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When Papa came into my room, I had to pretend I didn’t know what he was going to ask me. He knows I’m very clever, but I don’t think he knows how sneaky I am. So he doesn’t know that, last week when Will spent the night, Winston and I snuck downstairs and got milk and cookies while he and Will talked quietly in the parlour. And he doesn’t know that I shared my cookies with Winston. Or that I heard what they said.
“Sasha, have you done all your homework?”
I nodded, tilting my chin to my schoolbag, in case he wanted to check. I had problems with school work, last year. Papa had to go in and have a meeting with Principal Crawford and Mr. Price and Will took me home and we watched TV until Papa got back. Then we had a very serious discussion, and Will said I could come and do my homework in his room after school, if I wanted, and I said I supposed that was ok, even though I knew it was just so that he would be able to supervise and make sure I was doing it.
“Good. That’s good. Sasha, I want to ask you something.”
This was the hard part, because Papa is also very clever, and sometimes he knows when I’m pretending. So I had to do my very best because this was very serious and very important and I didn’t want to ruin it for Papa.
“You like Will, right?”
“Very much.”
I made my best serious face, and it was easy because I didn’t have to pretend for that – I loved Will. Will and Papa had been ‘dating’ for two years and Will spent a lot of time with us, he took me to baseball games sometimes and fishing, and last summer he came with us to Lithuania when we went for a whole month (Winston couldn’t come so he had to stay with Ms. Bloom, and when we came back, Will took me with him to pick him up and Winston knocked me right down when he saw us so he could kiss my face and I didn’t mind even a little bit.)
“You like it when he stays with us? When he comes on vacation?”
I nodded, and I thought maybe it was ok if I was grinning because maybe I was thinking about our vacations and not about what Papa was going to say next.
“How would you like it if… If Will came to live here, with us?”
I think maybe when I’m older, like Papa, maybe I’ll be able to keep my serious face when someone asks me the best question in the world, but I couldn’t when Papa asked, and so I smiled as big as the sun and nodded as hard as I could.
“You’re sure? It would be a big change. You couldn’t make him leave if you were angry.”
“Will never makes me angry.”
“That’s not entirely true, Sasha.”
“Well, not as much as you, and I never want to make you leave. When will he be here? Can he come right now?”
“It’s going to take a little while, Sasha. He has to pack all his things and bring them over, and…”
“Yes, but can’t he come right now? Can’t he spend the night, like he did last week?”
“I suppose I could call him…”
“Please, Papa, please!”
It was very undignified, bouncing on my knees and reaching for Papa’s phone, and I felt very childish but I was also very excited and it’s hard, to be eight and very excited and also to hold still. So when Papa held the phone out, I grabbed it and giggled until Will answered.
“Hey, hot lips.”
“What? Is that what you call Papa? Will, that’s gross.”
“Well I don’t call him that in front of you, Sasha. Why are you calling so late? Is everything ok?”
“It’s not that late! It’s only eight thirty. Will, Papa said you’re going to come live with us. Can you come now? Papa said we could call and ask. I think you should come over now and bring Winston. He’s got to get used to living here, you know. He can sleep in my room, right, when you live here? I’ll wake up early and walk him. Will you come?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t a mean laugh. It was a happy kind of laugh, and I could hear him moving around and Winston thumping his tail.
“Alright, Sasha. Alright. We’ll be there in an hour, ok? But you should be in bed. I’ll bring Winston in when we get there. Can I talk to your dad?”
Papa took the phone and he smiled when he put it to his ear and Will started talking. I got up and started bouncing on my bed even though Papa said I wasn’t supposed to because I was so excited that if I stayed sitting down, I was going to explode. Papa grabbed my sleeve and made me look at him and tilted his head out to the hall, mouthing, ‘escaliers’. I sighed and went and ran up and down the stairs a hundred times until I was too tired to do it anymore so Papa tucked me in and promised Will would wake me up when he got there.
I don’t know if he did but when I woke up in the morning, Winston was curled up next to me and I felt like there was something on my forehead, like maybe a kiss or something. I wiped it off, but only a little.
When I pushed Mason Verger’s face in the dirt and made him cry, I knew I was going to get in trouble and probably suspended but I was not at all sorry and I never would be.
“Just tell me why you did it,”
Will’s eyes were very big and very bright and I knew he was upset but I didn’t want to tell him, even if it hurt his feelings. I told Will most things, even some things I didn’t tell Papa. Things about Mama, sometimes. But I couldn’t tell him that Mason Verger had looked me in the eyes and told me that my daddy was a faggot and that his father was going to get Will Graham fired before he could touch any more of his students. I couldn’t say those words to him, because they’d already broken my heart and I wouldn’t let them break his heart, too. He needed his heart to love Papa.
“Alexander.”
Principal Crawford sometimes came to the house for dinner with Papa and Will and Mrs. Crawford and I (and sometimes Ms. Katz or Ms. Bloom, too.) He was very nice and very funny and he had a very deep, happy laugh. I liked him very much. But he also knew me very well, because I’d been at Gideon Elementary for almost six years and he knew I wouldn’t just hurt someone for no reason and I knew he was going to get me to tell. He always got me to tell.
“He… He said something.”
“What did he say?”
“Just something. I didn’t like it. It was rude.”
“Alexander, you’ve got to give me more than that. I have to suspend you for three days no matter what, but if you tell me what happened… I don’t want Verger getting out of this unscathed. Do you?”
I didn’t. And it had felt good, when his nose started bleeding and he coughed up dirt and sand, but it wasn’t enough, not for what he said. Not for what he said Will had done. What he said about Papa.
“I don’t… I don’t want to say it, not in front of Will.”
Principal Crawford and Will looked at each other. They thought I didn’t see it, but I see lots of things. And I rolled my eyes because I knew the look meant, go on, I’ll tell you later, so I huffed and crossed my arms and said,
“Mason Verger called Father a faggot and he said Will is a paedophile and he said his father is going to get Will fired so he can’t touch any more students the way he must’ve touched me. And I’m not sorry, and I’m glad I made him cry.”
I wiped angrily at my eyes and I could feel the hot tears through my sleeve and I wouldn’t look at either of them, and then Will was pulling me into his lap and tucking my head under his chin like he used to when I was little and I couldn’t help it and I started crying into his shoulder.
“I think,”
Principal Crawford’s voice was very deep and very steady and I could tell he was trying to pretend he wasn’t angry,
“that I need to have a conversation with Mason and Mr. Verger. Will, do you want to take him home?”
Will nodded and rubbed my back and kissed my hair and even though I was ten and too big, he carried me out to the car and buckled me in, which I could’ve done myself. He kissed my forehead before he closed the door, and he looked like he wanted to say something but he didn’t. He stopped and bought me ice cream on the way home, though, and I think I knew what he wanted to say.
Papa asked Will to marry him while we were out to dinner on their fifth anniversary. Will cried and said yes, and Papa cried and kissed him, and I didn’t make a face about it because it was actually really sweet, I guess. Everyone in the restaurant started clapping and Papa let me have a tiny glass of champagne when the waiter brought it out, and he and Will held hands all the rest of the evening.
Papa said that I didn’t have to be the ring bearer if I didn’t want to be, because I was going to be twelve and that was a little old for it, but that if I didn’t want to do that, he would be honoured if I would be his best man. Will laughed when I started crying, but it wasn’t a mean laugh and he kissed my head while Winston licked my hand, and Papa said he would take me to get a new suit tailored. Will asked Ms. Bloom if her son would be the ring bearer, because he was four and that was about the right age.
Everybody cried at the wedding, even Ms. Katz, who swore she wasn’t going to. Even Principal Crawford. Papa squeezed my hand really hard when I handed him the rings, and I squeezed back. And after they kissed, Will grabbed my arm and pulled me close and they both hugged me and I think I got a little snot on Papa’s suit but he didn’t say anything.
Once everyone went to the reception, Papa took my hand and we went up to the altar. Papa and Will had to sign their marriage certificate. I had to sign something, too, because Papa had found Mama and talked to her and she had given up her ‘parental rights’ and he didn’t say it but I knew it had been very easy because she didn’t care. She signed all the paperwork he sent and sent it back right away. I snuck into his study and took it out and studied her signature and was very careful not to get tears on the paper because just like that, just that easy, I wasn’t her son anymore. I put the papers away and went back to bed and Winston cuddled up to me and licked the tears from my face until I fell asleep.
But that didn’t matter, because Will and Papa were married and Will was going to adopt me.
At the reception Papa let me drink a full glass of champagne but I also had to dance with Ms. Katz’s niece who was only ten so I guess it was sort of a wash. Except I guess it really wasn’t because Will and Papa were so happy and it made me happy and Papa kept crying and Will kept laughing and wiping his tears away and they both kept hugging me and telling me how much they loved me. And I was twelve and I guess probably too old to be crying and letting my dads hug me so much – especially since I was almost as tall as them – but I also didn’t want them to stop. I never wanted to stop, I wanted the music to keep playing and Papa and Will to keep kissing each other when they thought I wasn’t looking and I even wanted Melody Katz to keep looking at me and smiling because everything was perfect and I was so happy. I didn’t care that we were leaving for France the next day or that I was going to get my own room at the hotel we were staying at or that Papa was going to teach me to ride a motorbike. I just wanted to stay forever under the stars and smile and dance and laugh with Papa and Will because (I read this in a book somewhere and it sounded stupid then but it made sense that night,) everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.