Breathe (27 page)

life with Lincoln.

Jay checked his watch. Five thirty. Half an hour until Todd showed up. Plenty

of time to get the words out. He shifted on the couch, placed his hands on his lap,

then on the couch cushion on either side of him. Did all gay men become completely

aware of their bodies the moment they tried to tell their parents they liked to fuck

guys? Why hadn"t he planned out what to say? How to say it? His mom watched

him. Any minute she"d say something critical. Better to cut her off and just say it.

Or maybe he"d take a couple of minutes to plan the words. He stood. “I"m going

to the bathroom.” He walked past the too-frilly first-floor bath and headed up the

stairs. Maybe he"d hide out in his old room until Todd got there.
No
. Better to get it

over with before then. For all he knew, Todd was planning a big reveal over

appetizers.

Jay went into the upstairs bathroom, the one his parents used. He splashed

cool water on his face and held the edge of the sink in both hands.
Start with the gay

thing
. But how?

He stared at himself in the mirror. Funny how the further from his teen years

he got, the more he looked like his dad.
They’re your parents. They love you. They

might listen.

Oh, who the hell was he kidding? They were going to yell, say they were

disappointed, and demand he stop seeing Lincoln.

Breathe

137

At least they would have gotten the truth from Jay. He was man enough to do

that. He was man enough to do a lot of things as far as Lincoln was concerned. That

had him smiling.

The happy, relaxed face staring back at him couldn"t be Jay Miller. He hadn"t

seen that look on his own face in the mirror in a long time. Not the expression to

wear downstairs for such a serious discussion. Too bad he couldn"t force it away.

Thoughts about what had him smiling in the first place—thoughts about him and

Lincoln on the garage floor—had the smile widening. He could give himself all sorts

of reasons about why he wanted to come out to his parents, but the real reason was

he wanted to keep seeing Lincoln, wanted more with him, would give almost

anything to have it, to remove every obstacle from that outcome.

If only that were possible.

He turned away from the mirror and sat on the edge of the sink. He didn"t

want to see his own doubts, his disappointment.

Half-full makeup jars and glass perfume bottles lined the counter on either

side of him. “
War paint
,” he and Todd had called it when they were kids.

Funny how little had changed since he"d lived there. The chipped tile on the

floor in the corner. The dull stainless steel faucet with grit and gunk caked around

the handles. The flaking caulk outlining the shower enclosure. Why did his parents

go out of their way to make the downstairs as extravagant as possible while the

upstairs looked like any other middle-class home in Edgefield? Average. Lived-in.

Why did they try to hide that? Hide the truth?

Because that"s what they always did. The truth was never good enough.

Like the time he and Todd had found a sex education book under their parents"

bed while searching for hidden Christmas presents.
How to Talk to Your Kids about

Sex
. When their mom had come home and discovered them sitting on Todd"s bed

flipping through the diagram section of the book, she turned a deep shade of red

and snatched the book from their hands. Todd didn"t say a word, but Jay had

wanted to know more.

At dinner that night he"d asked his mom what oral sex was.

She choked on a mouthful of ambrosia salad, pressing her cloth napkin to her

lips to keep bits of marshmallow and mandarin orange from falling out of her

mouth.

His dad chuckled around a swallow of food and explained married people

sometimes touched their spouses in private places with their mouths.

Jay gasped. “My wife is going to put her mouth on my penis?”

His mom slammed her napkin to the table. “No! Decent people do not do those

sorts of things.”

His dad tried to say something, but she cut him off.

“No more talking during dinner.”

Jay never asked about sex again. He knew she"d never tell him the truth.

138

Sloan Parker

He and Todd had spent the next day searching for that book. They had found it

too.

Shit.

How had he forgotten? He pushed off the bathroom counter and crept down the

hall to his parents" bedroom. He opened their closet door and tugged the string

overhead to turn on the lone uncovered lightbulb. He knelt on the floor and jerked

aside the hanging dresses and slacks, most still in dry-cleaning bags or with store

tags pinned to the sleeves. He flinched with the scrape of hangers and the rustle of

plastic bags and waited to see if anyone came to investigate the noise. When the

silence carried on, he moved the clothes aside the rest of the way.

There in the corner, near the bottom of the closet, was a two-by-two-foot

square opening covered by a thin piece of board painted the same cream color as the

closet walls. Jay needed to look. He just didn"t want to. He tapped the board in on

one side, and the opposite end popped away from the wall.

He worked his fingers into the opening and pulled the board away. Three feet

in from the opening was another wall. There was nothing visible inside—just as he

and Todd had found it when they"d first uncovered the secret hiding place all those

years ago. Just as they"d found it every year after when they went hunting for their

Christmas presents. Only it was never as empty as it seemed.

Jay reached in, dropping his body to the floor so he could work his arm in up to

his shoulder. The open space between walls continued along the full length of the

closet and was just as tall. When he was little, he"d crawl inside. He"d hand the

hidden unwrapped gifts from “Santa” out to Todd who"d stack them on the closet

floor. After they had looked through everything and decided which gifts were for

each of them, Jay crawled back into the empty space and stacked the hidden

treasures inside. How their parents had gotten the gifts in and out he"d never know.

He and Todd had never confessed their discovery. Still hadn"t.

He pressed his cheek against the wall and groped around with his right hand,

finding nothing but the wood floor and bare walls. Until his index finger came

across a metal object small enough to fit in his hand with a finger-sized hole. He

slipped a finger through it and dragged the item forward. He got a better grip and

didn"t need to see it to know he held a handgun.

Once he sat upright, he laid the gun on the closet floor. He shifted around and

sat with his legs crossed under him, his eyes wide as he stared at his discovery, the

same as he and Todd had done as kids. Only they had never discovered Santa had

bought them a gun. Not even the pellet gun Todd had begged for every year.

How long had their parents owned a handgun?

And why had they hidden it away? If it was for security, there were easier-to-

reach locations for a weapon.

Jay left the gun on the floor and resumed his earlier search position. When he

had his arm as far into the opening as before, he groped around where he"d

discovered the handgun. His search produced a plastic bag. He dragged it out of the

Breathe

139

hole, set it on the closet floor, and hesitated before looking at it. It couldn"t be worse

than a gun, could it?

Stupid question.

Considering he sat on the floor of his parents" bedroom closet staring at a bag

full of inhalers, two still in their boxes, the name “Jessica Connell” printed on the

prescription labels.

His mom was crazier than he thought.

What had anger and grief driven her to do?

“Jacob?” his mom called from downstairs.

He scooped up the gun and inhalers and shoved them inside the small opening.

He stood and tugged the light cord, but remained inside the darkness of the closet.

What now
? Could he really turn his own mother in to the police?

140

Sloan Parker

Chapter Twenty

Jay entered the living room.

“There you are,” his mom said. “What took you so long?”

“How could you?”

His dad looked up from the paper, his eyes narrowing. Confusion? Anger?

“How could I what?” she asked, the coffee cup resting in both hands on her lap.

“Threaten him.”

“Who?” Her eyebrows rose.

“Lincoln McCaw.” Jay"s breath sped as the anger worked its way through him.

He wanted to shake the truth from her. “What do you want? To hurt him? To harm

his family? How far are you planning to take this?”

His dad stood, the newspaper still in his hand. “Jay, your mother"s said some

things in anger and grief, but she wouldn"t hurt anyone.”

Jay took a step back. He"d get the inhalers, force her to admit what she"d done.

He should have brought the bag and gun with him into the living room, taken the

inhalers to the police, but he hoped it wouldn"t come to that.

The front door opened, and Todd stepped inside. “Hey, something smells

great.”

Their mom turned to Todd as he came into the living room. “I made pot roast.”

“Really? My favorite.”

“I know. We never have it enough.”

Todd hugged her and gave a nod to Jay over her shoulder.

Jay wanted to march across the room and drag her out of Todd"s arms, force

her to explain. But the anger kept him planted where he was. He didn"t want to

physically hurt her, no matter what she had done.

His dad shoved the newspaper into a basket beside his chair. “Now, can we

finally talk to our son?” He remained standing and did not make eye contact with

Jay.

They know.

A shrewd woman, his mom had waited days to confront Jay. Waiting a few

more minutes while chatting casually over coffee had been nothing she couldn"t

handle. She knew to wait for the perfect moment. Of course, for Jay that time would

never come. They"d never understand what he did, or why he had done it.

Breathe

141

That was okay. He"d never understand what she had done either.

She crossed the room, followed by Todd. As mad as Jay was at Todd for spilling

his secrets, he also felt sorry for his brother, still a small child who never had his

parents" approval. Sometimes parents didn"t love their kids enough.

Neither Todd nor their mom made a move to take a seat. They stood beside his

dad, their arms folded over their chests, their expressions stern. All so similar it

was like they each wore the same Halloween mask.

Jay"s back was to the staircase. They literally surrounded him.

“Well, your brother"s clued us in,” his dad said, the tone of his voice softer and

more kind than his words implied.

“My God, Jay,” his mom said. “What were you thinking? You"re having

relations with that man?”

What was
he
thinking? Better to threaten Lincoln? Better to put the life of a

little girl in jeopardy?

His dad stepped forward, his gaze finally level with Jay"s. “Are you gay?”

“Howard!” His mom screeched the name.

“What? I want to know. He"s our son. We should know these things about him.”

She shook her head, the force of it likely to cause a headache. “That"s not the

issue.” She pointed a finger at Jay, the appendage shaking. “Him having anything

to do with that bastard McCaw is.”

“Shut up!” Jay strode forward. “All this time you"ve talked like you know what

he deserves. How can you? When you don"t know what happened that day? When

you don"t know what he went through? How he feels about it? You don"t know him.”

“And you do?”

“Yes, I do.”

She came at him. “And you have no idea why that disturbs us? Do you?” She

searched his eyes. “How can you let this man into your life? How can you betray

her? Anyone else. Not him.” She paused and more softly said, “Not even
she
would

forgive that.”

Her words tore at Jay. A truth he had closed himself off to. He stumbled to the

couch and sat. What had he thought? That he could keep pretending sleeping with

Lincoln was okay because Katie was gone, because she would"ve liked Lincoln,

because Lincoln feeling bad about the accident was enough? Jay held his head in his

hands and tried to remember how to breathe.

Sitting in the home he had grown up in, surrounded by the only family he

seemed destined to have, he fought to cling to the truth he had seen that first night

in Sonny"s Tavern when he"d met Lincoln. The man"s despair, the anguish so like

Jay"s own had called to him.

Had it all been a mistake?

“Are you the one threatening him? His family?”

142

Sloan Parker