Page 42 of What You Own
“All Jesse knows is that his job as a temporary office assistant with Langley-Quartermaine has come to an end.”
“But he wasgood.” Dad fired a really good assistant for being gay. My tenuous dream of somehow holding on to both my father and my boyfriend shattered completely in that moment.
“Yes, he was.” Joe was silent a half-minute longer. “Adam, are you taking up with that Ryan Sanders again?”
My vision blurred briefly, and I blinked him back into focus even as my stomach curled into knots. Joe didn’t look disgusted or angry—curious, definitely, and maybe a little concerned. I was too thrown by the question to mock his old-fashioned use of “taking up with.” All I could really do was tell the truth, because Joe was a good guy who deserved it. “We’re seeing each other regularly, yes.”
Joe pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. With his eyes closed, he asked, “How long?”
“Almost since I got on board with the fundraiser.” Needing to somehow defend Ryan in Joe’s eyes, I added, “He didn’t know about the memory loss.”
Joe blinked at me. “He didn’t?”
“No. I couldn’t tell him because Dad made that impossible. And no one told me details about the bashing, so I didn’t know anything about what Ryan did that night. I had no idea that he forgave me for turning my back on him after he came out. That we were friends again for a little while.” I didn’t tell him about the kiss. That was private.
“So you’ve becomefriendsagain?”
How did Joe manage to make such a simple, innocuous word sound so dirty? My cheeks burned, so I probably wasn’t very convincing with my, “Yes, we’re friends again. We always should have been.”
“You know how your father feels about Ryan Sanders.”
“He never had a problem with Ryan until he learned Ryan was gay. Then he forbade me from seeing Ryan, and after the bashing he made sure we had no contact.”
“Your father was scared.”
“Scared of what? Finding out I was gay too?”
As soon as the words slipped out, I wanted to gather them all back up again. But it was too late. Joe studied me silently for a long time while I squirmed, sure I was about to vomit at any moment.
“I think that was part of it,” Joe said. “But the larger issue is that he’s scared of losing you.”
“To Ryan?”
“To the violence that often grows from bigotry. Raymond may dislike the gay lifestyle, but he has never raised his hand to another person in anger. He’s never condoned violence.”
“Sometimes words hurt as much as fists.”
“You’re right, son. They do. And perhaps him demanding you stop being friends with Ryan was a direct response to his dislike of homosexuals. However, his extreme reaction following the bashing was a direct response to his fear of losing you. A few hours in the company of Ryan Sanders and you were in a coma with a skull fracture.” Joe’s face scrunched up at the memory, sadness leaking into his eyes. “In our thirty years of friendship, I’ve never seen Raymond so distraught as he was those first few days in the hospital. Lucinda and I barely kept him together.”
My chest ached in a funny way I couldn’t explain. “Joe, did you know about my mom?”
“Know what about her?”
“That she was an alcoholic?”
Joe flinched, and I had my answer. “I was one of a select few who did know. Raymond told me he’d tried to keep it from you.”
“I found out.”
“And you blame your father for it?”
“I blame him for her death. If he’d cared more about her than about his reputation, maybe she’d have gotten the help she needed.”
“He loved Jenny, Adam, very much. I think sometimes he loved her more than she ever loved him. Your mother was a beautiful, talented woman with one very big flaw that she kept well hidden from most people. Anxiety. Perhaps she could have been famous on Broadway, but she was scared of that sort of success. So she fell in love with your father and used you as an excuse to quit.”
I gaped at Joe, shocked by his perspective of my mother and her choices. Anxiety? “She loved performing.” Weak, but I had to defend her.
Joe nodded sadly. “Yes, she did. But she was also terrified of it. The fear overwhelmed her, probably as much as her sense of failure, and she fell into a wine bottle. I know you loved your mother, but she was far from perfect. She gave up her dream of her own free will, son. No one took it from her.”
