Page 49 of Margins

“Yeah. And you can plan to stay again if you want, unless Nora can’t—or you’d rather—”

Elijah’s abrupt laugh interrupts Alex. “You can shut up, too. I’ll definitely plan to stay again.”

He arrives a couple of hours later with a duffel bag and dinner, and they allow themselves a minute to kiss each other senseless before they catch their breaths and focus on the rest, Alex grabbing the soda Elijah’s requested before joining him at the dining room table. They’d probably eat at the coffee table and get started on the next handful of letters and cards, but Alex thinks they’re both a little paranoid about possibly spilling on anything in the book, so they sit down with their burritos, chips, and guacamole, and they relax for however long they take to finish without making their stomachs hurt in the process.

When they settle next to each other on the couch, they open the box and Alex reaches for the batch of things they’d read the night before, setting that pile aside so they can focus on the rest. There’s a lot, and he doesn’t know whether they’ll make it through everything—it will probably depend on whether Elijah needs some breaks in between—but they’re absolutely ready to try.

“Hey,” Alex says, twisting toward Elijah to kiss him for just a moment. “Whatever we find out, we’re okay, but if you need time to be not okay, just tell me. You can be alone, or I can be with you, and you can be quiet, or we can talk about it. I—just tell me. I want you to tell me.”

There’s a crease between Elijah’s brows, and Alex reaches up to smooth it as Elijah sighs. “I don’t want to be alone. And if I—I don’t want you to let me be alone. Not tonight.”

“Okay,” Alex promises.

They get started then, having left off on such a hopeful note after Annie’s pregnancy announcement, but bracing themselves for whatever happened between then and the vague childhood memory Elijah has of San Diego. Everything remains somewhat spread apart, the written communication more of an indulgence than a necessity for them, though there’s a flurry of activity when baby Laura Rose Thornton, Elijah’s mother, is born. There’s a birth announcement and a couple of pictures and a card in which Peter writes to Edgar that Laura is “today and always, your granddaughter, too.”

Elijah shakes his head, then picks up another small card.

Oh, Peter, however brave you’ve always told me I am, I often think I’m a little crazy too, but I’ve seen the way you’ve bloomed while surrounded by the love of our family, and I only want more. I always seem to want more. So, when you talk of other men like us, people who understand and might even welcome us to meet with them outside your home, of course I want to know them. I have never pushed you, and I never would, but if you’re ready, so am I. ~Edgar

“They wanted friends,” Elijah whispers. “They finally felt like they had family, so they wanted friends.”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“After being so isolated in those first several years, yeah. Do you think they were actually living together yet?”

Alex looks down at the letter he’s just picked up. “Nope.”

Edgar, darling, I’m writing now because we aren’t talking the way we should. The way we usually do. We fought last night, and you went back to your house and left me feeling so alone in mine. I would say it’s times like these that I wish you had already moved in with me, except that I’ve felt that way for years and I don’t understand why you’re still not here with me. At home.

(I do know. It’s because I haven’t told you how much I need you to stay.)

So, please, before we talk more about meeting with others. Before we talk about the places we might be welcomed, bars at which we might be able to sit close together. Before we talk about finding these small pockets of comfort in a world that feels suffocating more than a place that might allow us to breathe freely. Before we do anything of the sort, please stay and be mine every night and every morning and whatever waking moments we have in between. My neighbors have turned their heads for long enough, careful not to concern themselves with your visits, and I’m certain they’ll continue to keep their eyes averted if you’re here every day. So again, please. Stay.

Forever.

It would be so good.

Stay.

Elijah rubs his hands against his thighs, shaking. “All of this is ‘so good,’ really—other than the fact that they fought, obviously—but it feels like it’s—I don’t know. I can’t tell whether it’s better or worse that we already know they were never comfortably out.”

“I think it’s probably better,” Alex says. “It hurts, but at least we’re braced for it.”

There are some birthday and holiday cards from James, Annie, and little Laura, and a couple of pictures, too, Peter and Edgar still standing apart, almost painfully so. Lost in the sight of them for a moment, it takes Alex another breath or two to realize that they’re posed in front of a home just a few streets away from where they’re sitting now, at least one chapter of this tender family story unfolding in the same place he first met Elijah. He isn’t sure why he hadn't considered it before, or asked Elijah where his mom had grown up, but when his heart kicks at his chest and he shakes his head as though it might help, Elijah seems to understand.

Of course he does.

“Yeah, Peter and Edgar visited my grandpa’s house.”

“They were right there.” Alex shakes his head one more time before they move on. Letters and cards suggest Edgar did move in with Peter sometime after the invitation to do so, and there’s ongoing mention of meetings with others in the area, Alex torn about whether he wants to know any more about the danger that might have put them in. But then they stumble upon it all, their state’s history of arrests and riots and raids and demonstrations, so much hate in response to so much love, and violence an unsurprising consequence of all that hurt.

They look at each other, Elijah clearing his throat first. “They didn’t get involved, though. These things were happening around them, but they were still so careful.”

“Beginning to risk an occasional dinner at someone else’s home, but nothing more. At least not yet.”

“Not yet,” Elijah echoes, nervous as he catches his breath. “You don’t think my grandparents cut them off, do you? If maybe they started to participate more? If they began to take bigger risks?”

Alex reaches over to squeeze Elijah’s hand, then gets up to make some hot cocoa for them, continuing the conversation from the kitchen. “Why would they do that, though? Especially after being supportive since way before it was clear there was a larger gay community starting to make some noise.”

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