A House of Cards: Deconstructing Ethan (10 page)

“He wanted to give me time with you first. He’s never been able to express his emotions well and said that today was too important for him to screw up,” she explained with a small smile.

“Why is today so important? I didn’t realize it was any sort of occasion.” I asked, curious. She looked at me like I was missing the obvious.

“Our son is back with us for the first time in over ten years, it’s certainly an occasion,” she noted.

I sighed and looked out of the nearby window. “I’m sorry. It’s just…It’s hard for me to be here. In Washington, no one knows about Ethan Hughes, Jr. except the hospital administrator, Jayden, and Lexi. They only know of him in the abstract. I put him in a box and stuck the box on a shelf in the back of my closet. But lately…well, lately that box has been rattling. For the last ten years, I’ve been living someone else’s life, someone that I invented. Recently, something happened to crack the neatly cultivated façade of Ethan Bryant, just…I don’t think I know who I am anymore,” I finished and looked at her to see her eyes full of love and understanding. How had I denied myself her comfort for so long? Ethan Bryant didn’t have a mother; the boy in the box had a mother and up until then, I hadn’t wanted anything to do with the boy in the box.

She got up and walked to a bookcase to the left. Standing on her toes, she reached up and pulled down a book. It looked old, but well cared for. When she sat down with it in her lap, I saw that there was an engraved nameplate on the front that read
Ethan Richard Hughes, Jr.

“I want you to meet Ethan Hughes, Jr.,” she said and opened the book. It was filled with hundreds of pictures, captions and little pieces of my childhood. I saw a lock of hair from my first haircut, a scrap from my first T-ball uniform and a report card. It was weird seeing these tangible reminders of the child that I had been. She kept turning and I saw page after page of stuff I didn’t think anyone would have kept. Idly, I wondered if she just kept adding things after I had been taken, just to keep that tether to me. Abruptly, the book changed and the young smiling boy, once again, went to that shell-shocked teenager. The strange part was that though the type and variety of memorabilia changed, the quantity did not. I saw a piece of music that I had written for one of my home school assignments, my acceptance letter into Washington State and even a newspaper clipping from when I was found. I had been on the front page of most every local paper. Each story carried a banner headline and a picture of me in my mother’s arms.

As we went through the book, she told me stories of my childhood. These were things that would have been ingrained if I’d heard about them consistently over the years like most children, but I had not. It surprised me how much of my life, from birth to eight, that I could not remember; it was simply gone from my head. When she got up to how my best childhood friend and I used to pretend to be paramedics, my father walked into the room again.

“Your mother must have gone through hundreds of washcloths because you said they made perfect bandages. You bandaged up the kids and their pets in the neighborhood. I wasn’t surprised at all when you decided to go into medicine,” he said, chuckling. “Proudest day of my life was watching you walk across that stage.”

“What?” I asked and turned around. “You were there? Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“We figured if you’d wanted us there, you’d have invited us. But, we weren’t about to miss out on one of the most important days of our son’s life,” he said matter-of-factly, as my mother turned the last page of the book. There, staring at me from the pages, was Ethan Richard Bryant accepting his diploma. Next to it was the program they’d handed out and a tassel they had probably picked up at the bookstore. I was speechless.

“Well, let’s get this cleared away,” my father said, clearing his throat. “The others will be here shortly.” I stood and handed him the book. He looked at me for just a moment before setting it on the couch and pulling me into a hug. At first, I stiffened, but then hugged him back. After giving me one of those awkward back-pats, he put the book back in its place and was out of the room before I really had time to process what had happened.

My mother pulled me down again to sit next to her on the couch. “We have a little time yet, would you tell me about your friends?” she asked tentatively and, to my surprise, I smiled.

“Lexi…came into my life several years ago and, to be honest, she’s been my first adult friend. I never had friends before her. She is patient and kind, reminding me almost daily that I’m a person worth befriending. She found out pretty early on about my past but has never shied away from it. She’s always embraced me for the person I have become,” I said, and my mother nodded, smiling.

“Jayden came into my life about two years ago, and has become my best friend. He makes me feel…almost normal. It’s nice,” I said and my mother got a speculative look on her face.

“There’s something bothering you, isn’t there honey?” she asked gently, but astutely, as I looked out the window trying to decide if it was something I could tell her. How would she react to yet another damaged byproduct of my life? “Ethan…Ethan, when you were growing up, all the little kids around you knew what they were going to be when they grew up because their parents set those expectations on them at a young age. One day, shortly before you were taken, you came to me and told me that your friend was upset. You said that his dad wouldn’t let him be an ambulance driver when he grew up because he had to be a lawyer. It just about broke his heart. You asked me what I wanted you to be when you grew up. Do you remember what I said?” I shook my head, not remembering the conversation at all. “I said that I wanted you to be happy. I still do, Ethan. Whatever you think you can’t tell me, I bet you’ll find that you can.”

I looked down at my hands and then spoke quietly to them.

“Jayden and I have been…intimate.”

“Ethan, look at me,” she said with staggering emotion in her voice. “It doesn’t matter to me what your preferences are. It worries me that you care so much about this boy when he seems to be with someone else, but it doesn’t worry me that you are attracted to men. If that is what makes you happy, then your father and I are fine with it. I told him when I saw you the other day that I thought maybe you and your friend were closer than you appeared. We are both so proud of you, Ethan. You survived something that I can’t even imagine, you achieved your goals and you are coping the best you can with what happened to you. If that’s what makes you happy, sweetheart, I think karma owes you one.”

I considered her words for a minute. My parents weren’t going to have a problem with me being gay and my friends didn’t have a problem with me being gay, so why did I have such a problem with it? I suppose a better question would be, why was I putting off the inevitable? I knew that I was only attracted to women because of their willingness to submit to me, it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were women; it was their vulnerability and submissiveness that excited me. Jayden had shown me a whole new level of attraction when he walked up to my house that very first day.

“I am attracted to men,” I said and then looked up to meet her gaze. Her face broke into a smile and, after a moment, mine did too. It wasn’t something that I had wanted to happen, but acknowledging it, saying it, made me feel better than I ever thought it would.

“The guests will be arriving soon, Ethan. Do you feel comfortable staying?” My mother inquired as we sat alongside each other on the opulent couch. I took a deep breath and then looked at the decision objectively. These were people that knew about my past, they would look at me with pity in their eyes. As I thought it would be uncomfortable, I was willing to endure it for please her. I told her that I would stay. If it started to feel too unbearable, I could always leave.

We stayed in the sitting room, listening to the guests arrive and move around to the back of the house to the patio to settle before taking me out there for the inductions. My father wandered by a few minutes later to tell her that everyone had arrived. After I assured her that I was ready, we walked together through the terrace doors into the lion’s den of the backyard.

“Everyone,” my mother said, raising her voice to get their attention. “You all remember our son, Ethan? He’s visiting and decided to come to brunch to say hello,” she said with a smile, like there wasn’t a forty-foot tall elephant standing next to her hydrangeas. I smiled weakly and waved before quickly heading over to my father who held out a small measure of scotch. Taking it, I absently nursed it while the throng of my parents’ friends and their single daughters, came over and started pleasantly, dreary conversations. I assured the daughters that I wouldn’t be in town long and appeared to listen to their painfully dull shopping diatribes. It was only then that I noticed a guy hanging back away from the group, roughly my age, with longer, but well kempt blond hair and haunting blue eyes. As I looked up, his eyes met mine and I smiled.

After making his way slowly through the other guests, he finally stood in front of me shyly. “Hi, Ethan,” he greeted.

“Hi,” I replied. I didn’t know his name, so I couldn’t use it. It felt like I should know his name, like I was missing something.

“It’s Gabriel. You were my best friend until…well, until we were eight,” he said and it was painfully obvious that he was trying to avoid that elephant over by the flowers.

“We used to play paramedics?” I asked and his head shot up.

“You remember?” He asked hopefully, but I shook my head and his face fell. We sat down at a nearby table.

“To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of what my life was like before…well, before I was eight. My mom and I were just looking through a scrapbook and she was telling me about it. Did you go into law? My mom said that’s the direction you were headed.” I said, trying to make him feel more comfortable.

“Yes. I’m a Junior Partner at my father’s firm,” he said with something akin to pride. “I heard you became a doctor? Went up a few steps from a paramedic, didn’t you?” His friendly smile relaxed me enough to smile as well.

For a while we talked about different aspects of our lives, not touching on the obvious topic, until finally he brought it up.

“Ethan. I’m sorry for what happened that day,” he said, looking at the table. I gaped at him. “If I hadn’t played sick that day…If I’d have been there, maybe….Damn it, Ethan, you were my best friend and I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry I let that happen to you.”

“Gabriel, you didn’t let anything happen to me. You were a little boy. Did it ever occur to you that maybe he would have taken you too? Then, there still would have been nothing you could do about it and your life would have been ruined like mine was,” I said, standing up from the table, not wanting to talk about it (especially not there in front of the garden club tea party). As I turned to leave, a couple of guys walked past the table and asked Gabriel if he’d finally found a boyfriend. I turned back around and saw that Gabriel was red-faced.

“Gabriel,” I said cautiously and put my hand on his shoulder. He turned around, his face was defiant.

“Yes, Ethan. I’m gay,” he said, almost petulantly. “And I think I’ve had about as much fun as I can stand today, so I’ll be going.” He shrugged off my hand and started walking toward the house, but I followed him. When we were almost to the front door, I look around to see if we were alone.

“Would you like to get together for dinner sometime?” I blurted out. I’m not sure what made me say it, but once it was out there, I wasn’t sorry that I had. Turning, he faced me with a hard expression.

“What, you think that’s funny?” he asked and then he must have seen something in my face because his face softened. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You mean like a date?” I nodded.

“I…I had no idea you were…I think I’d like that,” he said gently.

“I think I would too. I’ve…I’ve never been on a date before,” I stammered and he smiled.

“I’d be honored to take you on your first date, Ethan. May I have your phone?” I handed it to him and he put his number in before I took his and did the same.

As he closed the door, my mother came out from around the corner and hugged me gently. “I’m so happy that the two of you were able to reconnect. You were inseparable when you were younger. And, well…Gabriel’s been very hard on himself since you were taken. He always felt like it was his fault. That’s so much pressure for a child to bear.” We were interrupted by a chirp from my cell phone. I checked it to find a text from Jayden.

Need reinforcements? Shall we call in the cavalry?

I laughed lighter and freer than I had in a very long time. With a strange expression, my mother looked at me, so I showed her the phone and she smiled. I’d seen her smile more that day than the entire two years I’d been there before I had left for college. It was refreshing, made her look younger and more like the woman I remembered.

“Go, I’ll make your excuses. You’ve put in enough time, just…” she said, but trailed off as she put her small hand to my face. “Don’t wait so long to come home again, Ethan. Please?” I saw the pain in her eyes as she thought about not seeing me again and I put my hand over hers.

“How about I come to brunch every other Sunday while I’m in Chicago, even if it’s just to hang out with you beforehand?” I suggested and her face lit up. “I can’t guarantee that I’ll want to stay, but we’ll have some time together in any case.”

“I’d like that, Ethan. I know your father would too,” she said, kissing me softly on the cheek before walking me to the door.