would be lovely, dear," Ruth says, turning and smiling at me, eyes twinkling. "This young man was rather partial to your scones from what I remember."

Anna beams. "We've got some cheese ones today to go with the soup."

My mouth waters. "Amazing. Can I come here for lunch every day?"

Ruth nods. "I would love that. The company would be most welcome. And Betsy is always delighted to have someone else to torment."

When we get into the living room, I follow her over the bright blue Persian carpet and hold on to her arm as she sinks into the sofa then sit down next to her in case she needs any assistance.

"Now," she says, patting my hand. "Tell me what's going on with my grandson."

And I'm warm inside that she's gone right in with this—no beating around the bush for Mrs. S. But why isn't she talking to Alex?

"You said you saw him yesterday."

"Yes, but he didn't tell me much."

I chew my cheek. What do I say here? Should I be mad at her for outing him? But how can anyone be annoyed with a little old lady like Mrs. S? She invited me over for a chat, not to lay into her. God, so much has happened since Alex turned up with a bruised cheek and sad eyes.

"Alex came to live with me, but then he went back home for brunch and they staged an intervention and now he's moved back home," I say.

Her eyes narrow. "He didn't say he was back there permanently, just that he was trying to keep the peace with his parents."

So he has confided in her, but then, who else has he got? And for a minute shame burns through me, like I've left him to the wolves. But what do I say here? There is no keeping the peace if he's gay, why can't he see that? And how long will he stay in the closet in order to keep the peace ? Years? Decades?

"He said he hadn't been able to get hold of you," Ruth says, and those sharp eyes never leave my face.

Running my hand over my curls, I say, "I'm trying to deal with the reality of what this is. He doesn't want what I want. He doesn't seem to want to be out and in a gay relationship. I don't think he realizes that he can't have a relationship if he's not out." My chest aches.

She nods at this.

"I can't believe his father …" I trail off. We're talking about her son here.

Ruth waves a hand at me. "You don't have to watch your words with me, young man. I know exactly what my son is like, and let me tell you"—she leans forward, lowering her voice—"he has never treated his family well."

Her pink lips move like she's chewing on something. He gave me that impression too and I've only met him once.

"When Alex turned up at my apartment that day, with his face like that …" I clench my fists. "Why did you out Alex in front of his father?" I can't quite tamp down the sharpness in my voice.

She studies her hands. "You're right to be annoyed. I did it deliberately. I felt it was time. You and he seemed so happy together." She draws in a quick breath. "I didn't want him to lose what he had with you, and I could see he was scared, a bit overwhelmed by you and who you are."

"Overwhelmed by me?" I mean I get this: It was like that early on, but then he came to live with me and relaxed into it.

"I'm sure he did," she says, and I stare at her. Oh God, I said that last part out loud .

"But it lasted such a short time. Like he came into my world and took a look around and said, Nope, not for me ."

"You have to remember he's grown up in this closed environment: school, synagogue, his friends. Everybody doing the same thing, all orchestrated by their families. Even at college he didn't seem free. He's way out of his comfort zone with you. You've got to expect him to have a few wobbles."

A few wobbles? This is way more than that. "Did he tell you he also has a girlfriend now? That his family set him up with someone more appropriate," I grump.

"He said they'd arranged a dinner." She frowns.

As I pull my phone out of my pocket, Anna appears with a tray laden with cups, a teapot, and a plate of scones and starts putting things on the coffee table in front of us, pouring the tea into little china cups. I open up Facebook, scrolling until I find the pictures. Then I hand it over, and Ruth swipes through them and I watch her swipe-right game as she scrolls up and down.

"This is Hannah's account, isn't it?"

I nod. "Alex is tagged in it."

She examines the photos again, stopping on one of them, and I know instantly which one it is. I pick up a cheese scone and bite into it as Anna disappears into the kitchen.

"Amalia Silverman," she reads out. "A picture can tell a thousand lies," she says, bent finger hovering over the screen.

"Yeah, I know that but …"

Sweeping her hand out toward the piano, she says, "Look at all those lovely pictures of Nate and me and our children. You wouldn't think we weren't happy, would you? You wouldn't think for one second we didn't have the perfect family."

I stare at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Nate struggled with his sexuality. Very like Alex actually."

Holy crap. Is she kidding me? "Are you serious?"

She nods. "It was a bit odd with Nate right from the start of our courtship, but we enjoyed each other's company and he was a handsome man, and charming. Just like you." She pats my arm again. "I was smitten. The night we got engaged, he confessed everything. How he liked men, how he wanted a wife and a family, and how he found it difficult being with a woman in that way, if you understand my meaning. But I loved him, and I thought it would be enough."

I nod. I'm fucking stunned.

"Of course, it was a completely different time. Same-sex relationships were illegal then, and he was petrified he would be discovered. So we came to an agreement."

Oh, Christ.

"That I wouldn't divorce him or cause him any embarrassment if he played the dutiful, loving husband." Her sharp eyes land on me. "Do you know what it's like to live your whole life with a dream of having someone who loves you and knowing that is never going to come true for you?"

She leans forward for her tea, and I take the cup off the tray and hand it to her.

"I can't begin to imagine."

She sighs. "We were great friends. I'm making it sound melodramatic when it wasn't that bad. He was loving in lots of ways, just not in that way. And over time I felt"—she wraps gnarled hands around her china teacup—"ugly and unwanted."

My stomach goes cold. "But, Ruth, you were beautiful."

She nods. "And there were men who were interested after we were married, who told me that if I wasn't so happy with Nate, they would have made a play for me. It made me bitter. I lashed out at Nate about how he'd turned my life into a gilded prison."

Her lips twist up in a grimace as she sweeps an arm across the living room. "I must appear terrible to you, Desmond, being so ungrateful when I'm surrounded by all this. But nothing is ever quite what it appears on the outside." She rubs a hand up and down her arm. "Many of my friends were in unhappy marriages, with men who were boors or philanderers. In the end, I was grateful for my Nate. He treated me like a princess, always trying to make up for the one thing he couldn't give me."

It's so terribly sad, but also amazing how much has changed in the last fifty years. We bitch in the gay community about an insult or two, a stare that's a bit off, and prejudice at work, when really we are so lucky. We are standing on the shoulders of all the people who suffered and fought before us.

I don't dare ask her how they had their children, but I guess it isn't too hard to imagine.

"Was he unhappy, too?"

"Oh, yes, and he did meet up with men sometimes. He would find an opportunity, if you get my drift, and come back crying. I've talked about me, and I shouldn't really: He lived in a far worse prison than I did."

She skewers me with her gaze. "And I didn't want that life for Alex. I could see … even from a young age …"

Oh my God.

"Alex is so like Nate in some ways. Don't get me wrong, I didn't assume … but then he had that relationship with his cousin Tom."

"Yes, he told me about that," I say. "When I met him, he said he was bisexual."

"He's tried to have relationships with girls. He even spoke to me about it, about how he didn't feel anything with women, then asked me about me and Nate, and talked about how we'd been so happily married for such a long time." She chuckles as her lips twist. "Of course, I couldn't say anything! You have to let people find their own way, but imagine my delight when he turned up with you."

I start to laugh at this. Ruth's as sharp as a tack.

"And I could see he'd fallen head over heels." She pats my hand. "As anyone would do for you."

If only she knew what my life is really like. I shake my head at her.

"Oh, Ruth," I say. "Believe me, my love life is anything but sunshine and roses. Alex is not head over heels for me. I have a bad history of unreliable relationships."

She purses her lips. "Yes, I can see you probably have a hard time trusting people and want people to prove that they love you in some way. But if you take the time to think about it, I think you'll find that people are proving they love you every day."

Reaching out, she grips my fingers. "You're somewhat demanding, am I right?"

I look down at our clasped hands and think about my friends and all the standards I set for my relationships, my work … everything. All those questions about whether the problem was me seem to coalesce into a bright shining point. It is me, but in a completely different way than I thought. George was right: My expectations are sky high.

I swallow. "Yeah, you're right."

She squeezes my hand. "Be a bit more compassionate, Desmond. Let people make their mistakes with you. And if Alex has made a mistake, then tell him how annoyed you are and accept his apology. Don't throw away something good because there's a principle to be upheld. Forgive people their one or two missteps. Nobody is perfect."

I sigh as I take another bite of scone. "I'm just not sure he feels about me the way I feel about him."

Her watery eyes find mine. "And how do you feel about him?"

I laugh. "Come on, Mrs. S, I can't say it to you first."

Her eyes narrow instantly. "So you are planning on saying it to my grandson, then?"

I shake my head. "It probably wouldn't be fair to him."

She frowns. "Why not?"

"I've just agreed to go to Korea for two years with my job."