The service does not end fast enough.
We meet between the aisles.
"I'm coming to your school," he says without preamble, the crooked smile back. Yesterday, I'd teased him about not being able to get in, saying he'd have to donate at least one library.
I laugh, shaking his hand and nodding. This school year is going to be fun. "You know you never said your name yesterday…"
He pauses. Looks at his feet for a second before meeting my eyes. Then: "Timothy Taylor."
The name rings a bell. "Yes, I'm the mayor's son," he says. I picture his father, tall and dark, handsome in the same chiselled way. Timothy's face is a reflection of his father's. But softer.
I don't notice my father walking up to us until he's beside me. Looking down at our hands which are still linked. I pull my hand away so fast my palm throbs. I hadn't even registered it. I look away from the question in Timothy's eyes.
My father eyes me the same way he used to when I was little and had done something he deemed disgraceful. Calm and unwavering. I shiver. Laugh nervously, regret it immediately.
I tell him goodbye. He squeezes a piece of paper into my hands, he's scribbled his number on it.
My father whispers, "When we get home."
The car ride home is tense. I text Timothy a hey. A memory floods my mind.
I first heard the story of my grandfather when I was 9. I heard it from my father's cousin, James, who always came to visit those days.
He would sit on the broken steps of our house in Carpen, and say things like "I'm the only one in this family that is not afraid to say the truth!" and "You people don't deserve me," with a snide look at my mother when she would cough right after.
His truth felt more like a weapon, to put my mother down, and to ask my father for money without guilt. I remember my mom muttering con artist under her breath when he would leave with the last of our food. I'd ask her what she meant but she would never explain it.
He talked about my grandparents on the last night he came. Everything took on a nostalgic glow that night, even my mother smiled at him, hugged him without pulling away immediately. Invited him in.
I remember my mother sent me out of the room but he asked me to stay. To listen.
At the time I didn't really understand what it meant to be gay, but the way James talked about it made it seem like the worst disease, like the dirtiest choice. I can't forget his hard eyes, my fathers gaze directed at me, calm. Unwavering.
Isn't it funny how the past can shape the future.
My grandfather developed a ruinous passion for men in the summer of 1969. Nineteen years into his marriage to my grandmother. Two years before my father was born.
It happened in the summer because he was the Head of Animal Science at the Sophian Institute of Technology, far too busy for any frivolities during the school year.
He contracted HIV, passed it to my grandmother along with all his debts at his death in her arms.
I always used to imagine that moment at random times, not knowing why. Maybe they were talking, and talking, and then she asked him one last question. Only for him to leave her in silence. The silence stretching and stretching. Lengthening.
Luckily for me, this happened after my father was born so he had only to suffer the loss of his parents and not his life.
My father was a late baby. And, given the age of my grandparents at the time of his birth, it could be expected that they wouldn't experience much of his life.
His older siblings never failed to remind him how lucky he was, how much of a piece of shit his father was, and how extraordinarily stupid his mother must have been to remain with the man who ruined her life before ending it prematurely.
As a result, he developed a hatred for gay men and women and anyone who supported them.
He was there, that year, the one that they held an election to decide if they'd accept same-sex marriage in Navona. I remember one commissioner, saying calmly how it had to be a public decision. It wasn't for the government to decide.
I can never forget how early he woke us up to go to the voting center with him even though Jotham and I were still too young to vote.
How angry my father looked (more than usual), how often he said, loudly, "I don't see the need to vote for this. It's obvious these people are sick and don't need more validation." His voice cracking on validation. I remember wondering what all the fuss was about. I remember feeling nothing.
~
We get home, and I rush to my room muttering about homework and deadlines, where I sink into my bed fully clothed. I look at the sculptural chair by the window, trace the flowing curves.
Jasmine picks up on the first ring.
"Hi." I'm silent for a beat, two.
"I'm sorry I made you feel like I don't love you Jess." I can almost hear her smile.
"Okay," she says in that small voice that I know means she's already forgiven me. "How are you?"
"All good." Kind of freaking out about what my father wants to talk about.
"The mayor's son is coming to our school," I say.
She laughs, and it's sharp and cruel, uncharacteristic. "I can't wait to see Ferb tell him all the things wrong with his father's tenure."
I laugh, imagining Ferb all up in Timothy's face, demanding his definition of a dictatorship and whether he feels comfortable with how close his father is getting to a military ruler. His locks adding to the attack. I wonder how Timothy would react to that.
"How are you?"
"Not good. My father's gone again and my mom's freaking out."
"I'm coming over," I say.
A dull thump startles me. My father walks in, brandishing a Bible like a weapon.
"Liam." His eyes look wild.
I sit down, feeling like a mouse caught in a trap.
"Who was that young man from church?"
"He's the new mayor's son. He just came back from school abroad. And he's resuming at Aton tomorrow." I don't know why I'm overexplaining.
He doesn't respond. I think for a second about how Jasmine is still on the line, wonder why she is silent.
I want to say, he's the mayor's son, again. I want to set his mind at ease. I realize my hypocrisy, like rose colored glasses taken off.
I'm just like my mother, trying desperately to fall under his graces while telling myself I hate him.
I fidget under his gaze, feeling the weight of another memory, one I didn't know I still remembered. Bittersweet.