Page 64 of Margins

Elijah sighs. “But then there were all the secrets.”

“Then there were all the secrets, yeah. Or just the one, maybe, surrendered and renewed over and over again. And what hurts so much is that everyone’s decision to keep Peter and Edgar’s relationship a secret was always motivated by a desire to protect the people they love. Edgar didn’t want Peter to risk losing his career or his son, Peter didn’t want Edgar to be in physical danger, James didn’t want to put either of them at risk, Peter and Edgar didn’t want to put James, Annie, and your mom at risk, and then your mom—she protected them until they stopped demanding it, but then she thought she needed to protect you from all the same things.”

“And the world around them wasn’t getting any worse. Hell, you just came out to your daughter in the middle of a pizza parlor,” Elijah huffs. “But the more love they let in, the more they ended up hiding from it, and everyone followed their lead. Everyone kept the secret.”

“Instead of remembering to fight.”

“Which would've been the right legacy,” Elijah says. “Fighting to get away from a lifetime of hiding places.”

“And onto the middle of the page.”

Elijah scrubs his free hand over his face, but his grip immediately tightens around Alex’s hand when there’s movement in the bed, Edgar’s head rolling against the pillow until he very slowly blinks up at them. He says nothing, and it seems like maybe it takes him several seconds to drag himself all the way back from sleep, but he gets there eventually. Edgar offers Elijah the very faintest nod, and then whether he actually catches the sight of it or whether he just senses that there’s something more to find if he continues to look for it, Edgar turns a little further and his gaze lands on the Poe collection, the spine facing him and so easy for him to read, though Alex imagines he must have memorized every detail about it long ago.

Alex clears his throat, and Elijah begins to talk. “Um—I—hi, Uncle Edgar. I’m Elijah and I—I met you a really long time ago, when I was just a little kid. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to visit, but I—I’m glad I could be here with—this is—I’d like you to meet Alex.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Alex says with a shy smile. Edgar’s eyes are red and watery, but he doesn’t cry, and Alex wonders whether it’s an indulgence better saved for when his audience is gone, or whether such tangible grief is something he denied himself long ago. “And thank you for sharing your story with us, even if you never wanted it to happen that way.”

Elijah nods. “Yeah, we—my mom told me you asked my grandpa to take all the books away after my—after Peter died, but you—they changed my life, and you deserve to know that. I think maybe it’s easy to remember how much didn’t go the way you wish it had, or to blame yourself for the ways it all went wrong, but all your love was too big to stay a secret forever, and I will always be grateful for the pieces of it I got to know.”

Edgar seems to track everything Elijah says, but doesn’t respond, nor does he react much more than someone might if they were reading the back of a box of cereal, except that there’s the quick lift of an eyebrow here and there, a silent invitation to say a little more. Alex brushes his thumb over the back of Elijah’s hand, maybe to keep himself grounded as much as to soothe the man sitting next to him, and then he exhales, slow and steady.

“Reading everything you and Peter wrote to each other—it sort of feels like your life was the inverse of mine,” Alex tells him. “You were so open and brave, and you let yourself love honestly, and you only tucked that all back inside when you thought you might be hurting anyone else with that love. I spent 20 years never knowing how to let any of the truth out in the first place, loving the way I was supposed to because I wasn’t courageous enough to believe there was any other way. And I’m so, so lucky that I have the time to finally do it right, and I’m sorry that you keep looking back, but none of it’s really that simple anyway. All the mistakes I’ve made are always going to be part of my story, and all your mistakes will be part of yours, but we get to keep all the rest of it too. All the joy and the love get to be ours, too.”

There’s another glance toward the nightstand, and Elijah’s free hand moves to the cover of the book, fingertips brushing over the embossed title there. “Do you want me to open this for you?”

Edgar doesn’t say anything, but there’s something about the way his eyelids flutter shut that answers for him. He’s seen plenty and isn’t ready to look again now, but maybe there’s still time for that another day.

“We’ll leave it here for you when we go,” Elijah promises. “It’s the story of how much you've loved my family, and how much they've loved you, and it’s yours again.”

“There’s so much happiness in there,” Alex adds. “Your happiness.”

Elijah looks to Alex, cautious maybe, and then he turns back to Edgar. “I want you to remember it and I want you to remember me, too. Everything you gave to my great grandfather and to my grandpa and to my mom—that all helped get me here, to where I could—where I could fall in love and know it was okay. Your honesty made it so much easier to recognize how to hold on to mine, and to know it was—”

“Good.”

It’s only because they’re both already so focused on Edgar that they catch the word as it falls from his mouth, an interruption neither had expected. They’re both breathless when they watch Edgar’s eyes fill up with tears, ones that finally spill over when he nods toward where their hands are still joined against the armrests, clinging to each other in here because they haven’t stopped shaking. And Alex wouldn’t be able to let go anyway, stuck on Elijah’s quiet confession and how much it hasn’t surprised anyone in the room at all.

“Loving him is very good, yeah,” Elijah whispers, pulling a tissue from the box he’d pushed aside with the book. He finally moves away from Alex only long enough to help wipe away some of Edgar’s tears, but then he sits back and curls an arm around Alex’s shoulders, tugging him close enough to press a kiss to his temple before he rests a hand over Edgar’s wrist. “Thank you.”

Chapter Sixteen

They stay a while longer, telling Edgar a little more about how the books brought them together, sharing all the lightest parts of the past couple of months because Edgar’s had too much sadness of his own to carry the weight of any of theirs now. Elijah talks about his brother and sister some, and has a lot to say about his grandparents, and then Alex chimes in with anecdotes about Elena, and they don’t miss the new glow in Edgar’s eyes, still watery yet remarkably clear.

Once Edgar drifts back off to sleep, Elijah’s hand still gentle on his arm, Alex and Elijah nod to each other and carefully slip away, finding Natasha soon after they wind their way back to the reception area.

“You guys were in there for a very long time,” she notes. “I’m guessing everything went well?”

“It did, and we’re—” Elijah trails off and attempts to clear his throat. “Thank you very much.”

Natasha shakes her head. “I should probably be thanking you. I’ve known Edgar for so long, and I think maybe he really, really needed this visit from you.”

“I think maybe we really, really needed it too. And if it’s okay—” Elijah starts, Alex’s immediate nod putting a small smile on his face before he continues. “—I think we’d love to come back and see him again soon.”

She digs a business card out of her pocket and hands it over. “I know your mom has all my info, but I wrote my cell number on the back just in case you need me when I’m not here. You’re welcome back anytime.”

They say their goodbyes and head back through the sliding glass doors to the truck, so much lighter without the Poe book and all the heaviness that came with it. It started raining while they were inside, and the gray feels kind of perfect—not at all bad, but a silent reminder that today was more tender reunion than celebration, life too complicated to pretend otherwise. They climb into the truck and fall back against their seats, wrung out and on the verge of too much of something there’s probably no name for. Alex isn’t sure either of them has fully stopped shaking, and maybe that’s why Elijah hasn’t bothered to start the truck, or maybe it just seems like a good time to stare out the windshield for a while, hundreds of droplets racing each other down the glass.

“Hey,” Alex murmurs, still looking straight ahead because, as much as he’s learned over the past several weeks, he’s somehow enough of a coward to avoid eye contact now.

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