IJUH complete Read online

  “So I’ve heard,” Lynn said.

  “He’s a great guy,” I said. “He’ll make a great family man.” I watched Mark nod in a self-satisfied way. “You should see him with his little cousins.” I almost squealed at the memory. “When are we going to see your family again?”

  “I don’t know,” Mark answered. “We have the visit to the Lakehouse coming up this fall for my father’s birthday. I called my brother and he said they want to fit in a weekend of camping, too. I don’t know if that’ll work with our schedules.”

  “So you like his family?” Lynn asked me.

  “Yeah. They’re great. His brother... hey,” I said, having a sudden epiphany. “Did your brother know about my birthday gift that day? Did he know...”

  “He knew you were special to me. I told them not to talk about boyfriends or relationships when we were visiting. I said I was still working on you.”

  “You were working on me... extra hard.”

  “Wish we could work extra hard.”

  I made a bitter face at that stupid innuendo.

  “You two are too much,” Lynn said. “Since you’ve already met his family, you both are officially invited down to Texas to see me and the kids. I know Grady wants to see you, Chris. He asks about you all the time.”

  “Aw.” I looked at Mark. “Mark would go with me anywhere. He’s my gallant knight.” Mark nodded. I waited for Lynn to take a sip of her drink, which she did. “He wants a family so bad...” I brought our hands up to the tabletop and clutched his fingers tightly for everyone to see. It was fun to act like star-crossed lovers, weeping and poetic.

  Then I hit her with the kicker, when her mouth was full and she was defenceless.

  “But no matter how hard he tries, I just can’t get pregnant.”

  Lynn sprayed her drink across the table. Jacob coughed uncontrollably. Mark blushed. I was as calm as the Lake when it was smooth as glass.

  Lynn gasped. “Christopher!” she scoffed. “I’ve never heard you talk like this.”

  “He’s a bad influence on me,” I said pointedly.

  “Am not.” Mark pouted. “He’s been waiting to use that line for a while, haven’t you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yes you have. I can tell you worked that into the conversation, you little shit.” Mark tickled me. Then he spoke softly in my ear, “And I know you waited until she took a drink.”

  I smiled widely and tried to get his hands off my torso—there were people all over the place and I didn’t want to cause a scene. His face was really close to mine... I hadn’t noticed how close we were until his lips were hovering over mine.

  He kissed me sweetly on the lips. I pulled back like he shocked me. My eyes flared. I looked across the table and saw my cousin watching me—damn, was I embarrassed!

  My head swiveled back and forth so I could scan the patio. “Mark,” I whispered urgently. “There are people here.” He kissed me again on the cheek.

  “Love ya, Cheese,” he said softly, for my ears only.

  I pushed away from him and settled back into my body—into reality. I slapped away his hand when it reached for mine.

  Then I took a sip of water and tried to warm myself up. His kisses had sent my stomach plummeting through the ground and my temperature had dropped. Thankfully, our meals arrived and were a proper distraction from my discomfort.

  I had ordered a sandwich with fake bread (one that I had eaten before without a problem) and Mark had ordered us an appetizer without consulting me. I had allowed him to take charge without putting up a fight—he often ordered my whole meal for me with minimal input. I only made requests if I was really craving something.

  I hadn’t been craving a sandwich, but did feel the need to exert my independence while sitting in front of my cousin so I ordered it for myself.

  Lynn and I chatted about our relatives as we ate. I caught them up on the latest family news, like who had gotten pregnant and who was probably going to get married.

  “I heard Dusty had a baby,” Lynn said conspiratorially. “Who would have thought that?”

  I coughed once, looked at Mark and then down at the table. Mark’s hand found mine.

  Dusty’s baby was the reason I had my nervous breakdown, all those months ago. “Yeah, the baby is cute,” I said. “I think his brother has taken custody of it.”

  “Really?” Lynn asked.

  I coughed again. Mark looked at me intensely—I hadn’t told him about the custody. “Apparently, there was some drama with the mom. He was involved with the baby’s mother and grandmother.”

  “You didn’t tell me this,” Mark accused.

  “I didn’t know until recently. It’s not something that comes up in general conversation.” I dismissed Mark’s objections. “And you know how Dusty is... the baby is better off like this until he gets his life together.”

  “I don’t think that kid is going to get his life together,” Jacob said darkly. I felt the same way, but would never speak critically of someone (especially family) like that. He was my cousin and we had grown up together. I was only a few months older than him.

  I hoped for the best for him, even if he had been sucked into drugs and was fucking the girl who worked at her mother’s bar. And was also, apparently, fucking the girl’s mother.

  My hand gripped Mark’s after that conversation. Dusty and his forgotten child made me feel so many overwhelming tensions. I had always wanted a family—kids, especially. Did I think it would happen? No.

  If you had asked me a year earlier how I would have fit a lover into my life, you would have gotten a shocked laugh out of me and nothing more. I didn’t want to have sex with anyone, so how could I be part of a couple? But there had also been some days where I felt like if being with someone got me kids, I could force myself to do it.

  I could have found a girl, married her... and would have done anything, just to have a family of my own.

  But I had landed on Mark. And despite the joke I made earlier, he hadn’t tried to get me pregnant (well... he may have tried, but didn’t get anywhere near my butt). We would never have kids unless we adopted.

  I casually observed Mark as he sat next to me and chatted with my cousin. Mark, my partner.

  My heart swelled. Here was a man that would make a very nice father. Here was a man that I could start a family with.

  Here was a man I could see myself with for a long time to come.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  I wanted to kiss him right there in front of my cousins, for the whole world to see.

  My face was beet red.

  Mark felt my stare. “What?” he asked, looking at me. “Is there something on my face?”

  I shook my head and nodded towards Lynn, trying to buy myself an excuse. Then I quickly scanned the patio and glanced over my shoulder to the sidewalk. No one was watching us.

  I kissed him quickly on the cheek—just a little peck, then looked away and smiled. That was so embarrassing! But it felt so good, too.

  What a conundrum.

  Lynn had watched our little signs of affection with her typical stoicism. The waiter removed our plates, which meant the end of our lunch date was near.

  “Jake needs to go to the bathroom,” Lynn said. “Can you show him where it is?”

  “Through that door,” I said, pointing to the back side of the building. “And all the—” I stopped mid-sentence, understanding what she meant. “I’m not leaving you two alone.”

  “It needs to be done,” she argued.

  “I don’t need you to threaten my date. I know what his intentions are. You aren’t my father.” I spoke quickly and defensively.

  “Are you going to tell your dad?”

  I stuttered and shook my head, bowing before her righteous attitude.

  “Then why don’t you head back to the bathroom and freshen up. Me and junior need to have a talk.” She was serious. Jake was already on his feet and waiting for me. I looked nervously at my partner, but Mark smiled
calmly and nodded for me to leave.

  “Be nice to him,” I said, pathetically. I wanted to sound forceful, but instead probably sounded constipated. Just the thought of what she might say made me sick to my stomach.

  I walked with Jake back to the restroom. He actually used the toilet. I just stood in front of the mirror and ritually cleansed my hands. “What do you think they’re talking about?” I asked nervously.

  “Don’t know. Why don’t we wait at the bar?”

  “It’s better than waiting in here.” We sat at the bar and watched the two of them through the open doors as they chatted. The restaurant had glass garage doors that opened when the weather was nice. It was about seventy degrees in the shade with a cool breeze—probably too cool to have the doors open like they were.

  “You look good,” Jake said as he got his drink from the bartender. “Kat told me you had a new wardrobe.”

  “Mark got it for me.” I neglected to mention that the copper pants were completely my idea. “He buys me all kinds of stuff.” That came out so casually... then I realized how weird it sounded. “I tell him not to, but I can’t stop him. He really likes his clothes.”

  “You look good,” Jake said again. “And happy. Lynn is really happy for you.”

  “She better not be dragging out the claws,” I complained, looking over my shoulder at the two most important people in my life. “I want him to stick around.”

  “You know her as well as I do,” Jake said. “She’s not going to give you away to a nutjob. She’s very protective of you.”

  “Mark is protective of me, too.” I had an epiphany while sitting at that bar, realizing that a lot of people felt strangely protective of me. What is it about me that looks so weak and frail? Jeez!

  “When Lynn and I were planning our wedding, your name came up a lot.”

  “Did it?” I asked, not really listening and still worried about Mark.

  “She didn’t want to follow me to Texas. I had just gotten a promotion.”

  I said that I remembered the story. Jake laid his hand on my shoulder and clenched tightly for a second. His next words were said with great emotion.

  “When it came down to it, it was either going to be me or you.”

  What does that mean?

  “Well, we know how that ended,” I said cheerfully. “She made the right choice.”

  “She chose you,” Jake said. “She wasn’t going to go through with the move. Do you remember what you told her?”

  I racked my brain, but couldn’t remember. That couldn’t be right. She chose you. Why would she put off marrying you? You guys are perfect for each other. “That was ten years ago. I was heading off to college.”

  “You went to her college. She had a job that was basically on campus. Do you remember why you chose that university?”

  “It gave me a full ride.”

  Jake coughed. “I felt like I dragged you two apart. She called you almost every day that first year you were in college. And she was in Houston with me...”

  “She shouldn’t have worried.” I was mostly fine.

  “You know how the Sullivans can get,” he said simply. He had a point about that. Jake took a long drink from his beer. “I’m so... relieved to see you settled. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

  “It doesn’t mean that Mark and I are forever,” I said, echoing advice Lynn had given me last week.

  “I’ve never known you to do anything half-assed.”

  Mark jumped into our conversation, scaring the shit out of me. “There you are,” Mark said. “I wondered if Chris passed out because of the germs in the bathroom.”

  “He washed his hands for five minutes,” Jake tattled.

  “Did not! Does this mean we can go out to the patio again?”

  Mark nodded and pulled me away from the bar.

  “Are we still together?” I asked glibly, but secretly afraid of the answer.

  “Of course,” Mark answered like I had not just asked something ridiculous.

  “So what did you two talk about?”

  “Mum’s the word.” Mark had never before said that phrase in my presence... it had to have come from my cousin. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

  Mark was notoriously bad at keeping secrets. If you got him worked up enough, the secrets would come pouring out of him like rain through a screen door.

  Despite his poor record of secret-keeping, Mark never gave up the topic of that first conversation with Lynn. Obviously it was about me—but beyond that he never said.

  It remains an unsolved mystery to this day. I asked him about it as I typed this draft, but he didn’t dignify the question with a response—Mark is notorious for his ‘selective hearing’ as well. The mystery lives on.

  Because Mark never cracked, I wrote down some of my guesses in my journal, which I’ve added to over the years. My best guess is that the conversation related to Mark needing to look out for me. I’m making that guess (to which Mark doesn’t even let his eyebrow give me a clue as to its veracity) because Lynn has been ice cold to him ever since we got back together.

  For three months, Lynn and Mark were good friends. She was happy for me; she was happy for him. Lynn was a true big sister to me... perhaps better than my own sister would have been, had she been alive. But then Mark broke my heart (in fact, he broke me).

  I eventually put the pieces back together and worked my way back to my man—the love of my life. Lynn has never forgiven Mark for what he did to me—and I suspect she won’t.

  Mark and I have a son together. We vacation together. We worked together at the same company. We wrote a song and sold it to a recording artist. We’ve done more in six years than I suspect many people do in a lifetime.

  Mark is a high dopamine person—always on the go. I like to pretend that I’m different... and I have a lot of rituals that prevent me from being spontaneous... but I like being thrilled, just like Mark. My motto has always been that I’ll try anything once... excluding anything with poop... which Mark will not let go of his poop-related fantasies because he knows it gets such a negative, dramatic reaction from me... let’s just say that no one is giving anyone a rimjob if they want to stay married to me.

  We’ve done all these crazy things together—our love is strong. Yet despite our strength, Lynn will not forgive him. She tolerates him. She doesn’t love him. When the three of us are together, she is fierce and we are never comfortable.

  I miss the good old days when they were friends, like co-conspirators attempting to make my life the best it could be.

  “JUST TELL ME WHAT SHE SAID,” I demanded, stopping in the middle of the restaurant before we got back to the table. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Nope.” Mark shook his head.

  “Did she at least threaten you? What did she come up with?”

  “I’m not saying anything. We have an arrangement and I’m not to tell you.”

  “I’ll get it out of you one of these days. You’re horrible with secrets.”

  He didn’t deny that truth. “How about this... when one of us is on his deathbed, I’ll take your hand and let you in on the secret.” Mark took my hand. “Until then, I’ll have to leave you in suspense.”

  He walked me out to the patio, hand-in-hand. I was too stunned to formulate a witty retort and had the sudden, unexpected, and delightful image of Mark and I as old men holding hands as he lay on his deathbed. And, like in a movie, the old Mark whispered to me how much he loved me and told me his long-held secret.

  The secret was just funny enough to make me laugh, even with death so near.

  It was a morbid and false memory, but something about it was thrilling. I often had fantasies about my death—who would be there, what would I have yet to accomplish, how satisfied would I be with my life? I had fantasies about everything imaginable—and death was one of those things.

  Maybe it was not healthy for me (with a history of anxiety and existential despair) to accept those ideations. I fear
I may have just given away too much of the ending of this installment of my self-portrait. I have already told you that Mark breaks me—and the way he left... the words he said...

  You can imagine how deep I descended into my dark spiral after our breakup... but don’t worry, I skip forward past those months of despair and pick up again at the beginning of our second chance. I really, really don’t want you to suffer through what I went through.

  MARK AND I SAT AT THE table and waited for Jake to join us.

  “Where’s my husband?” Lynn asked.

  “Getting drunk off his ass,” Mark said.

  “Mark!” I slapped him. “Language.”

  “You’re no better, dude.”

  Because you corrupted me.

  I ignored him. “So what did you two talk about?”

  “You didn’t get it out of Mark?”

  “I didn’t ask,” I lied.

  “You’re a horrible liar. He wouldn’t cross me this early. He’s trying to make a good impression.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mark gave her a salute. Then he rubbed my arm. “This one’s a keeper.” Mark beamed at me. “He’s so good to me. He definitely makes me a better person.”

  “That’s enough sucking up for one day,” I said tartly. I’ll crack you open like an egg and then you’ll give up that secret... just you wait.

  Mark wiggled his eyebrows at me. Jake joined us at the table.

  “Everything is going smoothly out here, apparently,” I told him. “It would appear that these two made an unbreakable vow of silence.”

  “Don’t ask me, Chris. She keeps things locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

  How do people read me so easily?

  “You interrupted my list of everything I love about Chris,” Mark complained to Jake. “Like how he worries about everything.”

  “You like that?” Jake was incredulous.

  “Don’t you?” Lynn shot back so quick that Jake was sufficiently cowed.

  Mark, meanwhile, was on a different planet from the rest of us. “He worries and that means he cares. He cares about everyone he meets, don’t you? You might pretend like you don’t mind what other people think, but you want them to like you. And you want them to be happy.”