My Life - A Story about a father’s decision

"Where did you find those?"

Jamie gazed at the pile of oddments spilled from the mouldering cardboard box onto the table without replying.

Malcolm's hand came down on the table in front of her, the loud slap against the melamine, making her jump. "Where did you get them?"

"Daddy, it wasn't anything like you think. I was cleaning out the spare room closet. This was at the back."

"I've told you to stay out of there."

"But."

"Put it away." He pulled the falling-apart box across the table and threw the items back inside without regard for their condition.

"Daddy! The blueprints!" She grabbed for them, but he was quicker, snagging them away and flinging them across the room.

"Leave them!" She froze in her tracks, her jaw set, glaring at the crumpled pile of purple-blue paper in the corner.

"It's just old junk, Daddy," she said quietly, knowing it was no such thing, wishing he would tell her what it really was. He turned and stalked out of the room without a word.

Carefully, she retrieved the documents from the floor and spread them on the kitchen table. Taking the time to smooth the wrinkles from them, she sat for a long time attempting to decipher the hieroglyphs of the drafters' language while her father sat in the next room watching baseball with the sound down.

Finally, she got up and went to his side, sitting on the floor next to his knees. After a minute, she leaned carefully against him, waiting. As she knew it would, his hand descended on her head to gently stroke her hair.

"Was it a house you were going to build with mom?" she asked. His hand stopped its rhythmic motion, but did not withdraw.

"If I hadn't married your mother, Jennifer, you wouldn't be here now."

"I know that." Still, she waited.
"Your mother was a good woman. Patient. Understanding."

"I know that too."

"I loved her."

"But you loved someone else, too," she guessed. "Was she nice? Patient? Understanding?"

"Not so much, no."

"But you loved her anyway?"

Slowly, so she had time to remove her weight from his knee, he sat up and took his hand away from her head, as though he didn't want to touch her as he spoke. "We loved each other. Times were different then and we couldn't be what we wanted to be. I wasn't brave enough to give him what he wanted. What he deserved. So he left me." Jamie looked up into her father's face. "I don't regret it, you understand. It's just the way things were."

"Times have changed, Daddy."

He looked down at her. "Meaning?"

"Mom's been gone a long time."

"Yes."

Jamie stood and smiled down at her father. "You should be happy too. Did you ever try to find him?"

"Why would I? It was so long ago."

"Because you still love him."

"I'm old, Jamie."

She smiled and smacked his shoulder. "So is he. Don't you want to know what happened to him?"

"Yes." He thought of the men his own age, old and decayed even in life, thought of all his contemporaries who must be dead and gone by now. Did he want to know if his past had gone to the grave without him, while he wasn't looking, while he'd been distracted with the camouflage of a sweet woman and an adoring daughter? "Maybe."

"Even if he died, Daddy, wouldn't you want him to know you remember him? That he isn't just mouldering in the back of some closet?" She held out her hand, closed in a fist over something and he let her drop the concealed items into his palm. She knelt in front of him to look into his face as she spoke. "We are the only two left in the world who knew Mom was the best mother in the world, the sweetest woman, the most kind, generous spirit she could be. What if you are the only one who knows who this man really is? What if he's lived his life locked behind secrets too? All we really are is what others know about us."

Malcolm turned the keys she'd given him over in his hand. The gold caught the light flickering from the television and glinted back at him. They had not a mark on them. Their unblemished, pristine surface reflected his memory of the time they'd been purchased, along with the lock that had never been opened.

"He doesn't need me intruding into his life after all this time, Jamie."

"So you did try to find him."

"I never lost him. Not completely. I just lost what we were. There is no going back now. He has his life and I have mine."

"Did he come to Mom's funeral?"

"Actually, he did."

"So he doesn't hate you any more."

"I suppose not."

"Is he married?"

"Not exactly, no."

"Do you miss him?"

"I can't miss what I never really had." He closed the keys in a fist and looked up at her, trying to be reassuring in the face of her confusion.

"But you lived your whole life as something you're not."

Cupping her face, Malcolm smiled at his little girl, not so little any more. "I'm a father, a husband," he swallowed a little lump, "a widower. I loved you both, still love you both. I made a decision, and some people would say I cheated and took the easy road, hid myself away, but I say I live the life I want to live. I chose the path I knew would lead to losing someone precious to me, but along it, I found a lot more than grief. I also chose the path that led to you. If I regret anything, it's only that I didn't tell you this long ago. I didn't choose my orientation. I did choose my life, and that's the best way to get from one end of it to the other; by choice."

A Tattoo is For Real - A Story between two girls

Lorain studied herself in the mirror. It had been a while since she'd really looked.

"Honey?"

"Yeah." Refocusing on the woman she knew she was and not the one peering back at her from behind the glass, she nodded and picked up her handbag. "Ready?"

"Yes." Jamie's head tilted. "Are you?"

"Of course. We said we'd do this, right? So." She flashed a smile. "Let's do this. The next step in the building of my career."

They went out and Lorain turned on the porch to lock the deadbolt. Her key scratched in the slot and the lock clanked into place. For the hundredth time, she felt the reassuring vibrations of the key grating from the lock. No one could get in while she was out. It was safe leaving everything she truly was behind and going out into the world as what people, what Jamie, wanted her to be. She tucked the brass key into her pocket, followed Jamie down the front steps, and ducked into the car waiting on the curb. She could almost ignore the flash of camera bulbs from across the street and the shouted questions. Jamie's Irish lilt rose over the clash of voices, thanking the leaches for their time and concern, but Lorain didn't have anything to say today. In a minute, the far door slammed behind Jamie and the car moved off down the street.

"I hate this," Lorain muttered.

"Sorry?" Jamie's head tilted again. "Hate what, Darlin'?"

"This, all of it."

"It's for the best, Lor."

"It sucks."

Jamie laughed, low and throaty, and sexy. "Listen to you, griping like a teenager. Next thing you know you'll be going through a mid-life crisis, getting tattooed and pierced."

"And telling people I love you?"

Jamie's face stilled. "Lor."

"I know." Lorain sighed. "It'd ruin my career."

"It would."

"And yours." Lorain glanced over at Jamie as she spoke, wanting to see her lover smile. She saw only the tight lines around her mouth and the slight narrowing of her eyes that went along with almost every conversation they had these days.

"It's the same thing," Jamie said stiffly.

"You can still be a publicist, Jamie."

"Your career would be over."

Lorain shifted on the seat so that she faced Jamie better and picked up her hands, separating them from the tight, twisted ball they'd become. "You hate this as much as I do. What if I said my life is worth more to me than my career? What if I don't care about ditching a life of fakery if it means I can walk in my own neighbourhood holding the hand of the person I love?"

Jamie pulled her hands away, a task made difficult because Lorain didn't want to let go. "Don't talk nonsense, Lor." She smiled from on side of her mouth and pulled a small mirror from her bag. Carefully, she touched a finger to the makeup at the side of her left eye and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "You know you don't mean any of that."

"And I suppose," Lorain said, turning back about to glare at the passing shrubbery and locked gates, "that you know exactly what I do mean?"

"Of course." Jamie put the mirror away and patted Lorain's knee. "That's my job."

The reporters obviously had sources. They had flocked to the hotel, pushing against the barriers five bodies deep. Jamie hustled Lorain past the brightly flashing mob, her arm securely, platonically, around her waist to guide her along the narrow passage to the safety of the tastefully lit lobby. Once inside, Lorain was already exhausted and Jamie was already releasing her hold, stepping back to leave her a clear floor, a clear path, to let her shine. Alone.

"This way, Miss Richey." A solicitous hand took her elbow and she glanced up into the kindly face of a porter. She let him lead her to the dining room entrance at the far end of the carpet covered marble expanse. "Your dining partner is waiting."

Lorain stopped just inside the doorway. Sitting at the best table in the house was a man she'd worked with only once, on a movie she'd taken at Jamie's advice. It had been a hit, of course. Jamie knew her job, and it had established both Lorain and her dining companion as household sex symbols, perfect parodies of what they actually were. It had been, as Jamie predicted, the key to her career. The man stood when he saw her and smiled.

"Hi there." He held out his hand, thought better of it, and moved to pull out her chair, though she hadn't moved from the entrance. He stood, one hand on the back of her chair, the other held out toward her, awkward, uncertain. Finally, Lorain moved to take the offered seat.

"Thank you."

He sat and they sipped wine quietly for a while.

"So."

Lorain looked up at the sound of his voice. He twirled his wine glass by the stem.

"This sucks."

Lorain didn't respond, unsure if she was insulted or relieved.

"I'm seeing someone, you know. This was his idea. He thought it would be--better--if they thought I was dating someone." He glanced up. "Like you."

Lorain laughed, startling her companion into shocked silence. She leaned forward to whisper. "He thought it would be good for your career to date a lesbian?" Dark brows came down over brooding eyes and Lorain shook her head. "This is what we get, I suppose, for falling for our publicists."

"How did you know?" He looked confused and Lorain shrugged.

"Who else could possibly sell you on this being a good way to live your life?" She stood. "I, for one, won't do it." she waved her hand around the room, at the other patrons huddled over their tables whispering, shooting them speculative glances. "I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. Do what you think best. I'm going to get a tattoo."

"A tattoo?"

"For a start."

Sure - A Story about a young man’s decision

"Mom?" Andy sat down at the table across from his mother. "Mom. You haven't said anything." He couldn't look at her, but settled for watching her pen scratch across the thin brown paper of her puzzle book.

Finally, she peered at him over the top of her glasses. "What should I say?"

Andy bit his lip and pushed toast crumbs into a tiny pile in front of him. "It's kind of a big deal. I mean, I thought you would have some opinion."

"Andrew." He looked up just as she reached over and put her hand over his. "I've known you nine months longer than anyone else. You think I didn't know this about you?"

"You never said."

Shaking her head and picking up her pen to fill in a few numbers on the soduko puzzle, she sounded a little bit exasperated. "I never said anything about that atrocious hair cut, either, or the crow on your shoulder blade."

"How did you know about that?"

"I'm your mother, Andrew. You think I don't pay attention?"

 He caught her looking over her glasses again and couldn't stop a twisted grin. "I hoped."

"Well. I do, and if you'd asked me about the tattoo, I would have told you getting it right over the bone like that would hurt like hell."

"How would you know?"

She smiled and turned her attention back to her puzzle.

Andy got up from the table and carefully swept the crumbs up into his palm to dump them in the sink before leaving. He stopped at the door to watch her sipping her coffee and do her puzzle. "Mom?"

"Mmm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, honey. Hey. When you pack, don't even think about taking any of my cd's."

"Yeah, yeah."

He smiled and left, taking the stairs to his room two at a time. He didn't have to pack yet, but he did have to get changed. He was meeting Paul at three to shop for some essentials. They already had position of the little house they were moving into, and needed to pick up new locks. Paul insisted he knew how to install them. Andy had the number of a locksmith in his pocket just in case.

Right on cue, the doorbell rang and his mother's chair scraped across the tile floor.  A minute later, she offered Paul coffee and a rattling bag of store bought cookies. Paul's warm chuckle rolled up the steps and Andy hurriedly ran a hand through his hair and swung back into the hallway and downstairs.

"There you are." Paul stood and moved toward him, aborted the movement mid step to stand awkwardly in the center of the room, his thumbs hooked in the back pockets of his jeans. He smiled. "Hi."

Andy almost laughed, but swept him into a hug instead. For a minute, Paul stood there, before carefully hugging him back.

"Alright." He frowned when Andy let him go.

"He told me, Paul." Andy's mother waved to the chairs opposite her at the table. "Not," she added with one eyebrow raised high and a significant look at the young man, "that I didn't already know you've been sleeping with my son for over a year." Paul turned pink and Andy hissed at his mother, but she only tipped her head in an off-hand way and picked up a cookie. "I figured he had to come to me in his own time, and he did." She waved her hand again. "Sit, both of you."

Obedient, the young men pulled out chairs and sat.

"Now." She pointed to a brown paper bag sitting on the table. "What's in there?"

Paul forgot his discomfort and smiled his big, dimpled smile, making Andy want to lean over an kiss him. "Look." He unrolled the top of the bag and reached in. "There was a yard sale down the street. I stopped and found this." He pulled a lock out of the bag. The heavy brass mechanism rattled as he set it on the table. "I guess the old guy's moving and getting rid of the junk from his garage. It was funny." Paul's glanced at Andy, his smile softening. "I told him I was moving into a place with my boyfriend. Thought I might shock him a bit, but he just smiled and gave it to me. He wouldn't take any money." Paul pointed to the bit of masking tape with $25.00 scrawled on it in shaky handwriting. "That's a fair price. It's never even been used and he still had both keys, but he wouldn't take a cent. He threw in this."

Paul reached over to grab a rolled tube of papers off the counter. "I don't know much about architecture."

"I do." Andy took the blueprints and unrolled them. For a minute he studied the drawings, a wave of excitement slowly spreading through him. "He gave you these?"

"Yup."

"We're going to build this house some day."

"Why? We have a house."

"But not like this one." Andy carefully rolled the papers back up. "It's so much like the one you want, Paul. I'm going to build it for you." Andy took Paul's hand. "Maybe not tomorrow, or anything, but once we graduate and I get on at the firm full time, I'm going to build this house for you."

He smiled at Paul, only to find a puzzled look on his face. "What's wrong?" Andy gripped Paul's fingers tighter. "Did I say something wrong?"

"You just say 'some day' like you have no doubt at all."

Andy's excitement ebbed, to be replaced by fear. "I don't. Do you?"

"No!" Paul grabbed for the hand Andy tried to take back. "But I thought." He glanced at Andy mother and his voice lowered. "I just thought maybe you weren't sure. You always seemed to hesitate."

"I'm sure." He didn't much care if his mother raised her eyebrows at them. He leaned over and kissed Paul. "I'm so very sure."